Who could possibly send me this joke?

I found a stray parrot in the garden this morning.

All he says is, "Good morning, you old fart."

Is he yours?

Photo album

After the week-end..

After the week-end, I don't know about you, but I feel lethargic it's just as well that I have the afternoon off! 

It could be because we had a fantastic Saturday evening with our friends, Leslie and John, celebrating their fourtieth wedding anniversary with a wonderful diner and an exciting barn dance! Exactly, how cool was that! I just thought that it was the best idea ever and I know that everybody else thought the same! I confess that my dance moves were slightly hesitant but no one cared, it was so much fun. The company was terrific, the music, singers and guitarists were outstanding. We were thinking that this event was soooo good that we should organise every two months!.

Sunday was great too, there was a breakfast at Weston church and a great service at Hixon church. Later on, my hubby Steven cooked a superb bbq with a salad made of home grown betroots. After I joined more friends at an evening service in Beacon church in Stafford. I hope you too had a blessed week-end. 

Have you heard of this charity: hands at work. 

Photos to come soon!

Love and respect...simple or difficult?

Every Human Being on the planet yearns for respect, but especially men. For a man, respect is the lifeblood of our emotional stability, the air our heart breathes, the milk in our Wheaties, the gas in our combustible engines. In other words, it’s what makes us go.

Respect is sometimes demanded, enforced, and argued about. Gangs and countries have gone to war and men have died for lack of it, but when freely given, means the most to us. For a wife, respect is given as an order from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:33…”let the wife see that she respects her husband.” In other words, it’s not enough to love him, to coddle him, to baby him, although those things are kind of nice sometimes (I’m not going to lie!), but it’s most important that she respects him.

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs wrote in Love & Respect, that respect is like the air a man breathes and being disrespected is like pinching off a man’s oxygen hose so that he slowly dies a suffocating death. However, it says the same about love to a woman. A wife being commanded through scripture to respect her husband can be a difficult pill to swallow if the husband is mean, irritable, critical and unloving.
Here are the three P’s of loving our wives well so that she can respect us easily and without feeling like a traitor to her own heart.

1) Praise Her.

Too often, we as men think something and fail to say it. We dig into a home cooked meal, walk past a manicured garden, put on clean clothes, cash a second paycheck, all the while thinking this is nice, but never saying it. “Honey, thank you for working to help provide for this family”, “Honey, thank you for doing that yard work, the yard looks great”, “Honey, This meal is fantastic, Thank you.” Or how about “Girl! You are looking so fine, YOU make that dress look good!” Praise your wife………daily. Praising her often is loving her well!

2) Promote Her.

Praising her is speaking well of her….to her. Promoting her is speaking well of her to others. The first people you should be speaking well of her to, is your family. Your children should hear you speak lovingly and adoringly about your wife often. Your sons will learn how to treat their wife from you. I know, scary thought, but true. Your daughters will learn how to be treated from you. Start early and Praise her often. Proverbs 31 says that “her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her”. If you want a Proverbs 31 Virtuous wife, treat her like one. A man who promotes his wife in public earns respect. A man who discredits his wife in public earns contempt.

3) Protect Her.

We are Human. There are going to be times when your wife sins or falls short. Cover her. Don’t blab about her failure and don’t grind her failures in her face. Cover her. 1st Peter 4:8 says this “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” To love your wife well means to cover her, just as your Pastor is your spiritual covering of the local church, Jesus is our spiritual covering before the Father over the complete church, you husband, are the covering of your family.

As men, we sometimes feel that our wives will respect us for the things we respect other men for, accomplishments, money, occupation, the toys we own or cars we drive. The truth is, our wives respect us for how we treat them, so praise her, promote her and protect her and she in turn will respect you. As always, may you love your wives well and be mighty men of valor who always chase after the heart of God. Amen.

Stephen Miller is a Family Life Pastor at Crystal River Church of God, an ordained minister in the Church of God, the Men’s Ministry leader of Warriors with a Covenant and a Married Life Small group marriage ministry leader. Steve and his wife Jessica present regularly for the Marriage Restored Conference. You can read more of his work at Marriage Encounter and read his book “Fight for Her! A Marriage in Crisis and God’s Intervention.”

Opinionated Vicar: Don't Read This, Read...

Opinionated Vicar: Don't Read This, Read...: this http://frrme.org/canon-andrews-blog/ and keep praying for Iraq, especially the Christian population there.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest

Jesus invites you to trust Him and He will refresh you. Are you going to accept his loving invitation?

Matthew 11:28-30English Standard Version (ESV)

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Urdu bible
28 اے محنت مشقت کر نے والو! اور وزنی بوجھ اٹھا نے والو تم سب میرے پاس آ جا ؤ۔ میں تمہیں آرام پہنچا ؤں گا۔ 29 میرے جوئے کے کندھے دیتے ہو ئے مجھ سے باتیں سیکھو۔ میں شریف اور خاکسارہوں۔ اور تم اپنی جانوں کے لئے تشفی پا ؤگے۔30 ہاں! جو کام میں تم سے قبول کر نے کے لئے کہتا ہوں آسان ہے۔ تمہیں اٹھا نے کے لئے جو بوجھ دے رہا ہوں وہ وزنی نہیں ہے۔”

Bechol Libi - With all my heart - Con todo mi corazón

Noah's ark

Having been inspired by each Messy Church I have been invited to in Weston (thanks to Gill and her team), I felt a bit more confident. As I was in Hobbycraft in Stafford, I asked one member of staff if they had anything suitable for a Noah's ark activity and they didn't. However he was very helpful and came back with a pack of ice-cream sticks and animal stencils. Then he found an A1 piece of cardboard. 

I then was cheeky and asked my friend Geraldine to draw a template for a Noah's ark which she very kindly did. Today, at Sunday school, Emily, Maisy, Keira and Zak helped out on the project. Done! A big thanks to everybody including the websites where I found the craft activity. Click here.

Adonai Mahaseinu

Yeshua meshichenu, bitchu bo
Yeshua is our Messiah, trust in him!

Bechol libi - With all our heart

Have a blessed evening!

Bring back our girls, praying..

“No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength…But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love.” -Psalm 33:16-19

Launched in 2002, Boko Haram - which in the local Hausa language means "Western education is forbidden", a reference to the initial focus of its Islamist agenda - became a force to be reckoned with in 2009 when it raided police stations and government buildings in Maiduguri, and other northern cities.

Hundreds of people were killed in the ensuing clashes between the security forces and its members.

Soldiers raided Boko Haram's headquarters, an Islamic centre in Maiduguri where children from poor families, including those from neighbouring Chad and Niger, enrolled for religious studies, only to be recruited as fighters.

When the security forces seized control of the centre, they captured its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, who then died in police custody. 

The military declared victory over Boko Haram, only to find the group reorganising itself under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau, who took it on a more militant path in the campaign to establish a puritanical Islamic state across Nigeria.

This is how the extremist group Boko Haram started their fight. Using children warriors according to the BBC article. For more videos that explain how it started, click here.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for all the blessings and love you pour out on Nigeria and its neighbouring countries. 

We ask you to reveal yourself to each member of Boko Haram, may you speak to them Lord, so that they turn from their evil acts, and let the children go.

Jesus, you are the living God, you have the victory and you are King of our hearts. 

We know that you pray for us and your unfailing love is immense. 

Help our Nigerian sisters and their families, comfort them and strengthen them, help them escape their kidnappers and find a safe place, help them to find shelter, surround them with your love oh Lord. 

Guide all those who are looking for our sisters, may they find them quickly. 

We praise you Oh Lord, you are the God of miracles, nothing is impossible for you. 

You love us, and you keep your promises. We ask in the mighty name of Jesus, our Saviour and Redeemer. Amen.

Praying for our children!

Not long ago, I was reading about the armor of God. Tonight, I' m reading a truly inspiring book by Janet Thompson,
Praying for your prodigal daughter. 

Here is what she says: 
 I stand and fasten the belt of truth around my waist and 
I put on the breastplate of righteousness..
as shoes for the feet,  I put on the readiness to proclaim the gospel of peace, .. 
I take up the shield of faith to guard my heart against all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 
I take the helmet of salvation 
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Ephesians 6: 10-18

Do you have any worries about your children or grand-children (I don't have any grand-children..yet!) 

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you, he will never let the righteous fall. Psalm 55:22. 

Rely fully on the Lord who is in charge! 

Pass the butter please...

Pass The Butter ... Please. I thought that I'd share this comparison between butter and margarine. Let me know which one do you use?

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.


It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavourings....

DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?

Read on to the end...gets very interesting!

Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.


Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added!

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .

And now, for Margarine..

Very High in Trans fatty acids.

Triples risk of coronary heart disease ...

Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..

Lowers quality of breast milk

Decreases immune response.

Decreases insulin response.

And here's the most disturbing fact... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC... and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT.

These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:


* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)




* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow.



Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

End of the world cartoon

by Ray Fowler

I could not resist,  I had to share this cartoon. 

Hope you are having a fruitful and blessed week.

To see more of those cartoons, click here

The heart of a family man...

Good evening my friends,

I'd like to share this post with you.

Tip of the Tongue Theology: The heart of a family man...: Before entering the covenant with my wife, I anticipated the sacrifice I would have to make but I had no way of kno...