This weekend was the Pierson family reunion, and I got to learn a lot about my family I didn't know, or had forgotten or didn't realize.
Remembering faces has always been easier for me than names (probably a universal truth for everyone? Who knows), so since this is my first reunion since I've been able to have a real conversation with aunts and uncles it was pretty sweet, and I was able to put names to birth orders to faces.
Learning about Lawrence, Ernest, Great Grandpa Jack, the double cousins, and all the other interesting stuff in my family past has been super cool, definitely gives me a greater appreciation for where I am today, knowing that all these connections exist, and have existed without any input of my own.
Church on Sunday, the morning was basically a worship service, with a great story from my dad, I recorded the majority of it, I might stick that on Facebook, in a Family Smith group that I'll create? Maybe. Probably. Depends on what sort of dynamic I think it'll create, here in hoping for a media(picture, video)/history/update page, with thoughts and plans being the main focus.
But yeah, dad has told this story a lot, and the fun thing was how I talked with Sam afterwards about it, and the kids obviously hear the whole morality of the stealing, that they understand right from wrong, and how the stole goods are useless, no one can gain from them.
But sometimes dad gets into the story, and says the words (disclaimer: black licorice had the slang term "nigger-babies, and I have copied down verbatim what I heard) "throwing nigger-babies into the stove," and the adults in the crowd are thrown off and get a "parental bonus" (TV Tropes term describing those old kids cartoons where a situation or joke told goes over the heads of kids but adults understand it). Just a short funny situation that we talked about.
Here at The Project
Euro Cup Portugal win, Thomas is a fan.
Food trucks planned for July, small groups starting up/going on in September.
2009 ___?___ Louis plead guilty for prostitution, young girls involved.
Human Trafficking:
12 years old average
1-2% will be rescued
2.5 bill do not have accccess to sanitation
More people die from clearer water than all forms of violence and war
15-19 year old brides die to childbirth in small and mid income countries
Take 1k sexual assaults. 997 perpetrators walk free. Few are even reported.
Solutions?
What to do?
How to do it?
Jezebel is our topic today.
Symbolizes authority and power abused and misused.
1 Kings
Ahab the total loser. Kings are meant to empower, bring structure, give people the opportunities to better themselves.
Here to use Jezebels character as a platform to describe how people can use others at the expense, for personal gain.
But the few good can turn the tides.
"With great power comes great responsibility."
"She knew nothing of the restraint of higher principles...a gifted woman, she prostituted her gifts...pollute the life of an entire nation."
Use of power to place ME above everyone else.
Sin; the root of evil which lies at the heart of all humans, when we give in to it, Jezebel happens. When that happens the good is twisted for personal gain, they give in to use power, money, over other people. For personal gain.
Those who victimize them make sure there is no voice to call out against them.
It would take five planets to sustain North Americans consumption habits.
Places us over others.
We live in a clean, sanitized, hidden, culture. But we cannot think it does not happen here.
Red Deer, gasoline alley, is one of the most prevalent trafficking sites in Alberta and Canada.
This is so wide and all encompassing that we think there is nothing we can do against it.
The Costco effect: limiting the options to convince and trick the brain to choose one, instead of overloading the brain, resulting in no choices.
Human trafficking is this, essentially.
God asks, what are you going to do now, how ar you going to do it?
Here's what Christians do, "Oh I don't know, let me pray about it."
Read the question again.
There are things we cannot do.
It is intrinsic to being a human, this desire to be first, to sin.
Christ is the suffering servant.
God hears, he sees, and he is concerned.
Matthew 19, this re-Genesis. When the new comes he will restore, it will come back to them what was taken.
Romans 12:19
1 Kings 18:4, 19:17
John Stott
"We find ourselves citizens of two kingdoms, the one earthly and the one heavenly. And each citizenship lays upon us....."
Elijah was afraid of Jezebel. 1 Kings 19:3
Sin fights back, your own complacency will fight you.
Exodus 3:7 He has seen He has heard He is concerned.
Arbitrary and not heartfelt. We need to take a bit and think, What bothers me?"
That's all for now.
