Let's Pray for the New Members in South Korea

NKorea criticizes US nuclear protection of South

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer – 32 mins ago

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has accused the United States of plotting atomic war against the communist regime, saying President Barack Obama's recent reaffirmation of nuclear protection of South Korea only exposed his government's intention to attack.
In what would be the first test for the new U.N. sanctions against the North, South Korean media also reported Sunday that a North Korean ship sailing toward Myanmar via Singapore was being shadowed by the U.S. military over suspicion that it may be carrying illicit weapons.
U.S. officials said Thursday that the U.S. military had begun tracking the ship, Kang Nam, which left a North Korean port Wednesday.
South Korean television network YTN, citing an unidentified intelligence source in the South, reported that the U.S. suspected the 2,000-ton-class ship was carrying missiles and other related weapons toward Myanmar — which has faced an arms embargo from the United States and the European Union and has reportedly bought weapons from North Korea.
The report said the U.S. has also deployed a navy destroyer and has been using satellites to track the ship.
South Korea's Defense Ministry, Unification Ministry and the National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has spiked since the North defiantly conducted its second nuclear test on May 25. North Korea later declared it would bolster its atomic bomb-making program and threatened war in protest of U.N. sanctions for its test.
Obama reaffirmed Washington's security commitment to South Korea, including through U.S. nuclear protection, after a meeting Tuesday in Washington with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Obama also said the U.N. sanctions will be aggressively enforced.
In its first response to the summit, North Korea's government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said that Obama's comments only revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.
"It's not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion," said the commentary published Saturday.
The weekly also said the North will also "surely judge" the Lee government for participating in a U.S.-led international campaign to "stifle" the North.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons deployed there.
On Saturday, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said Seoul has proposed five-way talks with the U.S., China, Russia and Japan to find a new way to deal with the North's threats.
The U.S. and Japan have agreed to participate, while China and Russia have yet to respond, the official told The Associated Press, requesting anonymity because he was discussing a plan still in the works.
North Korea and the five countries began negotiating under the so-called "six-party talks" in 2003 with the aim of giving the communist regime economic aid and other concessions in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program. In April, however, the North said it was pulling out of the talks in response to international criticism of its controversial April 5 long-range rocket launch.
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Associated Press Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this report.

Great Lakes Region Ladies' Retreat 2009

What a weekend!!! We had such a wonderful time at our retreat and how the Lord did bless!!! It was so exciting to see the ladies follow God's Spirit and receive blessings galore. I was bushed when I got home Sunday, but happy for all that God did.

I started working on the retreat back in late January and worked right up until it started at 3 p.m. on Friday. It was a lot of work, but it was fun getting it all together. I enjoy planning events like that so it was a blessing for me to get to do it. Sister Smith helped me greatly by sending documents of information she'd learned and saved over the years of planning herself. Since I'd only been to two ladies' retreat probably eight and nine years ago (I've been to a couple of ladies' days in Georgia, but those are different from retreats), that information really was a big help to me. Thank you, Sister Smith. I also kept Annette Deitz, Melissa Hendricks, and Marsha Estep on the phone a whole lot to answer my many questions and give me advice when I didn't know what to do. So thank you to those three ladies as well.

Annette and her daughter Megan flew up on Tuesday last week to start helping me with the food and other details. I tell ya, I couldn't have done it without them. We had so much work to do, but it was a blast doing it. We made chocolate chip cookies one night, which turned out nearly perfect (and were devoured over the weekend). I made a huge bowl of potato salad and a big thing of baked beans that we served with chicken nuggets Friday night. Ice cream sundaes for dessert!!! Yum!!!! I made two big crock pots of vegetable beef and broccoli cheese soups that we served with sandwiches Saturday for lunch ... with those cookies for dessert. And then we had Fazoli's bring in spaghetti and fettuccine with breadsticks to which we added a big salad for the Saturday night banquet.

Now the dessert for this meal needs a whole paragraph of its own because it was fantastic. Megan, Annette's 14-year old daughter, has been studying cake decorating for some time, so for dessert, she did her very first "wedding" cake. The theme for the retreat was The Heart of the Bride so the wedding cake was perfect for Saturday night. I am so proud of her. She made her own fondant, rolled it out, and covered the cake with it. She did her own roses with frosting and finished it off with strawberries for extra decoration. It turned out beautifully!!!! Got pics. Will post. :-)

We had Sister Jackie Zimmerman there as our evangelist and there's no doubt in my mind she'd been with the Lord about our needs. God moved in such a mighty way at each service and even at our closing session. Everything she spoke on was poignant and meaningful and amazingly in depth. Beautiful sermons. Thank you, Sister Jackie, for allowing God to use you in such an amazing way.

Then Sister Marcia Brooks was one of our teachers and taught a beautiful lesson on making sure our heart was ready ... clean and white without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Her props and the pictures she showed on the overhead were perfect accompaniments and perfectly illustrated her points, which touched our hearts and definitely got us to thinking.

Sister Smith taught the next lesson and it was wonderful as well. She taught us about the rituals that the Hebrew bride went through to prepare for her marriage and related it to the things we must do before our Bridegroom comes to receive us. It too was a beautiful lesson full of lots of wisdom and, I feel, spot on as to what we needed here in this region. Sister Smith also did the music. She chose a few choruses and they were perfect. I know God directed her in that as well because they went right along with the sweet, sweet Spirit that we felt all weekend.

Sister Ammons did our devotions and even in that morning hour, I knew God was stirring hearts and working on us through the things she spoke about. The songs we sang in our devotions were perfect and started our day out just right. My favorite was the one she did Saturday morning when she talked about our hearts being grounded in The Church of God. It was beautiful.

We had lots of food, fun, and fellowship after services each night. We played Pictionary the first night and Balderdash the next. That was so exciting for me because I never get to play games with groups of ladies ... or anybody ... so that was so, so, so fun. :-D

The TAP groups seemed to go really well. I decided to do the groups randomly and believe the Lord worked it out just right. I was in Sister Brenda Albizures's group (pastor from Des Moines) and we had good discussion that helped each of us to get some things out that really helped. And we prayed one for another. It was wonderful. Sister Angie Munoz, I hear, had a neat idea for her group. She made little booklets for each of her ladies that gave a Scripture for each letter of The HEART of the BRIDE and they went through that. Cool idea!!! Then Sister Charlotte Ellison (co-pastor at Menomonie, Wisconsin) did a lot of preaching and singing in her group along with a lot of praying. It was good. Very good!!!!

On Saturday afternoon we played Family Feud. Annette and I, with the help of a few friends, surveyed a total of 50 people to get answers to questions all pertaining to weddings. I then doubled the points so there were 100 points for each question and the game was on!!!! :-) I think the ladies really enjoyed the game as there were plenty of laughs and accusations of cheating from a certain GOW. tee hee. Hey, Sister Smith was just keeping us all honest. :-)

Well, here are the pictures . . .

Sister Marcia's class

Sister Smith's class

The Banquet:

The SPECTACLE of the evening ... Megan's beautiful cake:

Look at everybody lining up to get her picture:

The decor:

Dufus me (and Annette HA!!) FORGOT to put out the pretty red linen napkins I rented for the banquet. Spent $4.25 for the napkins and forgot to put them out until everybody was already seated and started to go through the serving line. Grrrrr.... I was so upset with myself. You can't really tell, but the middle of the table had a votive candle in a heart-shaped holder and red rose petals and red heart sequins all around. It was prettier than it looks on this picture:

One night after church we had a lesson on how to do the Sister Smith "twist":Service:

The whole gang: (Sara and Sister Jackie somehow were able to hide ... not happy about that, ladies ... ;-)

This is Getting OLD!!!!

Is anybody else out there getting sick and tired of hearing the President of these great United States going out to these other countries and apologizing to them for America? He tells them we've been stupid or inconsiderate or ungracious or stingy. WHAT????!!!! Are you kidding me?We give until it hurts our citizens; we defend the exploited and abused; we show up when tragedies strike with not only necessary supplies to get them through but with medical workers and laborers to help them recover and rebuild; we stand up for any nation who needs a helping hand when no other countries will. America is the GREATEST nation that has EVER existed because of our bowels of compassion toward those who are in need, because we follow the Biblical principle to look outside of ourselves when most other nations only look to themselves. The only thing we have to regret or apologize for is the liberal, socialist turn we are being taken on under THIS administration.

Mr. Obama, if there is something I learned as an educator within the public school system, it is this: not everybody is going to like you, but THAT'S O.K.!!!! It is not the goal of the educator/leader to get everyone to like you, it is the goal of the educator/leader to get everyone to respect you. Stop apologizing for America and stand up and defend her like you promised to do the day you took took the oath to BE the President. Take some time to reread the Constitution and the stories of our forefathers. Their ideaologies were what made this country so great. You've steered hard to the left of what they did and it's not going to work. You've already WON the Presidential race, so stop campaigning already and be the President by following the guidelines our forefathers set for you. It's all written down nice and neat in documents that an intelligent person such as yourself wouldn't find difficult to comprehend. Follow them. Their Christian-based principles have brought us this far and won't fail us now.

Jesus Died on the Cross and then ...

Kids say the cutest things. Just had to share.

Last Sunday some friends of ours were picking their little boy up from Sunday School (3 1/2 years old) and asked him what he learned in class. He said, "Well, I learned that Jesus died on the cross and then went and had lunch with his friends."

I think I laughed for a full five minutes or so when they told me about that. Too cute.

Happy Birthday to ...

Sister Smith!!!! I hope you had a wonderful day.

Anthony took me out house hunting ... just in case we are moving ... again. *sigh* We've narrowed it down to two different apartment complexes. Both are nice, but one's just a bit nicer with a tiny bit higher price tag. We'll probably go with the more moderately priced one. Here's what we have to decide between:

little less: the goods: little bit better layout, brand new (awesome), tile floors in bath and kitchen
the bads: tad bit smaller, regular bathtubs, tiny dining room (need to get a new dining table), electric stove (not crazy about electric stoves), possible we may not get private entrance

little more: the goods: tad bit bigger, garden tubs (mmmmm.....), gas stove (I loooove cooking on gas), AWESOME walk-in closets (HUGE), nicer bathrooms, patio off the master bedroom (nice)
the bads: vinyl in kitchen/bathrooms (I HATE vinyl floors), a little more expensive, have to buy washer/dryer (doesn't come in apartment--We'll eventually have to do this anyway when we decide to buy a house, but we're not sure we're ready to do it just yet.)

So, we're trying to decide.

Anyway, it was a good day, but not exactly my "ideal" birthday trip. Oh, well. I'm getting my car detailed this weekend for my birthday present. That makes me VERY happy, so I'm good. :-D

Still pretty busy, so it'll probably be this summer before I get back to Blogland as a regular. We'll probably be moving, which means we'll be busy, but that'll be good fodder for some great pictures to post, so that'll be good, I guess.

There are some prospects in the Chicago area who have been in contact with The Church. A Hispanic family and an Assembly of God pastor with a possible 40 members who may follow if he decides to follow God. Wouldn't that be awesome? They'd be following their pastor as He follows God. How Biblical and theocratic and perfect. Pray, everybody, for these precious souls.

If we do move, it'll be close to Chicago. Hmmmm.... methinks God is up to something. :-)

Love ya'll.

Just a Quickie

Hey, all of you out there in blogland. I know many of you have probably given up on me blogging. I have been busy ... soooooo busy. And I'm tired. Reading and editing and revising and offering suggestions for how this paper could be better, and try researching this to augment this section of your paper, and this is a sentence fragment, and this is a run-on (like this is almost about to turn out to be BUT IT'S NOT YET!!!!) and this is faulty logic, and this doesn't agree with your thesis. Then I do that for the church Sunday School literature, and I do that for a few other things as well. It's becoming a situation where my brain's about dead. AHHHH!!!!!

Please pray for me. I'm TIRED. I still like what I'm doing, but I'm just TIRED!!!! Cannot WAIT for Spring Break.

Oh, who's coming to Ladies' Retreat in May???? HMMMMM??????

Love ya'll.

Oh, by the way, Rebekah, I just happened to see your comment on Melissa's blog asking me how I'd seen her hair. She texted me a pic. shortly after she got it cut. Isn't it just adorable? (as I'm fairly certain you've seen it now HA!!!) REALLY cute. :-)

We got stuck!!!

I guess we're officially "dorks from the South who try but just can't master being snow gurus." We got stuck in the snow yesterday. Thankfully it was right in front of the church, but as we were turning the corner in front of the church onto the road WHICH HADN'T YET BEEN PLOWED our little car just STOPPED. Wheels spinning but goin nowhere. Anthony got out and tried to push while I tried to drive, but this snow was several inches deep, so it wasn't happening. We had to go get our pastor and a shovel and he showed us how to shovel out the snow from beneath and around our tires and then "rock" the car out.

Uh, fun.

Sister Smith!!! I just found out something that you and I can celebrate. Did you know that March 26 is the official "Make your own Holiday" holiday? HA! Way cool. We can make our own family triadition that must be observed every year ... on our birthday. I'm psyched. And the wheels are turning. Let me know what you think of. :D

alright here are some more ... January 10 is Positively Penguin Day, and the 26th is the National Peanut Brittle Day (as well as Chinese New Year). February 15 is National Gumdrop Day and the 26th is Tell a Fairy Tale Day. April 26 is National Pretzel Day. (Did you know that pretzels are believed to be the world's oldest snack?)May 2 is Brothers and Sisters Day and the 16th is Wear Purple for Peace Day. June 5 is the National Donut Day (Don't tell Anthony, anybody. ;0) And June 17 is Eat Your Vegetables Day. Cool, huh? I thought those were great tidbits. In the spirit of citing my sources, this information came from Family Magazine of Michiana.

There was something else I was going to post about, but I can't seem to remember what it was ... Maybe later. Right now I have to run to the hotel. My dorky husband forgot the safe key. *rolling eyes* So now I gotta' get back out in this cold weather. Already been out in it once today.

Well, TTYL, all. :D

I WOULD LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT IF ANY OF YOU COULD COME

I changed some of the "contact info" because this is on the web.

“The Heart of the Bride”
Great Lakes Region Ladies’ Retreat
Wisconsin, Illinois (North), Iowa, Michigan, and Canada (East)
May 22-24, 2009

“My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.” Psalm 57:7

I will email anyone with location info and other things I didn't want to put online.

Evangelist: TBA

Contact *me* for more information

Oh, Baby, it's COLD outside!!!!

With wind chill, we're headed for 30 degrees below zero!!!! And we're getting hit with some major snow . . . supposed to have up to 2 feet on the ground by tonight. BRRRRR!!!!! Pray for Anthony. He's out in this stuff. Pray for me. I'll be out in it tonight because Ivy Tech didn't close down and I have to teach tonight. I still have a little hope that they may cancel tonight's classes, but it's only a little hope.

I'll leave you with some pictures of Jackson playing in the the white stuff. Enjoy.

Check out those icicles...

Our little "angel"

I hate it that the snowflakes didn't show up on this picture,but it really was snowing ...

Having a blast ...

Happy day!!!!

Smoky Mtn Vacation Part Two .... Finally

OK. I wrote this Saturday but wasn't able to get it up until just now, so the foot of snow's still on the ground, but I'm out and about. I start my new class today at Southwestern Michigan College. I'm teaching English as a Second Language: Culture, Language and Civics. I LOOOOVE teaching history, and I get to do a lot of that in this class, so I'm excited about it. :D So, here's what I wrote on Sunday WITH the pictures uploaded ...

I know. I know. It's been longer than I anticipated, BUT I have been really busy, sooooo today's the day. (Doesn't have a thing to do with the almost FOOT of snow outside. ;-) Anyway, we're home today. Anywhoooo ..... here it is ....

So we finished at the aquarium, which ended my last post. Theeeennnnn.....

Next on the agenda was a Fannie Farkel. It's tradition to get a Fannie Farkel when we're in Gatlinburg. You just gotta do it! What's a Fannie Farkel? Why a foot-long corn dog, of course! ;-) It's hand-battered and fried to order, so they're hot and fresh. Yum!!! Didn't get any pictures of that because you have to eat them on the sidewalk (no seating) and it's kind of awkward to do anyway, so pictures would've been extremely difficult.

Anyway, then we "swung" up the mountain. Jackson was soooo excited about this one. He had a blast!!! And the view it offers is just so gorgeous. Loved the swings!!!

Went back to the hotel, took a nap, got up, and went to Red Lobster for supper and had an absolutely fabulous-o waiter, so that was really a nice touch to a vacation treat like Red Lobster. :D The meal wrapped up our marine biology day. (Didn't do that on purpose ;-) just realized it later)

Sunday was really our last day for vacation. We started with a place called Adventure Quest and had a blast.

First was the Mirror of Mazes. Way cool. They made you put on plastic gloves so the mirrors didn't get smudged. The mirrors were immaculate, so it was difficult to tell whether a "wall" was a mirror or an opening. Crazy stuff. Jackson though it was crazy, but fun. I thought it was neat because of the different sections. One part looked like castle hallways and another part was black with these pretty purple twinkling stars everywhere. Then you went through what looked like a vineyard with grapevines. There were other sections that I can't remember at the moment. Anyway, most of the pictures didn't turn out so great because of all the mirrors. The flash ricocheted and ruined the effect.

Next was the Pirate Putt-Putt. Jackson LOVES putt-putt and so do Anthony and I, so we had a blast in there. Jackson's pretty good, too ... for a four-year, but Daddy beat us both. (he always does ... grrrr....) But he only beat me by 6 points, so it wasn't too bad, I guess for 18 holes.

Can't figure out why this one's still sideways, but anyway...

Love that expression ...

We then took a drive through Cade's Cove and saw lots and lots of deer. Anthony kept hoping to see bear, but I lovingly *smirk* reminded him that the bear were probably *ahem* HIBERNATING!!!! Dork!!!! Anyway, I love that place. The vistas are breathtaking. Cade's Cove, by the way, is where the Christy shows were filmed.

Went back to the hotel, took a quick nap, and got back up for dinner. This time we tried Tony Romas and had a good experience there, too. Look at the place next to it. Pretty cool, huh? It's like a big Science/Discovery Museum, and we wanted to do it and probably would have if we hadn't required naps. But as it was, I guess we saved some money this way, which is never a bad thing. Tony needs to get a light bulb for his "O".

Dirt Cake Dessert

I KNOW I flipped these pics before I uploaded them. Grrrr.... Computers ...

Monday we slept in a bit (by this time I had started getting Jackson's cold) and took our time getting our things together, so we missed the hotel breakfast and had to go out. We decided on Flapjack's Pancake House for breakfast and had a HORRIBLE experience. I do NOT recommend that place. The food just didn't taste fresh. I ordered one of their skillets with hashbrowns, veggies, cheese, eggs, etc. The mushrooms were from a can and COLD, they didn't put any cheese on it, and the eggs weren't cooked over medium, as I'd ordered. They were still a bit slimy. YUCK!!! On top of that, it was a very small portion of food ... especially for what we were paying for it. I didn't eat but maybe one bite and sent it back for an omelette, which was a tiny bit better ... but that's not saying much. Even Jackson and Anthony's pancakes were rubbery. Now, when you've got a restaurant named Flapjack's, you thiiiiinnnkkk that they'd at least get the pancakes right. Nope. On top of that, the waitress was rude and the bus boy was SLAMMING stuff into that bus tub REALLY LOUD, which didn't help the ambience of the place. Left unhappy. Never will darken their doors again.

But then my husband did something really sweet. I'd been eyeing a Super Scrapbook Store that was in one of the outlet mall areas but didn't push the issue. He took me AND KEPT JACKSON IN THE CAR while I went in!!! What a good husband I have. (Keeping Jackson in the car was the best part ... tee hee) :D I spent an hour in there and he didn't even get upset!!! I really didn't mean to stay that long, but I, um, sort of accidently lost track of time. But I got some cool stuff to scrap our vacation with. ;-) We left from there and headed home. Got home around 10:00 that night, drug all our stuff in, let Jackson play with his toys for a few minutes while I started some laundry, and then we all went to bed.

It was a good vacation with lots of fun, memory-making times. The weather wasn't even bad. Actually, Saturday it was a balmy 70 degrees!!!!!! But the other two days, it was a bit cold/cool mostly in the 50's. A lot warmer than what we're used to up here, but still a bit cool to be out tromping around for long periods of time. I wanted to go to Dixie Stampede, but we couldn't bring ourselves to dish out that much money. And we thought about Dollywood because they say the Christmas lights at this time of year are just gorgeous, but did you know it's $50 for an adult ticket???!!!! That's ridiculous. That's what a Disney World park costs, and, sorry, but Dollywood doesn't have anything on Disney whatsoever. Anyway, I like what we decided on. Except for Flapjack's. ;0)