Village Church Women

The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has several great books on the family now in Spanish.

Resources in Spanish (Español)

Zucchini cakes are a great way to use abundant summer squash from the garden or from the supermarket. It is also a great way to add moisture to a cake while cutting back on the amount of fat used. Try this chocolate version for a real treat!

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 c sugar

1 c packed light brown sugar

1/2 c cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 c fat free milk

1/2 c canola oil

4 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 pound zucchini, grated (about 2 1/2 cups)

Confectioner’s sugar (optional)

Makes 24 servings

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a 9×13 inch baking pan with nonstick spray, then spinkle lightly with flour

2. Combine the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

3. Combine the milk, oil, eggs, and canilla in a medium bowl, whisk until blended. Stir the milk mixture into the flour mixture until all of the flour is just moistened.

4. Stir in the zucchini just until blended. Pour the mixture into the baking pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a rack 15 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool on the rack 30 minutes. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar if using. Cut into 24 squares.

Can be frozen. Wrap individual squares in foil, place in a ziplock freezer bacg and freeze up to six months.

Enjoy!

Linda

“If we violate a human embryo today, tomorrow we will become callous about the fetus, then the infant, and then people with physical defects…let’s influence society with reasoned judgment, strength of character, and a commitment to improve our culture, not diminish it.”
- Joni Eareckson Tada

Below is a powerful response from Joni when asked in a Christianity Today interview about her stance on stem cell research. She could stand to gain everything from a cure, yet she firmly holds to her convictions of using only adult stem cells.  You may not hear the media talk about the huge successes that have been made in adult stem cell research.

You reject using embryonic stem cells for research, and champion the use of adult stem cells. Why?

Most Americans, out of a mixed sense of sympathy and awe, look at people in wheelchairs and think: Who would want to deny them a cure? No one better understands the desire for a cure than I do, as a quadriplegic who has lived in a wheelchair for decades. But even Christopher Reeve’s chances for a cure are more realistic using adult stem-cell therapies.

For every study he may cite, I can point to scores of success stories using adult stem-cell therapies: At the Washington Medical Center in Seattle, physicians successfully treated 26 rapidly deteriorating multiple sclerosis patients with each patient’s own bone marrow stem cells. Of the 26, 6 improved and 20 stabilized.

Here’s another example. A Los Angeles neurosurgeon harvested stem cells from the brain of a Parkinson’s patient. The doctor cultured the cells and a small percentage of those cells matured into dopamine-secreting neurons. He injected six million cultured cells back into his patient’s brain. One year later, the patient’s symptoms were down by 83 percent. It’s a phenomenal success.

Read more, The Threat of Biotech.

There is a story of a man who died and went to heaven to find two signs above two different lines. One sign said: “ALL THOSE MEN WHO HAVE BEEN DOMINATED BY THEIR WIVES, STAND HERE.” That line of men seemed to stretch off through the clouds into infinity.

The second sign read: “ALL THOSE MEN WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN DOMINATED BY THEIR WIVES, STAND HERE.” Underneath the sign stood one man.

He went over to the man, grabbed his arm and said, “What’s the secret, how did you do it? That other line has millions of men and you are the only one standing in this line?”

The man looked around with a puzzled expression and said, “Why, I am not sure I know. My wife just told me to stand here.”

A sad commentary on the way many women treat their husbands. What happens if you don’t get your way in the home? Nagging? Drama? Passive Agressive Cleaning? (You know this kind of cleaning ladies, as you scrub the house like the tazmanian devil and your husband asks, “what’s wrong” you say, “nothing”). When you give up some control, and let your husband lead you will have to change how you respond when you do not get your way.

ASHEVILLE — A North Carolina woman is reportedly fed up with bringing her famous ambrosia dessert to church pot lucks.
“I’ve been bringing it for seventeen years and I’m tired of it,” Betty Ray, 65, told her pastor the other day. “I’m the only one who brings it, and it’s always the first dish to disappear, along with the li’l smokies. Why no one else makes ambrosia, I don’t know.”
Andy Gunn, a regular pot luck attendee, says the only reason he comes is to enjoy a few bites of Betty’s dessert. He has even brought extended family with him.
“I come for the Easter pot luck, Christmas Eve pot luck, and whenever they announce the spring pot luck,” he says. “I’m addicted to Betty’s ambrosia.”
But that ambrosia may not be there next year. Betty says she was angered when people began inquiring if she was bringing the dessert. She thought of boycotting this year, but felt a last-minute surge of Christian charity and made a big batch.
That won’t happen next year.
“I’m through,” she says. “Someone else’ll have to bring it. Then I’ll take a heaping plateful and show them how it feels.”

(HT: Lark News)

We have been on a family vacation traveling for Don’s DMin classes. I packed every unread book I had laying around hoping to catch up on all the books I have been wanting to read. One was Escape by Carol Jessop. She is the courageous woman who in the middle of the night packed up her 8 children and fled her polygamous commune. She became a child bride at age 14 marrying her classmates father who was 50 years old.

I was horrfied, disgusted, heartbroken yet totally mesmerized by her story of abuse, competition between “sister wives”, and religious fanaticism. What I took away from it was the overwhelming since of the dangers of legalism. The rules these women and children were to follow were totally arbitrary, subject to change at any moment, and were completely different from family to family. The rules were spiritualized, though none of them were rooted in Scripture, but were founded in one mans twisted hunger for power. This is the trap of legalism, (which is simply rules made up outside of Scripture that man creates to moralize a system of behavior).

I was reminded of God’s great grace in redeeming the world. Christianity cannot be reduced to a list of do’s and don’ts, because if it is none of us would pass. We may not go to extremes and have our daughters where head coverings and long underwear, and odd hairdoes, but we can make up rules in a feeble attempt to please God on some level. Legalism only breeds hyposcrisy. Warren Jeffs the last leader of the FLDS Mormon cult was arrested in a bright red sports car, the very color he had banned among his people. The rules of legalism will always be broken, but God’s grace stands to cover our weak attempts at moralizing our salvation.

Marriages, like plants either get better or worse they do not maintain themselves. Yours is either becoming weak, lifeless, even loveless, or it is becoming stronger and surer. Complacency in marriage is really not an option. Yours will begin to wilt without watering and attention. This is the reality whether you have been married 20 years or 20 months.

This weekend and next you will have the unique opportunity to hear Pastor Eddie Thompson at the Village. He is the Senior Consultant for Marriage and Family at the N.C. Baptist State Convention. He has a heart to encourage and equip those with biblical parenting and marriage truths. I know it is the 4th of July and you may be sunning at the beach, or seeing family, but I encourage you to come back early for this “tune-up” for your marriage, it is more important than any picnic or party you will attend this weekend.

Here are Pastor Eddie’s topics the next 2 weeks, Don’t miss it!

• July 6^th ………. “Who Will Speak A Word for the Family?”
• July 13^th…….. “What’s the Big Deal About Marriage Anyway?”

by Jennifer Catanese Barry

This past week I heard bits and pieces of Greg Laurie’s testimony, from his new book, Lost Boy, on the radio. Eager to hear more, I went to his blog page and found it in video format from April of this year. I spent the last hour mesmerized by his story, and though it may be a good one to share on the blog. Beware, it is over an hour long and emotionally intense. I started out baking while it was on; when that was not happening I thought, well for sure I can fold laundry. I was too focused on Greg’s powerful words and story to even remember the laundry, so I am off to finish it now. The video, however, will remain with me beyond today.

Watch Greg Laurie’s testimony