Start off with prayer. We have the privilege of prayer. John 16:24, John 15:7-8.
Having a foundation of prayer in our lives is really the basis for the Christian walk…. talking with God before we talk to others about him is the vital part of our life. It’s the vital part of our efforts to share our faith.
Prayer has many aspects and is necessary if you want to experience life in Christ and share the good news of eternal life with others. Prayer is a two way dialogue between you and God.
You can use ACTS as model for prayer
Acts is a suggested structure for your prayer time that was modelled by Jesus in the Lord’s prayer. It can aid you in praying more effectively.
ADORATION: To connect with God, you begin by expressing your love and adoration for Him. Humble yourself before His perfect greatness and infinite love. John 1:1-5
CONFESSION: unconfessed sin in our lives hinders our communication with God. Before you ask for anything, purify your heart by searching for moments of weakness and confess them before God. He has promised that He will forgive those sins and will purify us. 1 John 1:9
THANKSGIVING: Before you ask God even on behalf of others …. fill yourself with gratitude for the people and other blessings God has already provided. Think about what you have and thank God for them. Philip 4:4-5
SUPPLICATION: This might seem like a fancy word, but it simply means to ask. Once you’ve confessed and given thanks, feel free to ask what you will. God has promised he will listen and answer every request offered this way. Philip 4:6-7
Other scripture to consider the necessity and power of prayer. Eph 6:12-20, John 17:24-26, 1 Tim 2:1, Col 4:2, Hebrews 4:16, Daniel 9:3-19
Preparing to talk to others about Jesus. What was a major problem you struggled with before you met Christ. (ie. anger, impatience, bitterness, drug and or alcohol half use, dishonesty, etc) How did it change after you gave your heartvtobthe Lord.
Write down the answer to these two questions, this is a great way to prepare yourself to talk to others about Jesus. Your personal testimony of a changes life is one of the most powerful ways to witness as a Christian. Keep it short so that you are equipped to quickly explain how God changed your life.
ACTION: list 5 people with whom you would like to talk to about God and share the gospel with. Pray for each one that God would prepared their hearts with a hunger to receive His word and the ability to understand it. Pray God would give you courage and the opportunity to share your faith with each of these 5 people.
Ask a believer friend to pray for you as you embark on a journey of sharing your faith. Have them participate with you.
It’s getting really exciting to see the progress in the new addition. We have the roughed in electrical and plumbing done. The insulation and vapor barrier is done….sealed….. and the drywall is up seam filled and primed…. woot woot.
We are starting on the powder room…yeah!
Russ has cut sanded and primed and painted all the pieces that we need should be exciting to see how it’s gonna look.
Wow quite the most awesome shiplap look … of course so very blessed to have the most talented hubby with so many gifts. When the reclaimed vanity goes in with the vessel sink gonna look awesome….
The cats have been enjoying the bird feeder on the back of the house. They stand on the firewood in the wood box and shake like crazy as they watch the birds fly in and out for sunflower seeds.
Unfortunately we have a red squirrel too that’s eating the seeds but I think his days are numbered…
It’s fun to watch a tonne of birds flying around and enjoying the winter food and giving the cats something to do in thier spare time ♡
The cost of food has gone up so much and we are always trying to find new ways to cut the cost and of course more importantly eating healthier.
I bought a pork shoulder roasts two weeks ago and we enjoyed it roasted…. when I went back to the grocery store the pork roast was on sale again…… so I decided that it would actually make awesome sausages.
Rusty bought me a meat grinder attachment for my kitchen aid mixer so…….. I thought what a great time to breakout in.
I looked up a couple recipes and decided with the one below and it turned out great. I used my cookie / dough scoop and put out the meat on parchment paper and then flattened then out. So we have some awesome sausage rounds that fry up just right in size and taste.
Recipe:
I cooked a few of these right away and I frozen the rest of them individually on a cookie sheet so that they can be put in a freezer bag to be used going forward. Another awesome pantry challenge blessing.
I was part of a pantry challenge for the months of January and February. It was hard to post what I did in January because Rusty was around and we both cooked so he didn’t take pictures like I usually do.
Of course I am cooking from my pantry all the time so I forgot a few times myself to take pictures.
I use our frozen foods, canned and dried…. and it’s been awesome so blessed to have all that amazing food to eat from.
We did soups with frozen ingredients potato leek soup, broccoli soup….. we did Chilli with the red kidney beans and tomato sauce and powdered tomatoes…… and yummie corn bread. I make Indian food and Thai curies with our chicken that we raised and using canned chick peas and other veggies that are canned and frozen. We also used apple sauces, peaches, jams and suaces on pancakes, french toast, homemade bread and other stuff. All from our pantry… we are blessed.
Last week I moved the shelves into the addition that house my canned food. It blows my mind when I look at all the food. I am excited about what we are gonna do this year… I will be looking for new recipes and ways to preserve what we grow.
With the cost of inflation on food I am so happy for what I can grow for my family to eat. What a difference. We will be starting to grow seeds for the new gardens….thank you God for the talents to grow, nurture and cook what you have e blessed is with♡
Hi everyone, it’s been quite snowy on the island again. We had 3 big storms /blizzards in January and on Thursday it started off as rain early in the day, but turned to snow late afternoon. It did not stop snowing until over night into Sunday. We had some heavy seasquals that dropped quite a bit of additional snow. I think preliminary numbers are saying 50+cm.
Rusty started to dig out the tractor yesterday so that he could at least clear one of our driveways and one vehicle in case of an emergency. He actually has to stop because the snow squals were coming down pretty hard.
The snow he had to dig out was anywhere from thigh to chest high in places. You can also see that there are bare spots…. but not as many this time around….
I took a couple videos and lots of pictures it was a good storm not very windy but lots and lots of snow.
So it’s Sunday and we got out after our online church service because of the snow and started to dig the rest of the yard out. It’s really sunny out today and not too windy sort of a good chance to blow the snow in another direction. As you can see from some if the pics… mount bredalbane is back…. I think I’m gonna need a crazy carpet or toboggan so I can sled down the mountain. I bet if you jumped up you can almost touch the wires…..
It is the most snow we have cleared with the tractor 🚜. It almost doesn’t have the ability to blow the snow up any higher…. we have dug out as much as we can at the road so that we can pull our to see if cars are coming on the road.
You can see with the red truck going by how tall the snow bank is…. pretty tall.
I even got a good video of big guns snow blower tractor coming up the hill. If you look closely you can actually see the layers of snow per storm.
I was able to get into one side if the greenhouse and knocked down some of the snow on the other side. Rusty was able to get in their with the blower and clear a path to the second door. It was so nice and warm in the greenhouse. Won’t be very long and we will have some cold living greens growing in their♡
The pheasants are back….. the last couple storms they appeared and have been around ever since. We put out some chicken feed and it’s so cool to see this flock of 14 birds. You cam also see the trails behind the far coop where they have been hanging out. We of course have lots of small wild birds and Angel and Charlie absolutely love watching them. Chick a dee’s, junckos, song bird sparrows, yellow Ffinches, wood peckers and blue hay’s….
Well we are inside now having a hot coffee and homemade cornbread…. sitting in front of the stove warming up. Gonna rest up a bit and do a few house things later and watch a bunch more awesome videos from the freedom protests♡♡ so much peace and love being shared ♡♡♡♡.
Hi everyone we just want to wish you all the best of the holidays and hoping for a good new year.
We are still on holiday mode but doing a few things on the side…. I would say come monday we will be taking the time that Rusty has off and trying to get a good jump on the list of renos for the winter months.
We took up the old flooring in our bedroom with the plan to paint the existing floor until we are ready to put down our final flooring. Everything was looking pretty good until we got to the last area. Some how for some reason a big chunk in that area was cut out, lifted and put back down….. or doesn’t look nice. There are some small areas of flooring missing and it’s all uneven so we decided that the best plan of attack would be to put down the plywood and paint it so that we can get through for a time (try not to get splinters) when we are ready for the final flooring the painted would look nice to hold us over.
When the first coat went down it had a rather interesting charred look buy now with the second coat it’s much better….. a couple of rugs on the floor and it will suit us well till the main renos are done. Rhe flooring is gonna follow out to the hallway and will really match the bathroom floor to a tee:)
We easily decided on the colour and now we basically have two coats of paint down ready for base boards and window trim….
So on the holiday/resting side of things we have had some really amazing home cooking, baking and a few of our traditional jigsaw puzzling. We did two puzzles so far and I think we have 3 more to go.
We did our traditional new years finger foods and movies: Shaun of the dead and Hot fuzz…. fell asleep so we didn’t do World’s End. The munchie food was so good the wine was wonderful and the coffee too.
The one with the lupine is a picture taken here on the island at Trout River. It was lots of fun.
As we start in on our renos Monday….. I will also be participating in a pantry challenge. Basically all that beautiful food we put away in the summer and fall we get to be creative with for meals and try not to go to the grocery store.
So get ready to get spammed with pantry challenge pictures January into February. My fellow homesteading friends are doing as well so it will be fun learning some new recipes.
I am driving the cat nuts, Charlie in particular with the new bird feed out back. He stands on the wood pile and shivers like crazy as the chickadees, finches and blues come to the feeder.
And the weather…….. one day warm….. one day cold…..its really hard for mother nature to decide which it is…. sunshine and green grass or snow clouds and fog.
Our prayer for everyone is that you would all have a safe holiday season. That you would also have a good 2022. I think we are going to have more challenges and I am not really sure even with the pandemic coming to an end. I think since our governments have had a healthy taste of restrictive powers they are not going to be very willing to let it go. But I pray that you would all find God if you don’t know him yet or draw much more closer in knowing Him. That of you do encounter Har times you know where to look for help.
I know we are going to continue to see the decline of kingdoms, namely the US. I also know that we are going to see a larger falling away of “Christians” as they are decieved and given over to the pleasures of thier hearts. But as a born again believer I am both excited and a bit scared for this new chapter. I don’t know how bad it will become for believers but I do know that persecution will increase more so in the west. But I am excited at what that means….. his second coming..
I hope that we find you all well and that you manage omnicron with ease and without media hysteria. It means the end and that is something to look forward to.
It is so hard to believe that Christmas day is upon us once again. I love the Christmas season its my favorite. I have many fond and extremely happy memories and some sad ones too.
I can recall back to when I was 5 and we lived in the big house my dad built on 4he hill. That year was magical for me. My family is eroupean and we celebrate Christmas on the 24th at night after our big meal with family. That year I got Dungo from Santa… I don’t know exactly how my parents did it but it sounded like Santa’s sleigh on the roof and when dad opened the door he reached up and grabbed dungo and gave it to me….. p.s. I still have dungo.
Over the years my parents did their best to give us a good Christmas. There were some very lean Christmas’s as well. The year dad left us our gifts came from the Sally Ann. It was the only gift I got that year. Years later when us kids were teens and going to church we would always share what little we had with friends that didn’t have anywhere to go for Christmas. Those were good years and great memories. We would from time to time have some emotional moments at the season but all in all there are all good memories.
I have to say Christmas 1992 was the best year by far. That’s the Christmas Rusty and I started to get to know each other. I remeber sharing candy canes in church service with russ and “pop’s”…. best Christmas.
Of course they got better from there on in and we even pondered getting married at Christmas…. glad we didn’t wait. That was the year Christmas took a bit of a sad turn. Rusty’s dad passed from a battle with cancer 10 days before Christmas. Our first Christmas married. The best part that year was Carrie. She was just old enough to be into opening gifts…. we celebrated at Scott and Angie’s place…. in between tears and smiles we got through that year.
We had quite a few Christmas’s after that when we hope that we would be parents it never happened so we focused on our nieces and nephews. What else could we do. We had some great seasons whereby we had plenty and the gifts abounded. We also had a seasons where we didn’t get ourselves much if anything just so that we had something for our families, especially the kids. And no one knew any better then us.
We volunteered at church plays and for a few years really donated our time to that. I guess it filled the empty void in our lives. I also really looked forward to getting together with Rusty’s aunt Debbie and uncle Paul. Those get togethers were so nice. His grandparents and many others…. fond memories of aunt Debbie sneaking out for a smoke between getting the meal ready for the big crowd. Loved their real tree in the front window.
Every year we spent it with family eating and celebrating and giving and enjoying family. Our trips north to my sisters old farm house for good eats and awesome coffee and lots of fun conversations and wierd movies. Oh yes tobogganing down the driveway on crazy carpets with the kids.
I guess I would say one of the downsides and hardest adjustments of living here now on the island is that…. not getting together with family to celebrate. We don’t have that big meal….. we don’t all go to church together and sometimes we didn’t even speak on the phone til the next day….. a hard adjustment.
But Rusty and I have each other and we celebrate the season and I still love it with all its memories. I have a Christmas bucket wish list but I guess time will tell if any of those entries will get crossed off.
I really enjoyed this year. I have 2 Christmas trees up…. I have candles and wreaths in my windows and that is just a classic old house look. It’s homey and decorated and full of Rusty and me. I made Christmas gifts again this year and I so enjoyed myself. Rusty and I really enjoyed the gift giving this year he got what he wanted and so did I.
It is of course different waiting to hear if anyone got our gifts that we mailed and wondering if they like them….. waiting for warm Christmas wishes and conversations after they have done their thing.
But for absolute sure I have the best hubby ever and we are truly enjoying the time God has given us together. We had my traditional dinner last night…… rouladen and mashed potates… veggies and lots of gravy. We were gonna cook a turkey today but decide the leftovers are always better the next day. So turkey tomorrow with all the fixings.
I have baked cookies, bread cooked food and its awesome. I even used my new rolling pin I got for Christmas this morning♡♡
I find as we age our perspective changes. What once was important has a different priority or place. What is important is what we have today, God has allowed us to have it. We celebrate today being so incredibly grateful for the special gift that God gave us. HIS SON!
Jesus is why we have life, why we have a future and hope…. eternal life. Without him nothing we do in life, nothing we hold dear really means anything.
I am so grateful this year that my relationship with God is so much closer then it has ever been. I am grateful for the amazing husband and best friend God gave me. I am so grateful for the new friends I have they are gifts from God. I am grateful for the relationship with my mom and sisters….. and blessed to have family that cares.
These are the blessings of the season and the reasons why Christmas is still my favorite time of year.
I hope that everyone has a chance to celebrate with at least one person and truly finds the reason for the season… hug someone tight and remember the good memories from the years past. Look forward should the Lord tary making more memories.
Merry Christmas every. Thanks for dropping by and reading my ramblings from life on the muddy boots old houses and the farm homestead.
Love to you all.
I decided to just add a bunch of random pictures below no particular order but all about us and Christmas and the food this year and previous.
I made the picture below as one of our gifts this year. It’s my favorite picture that Rusty took and it really captures us♡
Muddy Boots, Old Houses and The Farm 