My Tribe

Since we have been studying the 12 tribes of Israel, I have not been able to identify with any of them until last night. I was reading the chapter ahead while I was waiting for class to start and was laughing at just about everything in there because is was sooooooo me.
Let me explain:
Each tribe has it's own name meaning, gem stone, prophecies and great people. It has it's own good characteristics and bad characteristics. Well, I could see me in just about everything I was reading.
So do you really want to know what they are? I don't know if I really want to share my faults......

Issachar is the tribe I identify with. He is the 9th son of Jacob and 5th son of Leah. Leah had stopped bearing children for a while and Reuben had found some mandrakes which were supposed to help infertility. Rachel tried to get them. Leah, his mother, was angry and wanted them also.... So they made a deal and Leah sold the mandrakes to purchase a night with Jacob.
How sad. Anyway the meaning of the name Issachar is "I paid for what I hired" or "I got paid back."
Issachar is a "born servant." He is born to serve. He is a servant of humility and a person of compassion and he cannot get away from it because it is the mark that God put upon the tribe from the night that he was conceived.
He is unobtrusively present. You do not notice him in a crowd, but let him be missing and you will realize it because he is needed all of the time. If you want a job done, look for Issachar, he is ready to help because this is his calling and his inheritance. They are careful, deliberate, cautious and not easily excited or disturbed. They keep cool under pressure especially in lofty high places. They make natural pilots.
The symbol is the humble donkey (great, I am an ass) and the gemstone is the amethyst (purple quartz- supposed to be for royalty).

He has great strength, physically and spiritually. they are sure footed and can go where no other beast of burden can go. They carry tremendously heavy loads. Every true donkey has the mark of the cross on his back. They are carriers of the cross. They not only carry their own cross, but they are carrying a 1/2 dozen other crosses at the same time. They do not only have strength to go up the mountain, but they have strength to carry a load on the way up. They were born to carry big and heavy burdens. The prophecy says he carries 2 burdens. Issachar is always carrying more than one burden- he carries a double portion. He is always concerned about his neighbour, but this double burden gives him balance.
They sing to give them strength to keep up to the rhythm of their song. You hear him come into the house or sit down in the chair and he lets out a big long sigh. Hmmmmm. You wonder if he is in pain, but when you ask, there is nothing wrong. He is just moaning and groaning under his burdens. But it expresses his feelings and you must not take offence over it.
"And he saw that rest was good" .... He longs for the day when he can sit down in the easy chair and put his feet up in front of him, but he never gets there. An Issacharite will never retire. His work and weariness give him a great appreciation for rest but he never gets to it. He works until he is overcome then falls asleep just where he is... (that can be embarrassing)
Issachar is going to read about 99 books but never gets around to it because he falls asleep at the bottom of the first page. He is lucky to make it through one. He wants to find someone to blame but can't because God made him that way.
"and the land, that it was pleasant".... He loves the good earth, never a city person, doesn't care for it. He has a great appreciation for God's creation. He does not count the things that others value as important.
There are things that can ensnare the soul of the Issacharite. It is possible for him to get so tied up that he is never able to fulfill God's plan for his life. It is not big things that bring him into bondage, but a lot of little things which to the other tribes seem insignificant. They are very important to the Issachar... such as accumulation of odds and ends which most would throw into the trash. He saves everything and becomes a pack rat. Most of the time things are piled up in an orderly confusion that others want to run to escape from it all. (sound like someone else we know? LOL)
He can easily become a workaholic.
He can become enslaved by his need to do everything so perfectly correct.... enslaved with details. He needs to make sure he knows what the correct priorities are.
He is not a gate crasher or grand-stander but will leave his tracks in the sand. He will never push people out of his way, he is never at the front of the line, but he will be there helping some weaker, older person to get to the front of the line.
They hate religious show business and want to serve God with pure motive and look for others who will do the same. Issachar has the gift of understanding the times, to know what Israel ought to do.
He will stretch himself out beyond normal and is always trying to do everything. He will take on five jobs at once. He is so busy that if you speak to him at the wrong moment, he might bray at you.... but then will feel terrible because he doesn't want to be like that.
As he comes into maturity, he is grateful to God and becomes watchful over his inheritance and enters into the ministry of guardian and keeper of God's children. As a watcher he will be the last one to lock up the door at night, make sure the windows are closed if it rains, notice if the gas in the tank is full and there's water in the radiator, when the car is ready for a journey and all the little things that most of the other tribes don't think about. Then the Issachar will wonder WHY the other tribes couldn't think about these things. They notice every "loose screw" in the place. There will always be provision in their house.
An Issacharite doesn't speak much, he is usually quiet and reserved, not a "blabbermouth" like some of the rest of the tribes are. But when an Issacharite has something to say you really should listen because he has understanding concerning the times. They make preparations for what is coming and see ahead. They will subscribe to newspapers and magazines with this type of information, but never have time to read them because they are just too busy. They will skim the headlines and be alerted though.
They love cars and anything that moves. They give everything they have to give. When they don't have anything to give, they are sad. Because of his understanding concerning the times, he will only give to the ministry that is doing something for God.
Main weakness: If they lose their humility, they lose their identity- When they think they are self made and forget that God raised them up from the dust.

Anyway, there was so much more to this session, but for the most part... this is me. I kept laughing at the organized paper piles, and the doing 10 things at once, and starting a book and being unable to finish because I fall asleep.... falling asleep wherever I am. I have fallen asleep in the chair while my husband has had company over... they both laughed at me.

Busy again... as usual

I have had a lot going on the past couple of weeks.

It has been busy at work during the weekends.

I have been getting ready for Harvest Night Football Fiesta. That has taken up a reasonable amount of time, typing things up and organizing, buying stuff, etc.. From what I hear, that was a great success. I am glad. I am also disappointed I never get to see the fruit of the effort I put into things. I didn't get to see the outcome of the Fear Factor day at church either. I suppose it is no different from any ministry.... planting, watering, harvesting..... I just don't get to the harvest part. :( Maybe I will get a little jewel in my crown someday. Ok, no more pity party.

I am still taking my classes and the homework is somewhat extensive at times, but very interesting.

I haven't really been able to go to any homeschool support meetings the past couple of years because of my schedule, but they changed the night for me so it would work out. I guess the change of nights was also better for a few of the other ladies too. All the better.... there will be a better attendance. It was good for me to go and we just kind of had a planning meeting and got to know each other. You know, I have been around Christians for so long now and have really separated myself from worldly people (it's much easier) that I forget what the rest of society acts and thinks like. The homeschool group I am with has always had a Christian bent, but there is such a mix of beliefs. Catholic, baptist, lutheran, etc... They were all having a discussion about whether they were going to celebrate Halloween or not.... like some of them don't believe in going out dressed up but they will give out candy to fit into the neighborhood. And the lady that hosted the meeting.. her house was totally decked out in halloween everything.... I was shocked. I just listened and no one asked my opinion so I didn't offer it either.
Last year, Elizabeth told the lady at the pizza place that halloween was the devil's birthday.

There are a lot of younger moms in the group this year. I have been homeschooling 8 years now. Alot of them have kids that are 8 y.o and younger. I feel like I have a little bit more to offer this year in terms of advice and encouragement. There are some years I have felt like I have had absolutely nothing to offer. It was very frustrating and I didn't even want to go.

Friday, I took the kids to a playgroup called Young Knights. All the little boys were around Jesse's age and they all had swords and a couple of guns. I told Ethan to offer to be the evil black knight and let the little ones chase him around. They really didn't want to play with him much.
There were some girls there that were Elizabeth's age too. I was so glad. And I didn't hear anything bad about it after we went home either. Sometimes I get to hear how awful rebellious the girls were or that the boys were doing naughty stuff. The only thing I was upset about was that one of the boys said something to Elizabeth that she looks like bugs bunny because of her teeth and that specific boy was trying to get her with his sword. She came running over to me crying.
I told her to tell him that knights were supposed to protect the princesses not kill them. And I told her to tell him that what he said was unkind but that she forgives him. She did and that was the end of it. The boy said he was sorry to her.
We all had hot chocolate and someone had brought cupcakes for the kids. It was a nice fall day out that afternoon too. The kids both said that this was the best park they had ever been to. LOL. It was in Johnston.

This friday will be the homeschool rollerskate day. The kids always love going to that.

Ethan's history has been based around Moses and Egypt, Out of Egypt and the Ark of the Covenant, etc... it has been very interesting and I have been getting some of the videos to go along at the library. We've watched the old ten commandments movie with Charlton Heston, Prince of Egypt, Mysteries of the Bible the Lost Ark, Walk thru the Bible (that one lets you really feel what it is like), national geographic Pharao's and Pyramids, etc.... I am doing it more like a unit study with each section we study.
Today was Joshua, Rahab and Jericho.... I couldn't find ANYTHING on that so we just read and I let them all watch Veggie Tales' Josh and the Big Wall and another bible cartoon about it. Nothing real though. It's so much more faith building when there is some documentary or real video on the subject matter.

Today I did absolutely nothing except school and read my hundreds of emails I had to catch up on. No laundry, no cleaning, nothing. I didn't even check to see that the kids really did their chores. My house is a pit from the weekend cause nobody else did anything either.... absolutely nothing. I did dishes tonight from the whole weekend. We had microwave soup and popcorn for supper. How pathetic is that. Nobody complained though. LOL. Then for dessert we had leftover harvest night candy.... whoo hoo. I will be sooooo glad when that is gone!

Now you really know how it is here sometimes. :) If you come over I won't let you in!





Tomorrow night is class, so I better finish up my homework.

This might be a good halloween costume for B and Larry!

Happy Anniversary!

My Aunt was here from California since last week. She was here to see how my grandpa (her dad) was doing and check up on him and his Dr. appointments... making sure she is getting all the info she should be. Old people tend to forget to tell others things when they don't want them to know. Then they went and took care of some bank details and legal stuff. Finally.

Anyway, I finally got to go out to lunch with her yesterday. She left this a.m. to fly back.

We went to chinese buffet and then for a walk around the lake. At least I got that in for the day. I am kind of disgusted with myself lately because I haven't been getting my walking in.

Ethan has changed his schedule and Edgey has been waking him up in the morning before he leaves for work so that he will get his school done more quickly. He has been having allergy problems and sleeping late then when he gets up he can't focus on anything. It has been very frustrating for me and taking hours and hours out of the day rather than just a few in the a.m.

Since he has changed his schedule (or dad has changed his schedule), things have been going much smoother. We get the hard stuff out of the way before the other two are up and he can focus easier.

Now after saying all that, dad did not wake him up this morning. :( And I forgot to set my alarm so I woke up later than usual and I am praying it will not be an awful day. The other two are almost done with their work. I sent Eliz to go wake Ethan up, but she came back saying,"I don't think he is coming, mom." Maybe he can just do school with dad tonight then nobody will forget to wake him up. :0)

Since he gets up so early to do school now, I am missing my a.m. walk. Unless I get up at 6 a.m. to go, it is not getting done. I have a hard time getting up early... unless I wake up at 4 in the morning. The park is not open then..... Something has to change again.... as usual. Change is good, right? :-(



I did go to a Biblical Oils class last night and took my mom too. It was really interesting and there were a lot of older people there. The teacher showed how to do an actual anointing like they would have back in Old Testament times... pouring the oil over the head. She used one called Three Wise Men which had frankincense, myrrh and a couple of other oils.

Frankincense has properties that actually kill cancer cells. It also changes dna that's messed up. No wonder it was so precious back in bible times. It was used to anoint newborn kings and priests and probably why it was brought to Jesus.