Early Church Small Group Bible Study by Ray Vander Laan - Faith Lessons ...

        Well all-- its been since November that I've entered a blog entry.  Haven been trying to just keep up with business of retirement.  We celebrated Christmas here in our new home here in Paradise ca and it was a good one.   Still adjusting to city life but am learning to love it!  Thankful for all the many unexpected surprises and blessing that God has showered on us.   Teresa Jo cane to spend a few days at Christmas with us, and we kept busy.  Was wonderful to spend time with her.  Miss her so very much-- so I visit every 2 months. Looking forward to seeing little Jase, Eric and Nikki and Jayla this June when they are traveling thru to Hawaii for their next station.  Great spot to end their tour of duty.   

So excited to see them I just can't wait.  

Little Jase will be 2 in July!!  They are excellent parents! 

     Fast forward to early April.....we got to enjoy a fantastic visit with Kristen , Troy, Piers & Jessica for a early Easter celebration. What a grand time we had together and made some great memories!  Fun times. Was a fun opportunity to celebrate, laugh, and spend quality time with family!  It's been a few years since this has happened!   Thank you Kristen for getting down here. 

     

  

    Today we got to participate in a multi-family Garage sale with our circle of friends here!  I made 1$ and spendthrift $2.00. Didn't have a lot to sell but everyone else did and made tons of money.  We had fun all being together! 

Since last October I have been busy. Helped facilitate Daniel (Beth Moore Bible study) with Patty Burell our fearless leader!  I could focus on not much else during these weeks because we had to put on our thinking caps and had lots of homework each day!  God blessed our hearts and minds and just fully grew our group together with so much love!  It's been an amazing journey!   From those 12 weeks of study-- we proceeded to 2 weeks lecture of " Bad girls of the Bible" & "Really bad Girls of the Bible" by Liz Curtis Higgs -- she is very captivating speaker and shed a lot of wisdom and unknown details in Gods Word we had all overlooked. We then we're blessed by my friend Kathy Presyler in Siskiyou county with another Beth Moore series on "Deuteronomy" but it was a lecture series and very detailed! 

We all enjoyed the time we spendt understanding a hard book I have ad voided because I didn't understand it enough. Now I feel a little clearer on what it entailed!!!!   So after we  did those journeys we are dedicating our remaining time to putting a church library together in Pastor Art Worthingtons old office!  It's gonna be cool!... So thrilled to be apart of this church excitement.  

Been working on the evolved "Bette Bag" projects. Have made 9 of them now and probably will teach the ladies at church to do them also in May.  I do have an original idea and they turn out beautiful!  

Love the purple ones best. 

  All and all life is full and good!  Miss my family so much and love them all so dearly,,!!!! 

,love you all-- BJM.  

  

Early December. Tutorial of scrap bag

Hi everyone...this is my first tutorial for SCRAP BAGS---
  it is for everyone to learn from..but mostly Rebecca Joy---::::

Ok. Rebecca joy-- here is my explanation of my new creation called a scrap bag tote.
I am working on bag # 3 already now  ....
  first step is to create alot of scraps strips--kinda same color turns out better...make them any lenght but mine have been from 6" to 18" long--- by almost 1 inch wide..

then add to your strips by overlapping the material on the wrong side of material...  1st row is a straight stitch with the cotton string in middle of the fold.

then the first few rows are tough to go around the corner --making it a full circle around the first row--see the brown left side here...ease in the ziz zag stitch at each end..  start zig zag stitch on row 2 .
   down below is the 3rd bag I started today..each one has been a different color.
great way to use up scraps!  it takes me about 4 hours to work on these from start to finish.
put the zig zag on 4.5 and 5.5 for lenght and width of your zig zag.

down below is the corner--a tight turn --go slow.--and it will work--ease it into the turn...after row 3 or 4 it will be much easier...  you want to catch the material flap...and the new strip with the cotton string int he middle too..  if you don't catch both sides you will have weakness in the strenght of the bag.

they turn out beautiful--any design you can figure out is fun!

so that is it...good luck...any questions text me or ask by IM on FB.
                  hugs. & Prayers,
                    BJM