Saturday, September 20, 2014

Biography of Dwight L. Moody

Here is the first biography from LIFE Camp that I will post. May you all be inspired!

Dwight L. Moody
  • He was born in Massachusetts in 1837
  • At the age of four his father died leaving a wife, seven kids and twins in the womb.
  • The children had to work on farms to earn their living and support their large family. They worked Monday to Saturday weekly.
  • Moody worked for his uncle in Boston.
  • His uncle's requirement was that Moody went to church with him. Eventually Moody became willing and often read his Bible.
  • He accepted Christ through a Mr. Gemble who (I think) was a Sunday school teacher.
  • From then on Moody fervently spread the gospel.
  • Then he moved to Chicago.
  • His two life goals were to make $100,000 (which was back then A LOT of money) and to preach.
  • In Chicago, he reached out to the street children. He rented a pew in his church and brought random street kids.
  • Eventually he was paying for four pews a Sunday.
  • He reached out to 12 year old girls and brought them to Christ.
  • Moody gave up his goal of making $100,000.
  • At the age of 23 he left his job in 1860.
  • He worked for YMCA (while it was actually Young Men's Christian Association and lived up to its name) and became a missionary.
  • Traveled to England.
  • His home was a victim of the Chicago fire in addition to his church.
  • He built another church, but yet another fire destroyed it too.
  • At the age of 54 Moody developed a terrible cough.
  • He had been preaching three times a day but four times on Sunday.
  • The doctor said that he needed to slow down or he'd die.
  • On the way back from a trip to England, his ship began to sink with both Moody and his son aboard in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. At this point Moody had been considering what the doctor had said and thinking about minimizing his preachings.
  • While aboard the sinking ship, Moody realized that God did not want him to slow down. So Moody trusted God to get him through his sinking ship and simply went to bed. Some time later his son awoke him to say that they had been rescued by another passing ship.
  • Moody continued to work hard trusting in the Lord for seven more years. Then at the age of 63 Moody died.
  • During his lifetime he had brought hundreds of people to Christ, started numerous Bible schools, etc.
  • Most of all, Moody is a great example of trusting in God even in very hard times when your life is at stake.
I hope that you all were inspired by the brief explanation of Dwight L. Moody's life. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Caption This #3

Ready for another “caption this” contest? I hope that you all have been enjoying this as much as I have! I'm going to give you all a little longer than usual to put your captions in to hopefully get more entries. Here you go...may the contest begin in: 3...2...1...GO!

Yes, that weird flying girl is me a few years back—I do have that strange side to me you know....

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Caption #2

Alrighty. After some thought I came up with a winner. Congratulations Grandma! Thanks for playing everyone! Here is the picture and caption. I will soon post your next picture to put your caption in!
I said, "Eat that hay and eat it now!" 

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

LIFE Camp 2014!

Well, even though LIFE Camp was a ways back I am still doing a post about it. I have been blessed to attend this camp for four years now. This year, as I said in an earlier post, the theme was about the Armor of God. It was very thought provoking as a new Bible teacher took one part of the armor a day and spoke about it. Also, the people in biography as well as our chapel speaker each night spoke of the same part of the armor. I would like to share each of the biographies that we learned over the next few weeks by posting about one person at a time. We studied D.L. Moody, Charlotte Diggs Moon, William Tyndale, and Pete Flemming. Also each day we learned one hymn and a brief biography about its author. Some examples are I Surrender All, Take My Life and Let it Be, and A Mighty Fortress is our God. Perhaps I will also do a weekly post for five weeks each with a hymn. I would love your input as to if you would enjoy this or not. Here is a brief explanation of what a day at camp would consist of:

We wake up at seven. (Or at least that's the set time...) A few minutes to 8:00 we raise the flag to several patriotic songs and prayer and then march on to breakfast. After that there are three classes: Biography, Bible, and a new class dubbed Discussion. (More on that in a minute.) Then there is lunch which includes mail delivery, camp and cabin cleanup, swimming, and field games. Verse memorization, snack, and two hours of free time are next. Directly after free time, we lower the flag, eat dinner, and then rush over to chapel. To end the day there are night field games, snack, and devotions. And then, one of my favorite parts of the day, lights out! (Zzzzzz)

Although we are busy, it is a good busy. Most years instead of discussion we have missionary class but I think that I enjoyed discussion better. During this time, the entire camp (boys and girls) are divided up into several small groups. We talked about the part of the armor that we studied that day in more depth depending on your age category. Biography was my personal favorite class. I enjoy learning about such influential people in the Christian faith. Studying them helps to encourage me to follow their examples and being more open to God's plan for my life.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and thoughts. I felt like I was encouraged in my walk. I had a super cabin and superb counselor. As a cabin we got into great discussions and truly had a blast. Sorry that I don't have any pictures but again thank you all very much!

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Caption This #2

Ok, so here is your next picture to caption. The man in the picture is our family friend who gave us our horse and taught us a lot about horsemanship. Hope you guys have fun. At the end of this week I will post my favorite. God bless you all!