Carney's preparations for serving in South America

Thanks for checking out our blog! Here is where we'll chronicle the "learning opportunities" God provides for us as we seek His will in partnering full-time with Christian Veterinary Mission in Bolivia

28 December 2011

The Contagion of Christ

One of our friends shared with me an incredible Christmas gift!  Since then I have passed it along to my sister in law, David, and who knows how many others! What was this great gift? A cold, of course.
As I see people infected, I wonder how infective is our Christianity? Is our joy as profuse as our germs?
Is hand sanitizer the equivalent of indifference or the devil stopping our enthusiastic spread?
During this time of cold and flu season we are acutely aware of our actions.  We wash our hands until they are chapped, use gallons of hand sanitizer and cover our coughs.  Are we this conscientious about our faith? I challenge you (and me) to spread the joy of the Lord with abandon. We should be like the leper in Mark 1:45 who "went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news"!  Let our joy and peace be as evident as our red, runny noses and our proclamations of His sovereignty as fervent as our coughing!

Oh, and if you find yourself with physical sickness, remember that Jesus gave his disciples "authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness" Matthew 10:1 You will get better eventually, in the meantime let your sickness remind you of how to spread the gospel!

14 December 2011

Advent!

'Tis the season of Advent!  For you Latin nerds: ad=to; vent=come.  So, the season "to come."  A season of preparation.  You all think I am talking about Christmas?  Well, yes, that and our preparations for all our future amazement.  You may hear this again soon, but it is such a perfect analogy.
How are you preparing to celebrate the Lord's great gift to us?  I'd love to hear some of your traditions of advent.  Caleb and I are working on some Latin prayers and reading different prophesies and accounts of Jesus' birth in school.  We've not had the myth of the bearded guy in many years since Caleb's Papa Carney is a ringer, so it is easy for us to focus on the deeper meaning of Christmas.
Caleb and Papa Carney 3 years ago!
Our Bible study tonight focused on Joy.  We shared storied of all the stereotypical events that bring us joy, but realized how we overlook the joy in everyday life.  Remembering that joy is not always the same as happiness, I challenge you to seek to remember joy can be found in every circumstance.

How is our advent? We just submitted our first prayer letter to be sent out the first week or two of January.  We've been gathering and validating addresses and other contact info so someone actually gets these letters!
David is nearly finished with this semester, so that is quite a relief.  Hopefully he will be finished this Spring--pray with us that some of his life experience credits will be applied ASAP so he can drop some of his classes for the spring!
Our house is getting a bit empty as we sell and pack away our things, but no-one has looked at it lately.  We listed 2 weeks ago with Heartland Realty, so hopefully we'll have some interest soon. 

I hope you all have a joyous celebration of the birth of Christ, our Immanuel!

06 December 2011

Photo Card

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Cheerful Christmas invitations for your friends and family.
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