We believe that the ten commandments God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai are just as relevant today as they were when Yahwh first gave them, including the fourth commandment: Exodus 20: 8-11 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahwh your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days Yahwh made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore Yahwh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
Every Friday we do a little extra work to prepare for the weekly Sabbath. We cook a little extra so that we don't have to cook on the Sabbath and we clean a little extra in the hopes that it will stay clean a little longer. For fun, we shot some video of us as we are preparing and we put it to music. The meat on the pizza is beef not pork :) Don't forget to watch the Bloopers after the credits :)
The original song and video were produced by Shabbat Across America.
If you get this post emailed to you, you won't see the video. So, click on this link and it will take you to the video. Click here Mom - Brendemuhl's Shabbat
Okay, I made a video of Abigail when she turned 16 and it came out very nice so I fully intended to make one for Deborah too when she turned 16, however... I have a good excuse, Deborah turned 16 while we were on the road returning from Israel. So, here it is 9 months later... she is still 16 :) Oh well it's worth the wait. She's such a beautiful young lady with such a sweet spirit. She's definitely the nurturer in the family.
I can't believe we have a child who is 18! Where has the time gone? She was just a baby... Now she is a beautiful young lady that loves Yhwh with all her heart. She has grown so much even in this last year.. she has been a joy to be with and I love watching her mature.
It was a beautiful day, so we were outside until the bugs got bad.
Deborah and Anna made all the decorations and the piniata.
Paul watching Abigail blow out her candles.
Lavonne's Grandmother, Cheda Mary, at Abigail's party.
A few days after Abigail's birthday, it was a gorgeous day. Grandma Effie was here so we took her across the lake and up the Tazimina River. Abigail, Deborah and I paddled rubber kayaks across the lake. Paul gave us a ride up the river after he dropped his load as the current was swift.
The birthday girl jumping into the freezing cold water.
Deborah
Quentin
Joshua
Abigail and Deborah helping the little kids across the river.
Paul visiting on a log with his mom, Grandma Effie.
Anna practicing her volleyball.
Momma bear and two cubs.
The kids waded and played until a bear and her two cubs showed up about 300 yards upstream. The kids decided they'd swum enough.
Paddling downstream in the kayaks was great fun.
The video below is from the boat while Paul is taking us upstream. You can see salmon swimming around us. They have already turned red so they look like big goldfish. I also tacked on a clip of the momma bear showing up with her two cubs. You can hear the excitement in our voices.
We made a video of me helping Benjamin, 5 years old at the time, tie his tzit tzit. He made all four of them and we had a fun time doing it.
Numbers 15:37-41 says, Again the LORD (Yhwh) spoke to Moses, saying,"Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD (Yhwh) and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God. I am the LORD (Yhwh) your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD (Yhwh) your God."
Because the Bible doesn't give us specific instructions on how to make our tassels (in Hebrew it's tzit tzit, singular and tzitziot plural), I believe we are free to be creative as long as they have a blue thread. Here is how Benjamin made his:
Cut 3 threads of any color 24 inches long. Cut a blue thread 30 inches long. The longer blue thread should be even with the other threads at one end. Make a loop about an inch and a half long in the top (this can be braided) and tie a square knot. Take the longer blue thread and wrap it around the others ones. Benjamin wrapped it 10, 5, 6, and 5 times with a square knot between each set. These numbers correspond to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet that spell God's name, Yhwh, Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey. Instead of just wrapping the threads, you can make the longer blue thread even with itself and then tie macrame half knots. This causes the blue thread to make a cool spiral. If you do that, make your blue thread a little longer, about 32 inches. After he finished all four tassels, Benjamin cut the ends so they were even.
I like to think of tzitziot as God's version of WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelets. The New Testament refers to Jesus wearing them and God Himself tells us to wear them to remind us to do what He wants us to.
The song in the background was written and sung by David Martin, Davidsinstrumentsofpraise.com
It's taken from Psalms 119:165-166.
Shalom Have They Which Love Thy Torah
Shalom have they which love Thy Torah
Nothing shall offend them at all
Yahuwah I have longed for Thy Yeshua (salvation)
And done Thy Mitsvah! (Commandment)
Yeshua, Yeshua, He is our hope
Yeshua, Yeshua, He is our joy
And in Him does rest
All our hope of redemption!
Every year during the month of July the Red Sockeye Salmon stream past the lake in front of our home. They were born here four to eight years ago and left to make their way to the Pacific Ocean. When they are full grown they swim through Bristol Bay, up the Kvijack River into Lake Iliamna, then up the Newhalen River and into Six Mile Lake where we live. The fish that make it past the thousands of fisherman trying to catch them find the spot they were born and lay their eggs and then they die. Up until that point they are silver on the outside and their meat is a deep red. Before they die they turn a deep red and their meat turns almost white. They are one of the healthiest things you can eat and we praise Yhwh for his provision for us.
Getting the jars ready for the salmon
Sometimes we put our net out right in front of our house and sometimes we take it a ways down the river.
Abigail gutting the salmon
Everyone helps as we catch and process the salmon.
Deborah cutting the salmon to fit them into jars.
The seagulls eat well during the salmon run
The fishbox keeps the salmon nice and cold as we process them.
We (mostly Abigail) put together some video clips so you can see all the fun we had catching and processing our salmon this year. Enjoy!
The Martin's came to house sit for us 3 1/2 years ago when we went to town to have baby Sarah. They decided to stay and join our fellowship. It has been a wonderful time of friendship and spiritual growth for both our families. Now they feel that Yhwh is moving them on to the next step. They're moving to Wasilla and we will sorely miss them. Below they are packing up the plane to leave.
Teri, Gilana, and Kinsey
One of the most obvious ways we will miss the Martin's is in our worship and fellowship time. David, their oldest son and a wonderful musician, has been leading our worship. We have enjoyed the times of worship and are always excited to hear his latest new song. We have learned so much from him and we are very grateful for the time he spent teaching us to play better.
Before he left we recorded our worship time. The first song below we learned while we were in Israel. Lavonne is running the slideshow of words with one of my favorite freeware programs http://www.zionworx.org.uk/
The first clip is from Yariv Goldman's song "Ma Yedidot". It's in Hebrew. We've all been studying Hebrew and my favorite way to learn is by learning worship songs.
The second clip is "Be Thou My Vision" by
Dallán Forgaill
Already the kids are stepping up to fill David's shoes. While Paul and the big kids were gone last week, Anna & Joshua volunteered to lead our worship time and they did a good job.
Well my good intentions of starting to post again haven't lasted long now that we're home. Everyday things aren't quite as exciting as traveling to Israel:) But we have done quite a few fun things this month.
Our High School and Jr. High teams played against some of the teachers and adults in town including Mom and Dad. It was a fun game but they had a little size on us. First Half - https://vimeo.com/38132335 Second Half - https://vimeo.com/38879503
On a normal year we can drive our truck across the ice and down to Iliamna but this year we've almost broken the snow fall record in Anchorage and there is too much snow to get past fish camp. Since we couldn't drive our truck down, we drove snow machines and 4 wheelers across the lake. Mr. Clark came up from Iliamna to fish camp and picked us and a couple more people from town up with their van and drove us all down to watch Dennis Agajanian.
He is an amazing guitar player who has toured with Johnny Cash and now works with Samaritan's Purse touring around villages.
We had family fun night at the community building to raise money for the carnival .
It was a fun night filled with speed scrabble, but no good pictures.
(The boys weren't into scrabble so much.)
Last week, Dad and the four oldest kids spent most of the week in Anchorage watching state basketball and helping some friends get a cabin ready to live in.
We were a little crowded in the plane.
Mt. Redoubt steaming.
Newhalen and Aniak boys both made it again and Newhalen won this time! Yay, one championship for each of them. I think they could have easily got first and second again but being as how they don't seed the 1A teams they ended up playing each other first. That ended up being the best game of the tournament and they easily won the rest of their games but with a loss the first night the best Aniak could do was 4th.
Newhalen and Ft. Yukon captains.
Aniak warming up. All the yellow warmups are their seniors. They're going to lose half their team next year!
4th place game. Aniak rather ran away with this game. All the non-starters got to play. Go Andy! Go John! :)
The Newhalen and Aniak girls also made it to state and also played each other first and the Newhalen girls also won the championship!! It was a big week for Newhalen. It was a little scary to watch the Newhalen girls. They had a tendency to get behind in the first quarter then come back and win at the end. It made for exciting games though:)
Newhalen vs. Aniak
The Martins are in the process of moving to Wasilla and living in Ms. Regina's cabin. Ms. Regina only lives there for a couple weeks in the summer so there was a lot of snow to be shoveled and monitor wasn't working so in between games we were up there working getting it ready for them to move.
There was LOTS of snow. We're talking record breaking snowfall here and a super long drive way.
Dad working on the monitor.
Plus all that, we've had just normal everyday things doing on.
Hazel and Sarah helping Deborah cook.
Caleb and Hazel doing school.
Dog pile on Dad.
Going fishing in the living room.
We've also had a few birthdays but I'll save those for later.
So, I think this has been the coldest winter since we've lived here, and I'm not just saying that because I'm used to 70 degree weather:) It's been around -20 the whole time. Normally it's only that cold for a week or two :P
The cold makes for some pretty pictures though.
Nondalton all covered with snow.
A couple days after we got back Ms. Regina had us all over for supper. We taught everyone some of the new dances we learned.
We had our first Shabbat at home in four months.
Quentin made a very cool Yeshua menorah.
When we got home our water was frozen then a week later our power was out all day. The joys of winter in Alaska. (cooking takes longer on the wood stove)
During the school year we baby sit a little girl for two of the teachers. She has gotten so big since the last time we saw her!! The little boys and Sarah love playing with her (and giving her mohawks).
It took her a little while to decide she likes the swing being as how her head is at the perfect height to get hit by it every time she walks by.
Sarah and the little boys are getting used to bringing the wood in everyday again.
A one day stomach flu has taken our family by storm, picking us off two or three at a time, well all except for me:) Now I'll get sick since I wrote that :P It's funny how different everyone is when they're sick. Sarah was one of a group of three that got sick one night. She just calmly says she has to throw up then finds "her" bucket and gets sick. Benjamin stays asleep the whole time and you have to practically hold him over the bucket. Caleb and David freak out and call for their mommy. While we were in Israel we all got whooping cough. I was the first one to get it and being as how it's called the 100 day cough I should be getting over it next week. Yay, I'm happy. Maybe I'll be able catch my breath during basketball practice:)
I made another movie out of our video clips from our trip back to Alaska. It shows us visiting friends and family in the lower 48 and traveling through Canada.
