Friday, August 31, 2007

The Source



This is an amazing book. I read this when my son was 7-8 months old, so when I came to the part where the people of Makor were sacrificing 6 month old first-born sons to the fiery god in order to have increased fertility in their land and their women, I had tears in my eyes. I was overwhelmed with love for my son and with thankfulness for the society we live in. I am so thankful the God I serve doesn’t ask for me to sacrifice my firstborn son. I am not sure I could do it. The women surely did not want to do it, as told of one of the women we were following. She had been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for 2 years, while all the other women around her were having children. When she finally did give birth, she was made by her husband to watch her child being rolled down the stone into the fire, and she was ordered not to utter a sound.


The book made me realize how passionate the Jews are for their unchanging religion and how they do not conform to whatever pressures the world throws at them. They have endured more pain and hardships than I can even imagine. The author, James Michener, wrote amazingly believable stories of people in each significant time period in history. The Crusades disgusted me that so-called Christians thought they had the right to brutally execute Jews because they did not believe the same about Jesus as the Christians. I had not remembered learning anything about the Spanish Inquisition – where Jews were forced to convert to Christianity or be tortured and executed. I think it is amazing how many Jews stood up for their faith and did not denounce others. Under that kind of pressure, I only hope that I would have that kind of strength.


I am so glad that I read this book. It was long, but a marvelous way to learn and understand history from cavemen times to now.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Summer Travels

I think we are done with our travels for the summer. We were going to drive up to Vancouver this past weekend, but we ended up staying here because there were a number of things happening that we wanted to be here for. We went to a pig roast at a friend's house out in the boonies on Saturday. Our friends, along with her parents, bought a very large property and fixed up a 'triple-wide' to make it their own. The home is atop a triple-wide garage, hence the name. Her parents live in an attached mobile home on the same property, while they build their house a mile down the road. They have horses so some went for rides, while the rest of us went on the hay rides around their property.

Sunday we celebrated Micah's little friend Drew's first birthday. He was really cute with his blue pointed 1st Birthday hat. He picked cautiously at his huge piece of chocolate birthday cake and didn't eat very much, but still made enough of a mess of himself so people could get those cherished photos. Unfortunately, we didn't have our camera with us.

We had been to Chelan with David's family for a nice, relaxing week at his parent's condo. David's aunt and uncle with their two grown kids and their jetski were there just for the weekend, but David's parents and us stayed for the rest of the week. It was nice and quiet and everyone could do whatever they wanted. The lake was beautiful and the weather perfect. Micah had lots of fun playing in the sand and 'swimming' in the pool. On our way home from Chelan we stopped at Leavenworth for some good ol' fashioned German festivities... and lunch.