"Leap" Of Faith

Today is Leap Day. I went out and googled it to find out exactly why we do this every 4 years. I could go into a long and detailed story why it is done, but basically it is just to keep our seasons in line with the with the sun while we travel around and around it. A true year is exactly 365.24219 days. The .24219 doesn't seem like it would make much of a difference, but over the course of centuries, this would get so screwed up, we'd be observing Easter on Jan 1!! So, every 4 years, we make an adjustment to the calendar, adding Feb. 29.

Happy birthday to all you Leap Year folks. According to the US census, there are approx. 200,000 people who have birthdays on Leap Year. Party til you drop, you Leap Year babies, you won't get to celebrate again for another 4 years!!

How about taking a "Leap Of Faith" today. Do something for God that you wouldn't normally do. Go visit someone that you haven't seen for a long time. Call your elderly grandma or grandpa in the nursing home. Take someone out for lunch and have a good visit. Be creative. You'll be glad you did.

Happy Leap Day. We'll visit about it again in 4 years!!

De Colores

MHS Girls Basketball

Congratulations to the MHS girls basketball team for winning their first round substate game last night! To make it even sweeter, they beat their rivals to the west (Hillsboro Trojans) by a score of 67-55. Many times during the game, you would see 3 or 4 sophomores on the court for the Lady Warriors, so the future looks bright.

Last night's game was a landmark. It was the last home varsity basketball game for Marion High School in the old "Marion Square Garden" (by the way, I came up with that name several years ago doing broadcasts on MCTV, and it is commonly used in the community). Our new gymnasium and indoor swimming pool is slated ot be completed by the first of June. The volleyball and basketball games will all be played in the new facility this fall. How exciting!!

Keep up the good work girls!! You showed the boys last night how to play as a team. Good luck Friday!!

De Colores

Me vs We

Well, the basketball season for MHS mercifully came to an end last night with a first round substate loss to Sedgwick. All season long, the Warriors had a hard time coming together as a team. They just never seemed to gel. They had some real individual talent and potential, but they never could put it all together.

I'm not a real fan of basketball, and certainly I'm no expert, but it looked to me like there were too many individuals on the court, and not enough teammates. It looked like they had the "me vs we" syndrome.

Unfortunately, we as adults to often fall victim to the same syndrome. Our society is trying it's best to create a generation of "me first" people. Get ahead, no matter what the cost. Look after numero uno. I deserve it.

Jesus was our best example of how to avoid this. In Matthew 16:24 he says "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Deny myself? Yeah, right!! After all, it's all about ME!! Yet that's exactly what he asks us to do. Think of others first.

In the Emmaus community, one of the phrases that is used a lot is "It's not about me, it's about Christ". If we could only carry this attitude with us each day, what a better world we would live in!!

De Colores

Friday!!

In the immortal words of Paul Harvey, "IT'S FRIDAY!!"

And in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, "AND THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT..."

Have a great weekend.

De Colores

MHS JV Basketball

Last night Brian played in what is probably (hopefully) his last JV basketball game for MHS. Unfortunately, they lost quite badly to Hesston. Not a good way to end the season. All in all, they had a respectable 10 wins 9 loss season. They were in virtually every game, and had a chance to win almost every one of the games they lost. They played quite a few teams with several Juniors on them.

Brian's highlight of the season came two games ago when he scored a career high 26 points against Wichita Collegiate! He gained a lot of valuable experience on JV this year, and combined with some limited action with the varsity, he is looking forward to the next couple of years playing varsity basketball for MHS. They will be playing the inaugural games in the brand new gym this next fall, so that's exciting.

With the cold wet winter we've been having, it's hard to imagine that baseball season is only a couple of weeks away!!

De Colores

Honor

Today is Valentine's Day!! It's a day that we men try to show our special gal how much we love her and appreciate her. Some of us do a pretty good job, and others, well, good luck to you at the end of the day!!

If there is one word that I can think of to sum up how we men should treat our wives, it's got to be "HONOR". Webster uses terms like "a showing of respect" and "one whose worth brings respect". A synonym for honor is "REVERENCE". It is defined as "profound respect mingled with love, devotion or awe". Wow, I couldn't sum it up any better. If I could just treat my wife with love, devotion and awe all the time, what an unbelievable marriage we would have.

Romans 12:10 says "Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other". Lori and try try to do this each and every day. We try to be sensitive to each other's physical, spiritual and emotional needs. I try to make her my priority in my life. We have found that if we honor each other as not only husband and wife, but also as individuals, our love for each other can't help but grow. What a wonderful revelation it was when we realized this! In a sense, each day becomes "Valentine's Day"!!

Happy Valentine's Day honey, I love you very much!!

Shatter Cane and Weeds

I got to talking with one of my farmer friends a couple of days ago, and we were reminiscing on the subject of "the good old days" when I was growing up on the farm. One of the things we were talking about was the practice of sending us young boys out to the milo and soybean fields to clean out the shatter cane and weeds. The shatter cane in the milo was easy to get rid of, as all you had to do was take a machete' or a knife and lop off the head of it before it filled out with grain. As long as the head was gone, the plant was rendered useless, and it no longer posed a threat to the milo crop.

Weeds in a soybean field however, where a whole different deal. Yes, you could chop the weed up into pieces, but the chances were pretty good that with a little rain, it would sprout back up from the ground and grow again. Too many weeds significantly lowered the yield of the bean crop. The only way to totally eradicate the weed was to pull it out, roots and all.

It got me to thinking about the "weeds" and "shatter cane" in my life. There are some things that I find easy to lop off and clean up in my life, but there are other things that I find I have to work really hard to eradicate. Things like jealousy, anger, envy, forgiveness, etc. These are the "weeds" in my life. If I just try and chop them up a little and then go on with my life, they seem to keep coming back and choke me out from being the kind of Christian that God wants me to be.

I always wondered what the useful value of all that time I spent chopping and pulling weeds in the field was, now I know. You never know where life's lessons will come from!!

De Colores

Lent

Today is the first day of Lent. It is 40 days of fasting and prayer leading us up to Easter. It is a time for us to reflect on our lives, repent for our sins, and think of the unbelieveable gift of salvation that God offered through the sacrifice of His one and only son Jesus Christ.

I didn't realize this, but 40 is a significant time period in the bible. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert being tempted by Satan. He resisted Satan and his temptations, and after Satan left, Jesus began His ministry. Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sanai with God. Elijah spent 40 days and nights walking to Mount Horeb. God made it rain for 40 days and nights in the great flood of Noah's time. The people of Israel wandered the wilderness for 40 years while waiting to enter the promised land. Jonah gave the people of Nineveh 40 days in which to repent and save their City. There is also a traditional belief that Jesus lay in His tomb for 40 hours.

Tonight, we will use ashes to symbolize the destruction, brokenness, and desolation of our lives without God. The ashes will be placed in the form of a cross on our foreheads to remind us that Christ died to give us hope and restoration of our souls through our belief in Him.

Will I "give up" anything for Lent? I don't know. I do know that I want to try and spend a little time each day reflecting on the wonderful gift that was given to us in Jesus, His life, His death and His resurrection.

De Colores

Crazy Kansas Weather - Again!!

Let's see, how many seasons can occur in Kansas in a 48 hour period? Yesterday (Monday) afternoon, the sky was clear and the temperature was a balmy, spring-like 65 degrees. Early this morning, we had thunderstorms rumble through, producing rain, hail and some sleet. By this afternoon, we are supposed to get 3 - 5 inches of snow. How ridiculous is that???? Only in Kansas!!

Congrats to Brian's MHS Junior Varsity basketball team for reaching the championship game of the Hillsboro JV tournament. They are seeded 6th out of 8 teams, and beat the number 2 and 3 seed teams this past Saturday. They will play for the hardware this coming Saturday.

5 more games left in the regular season for MHS basketball, where did the time go? It is such a long season, beginning in November, and finishing up the end of February. I am a terrible basketball fan, I get so frustrated when shots don't fall, dumb turnovers are made, leads are lost, and officiating is terrible. I have made it my goal this year to work on keeping my mouth shut during games and not embarassing my son. Just when I think I've finally got my emotions under control, one of the above things happens, and I find myself jumping up out of my seat, eyes bulging, neck veins popping, and yelling at players/coaches/officials, etc. I am so pathetic....Maybe I should work on it during lent. After all, baseball season is just around the corner....SIGH.

De Colores