Life Sized Visual Aids

I am in the process of making a life sized Goliath for Bible class Sunday morning when we are going to do a lesson on David and Goliath. The 6 or so children who have begun to attend with us have never been to church or studied the Bible before. They are excited and eager each week to hear the thrilling, action packed stories from God's word. Trying to make these "real" to them, as you teachers know, can be challenging.

I have made life sized poster like Bible characters before on the computor and people have queried me as to how I have done it so I thought I would share with you how simple it is to blow an image up.

I use Print Master or Print Shop when making Bible class visual aids because of the ease of the programs and thousands of graphics available. They also are easy to import graphics from the web or your own files onto your page. Once you have the image or character that you want to "blow up", select the print feature and then select your "out put" size; ex. 200%, 300%, etc. This sets up the tiling feature where the image will now be enlarged proportionately. If you select 200% then the image will print out on four sheets of paper or cardstock--2 across and 2 down thus producing your image twice as large as normal. For Goliath, I composed the image on legal size paper and then printed it 800% thus printing Goliath on 64 (8x8) sheets of legal sized paper. Now the not so easy part comes in putting Goliath together. I now will have to piece these 64 sheets and glue them together to produce an approximately 9 ft. Goliath. (This is an ambitious project I must admit) but typically you can make poster size images by printing 200% or even 300% sized images or visual aids. Remember that your pixels may skew some when enlarging your images, but ussually this is not too much of a problem.

Try making some of your visuals life sized and watch the impact it can have on the children you teach. It can truly bring the stories to life.

If you have any questions I can help you with, please contact me by leaving a comment and your contact info and I will get back to you.

Dana Burk

From the Mouth of Babes

WOW!!!!

Yesterday was a very exciting Lord's day down here. We had a visitor from NJ at our English services which is always nice when you are as small as we are. She brought our number up to 13. But, during the middle of our Bible class people began arriving for the Spanish service. By the time the Spanish service was to begin we had 32 people in attendance. We normally have 5-7. One of the English speaking brethren (who is bi-lingual) had invited each of these people and I'm not sure how, but was able to get them all to show up at once. Two of the ladies from the English congregation who also are bi-lingual took the 5-6 children and had a Bible class with them on the spur of the moment. Everyone in both congregations was excited. What a buzz.

They all seemed genuinely glad to be there and receptive to our encouragements and the word preached. We have been praying for months for contacts, opportunities and prospects and now we have about 25 dropped in our lap including about 5 or 6 children. Please remember us in your prayers as we now follow up with these souls and pray that we may be able to teach them the gospel and bring them to Christ. As one brother said, not only do we have opportunity to teach them, but they also have friends and family.

Thank You our Great God for answered prayers.

Dana Burk

Grasping At Every Straw

We have been in Puerto Rico for almost 8 months now and teaching the gospel here has been quite a challenge. Ed, our friend, has been here about 4 months. We have had two different on-going studies with two sets of our neighbors and been able to get the English congregation that we meet with to begin meeting on Wed. evenings and start having Bible class on Sun. mornings. Lots of teaching is being done in both of these efforts, but it does seem that things are very slow.

I was talking with Ed last night and we were brainstorming about how we could make some contacts. (Tol is in Dominica preaching there for 9 days.) Today Ed told me he had had a study at Starbucks with a guy he bought his cell phone from. I shot an email off to the girlfriend of one of the sons (who is not a Christian) of one of our Spanish brethren to see if we could get together sometime next week. Truly we are grasping at every straw to try and get some things going in this very worldly environment.

As I thought about this today, I thought about how we often get so comfortable with our big churches, comfortable buildings and fellowship with "strong" brethren that we cease grasping at every straw to try and reach others for Christ. After all, we don't "need" them as desperately as we do down here in Puerto Rico. I say that tongue in cheek but I fear there is some truth in it. We must never forget that whether WE "need" them or not, THEY need God and we have the responsibility to find them.

Keep grasping at every straw to bring them in.

Dana Burk

The Old Paths

I wish the old paths were before us instead of behind us.

I liked the old paths, when
Moms were at home.
Dads were at work.
Brothers went into the army.
And sisters got married BEFORE having children!
Crime did not pay;
Hard work did;
And people knew the difference.
Moms cou ld cook;
Dads would work;
Children would behave.
Husbands were loving;
Wives were supportive;
And children were polite.
Women wore the jewelry; (now I do like my pants)
And Men wore the pants.
Women looked like ladies;
Men looked like gentlemen;
And children looked decent.
People loved the truth,
And hated a lie;
They came to church to get IN,
Not to get OUT!

Hymns sounded Godly;
Sermons sounded helpful;
Rejoicing sounded normal;
And crying sounded sincere.
Cursing was wicked;
Drugs were for illness;
And divorce was unthinkable.
The flag was honored;
America was beautiful;
And God was welcome!
We read the Bible in public;
Prayed in school;
And preached from house to house
To be called an American was worth dying for;
To be called a Christian was worth living for;
To be called a traitor was a shame!

Preachers preached because they had a message;
And Christians rejoiced because they had the VICTORY!
Preachers preached from the Bible;
Singers sang from the heart;
And sinners turned to the Lord to be SAVED!
A new birth meant a new life;
Salvation meant a changed life;
Following Christ led to eternal life.
Being a preacher meant you proclaimed the word of God;
Being a deacon meant you would serve the Lord;
Being a Christian meant you would live for Jesus;
And being a sinner meant someone was praying for you!

Laws were based on the Bible;
Homes read the Bible;
And churches taught the Bible.
God was worshiped;
Christ was exalted;
And the Holy Spirit was respected.
Church was where you found Christians
On the Lord's day, rather than in the garden,
On the creek bank, on the golf course,
Or being entertained somewhere else.
I still like the old paths the best!

"The Old Paths" was written by a retired minister who lives in Tennessee.

Another Matted Puppy

I recently started grooming dogs part-time to make a little extra income. I do it from my home on a side porch and it has been fantastic. Nobody loves animals more than me so this is quite my cup of tea.

I frequently have brought to me dogs that have been let go and their hair is so matted that the only thing left to do is to strip all the hair off and start over. Today was the worst I have ever seen. A very nervous, adult Shih Tzu was brought to me that was so matted you couldn't even find it's skin. On it's left side were two hairless places, each about the size of a half dollar, that were exposed and looked tender. The lady quickly dropped it off with instructions to "just shave it". I asked if she had had it to the vet about the sores and she said no, she would do that. I hesitantly took the dog anyway and after she left removed it from the carrier it came in and placed it on my grooming table. As I began removing the matted areas I worked very carefully around the sores. To my horror, under the matted area surrounding the sores was a huge area of raw flesh. The dog was scared and obviously in pain. I cut away what mats I could without any further clipping and called the dogs owner to tell her she needed to come and pick the dog up and take it to the vet. That was over an hour and a half ago and I am still waiting for her to return.

This incident has really disturbed me. I have often said to my husband that if people are going to have these kinds of dogs, Shih Tzus, Yorkies, Maltese, (you know the really cute fuzzy ones) then they need to take care of them and brush them occasionally. They bring them to me once every six months (or longer) and then wonder why I can't comb out all the mess. You know, isn't that what we do with our lives sometimes. We become Christians and are so zealous and excited about the new beginning, the clean slate--like that cute, clean puppy with pink skin that we bring home--and we have the best of intentions about tending to our spiritual needs on a regular basis just like we promised ourselves we would take care of that new puppy. But, as all too often happens, we get busy with things of this world: work, school, the house, kids, you fill in the blank, and we neglect our relationship with God and the mess can't be just combed out.

If we are not careful, what I saw today can happen to us as well. We can become so matted and dirty, tangled up with this world, that under all the mess that is created in our lives because of spiritual neglect are festering, putrefied sores that require emergency care and if further neglected, they can result in an infection so severe that it can kill us. Jesus is that emergency care that we all need so desperately from time to time.

Today has been a tough day in the grooming business--I also had a young Maltese puppy, 11 months old, brought to me who also was going to have to be stripped because of the mats (thankfully she was not in the same condition as the first) but the first thing this puppy did was bite as we removed it from the cage. The adult owners could not even get it out and had their 10 yr. daughter remove it. We tried to muzzle the puppy and it was much too viscous for that. Again, another case of severe neglect and lack of socialization. I had to send the puppy back home because it refused to allow me to help it. Jesus is our Good Shepherd that wants to daily tend to our needs and keep us in tip top condition if we will only submit to Him. But sometimes we are like that little Maltese that refuses to be helped.

God allows us to completely strip ourselves of the sins and entanglements of this world if we will let Him groom us each day through His Word. Don't neglect your spiritual self.

Dana Burk