Friday, March 27, 2009

Fun with the Balogh's!!

Our few weeks ago our family had the blessing of
spending the afternoon at a precious family's home,
the Balogh Family. It was a precious time...from
puzzles to basketball, coloring to croquet, and a
wonderful dinner, too!!! Thanks to this wonderful
family for a great afternoon!!! We love you all!!!

 

 

 

 
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Fun with the Balogh's!!

 

 

 

 
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Fun with the Balogh's!!

 

 

 

 
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The Way of the Master

Our family has had the honor of hosting the Way of the Master
evangelism course for Jess and some of her friends. Our family
has really been blessed so far by this experience. Here are some
pics of some of the precious attendees!!!


 

 

 

 
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tract of the Week!!

Peter Francisco Day is March 15!!!

Peter Francisco: A One Man Army



"Without him we would have lost two crucial battles, perhaps the War, and with it our freedom. He was truly a One-Man Army." George Washington

And we know that all things: work together for good to them that love God. To them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28


The principle that all things work together for good can sometimes be so painful to understand. Imagine that you are a father of a 4-5 year old boy who is suddenly kidnapped and you will never see him again. You will never know that his efforts helped forge a nation that was to be built on biblical principals. This is where our story begins:

On the morning of June 23, 1765, a ship dropped anchor in the James River at City Point, now a part of Hopewell, Virginia. A longboat was lowered in the water, and two sailors rowed it to the wharf where they deposited a young boy. The sailors left and the ship immediately slipped back down the river. Soon after Peter Francisco arrived in the New World. Peter was found sitting on a dock. The boy was 5 years old and large for his age. He had olive-skin with black hair and dark eyes, which revealed an engaging manner despite his predicament. He spoke a foreign language mixed with French, or Spanish -- and kept repeating the name "Pedro Francisco."

The town fathers found an unused bed in a dock warehouse, housewives arranged for him to be well fed and the old watchman on the wharf guarded him at night. As the story of Peter Francisco's mystifying appearance spread, Judge Anthony Winston, an uncle of famed orator Patrick Henry, investigated. As to Peter�s beginnings he liked the boy and took him, as an indentured servant, to his sprawling plantation on the old Lynchburg�Richmond stage road. Winston loved him like a son the young giant who could do the work of three men, and planned to adopt him formally.

In the spring of 1775, he took Francisco with him to Richmond for a meeting of the Virginia Convention in St. John's Church. Francisco was outside listening through an open window when, on March 23, Patrick Henry delivered his impassioned speech that ended in the declaration, "Give me liberty, or give me death!� Tempers flared as delegates hotly debated the colony's relationship with Great Britain. Young Peter contributed to the excitement when he broke up one tavern dispute by lifting the combatants into the air and banging them together until they ceased their argument. In adulthood Peter was destined to attain the height of six-feet-six-inches--nearly a foot taller than the average man at the time--and weighed at least 260 pounds. Already of surpassing stature by his early teens, the youth was instructed in the brawny trade of blacksmithing--an obvious calling for a person of his size and amazing strength. Peter was ready right there to take up arms against the British oppressors, but Judge Winston prevailed upon him to wait. Though Peter was large enough to go to war, he was not quite old enough. In 1776 Winston relented, and at the age of sixteen Peter enlisted with the 10th Virginia regiment as a private.

Francisco received his first taste of action in September 1777 at Brandywine Creek in neighboring Pennsylvania. General Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, attempted to halt the advance toward Philadelphia of some 12,500 British troops under the command of General William Howe.

Outflanked by Howe, the Americans suffered a defeat in the ensuing battle, and Washington's army was forced into a disorderly retreat. The regiment of which Francisco was a member held the line at a narrow defile called Sandy Hollow Gap for a crucial forty-five minutes. This allowed the rest of the force to withdraw and preventing an all-out rout. The young soldier suffered a gunshot wound to his leg during this hard-fought rear-guard action.

While convalescing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Peter encountered the Marquis de Lafayette, who as a twenty-year-old major general in Washington's Army also had been wounded in the fray. Their vast differences in rank notwithstanding, the two young men recuperated together and reportedly became friends.

Francisco was with the troops at Fort Mifflin on Port Island in the Delaware River from late October to mid-November. This post was abandoned under ferocious British shelling, forcing the defenders into the wintry hell of Valley Forge, where Francisco was hospitalized for two of those agonizing months.
Francisco fought at Monmouth (near present-day Freehold, New Jersey)on June 28,1778. A musket ball tore into his right thigh, leaving a wound that bothered him for the rest of his life.

On July 15-16, 1779 the young Goliath took part in the daring surprise attack led by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne on Stony Point. During the attack Francisco suffered his third wound of the war, a nine-inch gash in the stomach, but that didn't stop him from killing three enemy grenadiers and capturing the enemy's flag. After recuperating in Fishkill, New York, the wounded warrior bided his time with the troops in various locations until December 1779. Then his three-year tour of duty expired and he returned to Virginia.

During the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780 Francisco achieved one of his most shining moments. Overtaken and surrounded by the enemy during the panicked American retreat, the lad speared a British cavalryman with a bayonet, hoisted him from his horse, and then, climbing onto the steed himself, escaped through the enemy line by pretending to be a Tory sympathizer. Catching up with his fleeing comrades, he gave the mount to his colonel, thereby saving the exhausted officer's life.

Next, seeing that one of two American cannons was being left behind, Peter--as the story has it--crouched beneath the 1,100-pound gun, lifted it from its carriage and onto his shoulder, and carried it off the field to prevent its falling into enemy hands. Some historians have questioned whether such a feat is possible, but during the American bicentennial celebrations of 1975-76 the U.S. Postal Service honored him with a stamp. No wonder that, by the time of this battle, Peter had acquired the reputation as the strongest man in America.

Benson Lossing reported in his 1850 Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, Francisco, a brave Virginian, cut down eleven men in succession with his broadsword. One of the guards pinned Francisco's leg to his horse with a bayonet. Forbearing to strike, he assisted the assailant to draw his bayonet forth, when, with terrible force, he brought down his broadsword and cleft the poor fellow's head to his shoulders!Despite his latest wound, Francisco did not leave the battle. In one final assault against the British he killed two more of the enemy before receiving a bayonet thrust "in his right thigh the whole length of the bayonet, entering above the knee and coming out at the socket of his hip." As his comrades retreated, the fallen cavalryman was left for dead on the field. A Quaker named Robinson is said to have taken Francisco to his home and cared for him until he healed. Eventually his career of terrorizing British troops ended. He was granted, however, the supreme satisfaction of being present when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.


Peter then returned to Richmond and received an education. He married Susannah Anderson and had a son and daughter before his wife died in 1790. Catherine Brooke became Peter's second wife in 1794, and two years after her death in 1821 (they had three sons and one daughter) he married Mary Grymes West, the widow of Major West, a Virginia planter. Peter Francisco passed away, apparently from appendicitis, on January 16, 1831. Many other stories have been told of this giant of a man, but I hope we never forget his courage to fight for freedom in the American Revolution.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Guess Who??

Just for fun, we thought we'd post some old family pictures
for everyone to guess who they think the pictures are of.
See if you can get them all correct!!

 


 


 


 
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Sunday, March 1, 2009

Joseph Lister: God's Surgeon.

Joseph Lister

And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee. Exodus 15:26

Born on April 5, 1827 in Upton, Essex, Joseph Lister was the son of the British physicist Joseph Jackson Lister. Joseph Lister perfected the Compound Microscope and shared the credit with Dr. Thomas Hodgkin of being first to describe the true shape of a red blood cell.
After an early education at several Quaker schools he entered University College, London. After studying the arts he graduated and decided to take up medicine at the same college. He enrolled in the faculty of medical science in October 1848. During this time he was taught by physiologist William Sharpey, known as one of the greatest surgical teacher of his day. Lister was a brilliant student and graduated with honors in 1852.
In October 1856 he was appointed as an assistant surgeon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, to James Syme, who's daughter he later married. The marriage, although unable to have children, was a happy one. He had his wife along side him and she was a great part of his professional life.

While a professor at Glasgow Infirmary, Lister pioneered many new surgical techniques and instruments. Some of these include:

A hook to remove small objects from the ear

The Screw Tourniquet

Sinus forceps

Rubber drainage tube for use during surgery

During the middle of the nineteenth century, post-operative sepsis infection accounted for the death of almost half of the patients undergoing major surgery. A common report by surgeons was: The operation was successful but the patient died.
In 1839 the chemist Justin von Liebig had asserted that sepsis was a kind of combustion caused by exposing moist body tissue to oxygen. It was therefore considered that the best prevention was to keep air away from wounds by means of plasters.
Lister doubted Justin von Liebig's explanation. For many years he had explored the inflammation of wounds at the Glasgow infirmary. These observations had led him to consider that infection was not due to bad air alone and that 'wound sepsis' was a form of decomposition.
Between 1861 and 1865 in Lister's Male Accident Ward, 45 to 50 percent of his amputation cases died from sepsis. It was in this ward that Lister began his experimental work with antisepsis.
In 1865, Louis Pasteur observed that decay was caused by living organisms (Germs) in the air, which on entering matter caused it to ferment. Lister made the connection with wound sepsis.

A researcher and surgeon, Lister recognized the relationship between Pasteur's research and his own. He considered that germs in the air were likely causing the putrefaction and had to be destroyed before they entered the wound.
The previous year Lister had heard that carbolic acid' was used to treat sewage in Carlise and as a result certain fields were freed of a parasite causing disease in cattle. Lister now began to clean wounds and dress them using a solution of carbolic acid. He was able to keep his wards free of Sepsis for over nine months. When he reported his findings to a British Medical Association meeting in 1867, his findings initially met with indifference and hostility.
Years earlier in 1844 in Austria, a woman went into the Great Vienna Hospital to have her baby. One mother out of every five died of child-bed fever. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, set out to find why. In those days no one knew about bacteria and while the existence of "germs" was suspected it was merely a theory. Semmelweis noticed that after examining the dead patients the young doctors would then examine the living and never considered washing their hands between examinations. With great opposition Dr. Semmelweis insisted they wash their hands after each patient and the death rate dropped to almost zero. Sadly, Dr. Semmelweis was dismissed and the old practice continued along with the awful death rate.
In life, Lister was a shy, unassuming man and deeply religious. He joined the Scottish Episcopal Church as a young man. He was firm in his purpose, humbly believing himself to be directed by God. He was uninterested in social success or financial reward.
The woman he married was not a Quaker, so Lister had to leave the Quaker Society. He faithfully attended the Scottish Episcopal Church the rest of his life. A man of true Christian character, no one ever heard him raise his voice in anger. If ever he did anything to give offense, he was quick to apologize. He said of himself, "I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity." He told a graduating class: "It is our proud office to tend the fleshly tabernacle of the immortal spirit, and our path, if rightly followed, will be guided by unfettered truth and love unfeigned. In pursuit of this noble and holy calling I wish you all God-speed."
The following are a few of the Biblical principals that were consistent with what the medical field needed but did not realize how they could have saved thousands of lives.

Health and Sanitary Practices
Found in Scripture

Wound, Skin, and Discharge Precautions

Leviticus 15:2-11, 17:11

Postpartum Precautions

Leviticus 12:2-3

Burial Precautions

Numbers 19:11, 14-16,19,22

Leviticus 11:24-28, 40

Isolation and Quarantine

Leviticus 13:1-14:57

Numbers 5:2-4

Deuteronomy 23:10

Waste Disposal

Deuteronomy 23:12-14

Leviticus 11:33, 13:47-58, 15:12

Several years ago a man wondered if he could improve sanitation conditions and use the above scriptures to help. Later he built a sanitation plant based on these scriptures that is considered one of the best in the nation.

Conclusion

God's word tells us that there is no wisdom or counsel that will contradict his word (Proverbs 21:30). In any area God's word has something to say about it.
What about the most important decision one will make in his life time? Where will I spend eternality?

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. I John 5:13

Written by Steven Graves.

One Year Ago...

Psalm 3:5...
I laid me down and slept, I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.

February 29, 2008, was a day that we will never forget as a family. It was on
that day that our world seemed to stop, but the rest of the world contiue to flow. Ever feel like you are in a balloon...floating here and there...tossed about...

It was on that day that we were informed that I had cancer. Not just cancer, but the type that is aggressive and can spread to other parts of your body. We were devastated to say the least. It was a Friday...the doctor made us an appointment with a specialist for the next Monday...only 3 days away, but it seemed an eternity.

Thru God's grace and the prayers of many loving people, we made it thru that long weekend. Monday came, peace was over us in such a great way that we almost fell asleep while waiting for our appointment time with the doctor!! It's amazing what prayer can do. The doctor was awesome...gave us hope...see you in 3 weeks for your surgery and we'll go from there. He felt we caught it early.

Now, here we are...one year since the diagnosis and I am eternally grateful and humbled by the God that I serve. He has sustained me. He has allowed me to live. He has healed my body since the surgery...so far so good in the area of no more cancer.

I look around me at precious loved one's who have not been so fortunate. Oh, how my hearts breaks for them and their families. The depths of me is so grateful, yet so sorrowful for the pain they and their families are going thru. God is with you...allow Him to continue to carry you thru it all.

Not a day goes by that I don't think back to what happened one year ago. I want to be a testimony to the Lord in all that I do. I want the love of the Lord to flow from me to others as an act of gratefulness for what He has done, is doing and is going to do thru my life.

I am so grateful for a strong husband and precious children who walked that walk with me. Also, for precious friends who prayed and ministered to us thru that time. Thank you to all of you...you know who you are!! You are loved.

The Lord sent me a little angel on the Monday appointment with the specialist back in 2008. He let me know that I would be fine and that I would live to see my grandchildren. He also sent me a little angel today...both of these angels were older gentlemen...the one today shared with me that he had prostate cancer and is now clear of it...then his lungs were full of blood clots...three days later, he walked out of the hospital and today he is volunteering at the Strawberry Festival...and he is looking wonderful. He said..."I told the Lord if it is my time, so be it...if not, help me keep going!!" The Lord is sustaining each day of his life as he lives for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!!! Praise the Lord!!!

My prayer is that as you read this post, you will be encouraged to love those around you fervently. Be grateful for each and every day. But, MOST IMPORTANTLY...Love the Lord, serve Him and always be grateful for everything He has given you!!!

With Much Love and Humbleness of Heart...
Tracy