Common

"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:44-47

Recently, I have been blown away by this picture of the early church. In our study of Crazy Love, today we looked at this passage and how it relates to the fellowship of the early believers. The question we must ask is, Why can't this be a description of us today? What does it look like to live in community, sharing possessions and giving to the poor as needed? 

"All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." Acts 4:32 

Do we believe that our possessions are not our own but only gifts from God? How do we grasp that truth so that it actually changes the way we look at the stuff we purchase with our own money? Being that I don't have very many possessions right now I think it would be easy to share them. But nobody is asking. It takes such a great level of trust to enter into relationship with people and genuinely live in common. It's unfortunate that this picture of the early church, if seen today in our society, would probably be described as a cult. But I don't believe it's only for cult members. It may look really weird in contrast to our consumerist, possessive society, but that's what Jesus calls us to. He calls us to a radical way of life characterized by a deep dependence on Him and each other. 

I'm ready for such a challenge. Who's with me?

Fresh Start

I was very excited last week when my grow lights finally arrived in the mail. They were delayed due to extreme weather conditions or a natural disaster. (That's what my confirmation email said!) This week has been crazy so it wasn't until this morning that I finally got one of the two light systems put together and some seeds started. 

Notice the adjustable height on the light fixture

Lettuce and Cabbage

 I have a random array of seeds. I ordered my new seeds this year from Seed Savers. They are a fabulous organization out of Iowa. I also have some leftover seeds from my last year's supply. Then we also have some  freebie seeds Dad and I got at a conference earlier this fall. 

Grow little seeds, grow!

On another note we have an official meeting scheduled for people interested in starting a community garden in Abilene! I have been attempting to make contacts with people for quite some and see what the possibilities may be. Thanks to some help from the local extension office we have a meeting scheduled for next week.  I'm also going to meet with a local board this next week to see if they might have some land to use. This is very exciting to see come together!

50 pound cake

I had a special request in my baking world. This is exciting as I would love to get more special baking and/or cooking requests to support my freelance lifestyle. I will say this was a new experiment for me and honestly, I wasn't a big fan of the layered chocolate sponge cake. I used a recipe online that is supposed to be recreation of a Chocolate Lasagna formerly created by Olive Garden. I'm a little leery of online recipes simply because anybody can post things online. I did make it and will say that it made entirely way too much cake. I ended up using about 2/3 of the entire cake in the final product and have a bunch in the freezer for who knows what later. It might not have weighed 50 pounds but it was definitely a heavy one. 

Exchange

Today I took part in a simply fabulous exchange of services. My lovely friend, Jamie, came to visit and we spent some quality time together. Sadly, I did not capture that day in photo form, but you can certainly capture our productivity by taking a look at my fabulous new blog header! She also created a banner for my Etsy shop. I'm so thankful for her experience and knowledge to create such a thing and I was happy to help her out with some sewing projects. We recreated a pair of shorts into a skirt to go with her suit. We also made a maternity looking shirt not so maternity looking. Oh and we made some fabulous soup for this cold day!


Bartering, Exchanging, Trading: All fabulous forms of doing business! 

Dinner is served.

Tofu with bok choy, shitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, green onion.

My parents weren't diggin it so much but they ate it.