Tag Archives: Education

International Woman’s Day

Posted in Canada, Family, Healing, Motherhood, My thoughts, Nations, Nature by

It’s International Woman’s Day today, the day aimed to help nations worldwide eliminate discrimination against women. It also focused on helping women gain full and equal participation in global development, according to what I read this morning.  

The Duchess of Sussex at her last engagement in London as a Royal spoke about the need for men to care for the women in their lives. Any man will have a mother for sure, perhaps a sister and a wife. His ability to care for women in his life will be influenced primarily by what he has seen modelled to him by other males.

Down through the generations the family  with a mother and father has been the nurturing place for the healthy growth of human beings, physically and emotionally. Families with similar values group together in many cultures to support each other. In nature we see male and female creatures create young and spend their energy to raise them. The adults stay together with their own kind in flocks, herds or shoals where the young are protected. There is power in numbers.

The family model I grew up with that shaped my early life was my dad, who worked on the farm and my mother who looked after us ten children at home. Dad was a gentle man who cared for my mum who needed to be strong to rear us. My parents showed their love to me by providing food to eat, a warm home, education, sharing their time and guiding me in the best choices to make for later life, all on a limited amount of money. Extended family often visited our home and we attended the local church where I heard about God and met our local community.

I left home and chose to explore the world beyond the safety of family and home. I went to university during the troubles in my country. When I had two children of my own I began to look for the best way to rear my children. And give them the nurture and care I believed was important. In my search for truth and the right way to live I mixed with many different people with different values form me. I met some Christians who were kind to me. I looked at their lives and I began to read the bible.

I read about Jesus. He went about doing good and healing those who were oppressed of the devil, both men and women. All who came to him were healed of disease and delivered form devils. Jesus was particularly merciful to women and children. He released the woman who was going to be stoned to death, the punishment her culture demanded. He cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene. He raised the son of a widow so she would have someone to look after her. He let the little children come to him and took them on his knee and blessed them when his disciples wanted to stop them. A woman who was not from his culture came to him and asked him to heal her daughter. He did as he asked. He didn’t discriminate.

In my generation many women here in the west have had the opportunity to be educated and work alongside men. Women have now the freedom in the west to be independent of parents or husband due to their access to wages. Today we celebrate Woman’s International Day which wants to highlight discrimination against women and give equal participation in the global development of the world.

I totally agree with this vision. Is education and equal wages the answer to woman’s discrimination. I believe there is more to understand that can bring freedom to women. I am a free woman because Jesus forgives my failures and wrong choices and gave me a new beginning. He helped me rear my children and give them values for them to have when they leave home.

He healed me of fourth stage cancer and delivered me from demons of rebellion , rejection and bitterness. You see Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Sin and sickness are works of the devil. No amount of education or money can deliver a woman from poverty, sickness or abuse. People don’t know there is a spiritual force at work in the world, the power of the devil. Jesus came to save us from his power and show us how to live in freedom. Yes he wants men, as The Duchess of Sussex said, to look after the women in their lives. But they can’t do it properly with out the help of Jesus. It means laying down your life and your own desires for them, like Jesus did for his Church.

When Jesus, whose face was covered in blood from his crown of thorns, was carrying his cross along the streets of Jerusalem, he stopped to talk to women. He told them not to weep for him but to weep for their children because he knew it was going to be hard to rear children.

A woman’s role if she is married, I believe is to protect her unborn child and bring good values to her children. The world offers today women in the west, money, comfort and ease. But at what expense? Woman now have the choice to kill a child in her womb that will be an inconvenience to her way of life. Many people are afraid of the Corona Virus but there an ill in our society that is even promoted and paid for by nations, the killing of innocent children in the womb.

My advice as a mother of fourteen children to the global development of the world is to embrace Jesus, believe in him, accept him and follow him like many women did when he was on earth. Read about other women who were courageous to bring freedom to their nations, like mary, Judith, Jael, Deborah, Esther and Ruth.

Family Friday. Grandchildren are the Crown and Glory of the Aged.

Posted in Canada, Family Friday, Holiday, Ireland, Motherhood, My thoughts, Restoration, Travel by

Last Saturday I attended a family event.  About one hundred and fifty people gathered together to celebrate being children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of my mother and father.  My parents are both dead, but we met to honor their memory and their sacrifice to rear us, their ten children.
It was because of their example I had endurance to have fourteen children of my own.  My father was a farmer.  The land produced crops and fed animals.  I remember my father walking across a field scattering corn seed with a fiddle.  He did not have the modern machinery that ploughs up the ground, prepares it for the seed and then sows the seed all in a few days.
He arose early every morning to milk cows, “twenty four seven”.  My mother and father imageshared the work.  Mummy supplemented the income by rearing hens and selling the eggs.  As we their children grew up we helped with the work.  My parents educated all their ten children.
The event last week was a focus for some of my own children to return from far away to join the celebrations.  My son David called me two weeks before to tell me he was thinking of coming over from Canada to be there.  It would be an occasion when he and Jacquelyn could introduce their baby daughter Ava, now eight months to his brothers and sisters and extended family.  I was delighted and encouraged him to come.
God blessed his plans.  He was able to book flights that were affordable even at short notice and within the time frame of days he could get off work.  I met them at Dublin airport.  One year ago exactly Brendan and I stood in Dublin airport and waved goodbye to David and Jacquelyn as they left Ireland to settle in Canada.  They returned to these shores of Ireland last Thursday!  It was a day of joy!  They were with us for five full days.

Baby Ava met and played with her cousins, got nursed and shared around to willing arms to hold her.  David hung out with his brothers and sisters.  Jacquelyn met up with friends.

David and Jacquelyn are adjusting well to being young parents.  They lovingly care for Ava.  .  Last evening I found one of Ava’s bottles.  I shed a few tears.  I was missing David and his family.  I miss Jacquelyn up early in the kitchen preparing bottles of milk for Ava.  I miss my grandchild playing around on the floor.  I miss my son David.
But I have joy in knowing he is starting out in life to look after his own family.
Like my father and my husband he will be an excellent provider and protector for Jacquelyn and Ava.  Brendan and I got to see our grandchild Ava.
Grandchildren are the crown and glory of the aged.  Proverbs 17 v 6
We will see her again.

We built This City. Daily Prompt. Downpatrick, in Northern Ireland, the Place where I Live.

Posted in Ireland, My thoughts, Nations, Prayer, Provision by
Next Monday, the 17th March is St Patrick’s day.   There are celebrations all over the world on this day.  In America green beer is sold.  When my husband was in China on St Patrick’s Day the locals gave him a can of Guinness.  He said it was the best can of Guinness he had ever drank in China.  It was the only one!
The Irish people have spread all over the world and that is why most countries have heard of St Patrick.
St Patrick  is celebrated as an man who lived among the Irish in the fifth century.  He preached the gospel of Jesus and did many signs and wonders among the people.  It is recorded that he drove the snakes out of Ireland.  There are no snakes in Ireland.
The town where I live is called Downpatrick.  It is claimed that St patrick is buried here.  Many tourists come to visit this historical place.
The people of this town have lived at peace with each other during the recent troubles in the seventies.  Every Good Friday all denominations of Christians walked through the town behind a wooden cross.  People took turns to carry it.  The people of the town demonstrated their unity, when in other parts of Northern Ireland people were being murdered.
I believe there is a blessing over Downpatrick because of it’s history as a centre of Christianity and civilisation.  There are many schools and colleges in our town.   Christian brothers set up a school for over eleven year old boys back at the beginning of the twentieth century.
They brought education to the poor.  My children attended this school.
I was praying for a bigger house for our growing family.  I needed more space.  I believed that God would provide for us a big family, like he provided for the tribes that went into the Promised Land.
About that time I read in the bible “Look for the ancient pathways where you will find rest for your soul.”  Jeremiah 6 v 16.  Downpatrick is an ancient pathway where Christians have lived for many centuries.  St Patrick may have walked down the pathway or street where we live.
My husband and I believe that God can speak and guide people.  God showed my husband in a dream to get in touch with a man who lived in Downpatrick.  This man, some months later helped us get the big house we now live in.   It has seven bedrooms, two kitchens and two living rooms.  We will be ever grateful to our friend who helped us find a home here.  He helped us when we were in need.
Downpatrick has been a blessing to our family.  Our children were welcomed into the schools.  Their friends’ parents welcomed them into their homes.  The local soccer club and Gaelic club were somewhere safe for my boys to play, supervised by responsible caring volunteers.  It felt as if we always lived here.
We joined with other Christians to pray in unity.  We were blessed.   Where brothers dwell together in unity there The Lord commands a blessing.  Psalm 133.
Since we moved here as we prayed with others for our town,  new things have come here.  A new hospital is built, a new cinema, two new schools, and a new supermarket.
Where I came here I met other families that returned here to rear their children.
Downpatrick is a pleasant and safe place to live.
We have a vibrant Art Centre that gets funding from the government.  Downpatrick punches above its weight.
It has a pleasant climate.  It rests in the lee side of the Mourne Mountains.  The rain falls on the mountains, so we receive less rain than other parts of our country.   We often had our dinner outside in the summer time.  We could never do that in the last town we lived in.
There are beautiful local parks and coastlands.  Within seven miles we are at the beach.  Coney Island is nearby.  It is made famous by the Van Morrison song.
As people live together in harmony the Mayor of our town will have an easy job.
Soon we are moving to a smaller house not far from Downpatrick.   I will always be grateful to God for leading us to live in Downpatrick.  I am thankful to all the teachers, coaches, friends and neighbours who helped our family and have made our time in Downpatrick a happy one.
you too can be guided by God in your life.  He will speak through dreams or circumstances that may arise in your life.  God loves you.

REST

Posted in Holiday, My thoughts by

 

At seven in the morning it is dark here in my home town of Downpatrick, Co Down, Ireland.   As I look out my window I see the main road wind its way out into the distance.  During the week day mornings there is a constant flow of pairs of red lights, cars with people on their way to work in Belfast.  Later there is a flow  of buses and cars into town with school children.  Downpatrick is a hub for education.  We have great primary and grammar schools here, a good place to rear children.

The road is quiet this morning.  I hear the church bells ringing.  A call to prayer.  What a wonderful Christian  heritage we have here in Ireland.  Despite the war,  people still pray.  The bells were silent for a time recently.  I missed them.  I enquired and was reassured the bells would be ringing again.  The  bells ring down through the centuries.   Everyone hears the bells, whether one is Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslem, Chinese, male, female, child or pensioner.  It  is a beautiful sound, memories of home,  neighbours and security.

All is at rest in this small town today.