"One toot on this whistle will send you to a far away land..."

We found our old school Nintendo in the attic. It still works. Best Christmas present ever.

Lo, how a rose e're blooming

Lo, how a rose e're blooming
From tender stem hath sprung
Of Jesse's lineage coming
As those of old have sung

It came, a flower bright
Amid the cold of winter
When half-spent was the night

Isaiah twice foretold it
The rose I have in mind
And so then we behold it
The Virgin Mother kind

To show God's love aright
She bore to us a Savior
When half-spent was the night

- 15th century German carol

Sufjan Stevens - Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming (mp3)

I prefer winter.

Pennsylvania Landscape, 1941 by Andrew Wyeth

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape -- the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show." - Andrew Wyeth

You do not know what is before you.

Young Christian, you do not know what is before you. There is the goodly land, and it is all yours. Do not imagine that you are always to be a babe. You shall grow and become a man, yea, a father, I hope, in Israel. Imagine not that you are always to be that little green blade which is peeping up out of the cold sod; you shall be one day the corn in the ear: yea, you shall one day be the golden corn which bends its head through its ripeness, and the glad harvest-homes shall be shouted over you. You shall not always be weak, and feeble, and afraid to come near. Oh! you would not know yourself if you could see what you will be! The songs you are yet to sing, the grapes of Eshcol you are yet to pluck, the fair days of joy that you are yet to spend, the banquetings and feastings, the real enjoyments which you are yet to know this side of the grave, might well make you happy if you could but foretaste them. You shall go forth. Only get Christ, and there is no end to your happiness. Get him, like a sun, and your light shall never be put out.

- Charles Spurgeon

Oh! Dass wat dat mean!

My Christmas present to Amber was Da Jesus Book. It's the New Testament translated in Hawaiian Pidgin. Really, it's absolutely fascinating.

Here are some goodies from Da Jesus Book:

"God wen get so plenny love an aloha fo da peopo inside da world, dat he wen send me, his one an ony Boy, so dat everybody dat trus me no get cut off from God, but get da real kine life dat stay to da max foeva." - John 3:16

"So den, God no goin punish da peopo dat stay tight wit Jesus Christ! Cuz get two tings dat stay fo real: First ting, if you stick wit God's Spirit, he goin make you come alive fo real kine an make you stay tight wit Jesus Christ, God's Spirit cut you loose from da bad kine stuff." Fo Da Rome Peopo 8:1-2

"No get love fo da bad kine stuff dat stay inside dis world. If anybody get love fo dis world, den dey no mo love fo da Fadda. You know, all da bad kine stuff dat stay inside dis world, da kine da peopo like get real bad ony fo make demself feel good, da kine stuff dey like look at an get ony fo demself, an da kine stuff dey get dat let um make big show, all dad no come from da Fadda, but from dis world. Dis world an all da stuff da peopo like get, dat goin all pau. But da guy dat do wat God like him fo do, he goin live fo real kine foeva." Numba 1 from John 2:15-17

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Some reviews of the Da Jesus Book:

"I like dis Bible. I can undastan!" - high school student, Nanakuli

"Oh! Dass what dat mean!" - Leeward Coast churchgoer in Bible study