Jacobus Arminius

"[Arminians] ... say that the Augustinian tradition subordinates the love of God to the will of God ... But this is not what distinguishes the Augustinian tradition from the Arminian tradition. The distinction is between intensive and extensive love, between an intensive love that saves its loved ones, and an extensive love that loves everyone in general and saves no one in particular.

Or if you really wish to cast this in terms of willpower, it's the distinction between divine willpower and human willpower. Or, to put the two together, does God will the salvation of everyone with a weak-willed, ineffectual love, or does God love his loved ones with a resolute will that gets the job done?

The God of Calvin is the good shepherd, who names and numbers his sheep, who saves the lost sheep and fends off the wolf. The God of Wesley is the hireling, who knows not the flock by name and number, who lets the sheep go astray and be eaten by the wolf. Which is more loving, I ask?
Steve Hays

"What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all---to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, 'Lord, save, or we perish.' We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, 'I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,' marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow."
C. H. Spurgeon

http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Arminianism/

For if you live according to the flesh you will die...

Our problem today in the churches is not carnal Christians, our problem today is unconverted evangelicals who believe themselves to be born-again but do not have that life-transforming, heaven-given, transformation of nature of which the New Testament speaks of.

I strongly invite you to listen to this sermon on the perseverance of the saints- part 2.
For the whole series " the 5 points of the Compass" (strongly recommended ) go to "know your Bible recordings" website.

In Christ
J Roque

Visitors

Well, today some friends of ours came to visit us at our place. They are from Paris...(NO, NOT THAT ONE), Paris, Illinois, United States.

They are a very sweet couple that we met at camp. As they are going back home through the Shannon Airport, they will spend their last night in Ennis (which is 10 miles from the airport).

We had some great fellowship together, they told us about their church in US and we are glad to see that we have brothers and sisters everywhere in the world, who are intent in serving the Lord.

Oh what a blessing it is to have fellowship with people from different parts of the world! In doing so, we learn a lot about their culture and the differences between Ireland, US and Brazil. For example, We learned that the price of petrol in the States is relatively cheap, compared to Ireland, and REALLY cheap compared to Brazil.

We thank the Lord for having had the opportunity of meeting this sweet couple, and we hope to see them soon when we go to Paris. (IN ILLINOIS, NOT FRANCE OK?

Sermons

I finally finished a series of sermons on Galatians...
Well I realise I talk a lot about the sermons I've listened to but in fact I have never wrote where I listen to them...

At the moment I am listening quite a lot of sermons by "Pr.Stuart Olyott. I find his sermons always challenging and they display such a consistent high standard of clarity and power, that I've been blessed by sound Spiritual learning.
 A good amount of his sermons can be found in this website but all the sermons can be found in a server where they are organised in series...you can also download it all in there.

 May the Lord bless y'all as you take time to grow in understanding of His word.

 In Christ J Roque

Feedback on the Summer Camp

I hope that this is going to be the last post on the camp ( at least from me)...but I got to talk about something really interesting that we heard this morning that needs to be told....Specially to the people that were involved in the camp.

Well this morning on the fellowship, Dan and Mire told us that they got some parents ringing and texting them giving some really positive feedback about the camp...
Kids seemed to just love it, and the parents were happy to assure us that they will come back next year...
Paddy, a really cute, and let's say active, 6 year old little boy assured them that HE WILL BE BACK!!!
Leah better come back next year :) , she did a great job with the "green giants", may the Lord bless her!!

It was good to hear some nice responses from the children as we didn't quite get time to say goodbye (they were trying to get sorted after the water fight) and listen to what they thought about the four days.

We were also told that they wrote a nice article on the local paper, they've mentioned Joseph's story but apparently we dressed up and dramatised the Bible story. Dan told us that it was otherwise a good article and that they wrote nice stuff about the event.

Well it is nice to see that by this Dan and Mire are having the opportunity to know these families and be a reference of godly people in that place! :)

Please take some time to reflect on God's word on Colossians 4: 2-6 and pray that the Lord may open a door to Dan and Mire and also to all of us as we interact with our neighbours and work/college colleagues, and relatives, having in mind the necessity to redeem the time because the days are evil!


Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
That I may make it manifest, as ought to speak.
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.


In Christ

J. Roque

Thoughts on camp

Well, after this long narrative of my four days in camp, I'd like to share some thoughts on this blessed week of camp.

-It was great to visit Mire and Dan. They were wonderfully hospitable, and provided us with some great moments of fellowship. I learned a lot with them.
-It was also a blessing to have fellowship with Leah and Rhonda, and learn their views on the Bible, on the story of Joseph, and on Creation.

-It was such a blessing to have fellowship with all the staff at the camp. We worked together, and the staff had really one heart, willing to serve the Lord. May the Lord bless all of those who participated.
-I pray that the Lord will bring the kids to salvation. My kids were 5 and 6 years old. Some girls were really paying attention to the story of Joseph. I pray that the Lord will give them a wish to know more about the Lord, our Saviour.
-Rhonda said that the older girls were definitely paying attention to the story and some were thinking about it, so I pray that the Lord will work in their hearts and bring those girls to salvation.
-The Lord blessed us, that none of the kids were injured. One girl fell, but nothing bad happened to her and she was back the other day.


Our week has been blessed and we praise the Lord for this camp, hoping that those kids will come to know the Lord as their Saviour.

Tami's view on the Summer Camp- part 4

Day 4 at Camp (ah):

Tiredeness was taking over. But we did drive to Currow and bought 10 big balloons in a small shop, so that we could fill them with water to throw at some of the leaders and children (specially Dolapo lol)

The day was really wet, and my girls seemed to be as tired as I was of camp. They pretty much did whatever they wanted to do.

The funny bit was when Meabh came holding her big water gun (bigger than herself) into camp, like a gang leader or something. Her mother warned us the last day, that she came home sunburned and that she couldn't be in the sun. Too bad...

At craft, we made bracelets with names. The grls couldn't really finish them in time, so some stayed there finishing, while the others who had already finished went to the playground. I was getting crazy in craft cause everyone was yelling my name (TENNIS BALL) and asking me to help them to "Put this bead for me" and "My bracelet is too loose, can you tighten it?" and "Tie a knot for me at the end of the line?" The kids can be a LITTLE demanding sometimes lol.

Afterwards was Bball time, which meant playground, so the girls just stayed in the swings. Story time the girls learned how Joseph's story ended, and Obstacle meant Zipline, so Leah and I helped the girls in it. It got stuck once or twice, but anyways...

After the children had lunch, everyone started throwing water at each other with their big water guns. We couldn't hold them anymore...

Rhonda made they play somes game with water, then the actual fight started. Paulo and I were loaded with the big balloons of water, and were saving them for some leaders we really want to get wet.The kids all wanted our big balloons but we gave them the smaller ones. We broke the first big balloon in Cathal's head. I actually had to use my nails to break it, cause if I threw it, it would hurt someone. Cathal, (soo cute) said: Ohhh you threw water on me, I am gonna get you!! And started chasing me with a crazy look in his eyes hahah.

We had to be really careful with the small water balloons. They woudn't break that easily, so we had to break them ourselves in someone's head, or throw them from a good distance. Paulo and I united to throw the big balloon at Leah, but we feared it would not burst, so we went near her and bursted the balloons on her head twice..Then we went to Rhonda. I tried to burst that balloon with my nails, but it didn't work. We "fought "until Paulo came and helped me to burst the balloon. All the children loved this part! (So did I lol)

Anyways it was great fun really...more "craic"than I expected. I got buckets with water and aimed them at Dolapo. Then I got another bucket filled with water and went to Leah again, just to soak her even more. At the end I'd say we all ended up like ducks, soaked in water. It reminded me of my childhood days again...

And this is how camp ended. I hope all of those kids will come back next year. And I pray that the Lord will work in their hearts and that they may come to know Him as their Saviour.

Thanks a million :D

Tami's view on the Summer Camp- part 3

Day 3 at Camp (ahhhhh)

The third day was different. It was sunny and beautiful. But the difference was that Leprechaun Leah wasn't there, so I had to do some things on my own. We started playing a carpet game, which the Orange Ponies/Bunnies didn't quite understand, but the boys seemed to love it. Afterwards we played a game with the spoons, my girls liked it...

So, our first rotation was Small Group Games. I prepared 2 games for my girls. One was that they had to imitate some dances , and the other one was the statue game. They loved the imitation one and were even saying: "1,2,3,4". Soo cute lil girls. They also liked the other one, but they were quite scared, cause the girl who moved would have to answer a question from Joseph's story. We did that game twice, then the girls ran wild to the playground.

For Bball, some stayed in the playground while Maryanne, Emma, Eibhlin and I think blonde Caithlin played some bball, until Emma started crying because she fell. I used my first aid skills again, and she stopped crying almost suddenly. You may wonder at my first aid skills. They consist of me sitting down beside the kid who is hurt ,then asking what kind of pain they have, and what happened to them. I look at hurt body part for a second, pretending to be analysing the damage, then I ask the kid if she wants to sit down or go back playing. They ALWAYS say go back playing. THIS ALWAYS WORKS, IF YOU WANT TO TRY:D. It worked with Emma, twice with Meabh, with Shane and with Bri. If this doesn't work try to high five them like Dola...:D:D:D

I got to talk to Bri a lot that day. She told me she was trying to talk to her friends about Jesus, but it was really hard. She said she was telling a girl in the playground, but she got only to the part where Jesus died in the cross, then the girl went away. Bri is really special. She was also telling me that Jesus is a tree (referring to John 15) and that people who don't believe him will be "cut off" from Heaven. (Ok, a six year old was teaching me her perspectives on the Bible lol). Such a blessing was to hear that. May the Lord always bless that girl and her parents who are teaching her the Word of our Lord.

My girls just went wild that day, I am telling you...They even did a Obstacle I made up for them! Love those kiddos really.

Straight after camp, we went home to rest for a while....

Tami's View on the Camp -part 2

Day 2 at Camp (ahhhhhhhh)

WRECKED! Went to bed at midnight, woke up at six...Today, I couldn't even walk properly...This day was really windy and wet.

There was 2 new girls in my group, Alannah, Eibhlin's cousin and Caithlin. Alannah was sooo cute, so delicate! There were some additions and subtractions in the boys as well. There was a new boy called Jack in Yellow Fellows ( He was 11 years old, me thinks, and the tallest in the group), and his sisters really cute girls Ellen and Grace. There was also Dolapo and Tanny (no, not Tammy, Tanny lol), sons of Abbi. It was great seeing them again, now soo smart! The last time I saw them, they were soo small! Dolapo is now 11 and Tanny is 7 I think.

The second day for Orange Team was a bit of a mess. The day started with big group games. The lads played volleyball with giant balls, but the wind carried away some balls, while the kids lost some others. We also did a game with toilet paper, which didn't quite work, but the kids had fun anyway, running around.

Our first rotation was the Story, starting from Joseph in the pit and ending with Joseph in the jail. The wind was blowing so hard that the tent was actually being blown away. I had to hold one of the sides of the tent, so it would stay in place.

Our second rotation was the small group game, in which Leah and I allowed the girls to play in the playground (they didn't want to do anything else). While they played I got to know more of my girls. I went to talk to the quietest one, Meabh.(also the whitest one. Her mom kept complaining she got sunburned...) Meabh told me she had 3 other sibblingS YOUNGER THAN HERSELF. If she was 5, how old could they be??? One was 3, other 2 and one was 11 months old. She kept calling me: TENNIS BALL, CAN YOU PUSH ME IN THE SWINGS? I got to know Caithlin as well, Anthony's sister. Such a "precious" kid, and Alannah, soo delicate and beautiful...

The next rotation was the Obstacle, in which the girls only did the zipline, cause they loved it. At 1st, Meabh was scared, but after she went once, she loved it, and went back again lots of times. Brianna also asked me to play with her in the playground. While we were playing, she said: "You know something? I really like you". Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww sooo sweet!

After that, we did Crafts, in which the girls painted rocks. They looked really cute, so I took loads of pictures of them. The next thing was Bball, which we didn't do. Instead, the girls went to the playground (AGAIN )and Fiona, another red-haired one, kept asking me to push her. The boys in Yellow Fellow also seemed to be having fun. Dolapo and Jack were the two kids in the team who actually pushed that team to do the activities, because they were the oldest ones.

The last thing we did that day was the Trampoline. The girls went once to the trampouline, then went back to the playground. (why do girls love playgrounds so much??). By then I knew everyone's names, and a bit about each of them. I actually liked the mess of the second day because it allowed me to learn more about the girls. Such special kids! I didn't hear any swearing, none of the kids were impolite, everyone did what we said. I was actually surprised to see kids like that! Oh by the way, Buffon's name was actually Cathal. Leah finally got it outta him lol.

After camp, we stayed home to look after the kids for Mire and to rest, cause we were wrecked. The day wasn't that sunny anyways, so there was no point in going out. We shared pictures with Leah and Rhonda. Their pics were soo good compared to ours lol.... I really should ask Dan to give me some lessons on photography. Rhonda said she tried to do that, but it didn't quite work...He didn't repply...

Anyways, we had pasta for dinner, which the boys cooked, and there was like, 13 people at the table. Blessed dinner! After dinner we went to watch Netherlands vs Uruguay, in the World Cup semi finals. Paulo and I were supporting Uruguay, the rest, Holland. It was so funny to see Mire supporting Holland. She really gets into it. Holland won by 3-2 for general happiness and to my disappointment.

That was our second day.

Tami's view on the Summer Camp- part 1

Well the last 4 days have been blessed indeed! I mean, to do the Lord's work in such a beautiful place (Currow- Mire and Dan's home) surrounded by "precious" people (this one was for Leah) brought us great happiness. It is always a great blessing to do the Lord's work, but i didn't think it would bring me such wonderful moments!I grew soo attached to the kids, that I even call them "My Kids". It was really, a week to remember...

1st day at camp (AHHHHHHHHHH!!! Rhonda came up with this idea that everytime we said CAMP, the kids had to scream...:D):

Well, I was a bit worried because I'm not generally surrounded by kiddos, so i thought they woudn't get along with me. Furthermore, we all thought the kids wouldn't be very polite and wouldn't do what we told them to do. Oh yes, and Dan warned us that kids can swear at times, so we had to be prepared for that as well.

So at 9:30 the children started coming. I was assigned to 5 and 6 year old girls, so I thought that I would hear loads of crying and fighting between them. As the kids came, they went to the playground. I saw this cute little girl, standing by herself and went to talk to her. I asked her name and she told me: Maryanne and told me she was 7 years old. I told her that if she needed anything, she could come to me and I would help her. She told me she wanted a ball, so i gave her one, and she started playing basketball.

Another girl came with her mom and sister. Her mother presented the 2 sisters to me: Megan and Dearbhla (Beth, Dave and I had a real hard time trying to spell the name, until I asked the mom how to spell it). Anyways, I went to Dearbhla and asked her:

"How are you Megan?" , confusing her with her sister. She repplied in a rather bold tone:

"I AM DEARBHLA". "OK I better always get her name right or she will kick me or something... " I thought. The girl was only 5 years old!! That day I really employed myself into learning all the names of my girls so that they would trust me. I thought it would be better to know their names, so I could get closer to them, and talk to them.

The first thing we did was present ourselves to the kiddos and Rhonda explained the rules to them. After that, we played some games and the kids got to know each other better. There were soo many cute little boys there. There was one, that we couldn't get his name, so we just called him Buffon cause he was wearing a Buffon T-shirt. Buffon was always playing with another little boy (Padraig) and both always walked around smiling, they didn't even know what was going on, but they kept smiling and jumping on each other. Plus, Paulo loved Padraig's hair, so later on we should photoshop Paulo with Padraig's hair just to see what it looks like.:D

So Rhonda divided the girls and boys into groups. The small girls aged 5, 6 and some 7 year olds were assigned to me and irish Leah. The girls created names for our group; Orange Ponies (which later on changed to Orange bunnies) and they created a nickname for me and Leah starting with the letters of our names: Tennis Ball Tammy and Leprechaun Leah. The other groups were: Yellow Fellows led by Jello Juliana and Pig (or Pink. He prefers Pig) Paulo, (that was later changed to Perfect Paulo by one of the Boys). The green team was the Green Giants led by Giant Leah.( I'm sure they got this name from that ad on TV about Green Giant sweetcorn cause i heard one of them singing GREEN GIANTS from the ad). They were led by Giant Leah. (yeah right. She's shorter than me!). The last group was the Red Rose Monkeys, led by Rosey Rhonda (yup Rhonda was the only one who got a cute name lol).

The first thing Leprechaun and I did was to ask the girls their names. They all said their names, but the only ones I could remember were Dearbhla's and Maryanne's (by the way, I am definitely gonna put that name in my child in the future :D)

Our first rotation was the trampoline. My kids seemed pretty happy to do so. Four were allowed at a time, so the first four went jumping, while the other girls sat in the grass and I started talking to them and asking them their names again, if they had any brothers or sisters and etc. By then I knew Mary, cause she was red-haired and Leah, a seven tear old girl. The girls (for my surprise) waited for their turns without complaining or anything. I was just there thinking: WOW those girls are niiice!!

After that the team went to hear Joseph's story. They seemed to like it, and some girls were really paying attention. Rotation 3 was the Obstacle (UHHHH). Many of the girls skipped the climbing wall, and went directly to the zipline, where Joel was helping them. I sat in the grass while they were doing the zipline, and while I was there, Brianna, Joel's daughter came to me and started putting hoola hoops on me and balls and etc, alongside Mary. I told Joel about that and he simply said: Good Girl, Brianna, keep going! LOOL . Brianna was such a cutie!! She was the one who named me Tennis Ball. I asked her if I could adopt her but she repplied: "I don't think my parents would agree with that"! :D (I still don't get why this pic is upside down but anyways... Well it looks cuter that way...:D)

After Obstacle, which was the girls' favourite, we did the Craft. The girls loved doing it. They did a cup with a candle inside. There I got to know more of them. By then I think I knew most of them. I took some pictures as you can see above. Beth and Dave were wonderful at crafts and they did an amazing job with it. Just top class!

Our last Rotation was Bball, which the girls didn't want to do, so they just went to the playground. Well, the names of my girls were: Caithlin, Leah, Maryanne, Mary, Emma, Eibhlin, Fiona, Meabh, Lucy, Dearbhla, Brianna and I probably forgot someone which I will remember later on.

Well the first day went well. In fact, it went better than i expected. I spent the day listening to: Tennis Ball push me, Tennis Ball help me, Tennis Ball can you tighten this for me, TENNIS BALL...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! I almost got crazy...anyways my girls seemed to love when I said CAMP.(AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) Sometimes they didn't get it, but oh well.

So after camp the 3 of us + Rhonda and Leah went for a trip. The day was soo sunny, so we decided to go to Inch. There we found a beach just like Praia Grande in Brazil (well except the fact that Praia Grande doesn't have jelly fishes) and we took loads of pictures... We had a really good time with Leah and Rhonda. We asked them about how the Government of US works, and joked about their expressions like; THAT'S SO NEAT, and THAT'S SO PRECIOUS, THAT'S EPIC, WOW THIS IS GROSS (disgusting), EPIC FAIL, YOU GUYS and etc... the way they speak is SO funny...We told them some Irish expressions like: MASSIVE, CLASS, SAVAGE, LEGEND, LADS, THANKS A MILLION and etc...they found funny the fact thet we have a wee bit of Irish accent (well, mixed with brazilian accent as well). We talked about everything, and it was great to see some cultural differences and similarities between US, Ireland, and Brazil. Oh, and man, the Southern accent!!! Leah put on for a sec that accent. Soooo funny!! I was there, laughing at the YA'LL and etc. I bet they find our accent funny as well, so I better stop here lol. That was great "craic" to talk to them guys...Well we went to Dingle to see the famous dolphin, but it didn't quite work. I guess he was sleeping :D. After that, we got lost for about one hour, and went home. We also got lost on the way home, which made things worse.

After all, first day was GREAT. It was great to have fellowship with the Americans girls+ Marvellous Mireille and Dynamic Dan... It was a great blessing as I said before.