Lessons from God's Handiwork

As some of you may have seen on our Facebook earlier this week, we happened upon an underground yellow jacket nest.

I thought about titling this post "Lessons learned from Montana" but in all reality this was too great of an event to not see how God can be seen through this adventure of sorts.

We (our family) and another staff member decided to take a drive over to Siegel Creek - just down from the camp- and walk down by the creek. We parked our vehicles and got the kids ready and we headed down to the Creek to check things out there. Ivana was in the back carrier and the older two were on foot like the rest of us. Oh! do the kids ever love to "hike" around here! Ruger was keeping up with the men and Evelyn was doing well but kept tripping over some random stones (which we don't really have in Wisconsin) so Krystle was
helping her and lagging behind a bit. A "bee" got on Evelyn's Columbia fleece jacket and stung her hand so Krystle stopped and tried getting it off of her when she looked down and noticed the ground moving beneath them and had about 50 "bee's" stuck on her pants legs by her shoes. We all took off running towards the creek. Eric looked back and noticed there was at least 500 of the "bee's" swarming over the spot where Krystle and Evelyn were standing. After all is said and done everyone had at least one sting.

The tally was as follows:
Krystle: 13
Eric:10
Evelyn:6
Ruger:5 or 6
Ivana:1

Praise the Lord none of us were allergic! Some made their way through the woods on our clothes and we had a few stragglers still swarming our car the following day.

The lesson we learned (mostly Krystle though) was that fleece has no business in the woods. Had we not been wearing fleece we probably would not have gotten stung so many times. Eric was not wearing fleece and only got stung trying to help out the children from getting stung. Evelyn, Ruger and Krystle were all wearing fleece, which the yellow jackets legs really got glued into. Even after washing the clothes we had to pick out some yellow jacket remains. Performance fleece is great for working out or casual shopping but not for wearing into the great outdoors!

The "Lessons from God's Handiwork" is really quite interesting. Those yellow jackets are annoying when it is just one. You get stung, kill it and move on. When it is a whole hive of them the situation is totally different! They join together, fight to protect and they just do not stop! 

We were thinking that is (minus the aggressive part) how the church ought to be. Sticking together as a hive. Working in unison towards a common goal.

 In Matthew 12 God's Word talks about how a house divided cannot stand.
James 1:27 instructs the church to look after the widows and the orphans.
John 13:34 is a command to love one another as Christ loves us!
Ephesians 5:2 says to walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us as a sacrifice! Galatians 6:10 instructs us to do good to all when we have the opportunity- especially those in the body of Christ! Hebrews 10: 24-25 instructs us to think of how we can encourage each other to love and help others and also to meet together in fellowship. Don't stop meeting with others in the body of Christ!
Matthew 18:20 says that where 2-3 gather in His name God is there with us!

We, as the body of Christ need to continue to stand together. Encourage one another. Help each other. Love each other.

God is awesome. His glory far surpasses all that He has created yet there are so many intricate details in His creation one could never get bored seeing all that He has made. Let us keep in the Word daily, be renewed in our minds, encouraged and then sharing that with other believers around us!

So the lessons from God's Handiwork in summary is to be in fellowship with other believers, encouraging them, loving them, helping them and being renewed by being in fellowship with God daily ourselves!

~Eric & Krystle Townsend and Family~

*Stay tuned for another photo post coming!*