Easy Bookmark Project

My kids made this kind of bookmark last year. It's fun and beautiful.

• The best time to collect your main ingredient is in spring, summer or fall when all those nice flowers bloom.
• Put them in between your thick phone books pages or any heavy book for at least 12 hours to dry.
• Cut two pieces of transparent plastic (Transparency film) about 8 1/2" x 2" or any size you like.
• Arrange about two to three dried flowers on one of your transparent pieces, and put the other on top. Make sure you leave enough space between the flowers and the edges of your plastic.
• Cover with a piece of cloth and press them with hot iron for few minutes.
• Hole punch the top of your bookmark, and finish it with a nice string or ribbon.

Banana Bread

This is our family favourite, and it's so easy to make, and is guaranteed to turn out good!

Ingredient:

2 to 3 ripe mashed banana

2 eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup melted butter/margarine (about 3 tbsp)

3/4 to 1 cup sugar

1 3/4 to 2 cup flour

1/2 tsp to 1 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

Raisins, dried cranberries, blueberries, peanuts, almonds, etc (optional)

Mix together the first 6 ingredients for 1 minute with a mixer (at medium speed). Then mix in the rest of the ingredient with slow speed.

If you use a non-stick banana bread baking pan, grease inside the pan with some margarine. If you use a regular pan, then you need to put some margarine and flour.

Bake at 350F for about 50 minutes to an hour.

Shortbread Cookie

These are yoummy cookies for your holidays, especially Christmas.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

3/4 cups butter

1 cup sugar

Beat the butter until smooth about one minute, mix with sugar, beat again for another 2 minutes. Blend in the flour, and knead a little. Wrap the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. Then roll it out on a flat surface (put some flour on it), and cut it with your favourite cookie cutter. Arrange your cookies on wax paper. Bake in an oven at 350F for about 15 minutes. You can decorate them if you like. Enjoy!

Leader

It's the election time again. The question is, which candidate do we want to choose? Democrat? Republican? Independent? Conservative? Green Party? etc. What kind of leader we choose will determine the future... the future of our country, our community, our society, our family. Therefore we should choose wisely!

Do we need a leader that puts his/her trust in this world or his/her trust in God? What qualifies you to be a leader in the eyes of God?

God loves us the same regardless of our races, talents, & physical appearances. People usually choose someone that is strong, good looking, good at speech, etc. as a leader, but God looks at your heart. In the movie "Braveheart", the Scottish people said: "We heard William Wallace was 7 feet tall". God chose Gideon from the smallest clan in Israel to be a leader to defeat their enemies, and He picked Moses which claimed to be slow at speech to deliver His people. In fact, God's strength is made perfect in our weaknesses.

A world leader gets his power from the people who choose him/her, and this power doesn't last. God's power is absolute! God has power over us because He is the creator of the universe and He made us, and without Him, we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't even exist! Isn't it ironic if we can surrender to the world's leader but we keep running away from God? When God uses His power to change something, it's always for our benefits.

World leaders might sacrifice our needs for his/her own purpose. In other words, he/she will not be willing to sacrifice his/her need for the sake of many. When a world leader makes a wrong decision, the affects could be devastating for the whole country or even the whole world. The attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941 by Japanese Navy led to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. God never make a wrong decision. John 10:11 says that God is like a good shepherd, He lays down His life for His sheep. God sacrificed His son to save us. God never makes a wrong decision!

A good leader must have compassion for those he/she leads, John Maxwell says: "People never care how much you know until they know how much you care". Mark 6:34 says that when Jesus saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them. You can not move or influence people if you don't care for them.

A good leader always protects his people with humility, promotes others, and never shows off. For example: When a Roman centurion took off his official emblem or insignia and went to fight with his people, he humbled himself, but he remained a centurion, he is not considered less in the eyes of his people. Jesus came to serve, not to be served.

World Leaders can not see the future, thus they can not really protect us. Nobody predicted that the Twin Towers (World Trade Center) in New York City would collapsed in 2001. God sees our future, and He can guarantee that our future is good if we trust Him and lean on Him. God is omniscient, He knows everything!