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God's 4-H Club

Most Americans have heard of 4-H (Head, Heart, Hands, and Health), which is a youth development program administered under the auspices of both the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I recall they had a 4-H club in the high school I attended in my home town in Central Illinois, which, like 4-H clubs all over America, provided educational opportunities for young people aged 8–18 related to agriculture, healthy living, science and technology, and civic engagement.

Well, that sounds terrific...especially in a highly agricultural area like Central Illinois. But my oh-so-cool friends and I had absolutely zero interest in what seemed to us like a total snoozer—a boring club full of nerdy farm girls.

» Continue reading the article for JUN '26...

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Separation Anxiety

I've been teaching English in Taiwan since 1992, and in my early years here I worked for a woman who operated a branch of a chain of language schools where I taught children's classes in addition to adult conversation classes. She also ran a private kindergarten where I was regularly pressed into service teaching children between the ages of three and six.

One rite of passage I witnessed regularly occurred when a very young child was left at the kindergarten by his or her mother for the first time. Many children, although they may have been a bit timid or anxious initially, got through it in fine fashion. By lunchtime they would be running around and playing with the other kids, and seemed none the worse for the experience.

For others, however, it was a very different story. Some children would be so traumatized by their perceived abandonment that they would scream and wail for hours on end at volumes belying their diminutive size, impervious to any attempts by teachers or other children to interact with or comfort them in any way. In some cases, this continued until mom returned at day's end to pick the child up, only to continue unabated the next day. I remember one little girl who screamed all day for two solid weeks—I think she finally just wore herself out.

Sooner or later, the kid finally begins to realize that (a) crying accomplishes nothing, (b) the people at the kindergarten are nice, (c) there are some cool toys to play with and some fun activities to be part of, and (d) that yes, mom really will come back.

I suppose it's a natural part of growing up.

» Continue reading...

6/9/2026 — From the "Talking the Talk" Department...

Prophecy buffs are talking a lot these days about the attack described in Ezekiel 38–39, aka the attack of Gog-Magog, and the reason is pretty obvious:

We see the nations Ezekiel mentions increasingly coming together in their vitriolic hatred for Israel and the Jewish people and expressing their desire to do exactly what Ezekiel says they will attempt to do:

Wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

The three premier players Ezekiel mentions appear to be Russia, Iran, and Turkey. There are several other smaller nations in North Africa mentioned, but Russia, Iran, and Turkey seem to be the Big Three—at least in terms of size and strength. Although a few people see Turkey leading the attack, traditionally the principle player and the apparent leader of this existential attack on Israel is commonly identified as Russia. My own study has left me convinced this is in fact the correct interpretation. In this regard, notice that, for whatever it's worth, Ezekiel mentions Russia first and Iran second, but he mentions Turkey (the house of Togarmah) last. Hmmm...

Be that as it may, even though Russia has aided and supported Iran militarily to some extent, they have largely been minding their own beeswax in their ongoing conflict with Ukraine. So it's noteworthy that Turkey has been making far more death-to-Israel noise lately than Russia ever has. In other words:

Turkey won't lead the Gog-Magog
coalition when the time comes,
but they're sure talking the talk.

From President Erdogan on down, in recent days Turkish leaders have been talking as if they were ready and willing to lead an attack on Israel and retake Jerusalem for glory of the Islamic world. The most recent anti-Israel diatribe came from Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi, who recently declared that Jerusalem would "return to Turkish sovereignty" while praising Erdogan as a rising global leader who was helping Turkey develop from a regional power into a global power:

"Just as we saw the liberation of Damascus, Aleppo and Karabakh, with God's help, one day we will also see the liberation of Jerusalem...As in the past, these lands will be ours once again and come under our sovereignty and dominion, with God's help...When I was a governor, I had a prayer to God. My prayer was: 'O Lord, grant me the governorship of Jerusalem, even if just for a single day.' I still believe God will show us those days, and he will certainly show them to us."

I'm sorry, Mr. Çiftçi, but you're not praying to the capital "G" God. You're praying to a small "g" god: an amalgam of 360 pagan idols that became known as "Allah" and that was created by Satan with the help of Muhammad in the early seventh century. For Satan, this is a religious mask used in his efforts to thwart the plan of the one true God. And that one true God has stated precisely what He will do to the Gog-Magog coalition in His inspired, inerrant, prophetically confirmed Word:

In other words, God will decimate the Gog-Magog coalition and in so doing sanctify Himself and show the world once and for all that He is the LORD.

A world that includes Turkey, not to put too fine a point on it.

So the grandiose fantasies of a deluded Turkish politician notwithstanding, Turkey will never have sovereignty over God's city of Jerusalem again...

No matter what kind of talk they talk.

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From the
Meme Team:

News flash for
the liberal left:

You can hide
and watch.

(See Ezekiel 38–39
for more details.)

Why?

And I will bless them
that bless you, and
curse him that curses
you: and in you shall
all families of the
earth be blessed.
(Gen. 12:3 AKJV)

That's why.

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For God so loved the
world, that he gave
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(John 3:16 AKJV)

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