Bible Correspondence for Youth in Ukraine

God is at work in big ways in New Hope International's Bible Correspondence Course in Ukraine. More than 15,700 children and teens are learning about Christ and growing in their faith. Here are responses from four of them:

"I just wanted you to know that my friend signed me up for your Bible courses and after some time I got saved. These courses help me understand the most important thing - that Jesus died for me." ~ Maria

"From the 12 lessons I received from you, I understand that Satan will not steal me from God's family because Jesus is my best Friend and Savior." ~ Diana

"Thank you for the lessons. I want to be a missionary and share God's Word with others." ~ Olya

"I wanted to thank you for corresponding with me. The lessons you sent me helped me invite Christ into my heart. Now I realilze that the greatest gift from God is our salvation." ~ Ivan

Many lives are being changed by God's power!

(from New Hope International newsletter, December 2010)

A Mighty Fortress, by Christy Nockels, sung by Marko

I sang "A Mighty Fortress" by Christy Nockels, on 28-Nov-2010 at Fellowship Bible Church of Philadelphia.



If you don't see the DivShare control above, you can listen at
http://www.divshare.com/download/13485208-237

This was my best Special Music solo performance so far. May you be blessed by it. Thank you, Jesus!

Queen Sacrifice!

My best chess-playing days were almost 40 years ago, but somehow I played this gem of a game recently. Had to share it!

White to move. Do you see the Queen sacrifice?

(For a full-screen version where you can play through the moves, click
http://blog.chess.com/view/queen-sacrifice-annotated)

Actions YOU *must* take to protect your Facebook password

Use https://www.facebook.com, not http://www.facebook.com!! Or you can be easily hacked!!

Your Facebook password can be easily sniffed by hackers on your network, your co-workers, your boss, your ISP and virtually anyone that you didn’t meet before. This is because you probably get to Facebook by typing in www.facebook.com or http://www.facebook.com.

The S, yes it’s all about the S, meaning SECURED, simply add the S to the http:// so it becomes https:// . By doing this Facebook will exchange a key with your machine that only you and Facebook have and it’s unique for every session, the key will be used to encrypt all data transfered between you and facebook which we web developers call SSL or Secure Socket Layer.

In other terms, without typing the S your information including Facebook password is being transferred in the internet in plain text waiting for someone to pick it up which is not a hard thing to do.

Next time remember:
https://www.facebook.com

What is Mark Zuckerberg is thinking, SSL should be enabled by default and forced like in Gmail, why do we have to force SSL on Facebook ourselves?

(Reproduced from http://www.technolibya.com/internet/security/force-ssl-secure-facebook.html, Mar 11, 2010)

Recently Discovered 'Goldilocks' Planet May Not Exist

A distant rocky planet was recently discovered orbiting close enough to its red dwarf star that liquid water could exist on its surface. This rare position is called the goldilocks zone (not too hot and not too cold). But it would be tough for life to exist on a planet that doesn’t!

"All the excitement has been over the subtlest of wiggles” observed in a star system named Gliese 581, 20 light years from earth.¹ However, a Geneva group, also looking at subtle wiggles in Gliese 581’s position in the sky, “announced that they could find no trace of the prized planet.”¹

Even if the planet (dubbed Gliese 581g) is in the goldilocks zone and has water, it would probably be frozen, since one side of the planet always faces its star. But even if one were to grant the presence of surface liquid water on Gliese 581g, there are many more hurdles to clear before entertaining the possibility of life there.

Life also depends on the right temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition, and appropriate available elements. It also needs internal equipment capable of producing new generations of the biochemical machines, and this equipment would have to be protected from the very environmental conditions—like water, for example—that make life possible.

None of this deters study leader Steven Vogt, who said at a press briefing, “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent.”²

There could be no stronger statement of blind faith (!) that an evolution-inspired, imaginary property of nature could somehow generate life. In reality, any propensity for life to flourish is a direct result of the specialized machinery and coded instructions already placed into living cells, rather than the result of any known natural law. 

Wild pronouncements of life on other planets are fueled by evolution-inspired “excitement,” not by real science. Those coded instructions make life possible precisely because they circumvent or exploit the laws of nature.

God is the Miraculous Creator. And Goldilocks ran away into the forest, never to appear again.

References (selected)

1. Kerr, R. A. Recently Discovered Habitable World May Not Exist. Science Now. Posted on news.sciencemag.org October 12, 2010, accessed October 28, 2010.

2. Bryner, J. Odds of Life on Newfound Earth-Size Planet ‘100 Percent,’ Astronomer Says. Space.com, reporting on research slated for publication in Astrophysical Journal. Posted on space.com September 29, 2010, accessed September 30, 2010.

(Brian Thomas, M.S., Acts & Facts, December 2010, Institute of Creation Research)