Easter

It is the hinge on which Christianity turns. The crucial point, the peak, the climax. From the day Adam took the fruit from his wife Eve, God pronounced his plan of restoration. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. God knew who was responsible for what and he in his divine power pronounced judgment and promise.

Genesis 3:14-19

So the LORD God said to the serpent:
“ Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.

¹⁵ And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
¹⁶ To the woman He said:
“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;
In pain you shall bring forth children;
Your desire shall be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.”
¹⁷ Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:
“ Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.

¹⁸ Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.

¹⁹ In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,

And to dust you shall return.”

Okay so this really does not seem to carry any good promise for any of them, especially since

they had been living in paradise. Lets start with the one with the worst promise, the serpent.

He really does not seem to have a promising future. He is cursed more than any animal, he is

going to have to crawl on his belly where ever he goes, and he is not going to get on very well in a

future fight with the seed of the woman. He is going to get his head cracked. So he starts his

planning, but unlike God he does not think long term. Just in case you are wondering, the

serpent is Satan, aka the Devil, aka bad dude.

What is for the Woman. She is punished in an unusual way, she is going to have pain in

child birth. Her future seed will come with the cost of pain for many women. She is also listed

follower to her husband. She might want to take charge, but he shall rule over her.

Adam (the husband) is punished with the struggle to provide for his family. He will have to sweat

and toil to stay alive himself, and to keep his family alive. Lastly, we shall all return to the dust

from which we were taken. Did you notice that the serpent will be consuming dust as a regular

part of his new low cal cursed diet?

We now have an excellent idea of what we should expect to see if these prophesies are to be fulfilled. All through the bible we see it, right up to the climax.

The serpent never forgets that curse, and he lives in constant terror of having his skull done in. He fights it by direct attacks at the woman's seed. Cain kills Able, Pharaoh orders the Hebrew males killed, and in between is a whole line of different people being attacked tempted and killed, all the way up until Christ is born and Herod orders another mass male baby killing.

"And he shall bruise your heel." The seed of the woman is wounded.

Now in a beautiful preview we also notice evil getting its head crunched many times. Evil men have tent pegs driven into their heads, evil men have millstones dropped on their head, and the classic, David hits Goliath with a stone in the head, and then chops his head off.

This all leads to the climax. Christ being betrayed, beaten, and hung. Now Satan thinks he has won. He has finally pinned the sins of the world on the only perfect man who ever lived, the seed, and he is the Son of God, and Satan has him pinned on a tree. What could be better for Satan? Now he can rule the way he wanted to from the beginning, and God's curse didn't work because somehow he outsmarted God.

Satan overlooked an interesting and crucial point. Christ was killed on a tree on Golgotha (the place of the skull.) Somebody is having his skull finally crushed.

On Easter Christ rose from the dead, dealing the final blow to Satan. Christ has overcome satan and his tools, death and despair. He has gone through hell for those he loves and has come out a strong and victorious savior and king. The new adam has redeemed us from our first father's fall. And we, the victorious church and body of Christ (aka the seed of the Woman) will limp victoriously into the future.

This is why we can scream Alleluias to our world. This is truly good news.

1 Corinthians 15:21

For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.

Peter 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,⁴ to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵ who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Spaceships and Robots= Nerd Heaven

Opening ceremonies for both VEX Robotics and BEST Robotics. Included awards to many different volunteers and teachers, speeches, a parade of contestant reps (including yours truly), Micky mouse, High Voltage dance team, and fireworks ending with confetti. Yes, it is Disney.
Team pic after the opening. Oh yeah, that is one awesome robotics team. The sun was bright.
That afternoon included a trip to the Kennedy Space Center. Probably one of the coolest places I have been. That is Endeavor sitting on its launch pad getting ready for its final mission to the International Space Station.

Here is the crawler used to move the shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad.
The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) is where they put all those massive rockets and space ships together. It is not the tallest building in the world, but it has most places beat for volume. You could fit 3 empire state buildings inside of there and you could place Yankee stadium on top and have an acre to spare. Hmm, maybe the Yankees should consider that. The cranes that are used for moving the Shuttle around this building have tolerances of 15,000ths of an inch.

In the foreground is mission control.
So you walk into this building and... gulp. Massiveness happens a lot at NASA I guess. Explains the money. This is me under the bottom end of the Saturn 5 Rocket. This rocket was used to get man to the moon.
Here is a different perspective of people walking along the rocket.
Here is some more perspective. Also remember that this thing is the most complex machine ever built, with over 2,000,000 systems that all have to work right. It is also made up of 91% explosive fuel, so a mistake is usually disastrous.
One more time. WOW!!
Here we are with a VEX Robotics team from Mexico. They could not really speak english and my spanish is not very good. Luckily Charlie lived in Bolivia for a year. So we got to know them a little and they wanted a picture, and so did I. Yes it was very warm.
I took this picture then promptly got into the competition and lost my camera, so I do not really have any visual evidence of what happened. Hopefully I will post some later, but for now I will tell you.

We entered the semi final rounds in pretty good condition, in 3rd place. Of course our score was set back to zero when we got to the semi finals, which was good since we had gotten low sigma on eggs. We moved from 2nd to first in the semi finals. We started the final round on top and were still on top in the second round by about 400 points, which is not actually a whole lot in this competition. Then the monitors went black and we watched the third round take place. Had we done better than the other team or had we lost our number one spot?

And so we waited and waited. Finally they announced the second place winner... it wasn't us. "In first place from Bison BEST, REACH Homeschool." OH, YEAH, we are number one in the country, for the robotic game Total Recall. We also won Most Robust Robot, Best CAD Design, and 3rd in most creative design. We placed 6th in the BEST competition which is also a spot worthy of respect.

The accomplishment of our team is pretty amazing and I am so proud of all the work everyone did to make number one a possible. The learning experience has been incredible and so has the amount of fun I have had. I am still trying to comprehend it all.

And being made perfect He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Hebrews 5:9

Chip

Watch It

Welcome to the REACH Robotics bus. We try to keep things moving.

Okay, so here I am in Florida after arriving yesterday evening off a 32 hour bus ride. Yeah, I am crazy. But so are 34 (or so) other people I rode with. It was not actually that bad. When you have a bunch of cool people to hang out with, no seat belts, a little leg room, snacks, and games it goes better and a little faster. Bus rides are not horrible just don't take them to often. Anyway, the weather here is in the 80s during the afternoon, and 60s at night, it is beautiful and green. I don't think I would want to live here, but it is lovely to visit. Disney is as big as ever, people seem to really get a kick out of the Micky Mouse dude. The parks are kept up immaculately and the flowers are incredible. Have you ever seen a magnolia blossom? They are huge and awesome.

Today we found out where the competition is and we had our Oral Presentation. It went very well and the venue for the competition (The ESPN Wide World of Sports) is pretty cool. It is on disney property, so it also is huge, beautiful, and a tourist trap.

Tomorrow I must be up early and so I will be saying good night soon. I just wanted to let you know that if you have any curiosity what it looks like or how the game works they will start live streaming tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. and Saturday at 8:30 a.m. Here is the link.

Good Night

P.S. I will post more pictures later.