The glorified weep no more, for all outward a causes of grief are gone. There are no broken friendships, nor blighted prospects in heaven. Poverty, famine, peril, persecution, and slander, are unknown there. No pain distresses, no thought of death or bereavement saddens. They weep no more, for they are perfectly sanctified. No "evil heart of unbelief" prompts them to depart from the living God; they are without fault before His thrown, and are fully conformed to His image. Well may they cease to mourn who have ceased to sin. They weep no more, because all fear of change is past. They know that they are eternally secure. Sin is shut out, and they are shut in. They dwell within a city which shall never be stormed; they bask in a sun which shall never set; they drink of a river which shall never dry; they pluck fruit from a tree which shall never wither. Countless cycles may revolve, but eternity shall not be exhausted, and while eternity endures, their immortality and blessedness shall co-exist with it. They are for ever with the Lord. They weep no more, because every desire is fulfilled. They cannot wish for anything which they have not in possession. Eye and ear, heart and hand, judgment, imagination, hope, desire, will, all the faculties, are completely satisfied; and imperfect as our present ideas are of the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, yet we know enough, by the revelation of the Spirit, that the saints above are supremely blessed. The joy of Christ, which is an infinite fulness of delight, is in them. They bathe themselves in the bottomless, shoreless sea of infinite beatitude. That same joyful rest remains for us. It may not be far distant. Ere long the weeping willow shall be exchanged for the palm-branch of victory, and sorrow's dewdrops will be transformed into the pearls of everlasting bliss. "Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
Officials at Kunming International Airport in China seized suitcases full of Bibles being carried into the country by four American Christians on Sunday.
Pat Klein, Steve Nichols, Forrest Higginbotham and his 15-year-old grandson Stephen Constantinou were carrying around 300 Bibles when they were stopped after flying into Kunming from Thailand.
According to the group, the officials told them that the Bibles were "illegal religious literature", according to China Aid Association, a group that works to support the persecuted church in China.
Klein told AFP by telephone from Kunming, "We've not done anything wrong. We're not trying to overthrow the government or disrupt the Olympics."
The missionaries were planning on distributing the Chinese-language Bibles among pastors in the communist country where it is illegal to sell Bibles in bookshops and the government even limits the number of Bibles available in churches belonging to the state-sanctioned Three Self Patriotic Movement.
"The Chinese leaders keep telling the world the Chinese people have religious freedom. To even prevent them from receiving bibles certainly contradicts that claim," Klein told CAA president, the Rev Bob Fu, over the phone.
Officials told the missionaries they could take one Bible each with them on their visit, but would only be allowed to pick up the remaining Bibles on their way back out of the country.
"I appeal to the Chinese Government to release those confiscated Bibles to the four individuals who deeply care about the Chinese believers," said Rev Fu, "I urge the international Christian community to pray for the four courageous fellow brothers for their safety in China."
US President George W Bush appealed to China to uphold religious freedom following a visit to a state-sanctioned church in Beijing on the opening weekend of the Olympics. CAA said that underground church leader Hua Huiqi was detained by police whilst on his way to the service before escaping and going into hiding. Chinese police deny the allegations.
The enamel dial with Roman and Arabic chapters, the twin barrel movement with silk suspension, pendulum and count-wheel strike on bell, lacking cover to basket
During the Belle Epoque, Jean Béraud's reputation as the quintessential painter of Paris and it's Boulevards lined with its fashionable theatres, cafes, parks and playgrounds filled with the dandies and élégantes, was already well established. The present work was commissioned directly from the artist by an ancestor of the current owners, in order to commemorate an accident that they had on the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle near the Porte Saint-Denis.
This painting captures an area of Paris where the older monuments are juxtaposed with the new spaces created by Baron Haussmann's remodeled boulevards, which with their grandiose appearance, changed the face of the city. Here the triumphal Porte Saint Denis on the left, built in 1672 under Louis XIV by the architect François Blondel, is set against the plunging perspective of the boulevard Bonne Nouvelle.
The almost photographic realism with which Béraud captures the Parisian Boulevard is matched only by the mastery with which he conveys an atmospheric effect, both in the sky as well as on light reflecting off of water puddles on the pavement from a recent downpour. Béraud painted another version of this intersection, but at a different time of day, and without the accident in the foreground (see P. Offenstadt, Jean Béraud: Catalogue Raisonné, Wildenstein, p. 100, no. 27). Also, in this other version, the wall below the elevated walkway on the right is shown covered with advertising posters, which in L'Accident he has chosen to remove in order to concentrate the viewer's eye specifically on the accident and the plunging perspective of the boulevard.
The accident, which seems to involve a broken carriage axel, becomes a spectacle where the workmen, the dandies, the baker's apprentice and the élégante all join as improvised participants in what becomes a quintessentially modern spectacle. He masterfully blends the pageant of fin-de-siècle fashionable life, of which he indeed was the choice painter, as well as other aspects of urban experience. This allows him to reveal a cross section of the city while capturing a moment in time with all its richness, vitality and flux. The accident, in fact, was part and parcel of Hausmann's new Paris and a common aspect of a bustling, metropolitan existence. Even the most academic of painters, Jean-Léon Gérôme, treated this mundane subject in his Les badauds of 1901 (fig. 1). He too shows a crowd of onlookers gathered on the boulevard around some unfortunate event (see G. Ackerman, J.L. Gérôme, Paris, 2000, p. 359, no. 483).
To the 21st Century viewer, Béraud's painting certainly conveys a nostalgic sense of fin-de-siècle Paris with its horse drawn carriages, gas lamps and crinoline dresses. Yet to Béraud's contemporaries, such a work was the epitome of modernity, a celebration of a moment in the daily life of the newly restored, remodeled and confident city, the self-proclaimed capital of the XIXth Century. That an accident could be deemed a worthy subject for painting, shows to what degree Béraud, if not radical in his formal explorations, is nonetheless immersed in the same pursuit as the Impressionists. Béraud embodies the 'Painter of Modern Life' that Baudelaire called for and described in his Figaro articles of 1863. Béraud, therefore, can truly be counted among those artists and writers who saw the city as an endlessly exciting and inspiring place of intoxication, contrasts and elegance. Béraud clearly has contributed to the development what has been called the 'urban aesthetic'.
Patrick Offenstadt has confirmed the authenticity of this work and will be including it his forthcoming supplement of his Béraud catalogue raisonné.
The '5 BROWNS' are handsome, charming, articulate and close-knit. This youthful quintet of brothers and sisters, all virtuosic concert pianists, love classical music so profoundly they want to share it with everyone.
Each of the Browns - Desirae (25), Deondra (24), Gregory (22), Melody (20) and Ryan (19) - has a distinctive and discriminating keyboard talent, honed at New York's Juilliard School, where for five consecutive years they studied simultaneously.
Keith and Lisa Brown's only desire was for their children to be happy, healthy and rewarded with the pleasures of music. Neither of them had any plan to raise a quintet of serious piano virtuosos, but unlike many parents, they did not see their talented children lose interest in the piano when they hit adolescence. Quite the opposite, in fact, and to such a degree that Lisa felt compelled to devote herself to managing their schedule - a full-time job of getting them to and from lessons, and sitting with them at the bench for their three-hour practice each day until about age 11. The hard work paid off. Each of the children, as early as age 9, made their debut with major symphony orchestras.
Multi-platinum record producer Joel Diamond, now their manager and executive producer, discovered Ryan first, when he happened to catch a PBS documentary about a piano competition in which Ryan was playing. Diamond had nothing but a name to go on, so he began calling all the Browns in Utah until he found the family. He then learned that there were four more brilliant young pianists at home. He immediately saw the possibilities in presenting all five siblings together. Happily, Diamond's commercial instincts and the Browns' aesthetic ambitions were a perfect fit, and a partnership was born.
The '5 BROWNS' have performed in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, Philadelphia's Academy of Music, Chicago's Symphony Center, West Palm Beach's Kravis Center and Houston's Wortham Center. They also performed at the 2002 Winter Olympic Celebrations. They have appeared on 60 Minutes, Oprah, and Good Morning America.
Fort Bend Performing Arts Series presents the '5 BROWNS' in concert on Oct. 8 at 7 p.m at Williams Trace Baptist Church located at 16755 Southwest Freeway, Sugar Land.
The ex-owner of a Katy-area gun store - who was jailed for weeks after defying a federal judge's order to turn over access to social media accounts linked to his former business - was set free Wednesday after complying with the order.
Jeremy Alcede, who lost ownership of Tactical Firearms during bankruptcy proceedings last year, had turned himself in to U.S. Marshals on April 9. Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeff Bohm issued a bench warrant for Alcede's arrest after he defied an April 3 order to give the business's new owners access to social media accounts such as Facebook.
Alcede appeared Wednesday morning before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur and, according to online court records, Isgur stated that Alcede had followed Bohm's order to turn over social media access and ordered U.S. Marshals to release Alcede from custody. The Marshals Service confirmed that Alcede walked free out of Wednesday's hearing.
Reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, Alcede said he spent his time in a federal detention facility reading the Bible and listening to Christian radio. He said he'd refused to give up access to the social media accounts in order to defend the U.S. Constitution, but said he had come to realize there was nothing left to protect because money buys political power.
"The Constitution is like a cubic zirconia," he said. "It looks really pretty but it isn't real and it's not worth anything."
The news that a close friend has been diagnosed with cancer sealed the deal. After being released Wednesday, Alcede went to pick up his sons from school, who were surprised to see him.
"I feel really bad that I did that to my kids," he said, choking up. "But I was doing it for them, too. It just shocked me that I couldn't get a good, good attorney to step up in a case with clear violations of the Constitution."
The new operators of Tactical Firearms, now called Boyert Shooting Center, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The gun store, tucked behind suburban strip centers on Mason Road, gained a national Internet following after Alcede posted photos of a curbside message sign that featured biting attacks on President Barack Obama. The business has been restructured under Alcede's former business partner, Steven Coe Wilson, who hired John Boyert to manage it under a new name.
In an April 3 ruling, Bohm ordered Alcede to turn over Facebook and Twitter passwords because he deemed the accounts and posts to be business assets.
The 30-page opinion acknowledges that social media is new territory for courts, and the case has drawn attention for its potential to shape future disputes about social media used for business.
Alcede's jailing has gained steam on social media and conservative blogs, which suggest the case is really about free speech, not business ownership of "likes," comments and posts.
In handwritten letters to supporters from the Joe Corley Federal Detention Center in Conroe, some of which are transcribed and posted in a Facebook group, Alcede had said he was fighting to protect free speech but argued that his business adversaries and the judge were trying to kill him. He said in one post that because he is diabetic, the prison diet would cause his blood sugar to spike high enough that his spleen would rupture.
"I will at least die knowing I stood up for the constitution that let me live free for forty years," the post said.
At an April 17 hearing, Alcede asked the judge to release him from detention on bond until his appeal on the order to turn over passwords was decided, citing health concerns and the fact that he was a single father of three boys.
Bohm helped arrange for Alcede to be transferred from a high-security facility in Houston to the facility in Montgomery County. The judge declined to release him on bond, saying it would undermine the authority of American courts.
"He holds the key to his jail cell," Bohm said then, adding that Alcede just needed to let the U.S. Marshals know he was ready to turn over the passwords and he could leave.
Earlier this month, Alcede told U.S. Marshals he was ready to turn over access to the social media accounts and he was brought before Bohm for a hearing.
Alcede's attorney said his client could not, in fact, turn over access to the accounts because of a two-step verification process that required his phone and he did not know where it was. He also said his client "was only willing to comply if the Court first allows him to erase what he believes to be his personal information from the accounts," according to court records from the May 18 hearing.
The judge said he would not negotiate, noting that Alacede had turned down a previous opportunity to have an independent third party review the accounts for personal information that would be exempted from the business transfer.
Olson said then that his client would not comply with the order, so Bohm sent Alcede back to the detention center.
Inundated with requests to talk about Baylor University, Astros owner Drayton McLane took time before Wednesday's game against the Chicago Cubs to answer questions concerning the university's scandal-riddled basketball program.
The chairman of the Baylor Board of Regents was a more popular interviewee than Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who strolled around near the batting cage in relative obscurity as McLane was encircled by a horde of media members.
"That shows how important (college) athletics are and how important athletics are to the state of Texas," McLane said. "There really have been no new developments today that I know of."
McLane said the hiring of a coach to replace Dave Bliss, who resigned on Aug. 8, won't be done for "several days."
The revelations of improprieties in Bliss' program -- from misuses of funds that included the payment of players' tuition to an attempt to besmirch the reputation of slain player Patrick Dennehy during a cover-up -- has Baylor officials wondering what will be uncovered next.
"Are we at the bottom of it? If you had asked me that a week ago, I would have said absolutely that we're at the bottom of it," McLane said. "I have given the charge, as has (university president Dr. Robert) Sloan, to look at every part of the basketball program but to also look at all of the athletic programs at Baylor.
An NCAA spokesperson said Wednesday that the association has approved Baylor's request to allow its players to transfer to other schools and play this coming season. Without the waiver, the NCAA transfer rule requires players to sit out a season to establish a year of residency before becoming eligible.
The ruling means Bears starter Lawrence Roberts, who has transferred to Mississippi State, can play this fall.
John Lucas III was pleased players were not further punished by the NCAA, but he said he still is unsure of what he will do, leaving open the slim possibility that he could return to Baylor.
Seniors Matt Sayman and R.T. Guinn and junior college transfer Harvey Thomas were the only players to state publicly their intention to return to Baylor after a team meeting following Bliss' resignation. But Harvey has been granted his release and is looking at other schools, and Guinn's father said his son might have to explore his options.
Kenny Taylor, who is transferring from Baylor to Texas, still faces the Big 12 rule that subtracts a year of competition from athletes who transfer from one school within the league to another, but he said he would fight the rule should a vote of faculty athletic representatives not go in his favor.
"I have to fight it because I had nothing to do with the situation I'm in, and I shouldn't be punished for what happened at Baylor," Taylor said. "I never wanted to leave. I wanted to play in a great conference, play at a school with a great academic reputation and be near home.
A Big 12 spokesman said requests for waivers from Baylor players transferring within the league will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
College Park girls basketball coach Michelle Richardson is no stranger to the program. Richardson, in her fourth year at College Park and first as head basketball coach, is taking over for the retired Kip Anderson and is making adjustments with the step up.
"It's a total change," said Richardson, who coached for seven years at Westfield before moving over to College Park. "I've got a lot more responsibility now."
But as far as knowing the program, Richardson has watched this team develop since they were freshmen. Seven players return from the 2009-10 District 14-5A championship team, the fourth consecutive district title for College Park.
"I've got a lot of great kids that work really hard, so I'm very excited about the opportunity that I've been given," Richardson said.
In the first week of the season, the Lady Cavaliers were already tested when they hosted No. 1 state-ranked Hightower. And although they held a lead at halftime, it was the top-ranked team that prevailed 71-63.
"I've got a lot of quickness," said Richardson, a graduate of Gatesville High School and Texas A&M University. "We're really small, but we're fast."
Megan Shafer, who recently signed with Rice, will lead the way this season along with returning veteransLexxus Ward,Alexia Sanders,Rachel Bowie, andKatie Mitchell.
Shafer averaged 15.6 points and 6 rebounds per game last year. Sanders scored 11.6 points and grabbed 6 rebounds per game as well. Ward averaged 8.1 points and 5 assists during the 2009-10 season, and Mitchell averaged 4 rebounds per contest a year ago.
"We've got a lot of returners and they've got a lot of experience," Richardson said. "They are solid."
Sanders is a sophomore who was thrown into a varsity role as a freshman and came through with flying colors.
And having been an assistant the last few years, Richardson is well aware of the varsity newcomers who will be making the step up from junior varsity.
"Those are some kids that I have coached with for the last couple of years," she said. "So I know them. It's not like I'm coming in new and don't know what the kids can do. So that has helped out a whole lot.
Richardson's move up to head coach is not the only thing new in District 14-5A this season. Atascocita and Kingwood move into the seven-team district, while New Caney drops to Class 4A.
"Our district is going to be really, really hard this year," Richardson said. "Atascocita has got a great team. The Woodlands has a great team.
"Everybody is always competing, so it's going to be a challenge. It's going to be a dog fight every night."
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Given Church Community Builder’s passion for excellence, we are excited to announce an integration with another best-in-class provider of software and services – eSPACE by Cool Solutions Group.
eSPACE and Cool Solutions Group was developed by church facility professionals and offers a comprehensive suite of Church Facility Management Solutions including:
eSPACE has developed an HVAC integration called COOLSPACE that can integrate with many Building Automation Systems and some WiFi Thermostats.
With COOLSPACE/eSPACE integration, you can easily schedule all the events in your facility and the HVAC systems will respond to each event as they occur, including setup and cleanup times. Not only can you realize energy savings with improved HVAC run-times, your facility staff is able to devote more time to other needs.
Integration with eSPACE allows your Church Community Builder calendar to be the front-end interface for your general users and staff, while your Facility and Event Management Teams can utilize the robust features of eSPACE as their daily management tool. You do not have to train the majority on new systems or recreate all of your events in a new space, and your facility team can really drill down into the more detailed information and planning tools needed to intentionally manage and maintain facilities.
If you're ready to be more efficient, effective, and intentional with the facilities God has entrusted to you, contact us today.
Our ApproachOur clients' long-term success is always front-of-mind; we bring the right expertise and deliver tailored and easily implementable solutions.Read more
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