Eastern Youth Newsletter: Volume 1 Issue 2

Eastern UCLE Church

Volume 1, Issue 2

XtáàxÜÇ lÉâà{ axãáÄxààxÜ February-March 2006

I C o u l d S i n g o f Yo u r L o v e F o r e v e r ! Table of Contents: Introduction

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March Calendar

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Valentine’s Program

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Sing to the 4 King Concert!

Let me ask you something. What is music to you? We all like different types of music don’t we? Whether it’s rock, country, rap, techno, pop, classical music or even our Hmong traditional songs like kwv txhia! In the Bible there are Books and Books of Songs! God has given us music to praise and worship Him! Music effects our lives, and there’s no denying it. When we’re sad we listen to heartbreaking melodies such as in those Korean Drama. When we’re happy, we’ll sing our hearts out to our favorite Christian song. But most of all, music lifts us up and it touches us.

Gideon Hiding

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God’s love is like music. It touches us deep within and lifts our spirits. He gives us strength and understands how we feel inside. Who else knows you better than the one who created us all?

Bible Stories & Puzzle

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Music plays a major part in our lives like the music of silence or the music of heavy metal put on full blast. How many of you agree that music comforts you when you are in a desperate time of need or when you’re the happiest? Embrace God’s Love, and you’ll hear the most beautiful music of all!

Ending Story

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Special points of interest: ♦ Pictures of our First EUCLE Youth Fundraising Event! ♦ Don’t forget to read the Stories! ♦ Hm...first one to finish the word search wins something! Like a round of applause! YAY! ♦ Okay...well, enjoy the newsletter and PRAISE THE LORD most of all!

“Over the mountains and the sea, Your river runs with love for me. And I will open up my heart and let the Healer set me free. I’m happy to be in the Truth, and I will daily lift my hands for I will always sing of when Your love came down!”

Yo u ’ r e t h e M U S I C O F M Y H E A R T !

Psalm 92:1-3 It is good to praise the LORD and make music to Your name, O Most High, To proclaim Your love in the morning and Your faithfulness at night, To the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.

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Volume 1, Issue 2 ACTS 20:35

“In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

MARCH SCHEDULE OF EVENTS •

March 11: Pastor’s Day

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March 17: St. Patrick’s Day

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So...who is St. Patrick? He converted many Irish people to Christianity. He used the three-leaf clover to explain the concept of the Trinity: The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. It is said that he had put a curse on venomous snakes in Ireland and drove them all into the sea where they drowned.

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O u r V a l e n t i n e ’s P r o g r a m 2 0 0 6 : F e b r u a r y 1 1 t h Congratulations EUCLE Youth! We had a wonderful Valentine’s Program done for our parents! To start off, the Youth performed a special play about love. It was the story of Jacob and Rachel where we learned that “If you love someone, you would do anything for that person.” After the play, we led a series of shows and games for the parents including Love Therapy where Adam and Eve were leading a conversation about their relationship (who were performed by me, Rebecca, and Meng Her). Afterwards, we had another couple fighting over what they wore and etc. Haha...it was quote funny watching Paia act like a Ninja and Tim acting normal for once! But the point of the story was: “It’s not always about what you wear. It’s about who the person is.” Then Tiffany Moua and Kao Yang hosted the Newlyweds’ Game. It was for three couples to find out how much they knew about each other. My parents won! :D

T h e F i r s t E U C L E Yo u t h F u n d r a i s i n g E v e n t ! The parents, again, got involved with another game called “Who’s Your Kid?” where the parents had to guess who their child was through a list their child made of their favorite hobbies and activities...interesting, huh? :D Throughout the show, we had special songs song by some of our Youth for the parents AND we also had a dance! :D It was lovely watching the parents (for some) dance together for the first time! In the end, Mai Cheng Yang closed off with a Sermon about Love. It was a great experience for the Youth, and we would have to thank our parents for supporting us from the start! The Youth did a great job helping set-up, babysitting!, performing and just about helping run the show! They ALL also created a beautiful banner (picture to the left). We can’t forget the Sabbath class who played a part in our Love Play! The Youth Officers worked their butts off to organize and run the show. And finally we CANNOT forget to thank God! He has blessed us with LOVING parents including our crazy friends at church and family! ~Rebecca Lor, Historian/Publisher

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C M A’ s “ S i n g t o t h e K i n g ” C o n c e r t By: Tim Moua (EUCLE Music Director) Saturday, February 18th, I headed down to Winder, Georgia, to attend CMA’s “Sing to the King” concert. I was surprised to see how big their church actually is. Well, other than that, it was about a 2 hour drive from Charlotte to Winder. Myself along with 3 of my friends met up with some Charlotte CMA youths that I happened to know. Once we got there, I met a few people from all different church’s including Trinity, Lutheran and, of course, myself representing good ol’ UCLE! They had already started the first part of the program which was local church performers. It was great to see how many youths were there and to see how many devoted youths there actually was. We got to see the second half as lunch time was right around the corner, so we took a lunch break for about 45 minutes eating spaghetti. YUM! After lunch, there was a worship session which was WOW! It was great! I saw a violinist and a saxophonist which made the worship songs even better! After lunch, we proceeded with local church performers along with many different types of games they had set up for the local church’s. But other than that, my experience of the “Sing to the King” was no different from UCLE’s revivals and concerts. Why? Because it was to worship One God. Despite the different church’s, we were all gathered in His Holy House to worship and praise in His name!

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B ib le S to r y : H id in g Fro m th e En emy The story of Gideon shows how God looks at our potential, not just the person we are right now. We should thank God for the many victories He provides in our life. The story of Gideon comes from the book of Judges, Chapter 6, in the Bible. Gideon was a real person that God chose to lead His people from a period of disobedience and back into fellowship with God. The children of Israel had done bad things and God caused them to be defeated by the Midianites for seven years. When the Midianites came they destroyed everything, including all the flocks of sheep and animals that that Israelites had. So they went into hiding from the enemy. They were cowards. God sent a prophet to tell them He had delivered them from mighty enemies before and not to be afraid of the gods of the Amorites, but the children of Israel wouldn’t listen. One day Gideon was beating wheat by the winepress. He was doing it to hide it from the Midianites. He was hiding from the enemy. Then an angel appeared to him and said an amazing thing: “The Lord is with thee, thou might man of valour.” Ha! The Lord certainly has a sense of humor. Here was poor Gideon, a coward, hiding out from the enemy and God called him a brave soldier! But do you know what? God wasn’t looking at the cowardly man standing before Him. He was looking at Gideon’s potential, what he could be, if he only trusted God. God is like that. He doesn’t just see us as what we are, He sees what we CAN be for Him. Oh, if only we could look at each other that way and not be so judgmental of each other’s shortcomings. God was very patient with Gideon when Gideon needed proof that it was an angel of God. He then led Gideon on a series of events that helped Gideon gain courage to do as God had told him: “Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.” The Bible says in Judges 6:34, “But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet.” When the Spirit of God gets a hold of us we can do mighty things. When the Spirit of the God got hold of Martin Luther King Jr., he led black people in America to demand their rights as equals. When God gets hold of us, we can stand to blow the trumpet of truth and do great things. Gideon was ready to lead an uprising against the Midianites, but God didn’t want the people to think they had done it in their own strength. So God told Gideon to cut back from an army of 22,000 to only 300 men. He chose the men that weren’t afraid and didn’t lap water from the creek like a dog, but kept a watchful eye and cupped their hands when they drank. When the appointed time came for battle, God did most of the fighting. It was in the middle of the night. God had instructed Gideon to take pitchers with lamps inside them and trumpets for every man. When Gideon gave the signal, they all blew the trumpet, broke the pitcher and held up the torch or lamp. Then they shouted “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.” This caused so much confusion in the camp that the Midianites turned on each other and killed each other. Some estimate that this little army of 300 men and the Lord defeated over 180,000 Midianites who “lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude.” God planned it that way so they wouldn’t start to brag that they had defeated them on their own. Clearly, it was God who gave them the victory. We need to remember that Jesus is always with us, but we need to give Him the credit whenever we have moments of victory in life. © 1996 by Michael J. Starke. You can find the sermon online at: http://www.childrensermons.com/sermons/gideon.htm

Volume 1, Issue 2 The Story of the Red Sea

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Old Testament Word Search

A boy was sitting on a park bench with one hand resting on an open Bible. He was loudly exclaiming his praise to God. Shortly after, along came a man who had recently completed some studies at a local university. Feeling himself very enlightened in the ways of truth and very eager to show this enlightenment, he asked the boy about the source of his joy. “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! God is great!” He yelled without worrying whether anyone heard him or not. “Hey,” asked the boy in return with a bright laugh, “don’t you have any idea what God is able to do? I just read that God opened up the waves of the Red Sea and led the whole nation of Israel right through the middle.” The enlightened man laughed lightly, sat down next to the boy and began to try to open his eyes to the “realities” of the miracles of the Bible. “That can all be very easily explained. Modern science has shown that the Red Sea in that area was only 10-inches deep at that time. It was no problem for the Israelites to wade across.” The boy looked surprised. His eyes wandered from the man back to the Bible laying open in his lap. The man, content that he had enlightened the poor, naïve young person to the finer points of scientific insight, turned to go. Scarcely had he taken two steps when the boy began to rejoice and praise louder than before: “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! God is SO great!” The man turned to ask the reason for this resumed jubilation. “Wow!” Exclaimed the boy happily. “God is greater than I thought! Not only did He lead the whole nation of Israel through the Red Sea, He topped it off by drowning the whole Egyptian army in only 10-inches of water!”

Amos Chronicles Daniel Deuteronomy Ecclesiastes Esther Exodus Ezekiel Ezra Genesis Habakkuk

Hosea Isaiah Jeremiah Job Joel Jonah Joshua Judges Kings Lamentations Leviticus

Micah Nahum Nehemiah Numbers Obadiah Proverbs Psalms Ruth Samuel Song of Solomon Zechariah

Funny Story =D There were four people all on a small plan together. An hour into the plane flight the pilot announced that the plane was going down and that everyone would need to jump; then he put on his parachute and jumped-leaving only three parachutes for the four passengers. The first passenger to grab a parachute was a doctor who explained that he was on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer; therefore, he was clearly the most important passenger. That said, he jumped out of the doomed plane. The second passenger claimed to the smartest man in the world. “Surely you wouldn’t want the smartest man in the world to go down with the plane,” he explained, and he jumped too. The only two passengers left were a Boy Scout and a Priest. The Priest told the young boy that he had lived a good life and was ready to die, so the boy should take the parachute and jump to safety. The Boy Scout calmly answered, “Don’t worry. There are still two parachutes left. The smartest man in the world just jumped out of the plane with my backpack.”

Visit our EUCLE Youth Website: www.geocities.com/eucle_youth

Eastern UCLE Church Word from the Editor: My contact information is below if you have any questions, comments or suggestions. Otherwise, you can just contact me in person. :D ~Rebecca Lor, Historian/Publicist Phone: 828-403-0866 Home: 828-584-1755 E-mail: [email protected]

The Musician of the Two Instruments By Paia Yang, EUCLE Youth Treasurer In the morning, after Apollo had ridden his Golden Chariot across the flaming Sun, he set forth riding his Chariot to the Mountain of Muses to find his son Asclepius. Putting the Golden Chariot back in its place, he called for his son, “Asclepius!” Asclepius came out of the door and greeted his father. “Father you are back? Is there something wrong?” Apollo smiled and continued, “No, I have made two new instruments and just want to show it to you. Come.” Apollo and Asclepius walked into Apollo’s bedroom where the gleaming sunlight shined through his room. The scent of newly polished wood filled the room. There, in the middle of Apollo’s room stood two wood polished instruments. The long instrument, almost the size of mankind, stood horizontally with the other stringed instrument leaning against it. The long instrument was made of fine wood with a board of 26 short black fingers and 52 longer white fingers; however, the other was like a body of a woman and made of fine wood with six strings that connected from the body to the head of the long wood neck. Asclepius looked at it with amazement touching the two instruments. “These are very beautiful instruments, Father. How do you play these?” “They are very simple. This one,” Apollo pointed at the long instrument made of fine wood filled with the black and white keys and continued, “I call it the Grand Piano. The Grand Piano has a graceful, yet smooth sound to it. I favor this instru-

ment very much. The other instrument that has six strings is called the Acoustic Guitar. It sounds almost like a Harp, yet more pleasant. It is similar to the Grand Piano and has the same pitches in the notes. It also has a body shaped like a woman.” “Your creation in music and instruments is very good Father, but who will be able to play these two instruments? We must have someone who will be able to sing, and play with these two instruments. Also, this person must go and teach mankind to play them.” Apollo saw that his son’s idea was great. “I favor your idea very much. Since the shape of the Guitar is like a shape of a woman, the Guitar should be her body. It will also make things to help her body move and be able to play the instruments.” As Apollo said this, the Guitar turned into a body of a woman, its fine wood transforming into her body. The six strings formed her flowing hair. “The black note on the piano will be the color of her hair and the color of her eyes. The white notes will help her voice with the pitches giving her the ability to sing.” After Apollo was done with his creation he named the woman, “Paia.” The “P” stands for Piano, the “A” stood for Apollo the creator, “I” for the instruments, and the last “A” stood for the Acoustic Guitar. Apollo commanded her to go to Earth to show his new creation of instruments and to inspire music for all of them to learn.