Only 4 1/2 weeks until my due date: September 26! My sister is hoping the baby comes 2 days early (on her birthday) and my uncle wants the baby to come 2 days late (on his birthday). My guess is that our little one will arrive on September 30th. We’ll have to wait and see! Stay posted for the announcement. -K
1 Month Left!
August 27th, 2010Equipping Maniacs
June 21st, 2010In fact, Americans, taken as we find them, who do not get their moral restraints from the Bible, have none. If, in our moral training of the young, we give up the “Thus says the Lord,” we shall have no hold left. The training which does not base duty on Christianity, is, for us, practically immoral.
If testimony is needed, let us quote Dr. Griffin: “To educate the mind of a bad man without correcting his morals is to put a sword into the hands of a maniac.”
John Locke spoke to the same point. “It is virtue, then, direct virtue, which is the hard and valuable part to be aimed at in education. If virtue is not settled in the student, to the exclusion of all vicious habits, all the education in the world will do nothing but make the student worse or more dangerous.”
Taken from R. L. Dabney’s On Secular Education (updated version by Douglas Wilson)
My Humanitarian Work
May 11th, 2010Every day, I feed the hungry.
I nurse the sick.
I clothe the naked.
Every day, I serve and protect. I rescue people from dangerous situations. I identify new ways to keep people safe. I have not yet joined the peacekeeping force, but I expect to soon.
I teach English and help people with their Physics lessons. I also teach History, Ethics, Theology, Music, and the other Sciences.
I’ve donated my organs to the cause of giving people life and health.
Every day, I strive to improve the living environment of others.
I counsel and comfort those in pain. I give encouragement. I wipe tears away.
Every day, all day.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I’ll never get a paid vacation. I’ll never be offered a promotion or a raise. I’ll never be awarded the Nobel Prize or an honourary doctorate.
I’ll face the disapproving looks of many of my peers. They thought I should do something “useful” with my life.
As if raising the next generation of world-shapers wasn’t a good use of my life.
I’m a stay-at-home mom, and I am not ashamed.
Words to the Winners of Souls
May 5th, 2010I (Kristin) stumbled across a little book today by Horatius Bonar entitled Words to the Winners of Souls. I am only part way through it, but I would highly recommend it to pastors and laymen alike. We are all called to be “fishers of men”, and so the words apply equally to us as to our overseers.
I find the book to be convicting as well as inspiring. How easily we get distracted by the cares of this world and forget the real purpose of our lives on earth! How cold is our religion and how we lack zeal! Is it any wonder why our churches are dying?
Here are a couple excellent quotes from the book:
“And who can say how much of the overflowing infidelity of the present day is owing not only to the lack of spiritual instructors, nor to the existence of unfaithful and inconsistent ones, but to the coldness of many who are reputed sound and faithful? Men cannot but feel, that if religion is worth anything, it is worth everything; that if it calls for any measure of zeal and warmth, it will justify the utmost degrees of these; and that there is no consistent medium between reckless atheism and the intensest warmth of religious zeal. Men may dislike and persecute the latter, yet their consciences are all the while silently reminding them that, if there be a God and a Saviour, a heaven and a hell, anything short of such life and love is hypocrisy and perjury!”
**********************
“Thus one has written: ‘The language we have been accustomed to adopt is this: We must use the means, and leave the event to God; we can do no more than employ the means: this is our duty, and, having done this, we must leave the rest to Him who is the disposer of all things. Such language sounds well, for it seems to be an acknowledgment of our own nothingness, and to savour of submission to God’s sovereignty; but it is only sound: it has not really any substance in it; for though there is truth stamped on the face of it, there is falsehood at the root of it.
To talk of submission to God’s sovereignty is one thing, but really to submit to it is another, and quite a different thing. Really to submit to God’s sovereign disposal involves the deep renunciation of our own will in the matter concerned; and such a renunciation of the will can never be effected without a soul being brought through very severe and trying exercises of an inward and most humbling nature. Therefore, if, whilst we are quietly satisfied in using the means without obtaining the end, –and this costs us no such painful inward exercises and deep humbling as that alluded to,–we think that we are leaving the affair to God’s disposal, we deceive ourselves, and the truth (in this matter) is not in us.
No; really to give anything to God implies that the will, which is emphatically the heart, has been set on that thing; and if the heart has indeed been set on the salvation of sinners, as the end to be answered by the means we use, we cannot possibly give up that end, without, as was before observed, the heart being severely exercised and deeply pained by the renunciation of the will involved in it. When, therefore, we can be quietly content to use the measn for saving souls without seeing them saved thereby, it is because there is no renunciation of the will–that is, no real giving up to God in the affair. The fact is, the will, the heart, had never really been set upon this end: if it had, it could not possibly give up such an end without being broken by the sacrifice. When we can thus be satisfied to use the means without obtaining the end, and speak of it as though we were submitting to the Lord’s disposal, we use a truth to hide a falsehood…for our ability to leave the matter thus is not, as we imagine, the result of heart-submission to God, but of heart-indifference to the salvation of souls…‘”
What the Government and the Medical Establishment are Admitting about Vaccination
January 26th, 2010I was doing some research on vaccination and discovered the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC, as their website states, is “a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, [and] is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting public health activities in the United States.”
As I was browsing through their webpages, I came across information which I suspect most people are not aware of. I wanted to share this information, specifically with other parents who are faced with the same dilemma of “to vaccinate, or not to vaccinate.”
First of all, let’s discuss the ingredients of the common childhood vaccines.
According to a pdf list I found through CDC’s website, the vaccines doctors are giving your children include the following ingredients:
- Formaldehyde or Formalin
- Aluminum compounds
- Monkey Kidney Tissue
- Calf Serum Protein
- Bovine Albumin or Serum
- Chick Embryo Fibroblasts
- Thimerosal
In recent years, researchers have been labeling formaldehyde a carcinogen (cancer-causing agent). As for injecting children with foreign animal proteins, other researchers are speculating that this may possibly be interfering with or damaging their human genetic code.
But in regards to Thimerosal, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration admitted this:
“Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound (an organomercurial). Since the 1930s, it has been widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening contamination with harmful microbes. Over the past several years, because of an increasing awareness of the theoretical potential for neurotoxicity of even low levels of organomercurials and because of the increased number of thimerosal containing vaccines that had been added to the infant immunization schedule, concerns about the use of thimerosal in vaccines and other products have been raised. Indeed, because of these concerns, the Food and Drug Administration has worked with, and continues to work with, vaccine manufacturers to reduce or eliminate thimerosal from vaccines.” (Emphasis mine).
What does this mean? This means that Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in your baby’s vaccine, is toxic to your baby’s nervous system and brain.
What severe reactions can the ingredients in these vaccines cause in your child? The CDC website had an entire page devoted to the possible side effects of vaccines. Here are just two of the common childhood vaccines and the possible side effects:
DTaP (Dipheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis vaccine) – Moderate to Severe Reactions
- Seizure (jerking or staring) (about 1 child out of 14,000)
- Non-stop crying, for 3 hours or more (up to about 1 child out of 1,000)
- High fever, 105 degrees Fahrenheit or higher (about 1 child out of 16,000)
- Long-term seizures, coma, or lowered consciousness
- Permanent brain damage.
MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine) – Severe Reactions
- Deafness
- Long-term seizures, coma, or lowered consciousness
- Permanent brain damage
The CDC website claims that severe reactions only occur in the case of one out of a million vaccinations. The Health Canada website claimed that severe reactions occurred in the case of less than one in a million vaccinations. However, one source I read revealed that reporting a severe reaction is NOT mandatory in Canada. If this is true, then the accuracy of the statistics given is seriously questionable.
Many doctors and parents would insist that the vital role of vaccines in preventing serious diseases outweighs the risks of vaccine injury. However, studies published in medical journals reveal that vaccines are not 100% effective in preventing disease.
Here are extracts from the abstract of an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1987:
An outbreak of measles occurred among adolescents in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the spring of 1985, even though vaccination requirements for school attendance had been thoroughly enforced. Serum samples from 1806 students at two secondary schools were obtained eight days after the onset of the first case. Only 4.1 percent of these students (74 of 1806) lacked detectable antibody to measles according to enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and more than 99 percent had records of vaccination with live measles vaccine….We conclude that outbreaks of measles can occur in secondary schools, even when more than 99 percent of the students have been vaccinated and more than 95 percent are immune. (Emphasis mine).
More recently (1996) the Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases reported this:
Since 1991, 6 years after the recommendation of universal childhood triple vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella (M + M + R), Switzerland has been confronted with an increasing number of mumps cases affecting both vaccinated and unvaccinated children. The M + M + R vaccine mainly used in the Swiss population after 1986 contains the highly attenuated Rubini strain of mumps virus….Mumps was confirmed by virus isolation in 88 patients, of whom 72 had previously received the Rubini vaccine strain….These data support other recent reports which indicate an insufficient protective efficacy of current mumps vaccines. (Emphasis mine).
Of course, science is always improving. But who can say whether vaccines have been perfected yet? Furthermore, even if a child is inoculated against one strain of a certain disease, how will that protect him against another strain?
So one must conclude that a vaccinated person bears the risk both of a vaccine injury and of contracting the disease, whereas the unvaccinated person risks only the disease.
I would greatly encourage parents to become informed and make responsible, knowledgeable decisions about their child’s health and wellbeing. Educate yourself about the disease, the vaccine, and the risks of both before you make your choice. Also, check out the history of the disease and whether vaccination played a significant role in bringing down the fatality rates.
- Kristin
Christmas Newsletter 2009
December 17th, 2009by Kristin
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
We hope this newsletter finds you all well.
We have been truly blessed by our gracious God again in 2009, having enjoyed health and strength, loving fellowship with one another, our daily provisions, and the coming of our precious son Justin.
In February, we celebrated our first Valentine’s day as a married couple. Being the unique couple that we are, we took a stroll through the aisles of Home Depot to mark the occasion. Memory fails me as to what we purchased, although Ryan could probably tell you.
The baby was due on March 6th, but by the end of February we were already impatient to see our little one. Thus you can understand our dismay when March 6th came and went. After a little over two weeks of anxious waiting, I went into labour early in the morning on Saturday, March 21st. At approximately 5:30pm Justin Wilberforce Kidd was born, and we rejoiced to have been given a healthy baby boy.
Justin was received into the Covenant Family of God through the sign and seal of baptism on March 29th. Ryan took two weeks paternity leave to help with running the house and caring for Justin while I recovered from the birth.
During the month of April, we were thrilled at the opportunity to get to know this new little person better and watch him grow. Determined to be good parents, we bundled Justin up and took him for his first bike ride in his baby bike trailer on April 13th.
In May, Justin helped with raising donations for the Pregnancy Care Centre Walk for Life, and was the youngest participant in the walk. He hitched a ride in his snuggly with Daddy. My graduation from the Philosophy B.A. Honours program at Tyndale University College took place the same weekend. Towards the end of the month, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary by going on a family bike ride and picnic in Sunnybrook Park followed by a stroll through Edwards Gardens.
During the spring and summer, Ryan kept busy assembling and selling tandem bicycles. Justin spent many a happy hour watching his Daddy work on bicycles. I planted a variety of vegetables in my tiny plot of garden in the backyard and reaped a fairly good harvest.
On the Canada Day holiday, we went on a short bike tour of the Niagara region and saw the Brock Monument, the Arboretum, and the Niagara River and the Falls. We enjoyed dinner and a fireworks show with our friends, the Wells, and spent the night at their place.
In August we drove out to Ottawa to visit our friends the Zinks, and had a great time of fellowship. Our Justin and their little Heidi (who is only a few months older) enjoyed some happy playtime together.
In October we attended two different conferences. The first was the Deconstructing Darwin conference at Westminster Chapel, and the second was the Ignite the Culture conference organized by the ECP Centre. Both were excellent.
We enjoyed time with both families on Thanksgiving weekend, and went on a great hike on a section of the Bruce Trail.
At the end of October, we made the decision to upgrade our quarters, painting and renovating the main and second floors of our home on Shawnee Circle. Most of November was spent cleaning out junk, painting the walls, re-finishing the floor, and doing other renovations to prepare the house for us to move in. We have now moved and are slowly settling in while we continue to finish the details.
As for Justin, he is a happy, content, and outgoing baby. He’s had a great year of growing and developing. Born weighing 6 lbs 9 oz. (3 kgs) and measuring 21 inches (53 cm), he now weighs over 20 lbs and measures almost 30 inches. He cut his first tooth when he was just four months old, and now boasts seven big chompers. He was sitting (with support) at about six and a half months, and in the past few weeks has started the combat crawl. He loves to play peek-a-boo and to kick his feet. Justin’s favourite things include mommy’s milk, banana, tags, zippers, and paper. With his Daddy’s help, Justin is well on his way to becoming a man’s man.
God is good and we continue to rest in His love toward us demonstrated in so many ways.
Blessings to you this Christmas from the Kidd Family,
Ryan, Kristin, & Justin
Worldviews in “Collision”
December 6th, 2009by Kristin
Recently, we viewed the new “debatumentary” about Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson’s tour around America. The two men debated the existence and goodness of God. Hitchens’ primary argument was that Christianity is “immoral”, and Wilson (craftily wielding the transcendental argument) challenged him to give a basis for his claim.
In my observation, Hitchens had difficulty in recognizing the paralyzing thrust of Wilson’s argument. An atheist can’t deny the existence of a Moral Lawgiver and an absolute moral law and then turn around and claim that the Christian’s belief in such goes against absolute moral law.
Let me explain using an illustration. Suppose Hitchens came up to me and told me that Parliament doesn’t exist, that there are no lawmakers, judges, or policemen, and there is no Charter or Constitution — no law or enforcement of any kind.
“Is that so?” I said. “Well, I believe that all drivers should stop at red lights and stop signs.”
“It’s against the law to believe such a thing,” says Hitchens. “People like you are criminals and are poisoning the world.”
But hold on a second: Against what law? Hitchens just told me he doesn’t believe there are laws, lawmakers, or law enforcers. So what is he referring to? If there is no law, then on what is he basing his claim that my belief is “against the law”? The answer is: Nothing. He has nothing to back him up. Hitchens’ claim is empty and meaningless.
The same goes with his argument against Christianity. He denies the existence of God (the Great Lawgiver and Judge) and by consequence the existence of God’s absolute moral law, and then he calls Christianity “immoral.” What does he have to back up that claim? Nothing. His argument is totally meaningless unless he can come up with an absolute moral law (other than God’s) which applies to all men equally across all cultures and history.
I think Wilson did an excellent job of keeping up the offensive and forcing Hitchens to defend his position. Wilson kept driving the point home that Hitchens had no ground to stand on, and hopefully — Lord willing — Hitchens will eventually come to see the fatal flaw in his atheism.
A ‘Face to Face’ Discussion on Holiness
September 30th, 2009by Kristin
A friend of mine posted a question on Facebook, asking “What does it mean to ’strive for holiness’?
Here is the discussion that followed:
What does it mean to “strive for holiness”??
Kristin Kidd
Holiness means to be “set apart.” There should be an unmistakable difference between Christians and the world. We need to seek to be close to the heart of God, and because God is holy, this means we need to reject our sin, keep God’s law with a pure and right heart, and love as Jesus loved — sacrifice our selves for the good of others. (Not easy!)
J. T.
@Kristin, are Christians set apart *because* they follow a particular law or are Christians set apart *to* follow a particular law? What do you mean when you say we ought to “keep God’s law with a pure and right heart”? Which law? The Mosaic law? The Shema?
Kristin Kidd
@J. T., I’d say both, because I believe 1) that Christians are commanded to keep the law (John 14:15) and that we are known by our fruits (Matt. 7:17-20, Cf. book of James) and 2) that God is sovereign and that the Holy Spirit works in us, makes us new creations, and helps us to keep the law.
I said ‘pure and right heart’ to distinguish from the legalistic keeping of the law, which strains out gnats and swallows camels, and which neglects mercy and justice (Matt. 23:23-24).
If you ask me, the Shema is a summary of the Mosaic law (see Matt. 22:34-40). You have to distinguish between the ceremonial laws and the moral laws of the OT. The NT affirms the continued keeping of the moral law, but the ceremonial law (i.e. dietary laws, laws of animal sacrifices) were done away with through the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus and the instructions to Peter (Acts 10).
J. T.
@Kristin, I think you’ve made some helpful distinctions, however, I’m not sure that in John 14:15 Jesus is commanding his followers to keep the moral law. “If you love me, you will obey what I command,” (Jn. 14:15, NIV). Jesus expands on this a few verses later: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you,” and again, “This is my command: Love each other,” (Jn. 15: 12, 17 respectively). This seems to be similar to the Shema.
The Shema as seen in Matt. seems to be more than just a “summary” of the Mosaic law, the words Jesus uses, particularly in verse 40 seem to suggest that the Shema is a *fulfillment* of the Mosaic law.
Kristin Kidd
@ J. T. , Re: Love and law. Love is the fulfillment of the law, but love is shown through actions. Paul explains this in Romans 13:8-10. You cannot separate love from actions.
For example, you can tell your wife you love her, but if you steal from her (i.e. break the 8th commandment) you are not showing love. Your breaking of the law demonstrates your lack of love.
It’s the same with Jesus’ commandments to love. Love means keeping the law.
[Postscript: Just to clarify. Love (and the Shema) is a fulfillment of the law in the sense which Paul is talking about in Romans 13: if you love your neighbour, you will "fulfill" the law toward them by not stealing from them, not killing them, and so on.]
Wives: You are not his conscience!
July 21st, 2009by Kristin
In the past year, I have read a few good books on marriage and being a godly wife. One thing I came across which I thought was particularly applicable to the wives of today was the truth that we are not our husband’s conscience. God did not give wives to men for the purpose of convicting them of their sin and ridding them of all their bad habits. If He did, then you would expect a wife’s nagging and criticism would instantly transform a man because God would be working through it. But He isn’t, because that is the opposite of what He intended for husbands and wives.
At the beginning, when God was looking over His creation, He said: “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him” (Genesis 2:18). Wives, God made us as a helper. Not a coach, not a prosecuting attorney, not a judge, but a helper. God’s created purpose for us was to lend our wholehearted support to our husband’s vision, his goals, his dreams (within the bounds of God’s law). This is how we ‘build up our house’ like a wise woman (Proverbs 14:1) and bring glory to God (Titus 2:4-5).
You may be tempted to think: “But if I don’t say anything or show him that he’s doing wrong, he’ll make pagans out of the kids with the stuff he’s letting them watch on TV,” or “he’ll keep getting us lost every time he drives us somewhere,” or “our house will look like a dump because he is too lazy to fix the screen door,” or “he’ll never do anything good, and he won’t grow as a spiritual leader.”
Consider this: No man has ever crawled out from under his wife’s criticism to achieve greatness.
Consider this: Your disrespect for your husband will ultimately be a greater destroyer of your children than his bad habits.
Consider this: You are interfering with God’s work in his life with your critical spirit. You are failing to be obedient to God yourself, and you are failing to trust God for the outcome.
If you want to change your husband, you must do it God’s way: “Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear” (I Peter 3:1-2).
Be submissive. Be respectful. Trust God and obey Him.
Be encouraging. Encouragement is by far a better motivator of men than criticism is.
Be loving. Be supportive. Make your home a haven for your man, not a battle zone or a courtroom.
Justin’s Corner
April 14th, 2009For more photos of Justin, view our
We will attempt to update this web album periodically with new photos of our growing boy.