DESERTS

You want hot? Then visit a desert.  In their most sizzling months, earth’s deserts may average from 105-110 degrees Fahrenheit.  Not scorching enough for you? Then plan a trip to the Sahara, which holds the record at a blistering 136 degrees.  And don’t worry about finding a place to enjoy the heat; the vast Sahara sprawls over 3.5 million square miles, an area roughly the size of the United States.

How about dry?

Chile’s Atacama Desert holds the planetary record for aridity: not a single drop of rain has fallen there in more than 40 years.  Many deserts rely on less than 10 inches of rain per year, with an evaporation rate 20 times the annual precipitation rate. 

Still, lack of moisture does have its benefits.  Antarctica’s dry polar deserts dip in temperature to an annual mean of about 1.5 degrees.  In the Gobi desert of central Asia, inhabitants can expect as much as a six-month break from the heat; of course, they also have to contend with severe blizzards caused by ferocious winter winds. 

Speaking of winds, gale force storms have been known to throw millions of tons of sand hundreds of miles across the earth’s deserts.  Africa’s Namib Desert has built dunes as high as 800 feet (only a little shorter than New York’s Rockefeller Center, standing at 850 feet).  While deserts cover 25 percent of the earth’s surface, sand accumulates on less than 20 percent of their domain.  For the real king of sand, consider Mars.  With an atmospheric pressure of about one-hundredths that of Earth, our red neighbor boasts three million square miles of sand – an area greater than the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, the largest sand sea on our planet. 

AND YET…

When God wants water, He can produce it even in the desert.  “They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts,” marvels Isaiah.  “He made water flow for them from the rock; He split the rock and water gushed out” (48:21).  Nor is God dismayed by the heat or sand, for when He wants arid Israel to bloom, “He will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord” (Isaiah 51:3).  He spreads a table in the desert for His people (Psalm 78:19) and promises,

“I WILL PUT IN THE DESERT THE CEDAR AND THE ACACIA, THE MYRTLE AND THE OLIVE.  I WILL SET PINES IN THE WASTELAND, THE FIR AND THE CYPRESS TOGETHER, SO THAT PEOPLE MAY SEE AND KNOW, MAY CONSIDER AND UNDERSTAND, THAT THE HAND OF THE LORD HAS DONE THIS, THAT THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL HAS CREATED IT.”

(Isaiah 41:19-20)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net

MOUNTAINS

Only a few things in this world deserve to be called mountains.  Towering at least 2,000 feet above sea level, mountains cover a fifth of earth’s land area, while submarine ranges spread over most of the sea floor. 

These natural elevations in the earth’s crust generally form by folding, faulting or volcanic activity.  At an elevation of 19,347 feet, Ecuador’s Cotopaxi dwarfs all other active volcanos.  The highest peak in North America is Alaska’s Mt Mckinley (20,320 feet), while at 29,028 feet, the highest  mountain in the world remains Mt.Everest in the Himalayas. 

As friction from subducting plates begins to build, some mountains crack wide open, spewing lava, steam, ash and poisonous gases.  Before May 1980, Mt. Saint Helens rose to 9,677 feet above sea level.  Her explosion blasted more than 1,000 feet off her peak and triggered a series of disasters: flash floods and mudslides, clouds of ash spreading all over the world, over 100 square miles of denuded forests.  More than 150 miles of trout and salmon streams were destroyed, along with 26 lakes.  Sixty-six persons and an estimated 2 million animals died in the blast.  Yet the Mt.Saint Helens disaster pales in comparison to others.  A late-night eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Columbia in 1985 sent a wave of mud across the town of Armero, killing 23,000 sleeping citizens.  And a 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee on Martinique released a blast of hot gases that killed all but two of the town’s 30,000 residents.  Who can grasp the power of an angry mountain?

AND YET…

God has merely to look at the earth, and it trembles; He touches the mountains, and they smo,e (Psalm 104:32).  Massive as mountains are, He moves them without their knowing it and overturns them in his anger (Job 9:5).  By His infinite wisdom and power He created the world’s peaks (Psalm 65:6) as a picture of His righteousness (Psalm 36:6).  When we gaze at them we should think of Him, and along with the Psalmist declare to our Lord,

“YOU ARE RESPELNDENT WITH LIGHT, MORE MAJESTIC THAN MOUNTAINS RICH WITH GAME.”

(Psalm 76:4)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net

SEA

Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface, to an average depth of 2.3 miles – a volume of water estimated at 329 million cubic miles (11 times the volume of dry land).  The Mariana Trench, halfway between the Pacific islands of Guam and Yap, plunges to a depth of 36,200 feet, more than six and a half miles straight down.  If the world’s tallest mountain, Everest, were to be thrown into this watery hole, you’d still have to take a submarine down over 1.3 miles to reach the summit (and at those depths, the hull pressure on your submarine would amount to over 1,000 atmospheres).

Of course, the ocean contains a lot more than water.  If you were to remove all of its salt, you would harvest 50,000,000,000,000,000 tons of the stuff –enough to cover the entire planet in a layer 150 feet thick.  Sea water also holds more gold than exists on land, 100 times as much as humans have mined throughout the world history.

The size and power of the sea awes us, and rightly so.  Tsunamis, or tidal waves, may reach heights in excess of 150 feet, and travel as fast as 450 miles per hour.  In 1946, an earthquake in the Aleutian Trench in the north Pacific triggered a tsunami that, four and a half hours later killed 178 people in Honolulu, Hawaii – 2,000 miles away.  Even average waves the width of freighter carry ten times more power than is needed to drive the ship.  If you could somehow harness the energy potential between the differing temperatures (about 27 degrees Farenheit) of the upper levels of the sea and its frigid depths, we could supply all the world’s current energy needs. 

AND YET…

At a mere blast from the nostrils of God, the deep valley s of the sea lie exposed (Psalm 18:15).  We may think the sea vast, but He can pour it all into little jars (Psalm 33:7).  He quiets the raging sea with a single word (Psalm89:9; Mark4:39) and though the waves may roll and roar, they cannot cross the boundaries He has set for them (Job 38:10-11; Proverbs 8:29; Jeremiah 5:22).  The oceans can only hint at the power of God:

“THE SEAS HAVE LIFTED UP, O LORD, THE SEAS HAVE LIFTED UP THEIR VOICE; THE SEAS HAVE LIFTED UP THEIR POUNDING WAVES.  MIGHTIER THAN THE THUNDER OF THE GREAT WATERS, MIGHTIER THAN THE BREAKERS OF THE SEA – THE LORD ON HIGH IS MIGHTY.” 

(Psalm 93:3-4)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net

church planting in RUSSIA this summer

“The days are coming,” declares the SovereignLord, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.”  Amos 8:11

This is the verse that the last tsar of Russia received before being executed by communists.

When Russia lost its King, it lost GOD also.  That was almost 100 years ago. Although it has been 20 years since the fall of communism in Russia, yet the nation is still in famine for God’s Word.

Ekaterinburg, is the third largest city in this great nation, with over 2 million people and only about 2,000 believers in the whole region.  Because this is the city is where the tsar and his family were assassinated, it is the center of Russian Orthodoxy. Yet people are on a search for a true meaning of life, and are hungry for a relationship with their Creator.   

Several missionary families from Chukotka, Moldova and the U.S have recently relocated to this city, and beginning a church planting project in an area that has no church. 

We have a great opportunity this summer to come along aside the very beginning of a church plant.  Oasis Chamber Choir is planning a trip to Ekaterinbrug July 15-30^th, 2012.   We are hoping that Oasis coming to the city, putting on concerts and bringing awareness to this newly founded church, will draw people and help the missionaries gather individuals to begin studying the word of God. 

It takes a lot of energy, time, money and preparation to put on a project like this, and we can not do this alone.  As the choir is sacrificing its resources, will you consider helping us in this cause?  Please consider helping us raise the $25,000 needed for the trip (flight prices are not included in the budget for they are covered by each member individually). 

We Believe that TOGETHER we can plant yet another church, a house of prayer where people can begin to feed on the truth of Gods word.

Please consider supporting us in following ways:

*  PRAY FOR THIS PROJECT, for miracles of provision, safety and direction. 

*  PURCHASE GIFTS for the Missonary Families (email me @ natalkavich@hotmail.com for specific needs)

*  SUPPORT THIS PROJECT FINANCIALLY (all donations are tax deductible) 

o   Make checks out to Connect International (memo: Oasis) mail to:

Connect Internationl 4366 Auburn Blvd, St3, Sacramento, CA  95841

o   Donate Online www.connect-inter.com to Ekaterinburg Mission Project.

ASTEROIDS

Millions of them silently fly around above you, and you’d better hope that one doesn’t fall on your head.  Asteroids may be the stuff of science fiction, but they’re terribly real – as a visit to Canyon Diablo west of Winslow, Arizona, will attest. 

Meteor Crater measures about 4,000 feet in diameter, with an interior depth of 600 feet and a rim rising 200 feet above the surrounding plain.  A fallen asteroid created the crate at least 5000 years ago.  The resulting explosion scattered fragments of nickel-iron (ranging in size from pebbles to 1,400 pounds) over 100 square miles. 

The largest known asteroid in the Solar System, Ceres, measures 584 miles across.  Astronomers have identified more than 250 asteroids with diameters of at least 62 miles, and believe more than a million rocks with diameters, greater than half a mile orbit between Jupiter and Mars.  Photographic evidence suggests our Moon is pockmarked with some 3 trillion asteroid-caused crates greater than three feet in diameter.

So is earth in danger from these space visitors?  Judge for yourself.  In 1992, a three-mile-long asteroid named Toutatis passed less than nine lunar distances from earth – and astronomers believe that in 2004 it will whiz by within 930,000 miles (less than four lunar distances).  And that’s just one asteroid we know about.  Many such flying rocks don’t reflect much light, so we can’t see them until they’re almost on top of us. 

Scientists believe that asteroids with diameters of at least .6 miles periodically collide with earth, each with an explosive yield greater than several hydrogen bombs.  Each collision would leave a crate 8 miles across and would cause short-term climatic changes worldwide.  That’s a lot of power just from a falling rock!

AND YET…

God knows the exact number of asteroids in the universe (Psalm 147:4).  IN fact, He personally set them in their proper places (Psalm 8:3).  It is He who seals off their light (Job 9:7) and calls them “wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever” (Jude 1:13).  God says that in the day of His wrath “men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken” (Luke 21:26), and He paints a starling picture of a future celestial judgment:

“THE STARS IN THE SKY FELL TO EARTH, AS LATE FIGS DROP FROM A FIG TREE WHEN SHAKEN BY A STRONG WIND.  THE SKY RECEDED LIKE A SCROLL, ROLLING UP, AND EVERY MOUNTAIN AND ISLAND WAS REMOVED FROM ITS PLACE… SOMETHING LIKE A HUGE MOUNTAIN, ALL ABLAZE, WAS THROWN INTO THE SEA… AND A GREAT STAR, BLAZING LIKE A TORCH, FELL FROM THE SKY ON A THIRD OF THE RIVERS AND ON THE SPRINGS OF WATER.”

(Revelation 6:13, 14; 8:8, 10)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net

MOON

The moon boasts a diameter of 2,160 miles, about a third that of the earth.  While to us it seems to shine  bright in the clear night sky, it actually reflects only about 7.3 percent of the sunlight that strikes it.  It rotates on its axis every 29 days, identical to the time it takes to compete its orbit around earth – which explains why it always shows us the same face.  Some of the crates pockmarking its surface measure more than 125 miles wide, with ridges rising almost a mile high. 

At the surface of the earth the gravitational force of the moon measures about 2.2 times greater than that of the sun.  Every day the moon silently lifts the world’s oceans- vast basins of water soundlessly and irresistibly heaved into the air.  In Boston the ride recedes ten feet.  In Eastport, Maine, it recedes nineteen feet.  If the moon were only 50,000 miles away from earth instead of 240,000, gigantic tides would submerge all the continents under water; even the highest mountains would slip beneath the waves.

How awesome is the moon!  If you stood on its surface, unprotected from the sun’s ferocious radiation, the fluids in your body would boil; but if you walked into the shadow of a large rock, you would quickly freeze solid.

AND YET…

To God the moon is nothing but a “lower light to govern the night” (Genesis 1:16).  When He commanded it to stay still in the sky, it instantly obeyed (Joshua 10:13).  What we consider bright He sees as dark (Job 25:5) – and one day He will replace the light of the moon with the brilliance of His own glory;

“THE SUN WILL NO MORE BE YOUR LIGHT BY DAY, NOR WILL THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE MOON SHINE ON YOU, FOR THE LORD WILL BE YOUR EVERLASTING LIGHT, AND YOUR GOD WILL BE YOUR GLORY.”

(Isaiah 60:19)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net

EARTH

Speeding around the sun at 18.5 miles per second, the earth completes one orbit every 365 days, rotating on its axis every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.  Its slightly elliptical orbit of almost 93 million miles from the sun provides exactly the right conditions for life to flourish.  Any closer to its star, and the planet’s water would vaporize; any further away, and it would freeze solid. 

Living creatures on earth breathe an atmosphere composed of about 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, with the rest comprised of argon, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases.  This mixture prevents most ultraviolet light from reaching the planet’s surface; without such a screen, life as we know it could not exist. 

The earth boasts a mass of approximately 6x10 ²¹   metric tons and a surface area of about 197 million square miles.  A crust about 21 miles thick lies under the continents; it shrinks to three miles under the oceans.  Beneath the crust stretches a mantle about 1,800 miles deep; below that lies a molten core composed mostly of iron.  This core likely is divided into two parts, an outer, fluid region, and an extremely dense, solid region about 1,500 miles across – all extremely hot.  It is estimated that an electric current constantly flowing in the outer core generates approximately 90 percent of earth’s magnetic field.  This magnetosphere extends about 90 miles above the earth’s surface, trapping rapidly moving charged particles emanating from solar winds.  Without this magnetic shields, all life on earth would perish in a bombardment of deadly cosmic radioactivity.  What a complex, unique marvel is the earth!

AND YET….

Although top scientists are only beginning to understand the sophisticated design of our planet, without the slightest effort God has always fully  “comprehended the vast expanses of the earth” (Job 38:18).  It is He who “suspends the earth over nothing” (Job 26:7) and He who “sits enthroned above the circle of the earth” (Isaiah 40:22).  No wonder the Psalmist exclaims, “How awesome is the Lord Most High, the great King over all the earth!” (Psalm 47:2), for as Jeremiah says,

“GOD MADE THE EARTH BY HIS POWER; HE FOUNDED THE WORLD BY HIS WISDOM.”

(Jeremiah 10:12)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net

SUN

It may look like a tiny eyeball peering through the sky’s backyard fence, but our sun has a volume 1.3 million times that of the earth and accounts for 99.8 percent of the total mass of the solar system.  It looks so small because we’re in orbit at a distance of nearly 90 million miles.  Good thing we’re that far away too.  If you dared to touch it, you’d instantly vaporize from its surface temperature of about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit – chilly by comparison to the solar core, which burns at an impossible 27 million degrees.  The sun continually turns hydrogen into helium through the process of fusion, converting 4million tons of matter into energy every second.

Astronomers consider the sun to be an average star in mass, size and brightness, and say that if it continued on an average course, it would eventually become a red giant, engulf Mercury and Venus, blow away the earth’s atmosphere and boil its oceans.  In the end it would turn into a white dwarf star – a solid ball about the size of earth, with a density 50,000 times that of water, perhaps covered by a thin layer of ice and an atmosphere a few yards thick.  But don’t be too alarmed; scientists figure such a catastrophe won’t happen for a very, very long time. 

Light from the sun makes possible all life on earth.  When we burn wood or coal, we’re actually releasing stored energy from the sun.  And more than light reaches us from our star.  Solar winds – charged particles continually flowing from the sun’s corona – move through space at speeds of more than 400 miles per second, reaching at least to the orbit of Neptune.  When gigantic magnetic storms on the sun (some measuring 31,000 miles across) eject strong solar winds toward earth, they produce spectacular “Northern Lights” displays on some parts of our planet through interaction with earth’s atmosphere.  Nothing mankind has conceieved can rival the sun.

AND YET…

Knowing that humans would be tempted to worship the sun He created, God called it merely a “greater light to govern the day” (Genesis 1:16).  The sun may be mighty, but when the Lord orders it to retreat, it hustles backwards (Isaiah 38:8).  Even if He should command it to stop shining, it would instantly go black (Job 9:7).  God uses the power of the sun to strengthen us, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides Him.

“I AM THE LORD, AND THERE IS NO OTHER. I FORM THE LIGHT AND CREATE DARKNESS, I BRING PROSPERITY AND CREATE DISASTER; I, THE LORD, DO ALL THESE THINGS.” (Isaiah 45:6-7)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net

STARS

From the very beginning, human beings have craned their necks toward the night sky and stared in wonder at the stars. 

How many there are!

How tiny!

And so near, it seems as though one could reach out and touch them.  This is one case where appearances can badly mask the truth.  For in reality, the universe contains untold trillions of stars, not the mere thousands that can be seen from earth by the naked eye.  Some 100 billion stars light up the Milky Way galaxy alone – and the cosmos harbors billions of galaxies, some vastly larger than our own.

And tiny?  Hardly.  Some of those twinkling little specks of light – such as the red giant Betelgeuse – are actually  up to 500 times larger than our own sun.  Of course, other stars may take up far less space.  A star massive enough to create a supernova, for example, may after the explosion shrink to a sphere no larger than twelve to thirty miles in diameter.  But don’t plan on visiting it any time soon; it would still have a mass several times that of the sun and a density millions times greater.  A teaspoon of it would weigh thousands of tons.

And forget about near.  The closes star to earth is Proxima Centauri. If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you 4.3 years to get there – but at the fastest speeds humankind has thus far achieved, it would take almost 280 centuries.  When you consider that the Milky Way galaxy alone stretches some 70,000 light years across, you stop talking about “near.”

AND YET…

God not only created the stars (Genesis 1:16), He set each one in place (Psalm 8:3).  The stars may look impossibly bright to us, but in His eyes not even the stars are pure (Job 25:5).  The psalmist calls upon the stars to praise God (Psalm 148:3) and our Lord warns us not to worship the starry host (Deuteronomy 4:19).  Though they stagger us, they hide no secrets from Him:

“HE DETERMINES THE NUMBER OF THE STARS AND CALLS THEM EACH BY NAME.” GREAT IS OUR LORD AND MIGHTY IN POWER; HIS UNDERSTANDING HAS NO LIMIT.” (Psalm 147:4-5)

“How Majestic is Thy Name”, 2001.  www.newleafpress.net

delighting in the Grandeur of God

As I was going through my leftover boxes I found this book.  I remember getting it at some close out bookstore sale for just a couple of dollars.  Flipping through the pages I was reminded why I didn’t get rid of this book with the others, as I was purging my life.  The beauty of the photographs and the truth written pierces my soul. 

I have never been fond of science, but remember how this book grabbed my attention, because of its simple explanation of some of life's phenomena’s and portrayal of those wonders in Gods Word. 

It is a treasure I do not want to conceal to collect dust in a box, and thus I thought I would share it with you all within the next few blogs.

I am taking the time to retype a book, so I hope you will take the time to read the blog.  One a time.

Let us Delight in the Grandeur of our God, together.