A group from the House of Aaron (John and Joie Conrad, John and Anita Hansen, Cary and Annette Faber, Ron Crouch, David Sturlin, Merle Rawlings and Kenneth Conrad) joined the B'ney Yosef Regional Family Gathering in Mesa, Arizona the weekend of January 24-26, 2020. John Conrad is currently serving as Chair of the B'ney Yosef North America Elders
If you are not familiar with B'ney Yosef North America, be sure to check them out!
The gathering was hosted by Living Messiah Ministries and they recorded the meetings so the videos are below. ​

Friday night, Protocol service with Dr Suuqiina and Quamaniq

Saurday Morning - Praise and Worship, Hanoch Young presentation, Mark Webb (2:09:00) on Prepraring the Heart.

Saturday Afternoon - Ed Boring speaking on Unacceptable Behavior

Praise and Worship, (41:00) John Conrad presentation on Acceptable Behavior 

Saturday night, Family Reports

I went for a run this morning early. Sky pitch black with the stars in such great abundance it was difficult to make out the individual stars. In 40 minutes there is a lot of time for thinking and so I indulged.
The tragedy of Kobe Bryant has been on my mind and those who were wary of eulogizing his memory because of some very unsavory events in his past. I can't comment upon these events other than to say his behavior was awful and he betrayed those dear to him. However, he appeared to work very hard to patch things up with his family and move on with his life. With his passing numerous stories have sprung up showing his tendency to help others especially in cases where no one knew what he was doing.
One of the things we struggle with is letting go of the past--either ours or others. Sometimes you just have to let it go. Also just heard this week about someone hurt over 20 years ago that is not ready to move on. They are still not ready to give the other person a chance.
I can't really judge other people I have a hard enough time taking care of myself. In our Triennial Torah cycle we are reading the story of Joseph. An amazing story of betrayal, treachery and yet ultimately redemption.
The proud and arrogant Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers led by his older brother Judah. Joseph goes through incredible pain and unfair treatment before finally becoming the viceroy of Egypt. In this capacity he receives his brothers who are looking for the grain that only Egypt has.
Joseph tricks them into bringing his brother Benjamin to Egypt on their next trip and then plants his silver cup in Benjamin's grain sack to test his brothers and see if they will abandon Benjamin the way they abandoned him so long ago. Joseph has made a break with his past. He has two sons and he has named them specifically to cut off his history. He named the first Manasseh which means "forgetting" because he has forgotten his father's household. He names the next one, Ephraim, meaning fruitful because he has been made fruitful in the land of his affliction. In other words he is done with home.
Seeing his brothers is a wake up call and excruciating. God is forcing him to face his past and his home. When he sets Benjamin up and threatens to imprison him, Judah makes a valiant plea for Benjamin's freedom saying he can't watch his father die in grief after losing another son. He pleads with Joseph to imprison him instead and let Benjamin go. This breaks Joseph and he reveals himself to his brothers.
What we often miss in the story is the breaking of Judah. After Joseph's being sold into slavery, Judah departs from his brothers and marries a Canaanitess name Shua. She bears him three sons. Heartbreakingly the two oldest sons die and then Shua dies. Finally Judah has a moral failure when he fails to offer the widow of his sons, Tamar, to his son Shela to maintain the family name and then ends up getting Tamar pregnant himself. When Judah comes to Egypt he is a different man. He knows the anguish of a Father who loses his son, a man who loses his wife and the deep sense of shame and loss that accompanies moral failure. His speech to Joseph is genuine and Joseph knows it
In the end, they both had to let go of the past and move on. In a beautiful twist, Joseph, the man who wanted to forget his family and the land of his inheritance, instructs his family to bury his bones in the land of Canaan.At least sometimes, it pays to let go of the past and just move on.

​Up early today. A couple of calves have chosen today to make their entrance into our slightly snowy terrain. Nevertheless a beautiful winter day.
For those celebrating today my best wishes go out to you and I echo the angels in Luke, "Peace on earth and good will to men."
For those of us in the HR, Messianic world sadly today is a day of controversy and often anger. I am still seeing posts calling Christmas trees idolatry. Some enterprising wag has recorded a song to the tune of "O Tannenbaum" and titled it "Idol-a-tree, Idol-a-tree." So uplifting.
For those of you enjoying this day and celebrating with family the rest of this may seem bizarre and superfluous. Perhaps it may help some who are struggling with this issue.
First, celebrating Christmas today is not a hold-over from celebrations in ancient Rome for Saturnalia and Mithras. The date December 25 was believed to be the birthday of the Messiah about 100 years before December 25 (Not even the date for Saturnalia which is a few days earlier) became a prominent day in Sol Invictus worship. Many scholars are even questioning now if Sol Invictus was ever that dominant in Roman religious life. Even if there is a date connection this proves nothing. Laura Bush was born on November 4 a few years before I was. When I celebrate my birthday I am not secretly celebrating Laura's birthday it just happens to coincide with mine. Remember the old canard--correlation does not equal causation.
Second, there is no such thing as "accidental paganism." A person doesn't unknowingly worship a foreign god, because worship is intentional. In the book of Joel chapter 2 we are told that whoever calls on the name of the Lord (YHWH) will be saved. This reasoning would lead us to believe that all German speakers are saved because they say the term "Ja" all day long every day. (Yah is a Biblical shortened term for YHWH.) They even say it with the "Y" sound so they are definitely in.😀 Watch some swimmers and divers--they enter the water in a very similar pattern to a Jewish Mikveh. I suppose they are now "closet Hebrews?"
The priesthood that God sets up in Israel in the Torah is very reminiscent of the Egyptian priesthood with its sacrifices and the use of a chest called a palanquin. Because pagans do some things similar to those practices enjoined upon Israel by God we have no fear that the Levitical worship was pagan or in any way touched by paganism. Intent is powerfully involved in worship. It is not everything but it is the main thing. Of course, the uppermost issue is obedience to God's commands.
The children of Israel complained and God sent serpents into their camp. To be saved from dying from the venomous bites God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Those Israelites who looked up at the bronze serpent were saved. Later Hezekiah had to destroy the serpent because the Israelites were burning incense to it. It was built on God's order, the people were to look at it to be saved, but it was not to be worshiped. Yeshua (Jesus) even tells us that he will be lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness. What we do with something may be more important than what we are doing. (Not always true--some actions are wicked regardless)
After Naaman was healed he was distressed that he would be called to accompany the Syrian King everyday in the worship of pagan idols. Elisha assures him it will be ok. God will know that he realizes who the true God is.
Certainly, Israel was to tear down the altars of the Canaanites and enjoined not to worship God in the way of the heathen. Some of this is not easy to work out. What in our lives today become the "high places" that so grieved the Lord? There are actions that are always proscribed in scripture but they may not always be called idolatry or paganism. Sometimes it is just plain unregenerate human nature showing itself.
Finally each person should follow the dictates of their own conscience in the celebration of Christmas. There is plenty wrong with what goes on at Christmas just as there are a lot of wonderful things--generosity, singing praises, taking care of the needy, and family events. Frankly, I can't stand the silliness--elves, Santa, reindeer, etc. It's like going to McDonalds before you go home to have Thanksgiving dinner. You will have no room for the important things. In any case, I suggest we be careful in condemning our brothers and sisters in areas where we don't know intent nor are we totally aware of God's views of the behavior. As we celebrate (or not) Christmas let us grant each other charity and good will.

This time of year brings out a couple of things I would like to address quickly. First Christmas. For some their favorite time of year and for others a misguided, descent into ancient paganism. The pagan origins of Christmas are touted almost everywhere you look. You can find it in Encyclopedias and current magazines and from all kinds of writers. Many agree that we know that Yeshua (Jesus) was not born on December 25th or this time of year.
I have done some research. No, you can't say he wasn't born this time of year. We just don't know. Early Christians didn't even like celebrating birthdays and while they speculated on the date of His birth they didn't celebrate it. The earliest date proffered was in the Spring around the time of Passover. Some link it to the Fall at the time of the Fall Feasts in the Bible. Because of the belief in a thing called Integral age many believed he was born and died on the same date which is also believed for Moses and King David. We know his death was at Passover so that must be the date he was born. Then it was posited that his conception was in the Spring so his birth would have been in late December. The earliest mention I have seen of this was by Julius Africanus who believed his conception was around Passover and wrote this in the early 200's.
There is no record of celebrating the birth until the time of Constantine. This just means early Christians speculated on the date of his birth but really didn't put a lot of import into setting aside a date to celebrate. I believe it is total nonsense to think this date was picked to correlate with the celebration of Sol Invictus, the sun god. Certainly Aurelian mentions December 25 as a date to celebrate Sol but it was not the main date for its celebrations and early Christians had picked the date far earlier.
Also, later in the 5th and 6th century we find the church coopting pagan celebrations to help accelerate the assimilation of different cultures into Christianity. However, in the first 3 or 4 centuries of the church Christians would not have touched anything even faintly resembling paganism. When many Christians left the faith to save their lives under the persecution of Diocletian one group would not allow them to repent and return. These people were called Donatists after their leader Donatus. The Donatists celebrated Christmas on December 25. If the celebration were tied to Mithras or Sol Invictus there is no way the Donatists would have endorsed it.
All these words to say "celebrate Christmas the way you like." If you don't celebrate at all, fine. Don't be certain of everything you have heard and remember for most things they can be used for good or for ill. I can't stand all the elves and Santa as I think it detracts from celebrating the Messiah's nativity. Remember you don't have to do what you think is wrong but condemning others is not apt to help either. Have a wonderful day.

It has been too cold to run outside (down below zero one day) but this morning was around 17 so I thought I'd try it. The treadmill is just plain boring. Anyway I stepped out the door at 5:45 am standard time. As I ran past the dairy Kara and Jenna were feeding the baby calves. Kara shouted "Good morning, grandpa! Happy Birthday!" I shouted back, "Thanks but now I am old!" (69 today) She retorted "Not yet, grandpa!" That made my day.
The sky was brilliant with stars in that spectacular way you only see in the clear desert sky. Orion has shifted westward until it approaches the western sky and the Big Dipper has similarly shifted until it is just a little north of straight east.
Everything in the sky seems to move around. Even the sun and the moon have predictable patterns but they are in the same place only once in a while. There is an exception. Growing up, my brother James pointed out to me that if you look at the two stars in the middle of the handle on the Big Dipper you can follow straight over to the two stars on the side of the Little Dipper. When you follow the handle on the Little Dipper at the end you find the North Star or Polaris. Polaris stays in the same place in the sky (at least to the naked eye.) If you use time lapse photography and point your camera at the North Star overnight, your picture will show concentric circles of light inscribed by the traveling stars. Amazingly the light I could see from Polaris this morning had been traveling for about 400 years.
We talk about everything revolving around some point i.e. "his world revolves around his work." It is amazing that so many dazzling and big heavenly bodies that immediately draw our attention are not reliable sources of direction because they keep moving. There is nothing wrong with these other lights but their location must be described in comparison to the one that doesn't move.
We all need a point in our lives that is constant and unmoving. I am glad I have found mine. We need a rock, a foundation, a fortress that cannot be moved. Without this, even the beauty of life and creation becomes chaotic. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein." Amen.

We just finished observing the Fall Feasts which ended with our Sukkot Weeked Celebration. Tyler Dawn Rosenquist was our guest speaker for the weekend, and Allan Aguirre and a group from the Chameleon Church joined us. We have videos of all the meetings except for when Allan Aguirre said some words and that is too bad because it was a great get together.

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Jerald Anderson talk

Jessica Weight talk

Special numbers

UPDATE: links removed as the window of this opportunity has closed.
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Click here for the opportunity to submit your pictures for consideration in the 2017 House of Aaron calendar!

Several people are trying to get a group together to attend the Call in the first part of April. For more information, visit the website here: http://www.thecall.com/azusa. If you would like to be a part of the group from here that attends, contact Cheri Phillips or Joie Conrad.