How to determine when Easter is celebrated.

Today March 20, 2013 is the Vernal Equinox.  Equinox mean equal so in laymen terms this means equal daylight and equal darkness.  And it also signifies the beginning of spring.  But this day also plays a part in determining when Easter is each year. 

 You see of today is the Vernal Equinox, (Frist day of Spring), then we look to see when the next Full moon is, which will be March 27, 2013.  The Sunday after the full moon is March 31^st, or Easter.  That is how the date Easter will be celebrated on each year is determined.  That is why Easter is celebrated sometime in March and others in April.

So for 2014, the full moon after the Vernal Equinox is on March 30 and the Sunday after that is April 4 so easter will be celebrated on April 4 next year. 


Rev. Ben & Kathy Dailey

Sincere Thanks

We want to begin this blog entry with sincere appreciations to all who came out to our fund raiser; you will never know how much your support means to us!!

Special thanks to "D Goggins", don't know what we would have done without you. You were so wonderful, kept the whole thing organized and clean. And to those who donated buns, drink, chips, cookies and deserts you guys are just wonderful, and those who came and gave donations for plates, you will never know how our hearts filled with delight and thanks. To KID who just did whatever we needed and for everything else as well and to Brandy, you were such a help to you mother and me and we want you to know how much we love you and your wonderful family. Jared and his family who also came out to support us, we love you so much. "Paw T" and "Nana T" your generosity will never be forgotten because we know what you did was from your heart!!!! And then Greg and Denise who showed up and helped us load everything up, thanks so much! Those who were not able to attend but you gave donations anyways, Thanks So MUCH!

We could go on and on but there is one we want to thank above all and that is we thank GOD for his blessings to us by putting each and every one of you in our lives. Our prayer is that God will bless you all in a might way as you have blessed us by your generosity.

At the end of the day when all our expenses were subtracted we ended up with total of $1700.00. YAAAAHHHOOOOO!! PRAISE HIS NAME!!! And there are still donations coming in. We used $220 for apostille fees, (this is the States certification by the Secretary of State), and $304 was used for International FedEx postage which was done in two separate mailings. We have the funds needed for the adoption fees, but we still $7,000 for our airline tickets, in country travel, in country living expenses and for H’s medicals, paper work, passport, embassy fees and travel home expenses. I know that God is able to supply all of our needed funds.

Our paper work was received and translated last week and on Thursday, March 14, 2013, our paper work was submitted to the Easter Europe Countries Department of Adoption Processing.   So now we are eagerly waiting the three to four weeks to get our appointment date which will determine our travel date. We are getting so excited and anxious about finally getting to meet our youngest son, but at the same time going to a country where we do not know the customs or speak the language can be fear-provoking but we know “The Will of God Will Never Take Us Where The Grace of God Cannot keep us.”

We ask for each of you to pray that God will bless us in this journey and remove all obstacles.

Rev. Ben & Kathy Dailey

Operation - Bring Harrison Home

During the past two months we have made great progress in the paper work process.  We have submitted out initial paper work and we are waiting on our last document to have our dossier completed.  Then we can have all of the documents apostilled and sent.  After we submitt our dossier the waiting game begins.  So while waiting we are working on raising the remainder of the funds needed.  So far we have about 2/3 of the needed funds and are working on the remainder, so we can get this little boy, bring him home and make him a part of our family and community.

We are hosting a fund raiser Saturday February 23, 2013 at the Pea Ridge Community Center from 11:00 AM until 4:30 PM.

We will be serving:

• Smoked Boston Butt
• Potato Salad
• Baked Beans
• Cole Slaw
• Hot Dogs
• Potato Chips
• Deserts donated by some very dear friends

We are not charging a set amount for the plates.  However, we are asking for a donation to be made in any amount you can give.  All donations will be GREATLY APPRECIATED and will be used to make this child’s life much better. 

“But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14 KJV).   We are also told in Proverbs to “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it” (Proverbs 3:27 KJV).

The link at the top of the page will take you to our family sponser page at Reece's Rainbow.  The donation are securely handled by Pay Pal. Donations made this way are tax deductible as it is through a non-profit organization. Remember you are doing this for the child, not us.   

We sincerely thank you, and thank GOD for you.

Rev. Ben & Kathy Dailey

Back on track and full speed ahead

Well after getting off to a very slow and confusing start, we are back on track.  There were a couple of months there when we actually had to release Harrison but God had allowed us to get back on track and and we are now in the final phases of the process.  Our home study is complete and our USCIS had just been sent.

While we wait for the USCIS we are getting our dossier documentation current.  Since most of our paper work is over 6 months old we are having to get it all redone so it will be current when we get our USCIS approval form back.  Then we can send it to the state to get it apossilled and then send it to the Eastern Europe.

We are praying that we will be able travel sometime in February or March of this year and there will be much to do before then.  We will be having seveal fund rasiers and we would be so grateful and honored if you could help us.  Currently we still need about $20,000 for travel expenses, facilitator fees and lodging. 

We have had a lot of calls this week wanting to know if the new Russian ban on American adoption will affect us.  Currently no since the part of Eastern Europe is a seperate nation and has been since 1922.  But we want to get over there and make Harrision a part of our family as as possible and we welcome all prayers and support.

The Adoption Journey has Begun

After a little bit of confusion about which direction to take, the team at Reece's Rainbow guided us in the correct paths. We have completed all of our initial paper work from them and sent it off to them two weeks ago by fax and we sent the hard copies last week. We have selected a Home Study agency from North Alabama and we received our packet of required documents from them. It took a couple of months but we finally got all of the necessary paper work together and sent it to them last week as well. We were fingerprinted last week and sent them off to the company doing the background investigations. The reason for the delay is the first place we when to be fingerprinted would only sign the fingerprint card and not the form. Kathy checked with the background agency and she was told if they did not sign the form the application would be rejected. So we went to the sheriff’s department and they did the prints and signed the form and the card and did not charge us anything for it.

After getting home from church last night we both sat down to check our email and we had received our Dossier packet from our Reece’s Rainbow representative. Wow what a packet of information, please pray for Kathy because she is going to be very busy getting all of this required information together, but I have the utmost confidence in her that she can get this done by the time we have our finally Home study document. By getting it now we both feel that we can get ahead of the game. We will be doing as much as possible and sending for reviews, so hopefully when the final Home study document arrives we will have everything ready to send for the final review before have it sent to be apostilled.

We have also been doing a lot of in home preparation as well. For the past three years we have wanted to replace our flooring but just could not seem to find the right deal. Well recently I was doing some surfing and I ran across a sale on the Home Depot site that was too good to pass up and by ordering it on-line I got an additional 10% off. And the best part is they delivered it to our front door with their truck and forklift. Me, our nephew, son and son-in-law have been working as much as we could on weekend and at night and last Saturday we finally had every stitch of carpet out of the house and our new laminate flooring in. We put it in every room including the closets; however, we opted not to put it in the Kitchen and bathrooms. We were able to find another type of vinyl flooring that perfectly matched the laminate flooring we put down and it also looks like a hardwood floor and we have it done in the master bath now for the guest bath. The kitchen and utility room will be left and we will be FINISHED with the flooring. Then all that will be left to do is the floor/shoe molding.

We have purchased a new bedroom for our (hope to be) new son, it is a very cleaver design because it is like bunk beds but each bed is free standing. The bottom is a full size bed that slide under the top bunk which is actually a studio bunk with a desk built in one side. We did this because we have a 7 year old grandson and a 10 year old nephew and Kathy and I both feel they will be bunking at our house quite a bit when we get our son home.

We have crossed a huge hurdle but we have many more to go and we request that you keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Also this is going to be a costly endeavor and if you would like to contribute to the cause please click on the link at the side and donate what you can. Any amount will be greatly appreciated and by donating from the site link it is tax deductible.

Today is Epiphany

Just so you will know I am a Baptist Minister but I am also fascinated with religious holidays and what they represent. So it is because of this interest that I am writing about Epiphany today.

Epiphany is the climax of the Advent/Christmas Season and the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are usually counted from the evening of December 25th until the morning of January 6th, which is the Twelfth Day. In following this older custom of counting the days beginning at sundown, the evening of January 5th is the Twelfth Night. This is an occasion for feasting in some cultures, including the baking of a special King's Cake as part of the festivities of Epiphany (a King's Cake is part of the observance of Mardi Gras in French Catholic culture of the Southern USA). In some church traditions, only the full days are counted so that January 5th is the Eleventh Day of Christmas, January 6th is the Twelfth Day, and the evening of January 6th is counted as the Twelfth Night.

Epiphany is observed in most Christian Religious because it commemorates the coming of the Magi or Wise Men to present gifts to the Christ Child and to make him known to other non Jewish people. What is amazing is that we teach our children that the wise men came to present gifts the night he was born but if you will study the scriptures you will see the wise men did not actually find the child until he was about two years old. Think about it, Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem when Christ was Born. Also the scriptures tell us that he was taken to the temple for his brisk or circumcision when he was 8 days old. And there they were met by Simeon and a prophetess who knew who this child was by sight. It was when the wise men came to Herod asking about the child that he became scared this child would take his throne and he ordered that all males 3 years and under to be killed.

During this time the wise men found Joseph, Mary and the Christ child and presented their gifts to him. And God sent an Angel who warned the wise men in a dream not to return to Herod but to go home another way. God Also sent an Angel to Joseph to warn him Herod was trying to find the child to kill him and told him to take Mary and the child into Egypt and remain there until he told him that it was safe to bring the child back home.

Just study the first four Gospels of the New Testament and think about it. Also use your commentaries and you will see but most of all let the Holy Spirit teach you. That is why God sent the Holy Spirit, to be our comforter and our guide.

God still amazes me.

A lot has transpired since my last post. First of all, I am now an ordained minister and pastor of Macedonia South Bapitst Church in Montevallo, AL. I was called as the pastor a year ago and was ordained in December 2010 and I have been the bi-vocational pastor there since. I still find it truly remarkable how God works because this is the Church I have attended since I was 14. The Church where Kathy and I were married and raised our children in, the church where our children were baptized. And I had the wonderful privelidge of baptizing my daughter and son-in-law earlier this year. During all of this time I have been working on completing my seminary studies and I am hoping to be completed with my Master in DIV/Pastoral Preaching degree by the end 2013.

Our family has grown consiberably in the past couple of years, we now have 8 grandchildren, one of our grandsons is in heaven, and we are looking forward to welcoming his brother into the world next month. In July we had two added, one born July 26 and one July 27, WOW WHAT A WEEK for Poppa and Grandma. You ask how can this be, you see we took our nephews and neice in when my brother, their father, died in 2000. And we claim their children as our grandchildren because they are grand children.

In 2011 we also said goodbye to many family members, my father went home to be with the Lord on March 20, 2011 and one month to the day on April 20th, Kathy's mother passed away quite unexpected. It was a very hard and trying time because on July 30, 2010 we said hello and good bye to our grandson Isaac and Goodbye to an Aunt in June of 2010 and in November of 2011 to a dear friend we have known all our married life. But Life goes on.

What lies ahead? After much prayer and thought, A new beginning, Kathy and I are trying to adopt an young boy with hearying loss. We will post more details in the coming days. Also you may ask why a child with hearing loss, my reply is why not? You see I have deafness in my family on both sides. Both of my parents younger siblings are both deaf, and I have a hearing loss myself and wear hearing aids. So signing and talking with deaf is something that we grew up with and is a part of our family and this little boy will need that kind of family support around him.

What will 2012 bring, God only knows but I know that what ever comes we can handle all of them because, "We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength."