While taking a trip down memory lane recently, I suddenly came across a fearful memory lodged there. When I was three, I was in a busy store with my parents, holding on to my mother’s hand, when I looked up and saw it was not my mother. I think the woman was as startled as I was. Panic time! In a few moments my father found me and I was safe, but with a lifelong memory of holding on to the wrong hands.

As we opened the car door, the invigorating smell of mountain air filled our lungs. The sun was already setting behind the peak and the chill of night was beginning to envelope the cabin. A warm fire was in order for this, our first night away from the pressures of the everyday routine in quite a while. We needed this!

All around the world, faithful Christians are preparing to celebrate the great Feast that Jesus Christ and the apostles observed two millennia ago. This is the same Feast that all of the world will learn to celebrate in the coming Kingdom of God. The Feast of Tabernacles is a joyous celebration. It is also a commanded assembly that true Christians continue to observe. What is the Feast of Tabernacles? Why is observing the Feast of Tabernacles a blessing? And what does this Holy Day point to?

Because of the summer drought that have hit the plains of the Midwest United States, I did something recently that I had not done in nearly two months. I mowed my yard. Although the grasses were still pretty dormant and yellowish, the reason I mowed my yard was because the weeds, thistles, thorns and the tares were growing tall and full—and green.

Even without water, it seems that the one thing that has flourished in the drought has been the weeds, and thistles, the thorny, pesky invaders of our yards and fields. The bad seeds. The unwanted crops.

The World Health Organization recently warned, “An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC] risks spreading to major towns if not brought under control soon after the death toll doubled within a week” (Reuters, September 13, 2012).  Thirty-one people have died, including five healthcare workers who treated the sick.  According to a WHO spokesman in the Congo’s capital of Kinshasa, “The epidemic is not under control.