Bats are the only mammals capable of actual flight.
- In general, bats are not dangerous. Like any other mammal, they can carry rabies, although less than 1 percent of all bats are infected with the virus. More people die annually from dog attacks, bee stings, lightning and household accidents than from bat-transmitted rabies.
- Bats do not get caught in people’s hair. Bats that swoop near people are usually after insects such as mosquitoes.
- A single little brown bat can eat 1200 mosquitoes in an hour.
- There are almost 1,000 different species of bats in the world. This adds up to one-fourth of all existing mammals.
- Only 3 species of bats feed on animal blood. These vampire bats prefer to drink cattle blood and are only found in Latin America.
- The smallest bat is the size of a small mouse; the largest, a fruit eater, has a 6-foot wingspan.
- Bats have varied diets: 70 percent eat insects; many tropical species eat fruit or drink flower nectar; some bats even catch frogs and fish.
- Echolocation system of the bats is such good that the bats can hear the sounds of insects, changes in air flow, caused by the vibration of wings of insects and even the ripples on surface of ponds, caused by tiny stink fish.
- Fossil findings witness that the bats hovered in skies as long as 55 millions years back. The ancient bats were completely similar to the modern bats.
- Most people think that the bats resemble rodents, but in fact, their nearest relatives are primates.
source:
DEP
If you would like to retain a family of bats for their excellent insect control abilities, why not consider building or installing a bat house? Bat houses, much like bird houses, provide artificial roost sites for bats. They have been widely used in Europe for over 60 years. Much has been learned in recent years about bat roosting preferences. The following factors are critical to the success of bat houses: maintaining suitable temperature ranges, the distance to food and water, the size and shape of inner roosting spaces and the roughness of clinging surfaces.
Bat house designs range from simple and small-scale to large and complex. If you're interested, The Bat House Builder's Handbook
is packed full of plans and information. The small bat house (see the how-to) provides only one size roosting space and accommodates fewer bats. The large bat house (see the how-to) provides many roosting options and is ideal for larger nursery colonies of females and young.
Below are tips for constructing and installing a bat house:
- Use the roughest sides of the wood on the inner areas of the house. It is also a good idea to horizontally groove inner surfaces for footholds or attach non-metal screening to provide toe holds. This is also important for landing areas below the entrance.
- Caulk all outside seams to limit air flow. This helps trap the bats’ body heat inside the house. Sealants approved for aquarium or kitchen use are best.
- Place tar paper or dark shingles on the top and 4 to 6 inches down the side to increase inside temperatures. Nursery roosts often require temperatures of 90 degrees F or more.
- A dark stain also helps increase the temperature.
- Hang houses 10 to 15 feet above ground. South and southeast exposures are best for providing maximum thermal gain. Bats prefer houses that get at least 6 hours of sunlight a day.
- If possible, protect the house from prevailing winds and provide an unobstructed approach.
- Bat houses attached to the sides of buildings have had the greatest reported success. Free-standing poles in open areas also work, but tree-mounted houses generally remain unused.
- Bat houses placed near water or wetland areas often are most successful. Installing a bat house before April improves the chance of occupancy. Don’t be discouraged if bats do not immediately move into their new home. It is not unusual for a house to stand empty for at least a year before it is used.
source: DEP
A - Roof 4" x 14"
B - Upper front 12" x 20"
C - Lower front 12" x 10"
D - Back 12" x 36"
E - Spacers (1) 2" x 12", (2) 2" x 30 1/2"
Use rough-cut lumber or exterior grade plywood (1/2" thick minimum). The furring strips (E) should have a finished thickness of approximately 3/4".
Staple 1/8" mesh (HDPE plastic) netting to back and front 2 sections. Make sure mesh extends to bottom of back.
Caulk all pieces and assemble with drywall screws to prevent wood from splitting. Apply additional caulk to outside joints as needed.
Apply dark stain to exterior surfaces and use tar paper or shingles on the roof and the top half of the bat house to increase interior temperatures.
source:
DEP
A - Roof 6" x 28"
B - Front 24" x 28 3/4" (cut slots for vents, 5" above bottom edge)
C - Back 24" x 36"
D - Spacers 1" x 2" (4) 26" long, (2) 31" long, (2) 28 3/4" long
E - Partitions 1/4" thick, 3/4" apart, 26" long
F - Sides 4" x 28 3/4" x 31" (angle-cut top edges)
Use 1/2" exterior grade plywood for front and back sections; 1/4" for all partitions. Sides are 1" x 6" stock.
Staple 1/8" mesh (HDPE plastic) netting to all partitions and the back panel. Apply caulk to all joints.
Begin assembly by screwing the back to the sides. Attach 31" spacers to inside corners.
Place a partition on top of the spacers to within about 1/2" of the roof. Put the next set of spacers (26") on top of the partition and screw into the first spacers.
Repeat for remaining partitions ending with 28 3/4" spacers (flush to roof line). Screw front to sides. Make sure roof angles are aligned.
Screw roof in place and caulk all exterior joints.
Scratch or roughen the front near the vents to provide a toe hold for bats landing on the box.
A dark stain should be applied to all exterior surfaces and tarpaper or shingles to the roof and upper half of the house to increase interior temperatures.
source:DEP
Bats are furred, warm-blooded mammals with body lengths of 3 to 6 inches and wingspans ranging from 8 to 16 inches. The bones in a bat’s wing are similar to those in human arms and hands. The fingers are extended and connected by leathery, elastic skin that grows from the sides of a bat’s body. Their thumbs are free from the wing membrane and have claws for grasping.
Bats have good eyesight and rely on vision for long-distance orientation. For short-distance navigation and catching food at night, they use echolocation. This sonar system helps bats, like dolphins, locate targets and background objects from the echoes of ultrasonic sounds. These ultrasonic sounds are given slowly when a bat is foraging and quicken as the bat pursues and captures an insect. Detection, pursuit and capture of an insect take about 1 second.
Bats are mostly nocturnal and almost always feed "on the wing." They use their wings, the skin around their tails and their mouths to catch insects in flight. Bats are the only major predators of night-flying insects, making them beneficial to man in several ways. They consume many agricultural pests such as cutworm and corn borer moths, potato beetles and grasshoppers. Mosquitoes and similar "people" pests are eliminated much more efficiently by bats than by birds or expensive bug zappers.
source: DEP
We will travel to the west coast of Ecuador, along the great Guayas river. It is here where the large banana farms are located. It is warm and wet. There are small towns scattered along the river. We will take a small boat crowded with people, freight and animals.
Our destination is a small village where, we will accompany Abe Dyck in an evangelistic week of meetings. The church there was a small church with very uncomfortable benches. They had one small light bulb that hung over the pulpit. That was the only one in the place. The electric company charged not by the amount of electricity used, but by the bulb. Electric meters were hard to come by.
This was a small and poor village where there were a good number of believers. Gladis and I would supply the music and Abe would do the preaching.
Seven o'clock came and there was a good crowd that night. The Lord had blessed the meetings. Abe was in the middle of his message and preaching with all his might. Then, the devil, afraid to lose a few souls came in. He came in AS A BAT!
This bat came in to the light to try to get the bugs and flies that were around the bulb. He came diving in right at Abe, and Abe would duck. It was really something. Everyone was watching Abe and the bat, and Abe was having difficulty trying to keep on the subject. I was praying that the bat would leave, but it kept on diving at the light.
We had to close the meeting for the night.
Sometimes when you most desire to talk to someone about the Lord something comes up to hinder. The devil has his bats. But God is able to work in spite of the hindrances. When this happens, praise God and keep on going.
Bill Gibson
Children's Minute
Nov 26, 2000
These were the GMU kids. Children of missionaries affiliated with the Gospel Missionary Union. We lived and went to school in Quito, the capitol city of Ecuador.
Our parents lived and worked in many different places throughout the country. We spent 3 months with our parents in the summer and 3 weeks over Christmas. In case you're wondering, I'm the one wearing cowboy boots.
Do you sometimes at night feel afraid?
I do.
There was a time when we were strong, young and able, when we weren't afraid of anything. We thought we could handle anything. Young people feel this way.
Now, however, we aren't so sure. There are so many dangers out there, and in here. We aren't as strong as we were. We are afraid of things beyond our control, and we don't have control of everything as we ought to.
Where can we go for help?
There is a place to go and something you can do about it.
Nehemiah 4:14, "Do not be afraid, remember the Lord."
Nehemiah was building a wall. There were a small number of His people working on it. They were rebuilding. All around them was the enemy. They were great in numbers and they didn't want that wall built. They threatened Nehemiah and his workers. They were afraid. Nehemiah had a word from the Lord.
"Don't be afraid, remember the Lord."
The message for us today is to remember the Lord. He is the almighty one. He is with you. If you are on the Lord's side, He will fight for you. All you need to do is to watch and work, and fight if you have to. God is on your side.
If you have come to Him and asked for pardon, believing that Jesus died in your place and for your sin. Then you can rest assured that He is not mad at you, he loves you, and He will take care of you.
When you are afraid, remember the Lord.
~Bill Gibson
Mountain Villa Health Center
El Paso, Texas
03/04/2001
It seems that two Aggies wanted to make quick, easy money. They went into the loan shark business. They lent all their money out and then skipped town...
Two aggies went into the hay business. They bought hay in East Texas for two dollars per bale and sold it in West Texas for one dollar a bale. The truck driver returned and told about how great the business was, people were buying it as fast as he could get it there. So, they decided that business was so good that what they needed to do was buy another truck.
From:
The Flat Tortilla
Fall 1986
In the early days, there were so many family feuds and vendettas that the social time before and after church was fraught with tension and hidden danger. The men brought their guns, and kept them handy.
To read more about Shuar history,
go here.Two books that are worth reading are:
Mission To The Headhunters
by Frank and Marie Drown, and
The Jivaro
by Michael Harner
In 2 Thessalonians 1:11, Paul is praying for the new believers in the church at Thessalonica. He is praying "That they would be worthy of their calling."
If we go back to Matthew 22:1-14, we will get a little of what it means to be worthy of our calling.
There is to be a great wedding feast. It is to be a feast to end all feasts, so to speak. A great event. Fancy invitations are sent out by the servants of the Lord of the feast. They are to come back with an RSVP, but none of the invited would have anything to do with it. Each was busy in his own little kingdom. Some even killed those who were sent to them.
The Lord of the Feast, the KING says everything is ready, but the invited guests are not WORTHY.
So He sends to invite any one in the highways and byways of the city. None were rich, none were what we might think of as "worthy." There were some good, and some bad. But they readily accepted the invitation and came ready and dressed properly. All except for one party crasher who came in another way, wasn't dressed for it, and was cast out.
The worthy ones were the ones who, in spite of their failure and sin, gladly received the invitation and came dressed in the proper dress. This was what was absolutely necessary to get into the feast. I rather think that when the invitation was given, the garment was also given. It was like a ticket.
The garment of worthiness represents the Righteousness of Christ that is given to the believer which makes him worthy to enter into the presence of God and to the marriage feast of the Lamb.
We will not be able to enter Heaven and the Marriage feast of the Lamb in our own righteousness, only His.
Now, those who refused had their own righteousness. They were relegios that had the Law in little boxes on their wrists, the little skullcaps on their heads, all the pomp and ceremony they could get. But that wasn't what was needed. A willing heart, and a glad acceptance to receive from the King a robe, a wedding robe that was not theirs, that came by faith, and faith alone.
~Bill Gibson
Sept 7, 2007
3. We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.
4. Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
5. All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.
6. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you
7. and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.
8. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
9. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power
10. on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
11. With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.
12. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Matthew 22
1. Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying:
2. "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.
3. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4. "Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'
5. "But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.
6. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.
7. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8. "Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.
9. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.'
10. So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11. "But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.
12. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.
13. "Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
14. "For many are invited, but few are chosen."
Time now for a couple of jokes published in the Flat Tortilla in the fall of 1985:
Q: What's a piano that has fallen down a mind shaft called?
A: A Flat Minor...
Doctor to Patient:
"I have bad news, and I have worse news. Which do you want first?"
"Give me the bad news first, Doc," replied the surprised patient.
"Well," said the doctor, "You have only 24 hours left to live, you have cancer."
"Wow, that's bad, isn't it? What's the worse news?"
The Doc answered, "I knew it yesterday, but forgot to tell you."
A man went to his psychiatrist. He said, "Doc, I am really worried. I've begun imagining things. First I imagine that I'm a wigwam, then next thing I imagine I'm a teepee. Do you think I'm going crazy?" The Doctor replied, "No, you're not going crazy, you're just too tense..." (tents?? ha ha)
My mom sent me this little thing about Sunday School so that I could share it with everyone. Here it is:
Come to Sunday School because...
- Sunday School teaches the Bible, the message of God Almighty.
- Sunday School prepares one better to face the problems of life.
- Sunday School teaches obedience and respect for parents and those in authority.
- Sunday School will give the student the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
- Sunday School helps build strong character.
- Sunday School presents opportunities to share Christian experiences.
- Sunday School shows the student how he can be of service in this sinful world.
- Sunday School brings together those with whom you can form true friendships.
- Sunday School gives the opportunity to bring others under the message of the Gospel.
- Sunday School teaches songs of real beauty, comfort, and praise.
- Sunday School gives the opportunity to discuss spiritual problems in small groups with those of the same age.
God Says: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. ~Colossians 3:16
This beautiful Southwest bird is referred to as the "Clown of the Desert" by some as it is a very clever and funny bird to watch. He prefers to run rather than fly, and can run as fast as twenty miles per hour. he loves the hot weather. He has eye shadow around his eyes. It might just be where the fad came from.
Roadrunners love to eat small lizards and snakes. Lizards are caught in the beak then pounded against a rock until dead, then eaten.
In Mexico, roadrunner meat is sometimes eaten. They say that when God finished making the birds he had some feathers, long bones, beaks and feet left over, so he put them all together and the result is the (Paisano) or Roadrunner.
There is a story going around in Arizona that is believed by some and doubted by others that the Roadrunner can build a fence of cactus around a sleeping rattlesnake and thus trap, kill, and eat him. (See pic below.)
It is said that a stew of roadrunner meat is good for tuberculosis. It is also good for backaches, itches, boils, lung problems, and leprosy... Another health tip from your esteemed editor (smile).
Bill Gibson
The Flat Tortilla,
Fall 1985
The walls were made of split bamboo, the roof was palm leaves, and there were no screens in the windows. It may not look like much, but to me, this play house was like a palace. It was my own place to play make believe, and pretend to be grown up.
You might not believe this but:
A member of Bill Ball's church in Houston showed up one Sunday in Haines, Alaska. He said, and I quote, "I brought an ice pick along to pick the ice and permafrost to see for sure if under all that ice Alsaka isn't the same size as Texas."
We did have a lovely visit with those folks!
From: The Flat Tortilla
Fall 1986
We don't seem to see rats much any more. Have you seen a big ugly rat lately? Rats are ugly, dirty, and do a lot of damage. They love to browse around in the kitchen.
We had one in the small kitchen in the house in Riobamba. Gladis and I and Dottie Brown were in the kitchen. We closed the door, and we each got a broomstick and went after that rat. I got it cornered and poked my stick at him and he came right up the stick at me. I dropped the stick and the rat ran over Gladis' foot and she screamed and after a while I got a good swing and hit it and we killed it.
The story I have for this morning is about a rat in the church. Ray Zuercher and I went to a small country village for a service. One of the nationals was to do the speaking. The room was a nice large room. They didn't have nice pews, but benches with no backs. Along the wall there were benches and one could have the wall as a back. The walls were board on the outside and the framing was on the inside. The boards of the walls were vertical and there was a two-by-four across the middle. This was just right to lean against if you were on a bench along the wall.
The preacher was long winded. He went on and on. All the children were fast asleep on the floor, and most of us grownups were almost asleep or wishing that we were. He had been preaching about an hour when I saw a movement on the other side of the room.
It was a rat and it was walking along on the two-by-four between the backs of the people and the wall. He came around and nobody even payed any attention to it. It came creeping between the wall and the backs of those people and they didn't even seem to notice it. Around it came, then started on the wall I where I was sitting. When it got to me, I jumped up and let it pass. Everyone woke up and laughed. The preacher finished his teaching and we all went home.
I was amazed that no one ever thought to get that rat. They were so used to them that they didn't pay any attention to them.
Lesson...
You know what boys and girls? We live in a very dirty world. The people use dirty words, dirty stories, and filthy vile language is everywhere. We have gotten so used to it that it doesn't seem to move us, we don't even react. But dirty words, filthy habits, will have a very bad effect on us. We need to react to these and stay away from those who use those dirty words.
It is so common that we live with the rats and are contaminated by their filth and this is not pleasing to the Lord. Beloved keep your mouths clean and your hearts pure before the Lord your God. Close your ears to the swearing and cursing of your friends. Ask the Lord to help you every day to keep your words clean and your heart pure.
~Bill Gibson
The Children's Minute
El Paso Texas
8/27/00
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Thought for Today
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls. ~Mother Teresa
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