Ten years ago today, Hannah was involved in a presentation at her school. I’m sorry I didn’t get better pictures than I did, but here she is as part of an exercise demonstration. Just click the image for a larger version of the picture.
My father was an expert on the history of hymns, having spent countless hours over many years researching and collecting resources. He published one book of hymn stories, and had manuscripts for two more.
I’ve been working through his articles and other materials, publishing them in blog format online. And at the beginning of this month (June) I started on the Hymn Almanac.
For every day of the year, he has facts and stories about hymns, often including a video or audio version of the hymn.
For example, yesterday featured the story of a hymn that was written when Elvina Hall’s mind began to wander during a sermon (shocking, I know). And have you ever wondered what in the world the “Balm of Gilead” is all about?
So for the next year, Lord willing, I’ll be publishing mostly posts from this almanac, every single day of the year (2022-2023). If you know someone who is interested in hymns, would you do me a favour? Would you send them the link – http://wordwisebiblestudies.com ?
I think you’ll find the information fascinating, and sometimes it will be information you won’t see anywhere else (for example, my father met more than one hymnwriter. And guess why he called up a circus museum one day to find out about one hymn writer, who had been a clown?).
Check it out, and share! 🙂
In 2012 we had a very quick visit to Canada – and here’s why.
During our visit, we were able to visit some grandparents! One stop was in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan… 10 years ago this very day.
Well, “Manic May” is upon us once again – traditionally our busiest month of the year. And this year is not disappointing.
You don’t want a long litany of what’s happening, but I’ll give you a quick overview of some things.
Our institute classes are up and running for another semester. This time around it’s church history! So I’ve been making visuals for each week. I’m almost up to the year 600, so that’s certainly progress. Here’s a little segment from the timeline:
I also have a couple of sermons coming up which I’m preparing for. One of them is a continuation of our journey through Exodus, which I’m enjoying very much.
We’re hoping to get the church leaders together for a mini afternoon/evening retreat soon, so I’m getting ready for that.
On a family note, Hannah just celebrated a birthday (Happy Birthday!) and we were able to spend a little time with her and some others in the family virtually. And Nathanael has a birthday coming up – so we’re getting ready for that. I think a cake is being created, among other things!
There are some official/paperwork things that will need to be dealt with over the summer, so that’s happening. And we’re getting some other plans together for the summer, which I’ll be announcing in our next newsletter. Which I’m also working on!
It’s nice to take the time to check out the flowers, many of which are popping up as a little bit of rain starts here and there. It’s really still dry season, but the clouds give it a try once in a while.
Nathanael is frantically trying to finish up his grade 11 year. He had another exam today, with more to come. Less than four weeks until he’s done – we hope!
We recently celebrated Mother’s Day at our church, so here are some of our mothers…. click for a larger image:
So anyway, lots happening! At the moment we’re just hanging on for dear life, but I wanted to at least stop by and give you a quick update.
There’s a bit of a light debate in cross-cultural missions regarding the status of young children growing up on the field. We all want to consider the whole family “missionaries”. But of course children are where their parents are because of a family choice. And they would have had varying degrees of input into that choice (depending on age and so on).
2010Many children grow up and choose to go into cross-cultural missionary work themselves. Others go on to serve the Lord in other ways. Sadly, some reject the faith.
The other day Shari and I were going through some boxes of old textbooks and notebooks, mostly from school. And I was reminded of two things.
First, there were some major challenges for our kids in school. I’m not talking about being cross-cultural, or learning a second language, or the work load (although that last one was a killer at times!). And in the case of our children, Mexican schools were the only schools they knew – they hadn’t been old enough to attend school in Canada.
The challenges I’m talking about are simply the challenges of going to a “secular” school. A school that sometimes promotes anti-Christian views.
“Oh, you have no idea what it’s like now, for my kids”, you may say, if you have young kids in elementary school now. Well, I’m a little more removed from that phase of childhood now, but I do know some of what’s going on. And your point is well taken – things have progressed significantly, and generally in the wrong direction. I would venture the opinion that school is a lot more harmful for children now than it was.
But much of what is so common now was already in the schools back then, in Mexico as well as in other countries.
So I’m proud of my kids for going through what they did. They faced a lot of challenges in elementary school.
Second, I am thankful for children who were (and are still!) involved in service to the Lord. Yes, they often helped with events and served in the local church. But they also reached out on their own, using their creativity and energy to share Christ in their own way. And without going into personal details, there were things in the boxes of books and paper that reminded me of that too.
So I’m thankful for my children, and proud of them. For what they did back then, and what they’re doing now. Way to go!
10 years ago this month (the first video is from the 14th of March, the second is the 4th), I took some random video of Hannah and Nathanael playing with some other kids. The first segment has both Hannah and Nathanael playing street hockey (no, not at all common here!). The second segment much more Mexican, as Nathanael plays spinning tops (called trompos) with some friends.