First Peter Bible Study

When I was in school, I never really cared for those English classes where you were assigned a book to read and then you had to interpret it. I loved to read, just never really liked having to figure out what the author was trying to tell you, trying to figure out the plot, the characters, and all that other stuff teachers liked to torture you with.

Since becoming a Christian almost 13 years ago, I have read through the Bible a few times now and have spent many hours of group study with other ladies at our church. But study the Bible on my own? Too intimidating for me!

However, I know that in order for me to continue to grow in my relationship with Christ, I really need to start taking the time to study the Bible on a more consistent basis. I was so glad to get an e-mail this week with a link for a new Bible study on 1 Peter that is starting up tomorrow.

The Bible study will be a six week study that will cover 6 passages from 1 Peter, rather than the whole book of 1 Peter. Now, this sounds like something I can do! Want to join me?

Little Abner

I just love this little guy!

Since I became Abner's correspondent sponsor back in October, I have received 3 letters from him. It seems to take about 2 months for his letters to arrive in my mailbox. Abner is the little guy who lives in Colombia and has a parrot named Rebeca.

So after being gone for a week, I was so excited with a new letter from Abner! There were 2 pages! The first page was on typical Compassion stationery and it says:

"Dear Yvonne:

I greet you in the love of the Lord hoping that you are enjoying good health. I want to tell you that I have lots of fun in the project with my teachers and I do nice things; I made a snowflake and I am learning to dance, drama, and folklore music. In drama we are working in our emotions and about our daily activities.

I thank you for your letter and the beautiful pictures. I had a nice birthday, I had a great time and ate cake. I received a heavy duty truck and a couple of toy limousines too.

I pray for all of you that God blesses you more each day.

I now say goodbye with a strong hug hoping that God blesses you always."

OK, so reading this almost makes me want to cry! But imagine my surprise when I looked on the next page and saw a picture of Abner smiling!



This next page says:

"This is me one day with my brothers and we are playing. We took a lot of pictures and this was one of them.

This is the mascot of our house. Her name is Rebeca. We had talked about her before. I hope you like it. I love her dearly.

On a good day, I will see if I can send one of everyone in my family, for now I send a hug and kisses. God Bless You. Thank you very much."

Recently, I was blessed with the opportunity to send a package for Abner with another sponsor who was traveling to Colombia to visit her Compassion kids. I know Abner loves to draw and I can't wait for him to receive the colored pencils I sent to him.

One day I pray that I will have the opportunity to visit one of our Compassion kids. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with how important these kids have become in my life. We pray for each one of them daily and send them all at least one letter each month. I pray they realize what a blessing they are to my life, knowing that one day, we will all be rejoicing together in heaven!

Our week in the 1860's

Last week, the kids and I headed over to Felton for the week. The first part of our adventure included spending 3 days with about 1800 school kids. Each day, from 8:40 in the morning until about 1:15 in the afternoon, the kids rotated through 12 stations learning more about Civil War history.

While I was teaching the kids about the role of civilian women...

Matthew was drilling each group of kids...

For most of the first 3 days, we were the only tent over in our area...

We had some beautiful mornings though...

Starting on Friday afternoon, we were joined by many more reenactors for the weekend. For this long holiday weekend, there were 2 battles on Saturday and Sunday, a dance on Saturday night, a train ride for the reenactors on Sunday night, a Memorial Day service on Monday, and ended with one last battle on Monday afternoon. By late Monday afternoon, the kids and I were so ready to head home!

Here are just a few of my favorite photos from the weekend...

Love seeing the red, white, and blue moving in the breeze...

Kelsey wearing her new skirt and top...



Wait a minute? I wonder who this could be? :o)

Kelsey decided to put on a uniform, go out for the battle, and bandage up injured soldiers. She is right in the middle of this picture.

Matthew in his role as 2nd Lieutenant.

Visiting our friends at their sutler shop is always a learning experience!

Beautiful evening for a train ride up to Bear Mountain



Homeschool High School Graduation!

It has been 2 weeks already since we graduated our first student from high school!

This is Matthew on his first day of school

We wanted to make this a special day for Matthew, so I really wanted to involve him in the planning process of the ceremony. I asked him to decide the outline of the ceremony and decide who would be speaking. I told him I would like him to write out his speech and asked that it be at least 1 1/2 to 2 pages, typed.

He helped me to create a simple announcement that we were able to print as 4 x 6 photos (that 9 cent per print coupon from Costco came in handy!). I was in charge of ordering the cakes and picking up decorations.

About 2 weeks before the ceremony, I started working on a big photo project:

I have these 2 albums that I have always planned to put together for each one of the kids with pictures from their school years. I thought it would be too hard to have the photos in an album for the ceremony, I wanted people to be able to see the photos from all of Matthew's school years. So I mounted all the photos on cardstock and randomly placed them on project boards. I printed so many pictures that they filled up four project boards!

We had the ceremony at our church in the afternoon. This worked out well so that family and friends that were from out of town could get there in time for the ceremony.

Matthew had our pastor speak first:

Then our youth pastor:



Next was his dad:

Then it was my turn (yes, I did cry!)

Finally, Matthew gave his speech. I didn't even read it ahead of time.

After Matthew gave his speech, a few of his friends joined him to play a song. Then his dad presented him with his diploma!

I probably should have asked someone to take pictures for me and video tape the ceremony. Oh well! We do have an MP3 file of the audio of the graduation ceremony though! I hope you are able to take the time to listen to the ceremony. It will be something I will treasure!

Overall, I am really pleased with how the ceremony came together. We were so blessed to have family, friends, neighbors, and many members of our church family present.

At this time, Matthew has applied to a local junior college for the fall. We are looking forward to seeing where God leads Matthew from here!







A little Sunday night learning

Today we had a chance to 'observe' the solar eclipse that was occuring just a little north of us. Since we were not in the direct path, we were only able to observe a partial eclipse. Armed with our pinhole piece of cardboard and using the back of Matthew's truck, we were able to see this:

It was amazing to me that with this much of the sun covered by the moon, the sun was almost as brilliantly bright as it usually is this time of the day:

(Note: I did not take this picture while looking at the sun. This was an over the shoulder trick shot.)

 Kelsey was doing a running commentary about the eclipse on her iPod. It will be fun to see if she does a blog post on her blog about the eclipse.

We read that the moon usually travels at about 1200 mph. You wouldn't know that just by watching the progress of movement through the pinhole. But it was incredible to watch the progression of where the moon was when we started watching to where it was when we decided it was time to go in and get dinner started.

The next total eclipse will occur in November and will be visible in Australia. Wonder if we should start planning a trip? :o)