The Adventures of Three Violins

Once upon a time, there lived three violins. They were good, sweet instruments, who delighted in singing for the Lord and teaching other little violins to do the same. But these violins were not content to simply instruct from their own - sometimes limited - amount of knowledge, oh no! They wanted to be the best teachers they could be! So one year, they packed their bags and flew (what an experience! To fly!) to the mountain-edged city of Salt Lake, to learn how to better teach their own sweet little violins back home.

Ten enlightening, mind-spinning, exciting days later, they returned home. Overflowing with new ideas, theories, and techniques, they dove into the next year of teaching with renewed enthusiasm and energy. But always, in the back of their mind, they longed to return and learn yet more from the wonderful older violins at the Suzuki Institute.
A year slipped by, then another, and once again, the three violins found themselves in the brown-but-beautiful state of Utah.

They had returned.

As they basked in the warm sunshine (the violins' girls even got sunburned!), experimented with new techniques for good tone, and watched with grins as their bows and girls did multiple, silly-looking exercises together, they marvelled at all the wonderful things to be seen and heard at Suzuki Camp!

What a crazy, information-packed three days we've had! But in case it wasn't clear from the violin's perspective, I should explain. I'm sitting here on a comfy red sofa with Lauren and Mikaela, in our air-conditioned hotel "suite", just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. We are here to attend Teacher Training for Suzuki Books 2 & 3, but at the moment we are searching for cute lunch and shopping stops to drop by tomorrow (our one day off). We have just had two and a half days of classes, and were I to go home today, there are already so many things I would change in my personal playing and teaching methods - it's great!


Ordering Burgers and Fries Online



We got in Wednesday evening, late. Quite late. In fact, by the time we got to our room, we were hard-pressed to find a restaurant that was still open to satisfy our crying stomachs. Finally, we discovered that "Five Guys, Burger and Fries" (which we had never been to) allowed online orders, and by the skin of our teeth we ordered some dinner and picked it up 15 minutes before they closed. Wheh!

 Thursday we didn't have to be at the Institute until 3, so we slept in, began our Bible study on the Holy Spirit (more on that later) and went grocery shopping for the week. We discovered last year that, if we have a plan for meals, we save tons of money! And yet... this looks like quite a heap of food for three girls, dontcha think?

But we have quite the sophisticated menu, of course. Thursday we had the "European" dinner - brie cheese (yum!), sausage (yum!), french bread (yum!) grapes (yum!) and sparkling juice...yum. Yesterday we made chicken Alfredo, tonight it was tacos and sweet potato fries... For some inexplicable reason, food takes up quite a bit of our time here...as evidenced by the fact that we've spent the last 2.5 hours looking for a place to have lunch tomorrow. *ahem* You'd think we were boys, for all the emphasis we place on this subject! :p

Of course, food is not all we're doing. So far, we've had fourteen hours of classroom time (we've worked all the way through Book 2), a few hours of soaking up the sun on lunch break (we're talking in the 70s...have you ever wanted to just hug the sun?), a few hours of Bible study, gone shopping at Forever 21, and talked with some great Christian girls (how cool is that? Last time we came, we did not meet a single Christian!). I will have to save tonight's experience for later ('cause I am tired), but it involved...chocolate, hysterical laughs, sparklers, divers, and...safari themes. There now, aren't you curious?

But tomorrow, our one day off, we will do our study time and then head off to Salt Lake City for a day on the town! We plan to hit a Bible exhibit to see pages of the Gutenberg Bible, find a cute lunch spot (if we can), and spend some time with our favorite haunt of two years ago, Gateway.

Ta-ta, and goodnight!

A Picture to Write Home About

I'm sitting here in a four-man tent in our side yard, flanked on either side by a Twinkle, and knowing Gracie is somewhere along the far side in the darkness. We're listening to snippets of Chris Rice's piano-arranged hymns (the kind of snippets you get on "preview" through iTunes), and I'm reflecting on the pictures that have made this day.
Though this week's beginning was rather grey and overcast as a whole, we had some spectacular sunset colors during "Daddy's Favorite Time of Evening," which, since a picture's worth a thousand words, is better shown than explained:

 

 Before that, we all went to see Ben awarded the "Oswald Award" at the community college, which basically means he got a paper saying he's awesome - yah, yah, tell us something we don't know! Still, it was fun to cheer for him! :)

 But even before that, I met Ruth from Journey of Faith for lunch and lots of catching up - and I received some wonderfully-beautiful note cards!

Ruthie has been following the Lord's will for her life in Uganda for the past year, working with SHIM. Leading girls' Bible studies, teaching computer classes, encouraging those of us at home through the anecdotes on her blog - she blesses and challenges all who come in contact with her by her sweet spirit and "keepin' busy" attitude. Since she came home on furlough in May, Ruth has launched the "Suubi Project" to raise funds for the Lingira Living Hope Secondary School (LLHSS). Using pictures she took in Uganda (and wow, are they amazing!), she has put together some fantastic sets of stationary, the sales of which will benefit the school where she teaches - and I thought you should know! :) So many of us have been blessed to grow up in homes where Christ and His words are taught as truth, and education is a right. LLHSS is a place where students, who otherwise may never be given the opportunity, are offered both. A set of ten lovely notecards are a mere $8, or $10 if you have them mailed to you. Please consider supporting this ministry, and grab the button from Ruthie's blog to spread the word! Who knows how many young men and women will come to accept Christ in the years ahead for LLHSS? I don't. But I do know this: if there were only one soul saved from this day on because of the funds received through this project, it would be something to write home about!

For more info about the Suubi Project see here, for more info about LHSS, visit here.

Funny!

"One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time." 

-- John Piper

Is it just late, or is that actually quite funny? At any rate, it made me laugh! :)

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/201443

Thoughts for Thursday: Words and C.S. Lewis

"Those hills," said Lucy, "the nice woody ones and the blue ones behind -- aren't they very like the Southern border of Narnia?"

"Like!" cried Edmund after a moment's silence. "Why, they're exactly like...."

"And yet they're not like," said Lucy. "They're different. They have more colors on them and they look further away than I remembered and they're more...more...oh, I don't know..."

"More like the real thing," said the Lord Digory softly.

Suddenly, Farsight the Eagle spread his wings, soared thirty or forty feet up into the air, circled round and then alighted on the ground.

"Kings and Queens," he cried, "we have all been blind. We are only beginning to see where we are....Narnia is not dead. This is Narnia."

...."it's all so different," said Lucy.

"The Eagle is right," said the Lord Digory. "Listen, Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here....You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or a waking life is from a dream." His voice stirred everyone like a trumpet as he spoke these words....

I've been thinking about this passage from The Last Battle a lot lately. Particularly, as I've been memorizing/studying John 1.

Rabbit Trail: Oooo, the wonderful first five verses are simply mind-boggling. Did you know the Greek word for "Word" means "the Divine Expression"? To think that God's expression of Himself became a human being is...incomprehensible; as Martin Luther said, "The mystery of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding." End Rabbit Trail.

Anyway, what I've been thinking is this: Many things in life are, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, a foreshadowing, a shortened version, a muted color of what exists in heaven. Life here on earth lasts only an average of 78 years (in the U.S.), yet, in heaven, there will be no end of life. (Actually, this is also true of death. While the moment of death is an instant here on earth, it too lasts for eternity for those who have not accepted Christ).

But words...words. If Jesus Christ is the incarnated Word, then the words we speak are only a foreshadowing of something deeper...something we will only fully understand when we stand before the living Word.

What are words? What are they in their real, bigger, brighter colors? 'Til we see God, I am not sure if we can understand, but this I know: If, somehow, the Son's Word had such power that He became a Person, I can finally understand why we, as Christians, must guard our words so closely. Our words are to parallel the Word, and all those which don't are nothing short of blasphemy. Because words - real, bright, shining words, the true words that the sounds we speak foreshadow - have a deeper impact than we realize.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried:

"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!" - The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis

CIA World Factbook 
Photo Credit

Watch-It Wednesday: The National Anthem

On Memorial Day, Gracie-girl had the honor and opportunity to sing the national anthem for a service in Amboy. She has not sung in public before (unless you count the 3-year-old singing "You're My Honey-Bun, Sugar Plum" at camp as "singing in public"), and has not had voice lessons of any sort. But she does have a sweet voice, and despite her nerves, did quite well! :)

Video taken with Daddy's phone.