Category: Youtube

Hymn Study: Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine

1/14/2016

Hebrews 10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Lyrics:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
- Refrain:
  This is my story, this is my song,
  Praising my Savior all the day long;
  This is my story, this is my song,
  Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

Fanny Cosby, author once said : "My friend, Mrs. Joseph F. Knapp, composed a melody and played it over to me two or three times on the piano. She then asked what it said. I replied, Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!" (source)

Fanny Cosby wrote this song in 1873 and is one of her most popular hymns.

Fanny Cosby was blind from the age of 6 weeks (a result of a cold infecting her eyes) and began composing music when she was yet a young child.   She was a member of the Methodist church, went to the New York Institute for the Blind at age 15, and at age 22 became a member of the faculty.     She taught rhetoric and history.

In 1885 she married Alexander Van Alstyne who was also a student at the Institute and a fine musician.   They both loved literature.

Fanny often collaborated with other musicians in writing. She would work with tune writers or even take an existing song and put new words to it.    She has more than 8000 hymn texts to her name, drawing inspiration from her faith.   Crosby published hymns under several pen names including "Ella Dale," "Mrs. Kate Gringley," and "Miss Viola V. A." (source)

From Lectionary
The story behind the writing of "Blessed assurance" is simple, yet interesting.

One day Miss Crosby was in the home of her friend Mrs Joseph F. Knapp. In the Knapp home was installed what was believed to be the largest pipe organ ever placed in a private dwelling. However, on this particular day Mrs Knapp called her guest over to the piano to listen to a new melody she had just composed. After playing the tune a few times she asked, 'What do you think the tune says?'

"Blessed assurance Jesus is mine", answered Fanny Crosby, and then, drawing from her vast storehouse of Scripture knowledge, continued with

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

In a very short time a new sacred song was born with words by Fanny Crosby and music by Mrs J. F. Knapp.

Sources:
Timeless Truths.
HymnTime.
sharefaith.
Discipleship Ministries.
Wiki.
SermonAudio.
Lectionary.

Castles and Pirates in Newfoundland!

1/8/2016

Continuing our studies of Canada, I thought it would be fun to work with lego today since I had found a neat castle/pirate/water/land thingey on sale after Christmas. :) I wanted to make it just needed to find a way to tie it all together. So I did some research this morning... did Newfoundland have castles? Did they ever have pirates?
THEY DID!!! WOOT WOOT!!! Lego fun here we come!!!

BUT first the learning.
Newfoundland has had a few pirates but the best known of them is Peter Easton.   Depending on the Youtube video you want he's in the top 15 of the worst pirates.

Peter Easton was a man who started out his life working a commission for the Queen of England. His job... Take three battle ships and patrol the coast of the world.   Easy enough, did his job. WHILE he was doing this job a new king (James I) came into power.   The war with Spain ended, England, with no battles to fight, decreased it's military might leaving Peter Easton and his men stranded. No pay, no way home.   What to do, what to do?

AH HA!!!   Piracy!   Therein lies the answer.   And he was awfully good at it to, for within seven years he was known as the "Notorious Pirate". In 1610 he was the wealthiest, most feared pirate in the Western Hemisphere.    5,000 men plus 40 ships.

He fortified Harbour Grace Bay and there is still an Island named after him.

click image to go to source tide maps

He even took the King's emissary hostage trying to convince him to become a pirate. But Whiteboure refused, offering to petition King James for a pardon for the pirate, in order to be released. The pardon came, but Easton never received it, even though he waited two years for it to come. Growing tired of waiting he set off to fight for the King of Algiers, fighting a profitable war against Spain.

He eventually retired, married and settled down. He was known in the end as the Marquis of Savoy.

Since we were learning about pirates we played a pirate game called Black Spot. At least some people think it was started by the pirates. It's as logic/patterning game where your goal is to get the other person to take the dark stone. Rules are simple. Alternate who starts. One dark stone, 10 light stones. You can can 1, 2 or 3 stones away at a time. My 10 year old quickly figured out the trick to winning this game.

So Peter Easton has fortified Harbour Grace Bay and Ferryland. Building himself a beautiful home and protected area.

This led us into the story of the Castle built ... well. at what is now often called Castle Hill. :) Built on a site now call Placentia, Castle Hill is a walk back in time. King Henry XIV wanted to establish a strong base for New France, so he built a Castle hill to be a base of operations.

Though it gradually lost influence against St. John's, particularly once the British were able to successfully blockade and defeat it, this place was the base of operations for d’Iberville and his devastating attacks against the English Settlements.

As we looked for castles on youtube my son was delighted to find this minecraft video that use Easton's name in it. He kept saying "well done but mom, they must be using a different tone/skin pack. I bet I could do this if I worked hard at in creative mode".

All the learning "done" we then set to build our pirate home and castle (though it's really NOT a castle we just pretended). :) but that's what Lego is for right? We also aware that they wouldn't have had power boats at the time or automatic weapons.

After we finished our build we had fun using the different characters names that we learned about today. The British and the French fighting, Easton doing his raids, D'iberville and his attacks on the English. It was all quite exciting. :)

Sources:
Castle Hill.
Pirates of Canada.
The Pirate King.
Tide Forecast.
Castle Hill National Historic Site.

Christmas Song: Go Tell it on the Mountain

12/17/2015

Lyrics:
Go tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere,
Go tell it on the mountain,
Our Jesus Christ is born.

When I was a seeker
I sought both night and day,
I asked the Lord to help me,
And he showed me the way.

Go tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere,
Go tell it on the mountain,
Our Jesus Christ is born.

He made me a watchman
Upon a city wall,
And if I am a Christian,
I am the least of all.

Go tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere,
Go tell it on the mountain,
Our Jesus Christ is born.

Did you know that this hymn was known to be sung by African Slaves as far back as 1865? When I learned that I was surprised. This song was included in the 1907 book Folk Songs of the American Negro. This book was compiled by John Wesley Work, Jr. No one knows who wrote this Christmas song, all we know is it's been passed down orally through the African American community.

Putting together the book was not an easy task for Work as all these songs are not written down, but are passed down through oral tradition.

This song grew in popularity in the mid-20th century, when jazz, blues and early rock’n roll became popular. The simplicity and style of this song fit in well with these music styles.

Resources:
ShareFaith.
Gaither.
My Song in the Night.
Wiki.
Sermon Central.

Some books to help you with your hymn Studies.
Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World's Greatest Hymn Stories by Robert Morgan
How Firm a Foundation in Scripture and Song by John D. Morris
101 Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck

Video Learning about Russia

12/17/2015

We've been doing some learning about Russia lately, drawing maps, learning about capital cities, population and other such details. I thought I would share with you some of the videos we found on YouTube.

What I did was say.. ask me a question lad, and we'll see what we find.
What kind of animals do they raise?

What type of dancing do they do? Do they have any interesting sports mom?

What kind of food? i have to admit, my son is SO not looking forward to making our Russian meal after watching this video. "I won't have to eat that stuff will I mom?"

What is the country like?

Do they have a video like what we've watched with our other countries?

Highlights of our week learning

12/3/2015

We've had a somewhat unusual week here so far.. For a variety of reasons, but learning happened, it really did. :) These are some of our highlights.

Today we did some learning abit about Russia. :)

My son's delight in learning that he can work ahead in his dailies. :) A decision made that I will be making a list of what needs to be done each week and if he works ahead in it, it means free time to do other stuff. He was so happy on Monday that he had to bring hardly anything with him to gramma's on Monday since on Wednesday he worked ahead. Just his reading and his math were all he needed.

My delight in knowing that he is delighted to work ahead on his materials if it means I can get work done out in the garden, or prepare a lesson without having to be right with him to keep him on track. :) This week I needed two hours to prepare a garden plot for doing an archaeological dig. My lad CHEERFULLY worked on his dailies and got ahead on his reading.

The wonder of learning that such interesting creatures live in our world such as the Sea Mouse. It's a type of annelid and doesn't it just look like an underwater mouse should look? My lad and I grinned. :) Learn more about the sea mouse HERE.

Ooh...ooh..ooh.. I must not forget. My son earned his advanced white belt in Karate this week. The picture below is him receiving his new belt from his Sensei. He told me the Sensei said he was doing a really good job learning. :) As we went out to the car "Mom, how long before I can get my yellow belt you think?" Looking forward is as good thing eh?

And the picture of the whole gang who moved up. I found it interesting watching what each of the next levels needed to do to earn their belts. Gives us something to look forward to in training.

Swedish Cooking

10/10/2015

"Mom! I like swedish cooking. Can we make more sometime?"

Last night, as part of our Drawing Around Europe Study we made food from Sweden. My son was VERY enthusiastic about our meal.

We had a dinner guest, so he and my son made the apple pie and the cucumber salad. They did a good job. I did cut up the apples for them as we were using older apples that needed some picking through. This apple pie was SO good. :)

Swedish Apple Pie
Ingredients

2 1/2 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup margarine, melted

1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9 inch pie pan with margarine.
Fill 2/3 of the pan with sliced apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon and 1 teaspoon sugar.
In a medium bowl, mix 1 cup sugar with the melted margarine. Stir in pecans, flour, egg and salt. Mix well. Spread mixture over the apples.
Bake in preheated oven for 65 minutes, or until golden brown. In MY oven, 55 minutes is all that is needed.

Swedish Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

2 cucumbers, thinly sliced
1/2 cup white vinegar
3 tablespoons white sugar

2 tablespoons water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons minced parsley (optional)

Directions

Put sliced cucumbers into a bowl.
Stir vinegar, sugar, water, and salt together in a separate bowl to dissolve the sugar and salt; pour over the cucumbers. Sprinkle parsley over the cucumbers.
Refrigerate cucumbers 3 hours to overnight.

We also made Swedish meatballs. NOT the type with the white sauce.
The recipe I used needed some tweaking but turned out well none-the-less and will be part of our meal for our potluck thanksgiving meal at my mom's. :)

Swedish Meatballs
ingredients

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon minced onion - double this
1/3 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup half-and-half
3/4 pound ground beef - I didn't use beef

1/4 pound ground pork - use 1.5 lbs of pork
2 teaspoons salt - Don't need this much
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/3 teaspoon white sugar

Directions

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a frying pan over low heat; cook and stir onion in melted butter until lightly browned, 5 to 8 minutes.
Mix bread crumbs, water, and half-and-half in a large bowl; let stand for about 2 minutes. Stir cooked onion, ground beef, ground pork, salt, white pepper, and sugar into bread crumb mixture until thoroughly mixed. Shape mixture into about 48 very small meatballs.
Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a skillet; add meatballs. Brown slowly, allowing about 25 minutes, until meatballs are fully cooked in the middle and no longer pink. Shake pan occasionally to cook evenly.

let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me

9/1/2015

We'll be singing this pretty song on Sunday. Isn't it just a lovely song?

Japanese Rice Fields

8/27/2015

Have you seen these yet? My son and I were so amazed.

I am constantly amazed at the creativity that God placed with us. From making painting, carvings, statues, and more...and now even in the rice... Creativity abounds!