Quote of the Week

"A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education."

-Theodore Roosevelt

A Meaningful Journey

(The following essay was written as a part of my advanced composition class):

Last June a portion of my family embarked on a trip of a lifetime. My dad, older brother, and I traveled to Sweden with my grandparents. Planning to trod the ground of my great-grandparents' homeland, we looked forward to getting a visual account of our family's background. Our schedule overflowed with ambition as we tried to pack as much as possible into short trip. We enjoyed exploring the past together as a family, digging deep into history, and learning more about the lives of our predecessors. God brought our family close together as we spent time with each other and contemplated his sovereign work in our history.

While traveling and sharing the experience together, I noticed our hearts bond in a unique way. Watching my grandmother converse fluently with family members and other Swedish people gave me a new respect for her. Her crucial role in translation helped us immensely, building a bridge between us and those who could not speak English. As we visited numerous family farms and churches, my grandparents joyfully shared facts and information with us. They related interesting stories about our forefathers and pointed out many landmark locations while we caravanned from place to place. I knew those walkie-talkies we packed would come in handy! Such quality time -- a total of almost two weeks -- gave us a deeper relationship with our grandparents as we listened to them share their heart. How meaningful for them to come alongside us to pass on such rich legacy!

Our tour of Sweden also brought a realization of the Lord's blessing on us. God directed my great-grandparents to America and gave them a solid faith. In America they could grow in the discipleship of a strong evangelical environment. Despite leaving their families behind, they gained something far more valuable: a deep love for Christ. As believers, they passed the torch of faith to the next generation. However, through our interaction with relatives and cousins in Sweden, we observed that those who remained had not handed down their faith to their children. Out of all of the relatives we met, not one of them demonstrated a relationship with the Lord. We grieved over their blindness. This instance highlighted God's mercy towards our family, a fact which humbled us and kindled an attitude of gratefulness.

In closing, our journey provided the means to visit and enjoy our heritage as a family. It served as an opportunity for my grandparents to share and expound on the depth of the legacy we will continue. That we could reflect on our family’s history together made this trip especially meaningful. We found a new appreciation for the lives of our ancestors but more importantly saw how God used their lives to affect us down the road. As a whole, the experiences we had during our trip to Sweden illuminated God’s hand in our history and knitted our hearts together in thankfulness for the grace he has shown toward us.

*Click HERE for pictures of our Sweden Trip

Quote of the Week

“God is not seeking a display of my Christ-likeness, but a manifestation of His Christ.”

-Watchman Nee

Quote of the Week

"Do not have your concert first and tune your instruments afterwards. Begin the day with God."

James Hudson Taylor

Quote of the Week

It must be felt that there is no national security but in the nation's humble acknowledged dependence upon God and His overruling providence.

-John Adams

Antarctic Krill

The other day my English teacher on our Bob Jones Tapes told me to write a paragraph using the skills she has taught us so far this year. She said we could write on whatever we wanted, so I looked up Antarctica on Wikipedia and clicked a link to some of the animals that live there, and the most intriguing was the Antarctic Krill. I took a page and a half of notes and crammed it all into one paragraph. :)

The Antarctic Krill is one of the most fascinating creatures on planet earth. Living in swarms that can reach densities of ten-thousand to thirty-thousand krill per cubic meter in the Arctic Ocean, this relative of the shrimp survives on mainly phytoplankton, copepods, amphipods, and zooplankton. If they reach their maximum growth, they may get up to 2.4 inches long, and weigh up to 0.07 ounces; they can even live up to six years! Antarctic Krill are often referred to as 'light shrimp' because they periodically emit a yellow-green light for 2-3 seconds from their bioluminescent internal organs. They use 12 broom like legs attached to their thorax to sweep algae off the bottom of pack ice in a zig-zag pattern into their 1 μ mouth. Flipping their tail to swim backwards at speeds up to 60 cm. per second is their effective strategy for evading their predators. 334,102,635,200 to 690,046,873,800 pounds of krill are consumed by animals each year, and they are also eaten by people in Japan and Poland. When an Antarctic Krill molts, it can shrink its body if there is not enough food nearby, and this results in the creature using less energy and requiring less food. What is so shocking about this process is not the fact that krill can shrink, but is that every part of the body shrinks except for the eyes, and the outcome is a creature with one of the most advanced vision structure on the planet. Certainly, a creature as small as an Antarctic Krill has so many amazing features and designs that it can easily be called an extraordinary animal.

Lapbooks!

Lapbooks are a wonderful way to store your schoolwork. My family has chosen to use them for history, but you can find other subjects to use them for! Never heard of a lapbook? Here’s what they typically look like…

They are simple file folders folded with construction paper flaps on the inside and whatever you want to glue! I have made them in the past to store my history writing, maps, and other work. They are much more enjoyable to look at and read, rather than reading old essays and writings compiled in a notebook. Depending on the time period and what we have to put in one, the content will vary. Almost always we make sure they contain the following though: map(s), famous people, a “scrapbook” of that period, key events or important dates, and writing we have done.

Here is one of the lapbooks I did a few years ago on the Revolutionary war...

Reformation's Role in the Founding of America essay and handwritten Preamble to the Constitution

Inside - Presidents Adams and Washington's fact sheets, key events...

Our list of key events

Famous people of the American Revolution

Paragraphs on miscellaneous topics of that period, Bill of Rights

Guide to Officers, paper on Christianity and the American Revolution

Also, here’s one site that gives you some ideas on the many different ways you can make folds for a lapbook!
http://www.notebookingpages.com/index.php?page=Free-Lapbooking-Templates-Mini-books-Cutouts

Now mine haven't always turned out very creative, but you could certainly add more decorative stuff on the inside, especially if a younger child is doing one and wants to add pictures. We've used coloring book pictures and pictures out of history books to add in.

On my next post I'll give some more examples from my a few of my other lapbooks...