Family Vacation: Day 4-Denver, Colorado

Monday we went to Colorado's capitol–Denver.

First we had to find a place to park. It took a while, but we eventually found a place.

Then we went to the capitol building. Apparently, this capitol building is a replica of the capitol building in D.C.

It was huge and gorgeous! The top was covered in gold. Real gold. It was pretty amazing.

Inside the capitol. It was beautiful!

The dome.

Old telephone booths :)

A replica of the capitol building made out of canned goods.

We went on the dome walk.

And saw some amazing views. Oh! Another interesting thing, that you can see in this picture, is the Colorado state flag. It makes sense to fly the state flag at the state capitol, but I've never seen so many state flag flown throughout the state. About every other house that flies a US flag has the Colorado flag too. It's cool :)

We saw this huge cathedral from the dome.

Sitting by the capitol building.

Sarah and I in Johnny Rockets.

Such happy ketchup :)

We then toured through downtown Denver.

Oh! this was SO cool! There were random pianos throughout the outdoor mall in Denver. They all worked and anyone could play them. It was SO cool! (If you wanna read more about the pianos, read here.)

We took one of the free busses back to the beginning of the mall :)

Andrew was entertained by this random building along the way with "spinny doors".

Such TALL buildings!

We visited this ritzy hotel. It was amazing.

Oh, Andrew!

The whole family is in the mirror :) Can you see us?

The chandeliers were beautiful!

A cute little house in the middle of a town with huge cement buildings.

Sitting down and deciding where to go next.

:D

We visited the huge cathedral that we had seen while up in the capitol's dome. It had a HUGE organ!

Dinner time came and we went to, as Casa Bonita claims, the most exciting restaurant in the world. :) It was fun.

:)

Trying

I mentioned that I was going to begin blogging more regularly, instead of sporadic blog posts. So, I'm trying to get back into the whir of blogging with just a simply "here's-what's-been-going-on" post :)

Weeding one day :)

My brothers :) Great? YES!

He is SO buff ;)

Okk, this is seriously AMAZING! Sarah Ellen, my amazing little sister, is the most amazing artist! She can draw anything and I am just blown away by her pictures!

Friends in Arkansas asked Sarah if she could draw them. Sarah's just about done with the picture and I'd say it looks stunning! Sarah... you're a great artist!

Sheet music :) I'm trying to learn a new song on the piano (Cristofori's Dream. If you haven't heard it, you should!) But I can't read sheet music. Soo, I have to go through the pages and write the letters above every note :) It's the only way I can "read" sheet music :) And I'm SO excited to learn this song! :D

Not much else has been going on recently. We got to go to Christ Fellowship last night after being gone for two weeks. It was wonderful to be back with that body of believers! I am SO thankful for them. (I think I'll post more about some stuff that was shared in another post :) )

Anywho, that's about it for now :) I'm going to close and hopefully write again soon :D

A New Pianist!

This Monday we heard the song, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" being played over, and over, and over, and over again :P Hehe, ok, so it wasn't that many times. But it is true, we were hearing that song being played on the piano by *drumroll* Andrew Duane Turnbull!!! That's right, Andrew is learning the piano!!! Yeah! Way to go Andrew! He has got "Mary Had a Little Lamb" down pretty well. He is doing great at it! Can't wait to hear what other songs he learns.

The Last Few Days in a Nutshell

I'm sitting, Indian style, on my bed, three pillows tucked under my left arm, the floor fan (which actually isn't on the floor despite the name) blowing on my back, and my brain trying to figure out what to update about. 

Does that ever bug you... when you post a whole bunch of stuff throughout one week and the next you have absolutely no idea what to post about? Well, that's where I am. Just stumped at what to write about on my blog. So, I hope that this post, about the last few days... or just Sunday, doesn't bore you to much :P 

Alright here it is, yesterday was Sunday. We went to church and it was... empty. Well, almost empty. It was funny though! About 80% of the church had gone to the Nazarene Church to celebrate their 100th anniversary with them. That left a few Mozambicans, us, and the Rwandans. All the songs we sing in our church are a cappella. They sound beautiful... when the congregation can pronounce the words. Tee hee hee :P We started to sing one song and none of us except the few Mozambicans could pronounce the words. So us girls and the Rwandan ladies are all trying to keep from laughing cause it just went silent until the chorus which we could all pronounce. It was funny :P 

After church ended we headed on home and the Woodrows picked us up to go to SIL to practice music for that night. Music practice went smoothly. I got to play "And Can It Be?", "Oh Lord You're Beautiful" and "Who am I?". We've been trying to get "I Can Only Imagine" down smoothly... but so far it just hasn't been working out... we've been trying ever since January 2007 :P Maybe one day! Anyways, leading the worship went well and the message afterwards was really good! 

We headed on home after the SIL service and had dinner. The pastor's wife came over to talk to Mom and give us some of the special drink stuff that they have at every big party. :) She said the party was looong! From 9am-3pm! Woah!! ... After she left we all headed for bed... except Dad, Damarise, Mom and I. We stayed up talking in our room 'til 10:30pm when...*Vwoom* the electricity went out. It's rather humorous actually. :P Ok, it was hot! But it's only our little section of the street that goes out. Like 10 houses! It's crazy!! It didn't come back on 'til 9:44am this morning. I was almost wishing it would stay off longer so that we could break our 15 hour record. But oh well :P I'm thankful it came back on when it did! It was getting hot! Although it made me even more thankful that God has us here now instead of way back when the Woodrows were first here. They said that the electricity could be off for 6 months at a time! Woah! I think I'll stop complaining about a few hours! :P 

Well, that is my last couple of days in a nutshell.... And today is Monday :) Yeah! I love Mondays! What a wonderful day of the week! Hehe, ok sorry that was random... but I guess that's what this whole post has been :P 

I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful day! 

Randomness...

1. One week from today, Damarise and I will be taking the SAT. Wow! I'm, again, nerve racked! Please pray for us on October 4th as we take it. Thank you!

2. Speaking of october 4th, I have dubbed that day, "Day of Adventure". Why? Two years ago marks the day we arrived in Mozambique, Africa! That was one huge adventure! October 4th, 2007, marked living in one place the longest since Canada! Wow! And this year's big adventure, ah yes, the daunting SAT. 

3. The hot season is back and active. Kicking it into high gear right away. One day it was "cold" the next it was unbearable. If you move a lil' bit you feel like a melting puddle of mush! It is hot! Can't wait for the rains to begin though! 

4. I watched "Bridge to Terebithia" again last night. It's so sad! I've seen it three times and still start bawling at the sad part :'(

5. I'm trying to think of random facts that I won't make into a post... hmmm... :)

6. Right now I'm watching Damarise trying to play a song on the piano. It's quite the scene. She has our lil' speakers on the edge of the piano attached to her iPod (which is playing the song) sitting in front of her. Her left elbow is smashing down three of the keys and her head is resting on her left hand while her right hand is playing the song. Haha, she looks thrilled :) 

7. In a little of seven months we will, Lord willing, be back in the States! Wow! Time has flown by!

8. Ok, this is all the randomness that I can think of right now. Instead of thinking up lil' random tad bits of what's been happening, I'm think of stuff to post about :P Aw well. Thanks for reading this random post! 

Pride: A Nasty Thing!

I stood there listening as the music floated around the room. The piano was being played stupendously. The notes perfectly hit. Everyone joined in. The singers, the drums, the guitar, bass, keys. The music was lovely, genuine and praising God. But my heart wasn't. My heart was shouting out insults. "My song! That's my song she's playing on the piano." my heart screeched. Was it my song? Did I write the song? The answer to both of those in one shot, no. I had just been the only who has ever played the song before in church and now she was. She was stealing my song. Or was my pride getting the best of me? A friend came and stood beside me whispering in my ear, "She's playing your song. I'm sorry. You must be mad."  "No." I replied trying to push away the feeling of jealousy in my heart, "It's fine." My friend made another comment about it and then walked away. I stood there. Listening. She did play the song better than I and after all who am I to claim a song for me. I never even wrote the song! I stopped. I was trying to block out the slander my heart was still trying to seep into me. The pianist was glorifying God with her music. She was leading other people into worship and I was focused on me and how I needed to look. How could I look good if she was playing one of "my songs" better than I could? I needed an attitude checkup. I had a bad case of pridefulness and needed to fight back at it. 

I'm sure everyone's dealt with pride one time or another in their lives. I know I have had my share of pride. It is one hard thing do deal with and it sneaks up very easily. What does the Bible have to say about pride? Let's take a look.

2 Choronicles 26:16a:

"But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall."

It says that Uzziah's pride led to his downfall. Uzziah became king at sixteen years of age. He was a good king. He followed the Lord and God blessed him because of that. Uzziah won many battles. He rebuilt cities. He had a huge army and provided shields, spears, helmets, coats of armor, bows and slingstones for the entire army. He made different machines to use during the wars. His power grew. His fame spread. And Uzziah's pride got the best of him. Just as it says in the verse above, "his pride led to his downfall." God struck Uzziah with leprosy and he had it until he died. Pride was his killer. 

Psalm 10:4:

"In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God."

This verse puts pride into a nutshell. Pride is when you think only of yourself. Here's the dictionary definition: "The quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself or one's importance." Having a high opinion of me and my importance. Have any of you seen the movie Gameplan? There's a scene where his daughter keeps changing the music and then grabs his towel. He turns to her and says, "No! It's mine! It's all mine! It's all me! My towel! Mine! It's all mine! It's all me!" We laugh at the scene, but it portrays pride to a tee. Who was he carrying about? His daughter. Nope, don't think so. He, himself and him. Back to the verse, David is saying that a person full of pride (i.e. full of himself) has no room for God. His thoughts are consumed with himself. And how can he be thinking about God when all he cares about is himself? He can't. His pride has won him over. 

 Proverbs 8:13:

"To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech."

The Lord hates evil. Four things are defined as evil in the verse. Number one is, you guessed it, pride. The Lord hates pride. And it's no wonder why. Our purpose for being here, on this earth is to glorify God and God alone. Not ourselves. How can we be focused on bringing glory to God when our focus is on just the opposite, bringing glory to us. It doesn't work and it is a sin. The Lord hates it! Hate is a strong word, but that is how God feels about it! 

Daniel 5:19-20:

"Because of the high position he gave him, all the peoples and nations and men of every language dreaded and feared him. Those the king wanted to put to death, he put to death; those he wanted to spare, he spared; those he wanted to promote, he promoted; and those he wanted to humble, he humbled. But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory."

Another example of someone whose pride got the best of him. "But when his heart became arrogant (dictionary definition: having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.) and hardened with pride..." he was dethroned... thrown out... actually he had the mind of an animal. All because of his pride and arrogance. Wow! 

Charles Spurgeon stated that,

"Pride may be set down as 'the sin' of human nature."

Everyone deals with it and it is a hard thing to fight. Our flesh wants to only think about ourself. That is our flesh's number one priority. We, as believers, have a bigger priority and it starts by taking the focus off of us and onto the Lord. We need to be striving to please and glorify God in everything we do. 

Was my attitude towards the pianist pleasing and glorifying to God? No! Of course it wasn't. My focus then was all on me. I now realize that I shouldn't have been like that. That was my sister in Christ playing the song, not to make herself look good, but because she was trying to bring glory to God. We were a team trying to worship God with song and I was wanting it stopped in my heart because that wasn't me playing. It was wrong. I realize that.

 I am now overjoyed that she played it. She led people in worship that night far better than I could have (especially considering my heart) and she was glorifying God in the process. I am ashamed at the state my heart was in that night. 

I'm still fighting pride and am far from ever totally defeating it. Pride is a hard thing to fight. But God is good and His Word is a source of refuge, strength and encouragement. My sole purpose and what my heart is striving to do now is bring glory to the only One Who deserves all glory, praise and adoration, Christ Jesus our Lord! 

My prayer is what Paul said in Galatians:

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." -Galatians 6:14

A Song, some noise, and a rat...

This morning started off as a beautiful morning, not that it still isn't beautiful, it just had a slight disturbance to the beauty of it :) So, there I was sitting on our piano stool playing "Never Let Go" on the piano. Damarise was sitting on Sarah's bed doing her school. It seemed like a normal Monday until... (Scary music) We heard a shout, 3 screams and loads of scratching. Next thing we heard was Ian shouting, "Sandy (our dog) has a RAT!" Ew! The piano playing stopped, the shouting continued. Sarah, Ian and Andrew were chasing after Sandy. Next thing we heard, Sandy had squished the rat's skull and its eyeball had popped out! Ewww gross!!  ... It was a sight for sore eyes. Andrew got it from Sandy and buried it. (Cause we weren't sure if it would have rabies or not.)  And as of now everything is back to normal. No more rat, no more shouting, the piano is playing and Damarise is doing school :) As should I, so ta ta!