The Marigolds

Please visit me at my new bloggy home at Marigold Cottage

The Spring is in her prime now and the lovely marigold
Are blooming in the blackwood shade so lovely to behold
On a warm day in October close to thirty degrees
With the sun glowing in the blue sky and warmth in the breeze
In the breeze the marigold are nodding in their beautiful golden flowers
They came to bloom in the early Spring in the cool September showers
A gift from Mother Nature for to look at and enjoy
I have loved Nature's beauty ever since I was a boy
Such marvellous things of beauty that
Nature does create
Though most of Nature's wonders have their own use by date
A sunny day in October warm for the time of year
And the songbirds in the parkland sound melodious and clear
And partly lit by the sunshine in the shade of the blackwood trees
The beautiful golden marigold are nodding in the breeze.

Francis Duggan

Preparing for Worship

So what is the nature of worship? It's offering God worship from the depths of our inner being in praise, prayer, song, giving, and living - but always based on His revealed truth.

Our whole lives are to be lived in worship to God. Every facet, in a very personal manner. We are also called to worship on a corporate level - with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Below are some thoughts about preparing ourselves for worship, in particular relating to preparing myself for our Sunday worship service.

How do I really prepare myself to worship?
Hebrews 10:22, is the greatest summation of the preparation of worship anywhere in the Bible: "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."

Every time you worship, prepare yourself by asking these questions:
1) Am I sincere? Is my heart fixed? Is my whole heart devoted to God? Am I focusing on Him? Am I seeing Him in the Word, through discovery and meditation, so that my hungering desire is to draw nigh unto Him?
2) Am I assured that I can come simply and only by faith, having the full assurance that it is sufficient?
3) Am I coming to God with the knowledge that the only reason I am here is because of what Christ has done for me?
4) And am I coming in purity - having dealt with any sin in my life?

http://www.gty.org/Resources/Study%20Guide%20Chapter/2011 This link will take you to the sermon titled 'True Worship' by John Macarthur, where these quotes have come from.

Car-Schooling

I love to travel. When we plan a travelling holiday we dig out our old Australian Geographic Australia map and lay it out on our dinner table underneath a clear plastic table covering. Planning our route, where we would like to visit. We spend months pouring over that map. My dh searches our destination on the internet and discovers all sorts of interesting things about the town where we are headed.

Little towns on our map are no longer just a dot and a name. We know what the main street looks like, some of its history and the towns claim to fame. One day I would like to place photo's of the places we have visited on our big big map and having it as a living geography wall hanging.

As a family so far, we have travelled to the Victorian High Country in winter, Melbourne, visited part of the Great Ocean Road, visited a number of towns through NSW country, been to the Northenmost Point of Australia at Cape York and mosied our way through the Northern Territory at the time of Cyclone Monica (that was fun, let me tell you!). With the freedom homeschooling has allowed us, we have been able to plan these trips mostly outside of school holidays and we have been able to adjust our work to include these trips.

Aside from the fun of learning about our grand country Australia by visiting as much as possible of it in person, we have enjoyed the varied 'schooling' experience these travels have afforded us.

We have listened to Bible audio cd's, Diana Waring's history cd's, recited our latin vocabulary, prayers and hymns along with our latin cd's, and learned about some of the great composers and their music listening to their stories on cd's. We saved the cd's for the after lunch driving session, when everyone is quiet, and not interested in really doing anything.

The girls have also kept a travel journal. Their journals became a record of sketches of the landscape we have driven past that day, description or drawings of the weather conditions and their thoughts about an interesting place we have visited (like the Stockman's Hall of Fame in Longreach). And of course, they have added their own individual flair to their books - their own little adventures and ideas they have had along the way. They mostly filled these journals in at the end of the day - when they could look back and think about what they have seen and done.

On our long trips, we have also brought along the girls Maths books to complete each morning and a couple of reading books/picture books and some small toys/card games etc to play during the ride as well.

These trips, for me, have been something special to add to our variety of learning and lovely memories for our family lifestyle. Living life together. There are some things you just can't learn from a book.

Follow me as I follow Christ....

This was the final slide left up on the wall as Diana concluded her final talk of the day at her Brisbane Living, Laughing and Learning conference. I left the conference that afternoon feeling encouraged in my work homeschooling my children. It is a nice thing, to be encouraged.

I did not hear her concluding remarks, as I was left pondering that phrase, 'Follow me, as I follow Christ'. To me, that there is the nutshell really of why I am homeschooling my children. My life is about following Christ in every way, and I endeavour to disciple my own children to also live their lives following their Lord. Everything else pales into insignificance.

Over the years, I have been really challenged at different times in areas of weakness, areas of hypocrisy, areas where I have not fully grasped a truth from Scripture. Challenged to honestly and humbly live out my faith, to follow Christ in everything, in faithful obedience. To model a living faith, reliance and total trust in my Saviour - that is not an easy task, in my little old sinful self. But it is a daily, lifelong goal for me.

A Latin Twist

Miss 14 has been working through Latina Christiana II this year. For some reason we have found it difficult to muster up enthusiasm for Latin this year. Boredom? Have we been doing it for too long and need a break? Or is it too easy, and we need a new challenge? Or maybe because we are the only family locally who are learning Latin?

Well, technology has its moments of glory, and it has saved the day for us with Latin. A dear friend, who lives to far away for us to visit in person, also teaches her children Latin - even using the same curriculum. We stumbled across the idea of allowing our eldest children to use Skype to work through their Latin lessons together.

The motivation of being able to chat with her friend each week has re-inspired a love for Latin in Miss 14. And they have seemed to enjoy quizzing eachother on the weekly lesson. They spend the first part of their Skype time working through the Latin questions, and then they enjoy some free time to chat. What a joy!

Somerset Dam

These photo's were taken by Miss 14, last week during our family camping trip to Somerset Dam. We bought her her own camera about 2 years ago for her birthday. Her camera died recently, and so it seems I have 'lost' my camera. Miss 14 is now showing me all these fancy things our camera can do - we have never bothered to find out (we just want to take a photo), but she loves the technology of the camera so she just has to find out what each and every button does. A photogropher in her future life perhaps? We shall see. But I think the next camera we buy her, will have to be of a much higher quality - with all the gadgets - because I know she will use it and use it well (but don't tell her I said that).

You may've noticed the dusty photo in this collection. The dust storm on Wednesday desceneded on us, and then enveloped us. It is not much fun sitting out a dust storm in a tent, I can tell you that. In the morning we could see a haze in the distance, and thinking that rain was on its way, organised our camp site to prepare for the onslaught of rain. After that job was finished, we headed out on our boat for some fishing and water skiing. While we were out, the dust storm surrounded us, visibility was very poor, and so we decided to head back to camp as it had become quite unsafe out on the water. We were very glad that we had prepared our camp for 'rain' - because at least we had a small space that was partially protected from the dust. I think that day was a lesson in patience and perseverence for us (at least it was for me).

But, that is part of the enjoyment of camping - the adventure which comes in all forms. We have now been camping in a cyclone, constant rain, 40 degree heat and below 0 temperatures, floods and now we can add a dust storm to our list. Many practical lessons on weather - up close and personal. Camping sure does make me see my little house with new eyes - and to really appreciate the value of a strong roof and walls. It also makes me appreciate a little more how the early settlers lived and persevered when first on their land.

Moments Like These...

Kakadu Sunset by Wayne Clements

Friday was going to be a very business like day for us. First thing in the morning, we needed to pop into the local shopping centre to buy some things we needed for the weekend. On order to have that job finished, we did it early on our way to our homeschool dance class.

Out the front of the store we were walking into, a series of paintings on a canvas wall was being set up. We took a few moments to admire these local paintings, and then with a thought to admire the others on our way out, we moved into the store. On our way out, my daughters discovered the artist himself, sitting down with all his tools around him, painting a new scene on the other side of the canvas wall.

We had about 15 minutes to spare, so we spent that time just watching the artist at work with his brushes and oil paints. My girls eagerly took notice of the types/sizes of the brushes, how he used them, and watched closely when we was mixing colours on his palette. Then we spent some time walking around the rest of his paintings, sharing which ones were our favourites.

Sadly we did not have enough time to watch him finish his painting, but we saw enough to be inspired, and on our drive to our dance class, the girls asked me questions about the type of paints he was using, and the technique he used with his paint brushes, and talked about he particular paintings that they could still picture in their minds.

Not a bad impromptu art lesson at all.

http://www.wayneclements.com.au/Biography-pg5236.html This link will take you to the artist's short biography on his website.

http://www.wayneclements.com.au/index.php?page=cart&cart_section=list&cart_category_id=470 To take a peek at some of his paintings in his on-line gallery follow this link.