Mountain Musings

A Different Sunday

Here's what our main living area looks like on a typical Sunday morning before guests arrive. Clean-up, setup, and cooking begin on Saturday.

The chairs are brought out and arranged around the room and behind the sofa for our church family and any guests. A box of songbooks is available for families to grab several as they walk in.

This past Sunday some of the families in our fellowship were planning to be out of town. So what happens when a very small fellowship dwindles down to the host family?

Well, we took advantage of that fact, researched a bit, and planned a visit to a family-integrated church about two hours away. We loaded up Pepper in the back of the van and headed out bright and early...allowing time for a doggie walk, of course, before we arrived.

Our main goal was to possibly meet some like-minded families, to hear the Word of God taught, and really just for a fun weekend excursion. As it turned out, the family who sat in front of us was a family of eight who has an older daughter who writes a blog that Hannah and Sarah read. They felt like they knew Amber already!

If you want to read Amber's version of our visit, check out her blog, The Fruit of Her Hands. She writes the story from her point of view very creatively!

So that was our different Sunday. And we look forward to our own church family being together again this weekend.

~Deb

Hymn Sing X 2

We recently posted about a recent Sunday afternoon when everyone brought along and played their musical instruments. That was a fun and encouraging time.

This past Sunday we all gathered again after our main worship service and fellowship meal and began practicing singing parts for the Doxology using the Servens CD "All Glory, Laud, & Honor" as we've done for past songs learned from that CD.

Here are all four families grouped to sing parts as we listened to each track on the CD before we tried it without the recorded voices.

By the end of our practice session, we all sounded like the Servens...hmm, well, not quite! But it was fun singing, and we'll do it again another Sunday soon.

******

Later that afternoon, we headed over to visit friends for an evening meal and a hymn sing at their farm.

What a good time of fellowship we had...conversing, eating venison sandwiches (a first for most of us!), singing, and playing instruments.

Talk about singing in parts!! We think all the children in this family were born singing! Such harmony and robust singing! We all loved it and think they could definitely teach us how to sing in parts!

We sang some old hymns and also learned some songs that were new to us from their Heartland Hymns songbook.

And then the instruments came out...Hannah and Sarah on flute, Jonathan on both banjo and guitar, and the others joined in on violins, harmonica, and guitar.

As time rolled around to call it a night, our friends sang one last song to send us on our way...Echoes From The Throne from the Harmonia Sacra hymnal, one of their favorites.

Thank you so much for inviting us, Showalter Family! It was a full Sunday of musical enjoyment!

~Deb

Violins, Flutes, Guitars...and a Keyboard

After our Sunday worship service today, we enjoyed an encouraging musical afternoon. Tom had asked anyone who played a musical instrument to bring it along for a hymn sing after our fellowship meal.

The guitars, violins, flutes, and keyboard were great contributions, and the rest of us joined in and sang lots of old favorites.

 "Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous!
 For praise from the upright is beautiful.
  Praise the LORD with the harp;
 Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings.
 Sing to Him a new song;
 Play skillfully with a shout of joy."

Psalm 33: 1 - 3

 

What a wonderful time of music and fellowship with our church family, and hopefully we can do it again soon when another flute and a viola may be here to join in.

~Deb

Sufficiency of Scripture Conference Audio

We wanted to let our blog readers know about the new release of the conference audio set from the 2009 Sufficiency of Scripture conference, held in Cincinnati, OH this past weekend. For those of us who were not able to be there, this is the next best thing. Our family enjoyed attending a similar Uniting Church and Family conference in 2007.

Grateful hat tip to Life in a Shoe.

Shooting Skeet and a Birthday Party ~ Final Day

Thankfully, our friends from Texas were here for a Lord's Day meeting, and we were thrilled that they were able to meet our church family. Here we all are on a Sunday afternoon after the meeting enjoying shooting some clays. We livened up the quiet neighborhood with some noise for sure!

Even the girls took a turn shooting, and there were some pretty decent shots!

The ladies sat a good distance away from the bangs and talked while the little ones played.

 
We geared up for more excitement that evening when we invited friends over for soup, sundaes, and games and for a chance to meet the E's.

Two birthday girls were in our midst...Katelyn from Texas and Anna from Virginia both turned 13 a day apart. Sarah made the birthday cake, and Kandace helped dip the ice cream for our guests. I don't think Katelyn will ever forget her Virginia birthday, complete with balloons, streamers, and Dutch Blitz games!

 
One bit of very sad news...Mr. E found out that his 91-year old father had just passed away, and their trip was shortened by a few days so they could return to Texas for the funeral.

On the final Sunday evening, we all gathered round and sang hymns together, and Tom prayed for safety before our friends would begin their 24-hour drive back to Texas early the next morning. 

We are so grateful we had the opportunity to host our new friends. We loved getting to know them! Who would have thought that a week before we had never even met them?!

We had a wonderful week and hope that you, our blog readers, experienced a taste of life in the Shenandoah Valley by reading about our fun adventures with our friends!

~Deb

I Was Glad...

...when they said unto me, "Let us go into the house of the Lord."

~ Psalm 122:1

~Deb

Singing Psalm 119

Dad has recently begun the endeavor of teaching through Psalm 119 on Sundays. Yesterday we studied the third octet of verses, mainly focusing on the phrase in verse 18, "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." We sang this new hymn corresponding to the theme of the illumination of God's Word by His Spirit.

I have been meaning to post a link to a helpful recording that was given to us several years ago. It is the whole chapter of Psalm 119 musically arranged and sung in 4-part harmony by some folks in PA. You can download the tracks for free here or purchase a CD here. Hearing Scripture set to music is known to be quite beneficial in the pursuit of memorization. This CD includes original compositions as well as familiar tunes such as "Pomp and Circumstance" or "The Skye Boat Song."

Here is another album I've been listening to lately. Psalms of Praise features 41 selections from The Book of Psalms for Singing, also tastefully sung in harmonious a cappella style. Great listening!

Comment with any of your favorite Scripture song recommendations.

~Hannah

It's a Small World After All...

The posts we've written in the past on our home church fellowship have drawn quite a bit of interest. Here's another bird's eye view into what a Sunday is like at our house.

On a recent Lord's Day 37 folks attended our fellowship--quite an answer to prayer from our small beginnings of just two families, totaling 9, two years ago this month. Our usual attendance has been between 25 and 30 on a regular Sunday.

Extra chairs are brought out, and they spill around behind the sofa in anticipation of each family's arrival. 

Fellowshipping with us have been folks from other parts of Virginia, New York, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, and even Nigeria!

We are so blessed to have these families worshipping with us, and we enjoy the agape meal afterwards when we can get better acquainted.

We recently welcomed Kenton and Anna and their three children who are in the area from Chicago. Kenton will be here for a year's legal internship, and we are looking forward to getting to know them more during these next months as they are a part of our church.

Friends of Kenton and Anna who are also from Illinois--George, Krista, and their little girl--are here for a month-long medical rotation at UVA before leaving the area.

If any of you have seen the Eden String Quartet DVD from Franklin Springs Family Media, you might recognize Krista as one of the sisters in the film. We loved getting to meet her because we felt like we knew her already after listening to her family's beautiful music.

Larry, Kathy, and their eight children hail from New York. They visited us recently when they came to Virginia to bring their oldest son to law school at Liberty University in Lynchburg. After getting him settled, they headed back home. We only met them the one Sunday; however, Jeremy has continued to drive the 1 hour, 45 minutes from school to worship with us here.

Ken, Andrea, and their children found out about the church and drove down I-81 almost two hours from northern Virginia to visit recently. We look forward to future visits from this delightful family.

Dan, Jan, and their family moved to Virginia from New York a year ago and have joined us for the past three months for church. We have enjoyed conversations with them and also visiting in their home.

It's been great to have these fellow believers from many walks of life gather here each Sunday. The Lord has truly blessed our small group.

~Deb

Sun on Sunday!

The sun is shining beautifully today after a very rainy and stormy week--a perfect day to fly your flag--it's Flag Day!

Another family in our church is hosting this Sunday's meeting so we're headed out in the country a few miles away a little later this morning for worship.

The fellowship today will be quite different because both Tom and Sarah have been sick this week and will be staying home so no one catches their bug. Plus, another family has also been sick and won't be attending today. When your home church is small anyway, if folks are sick or out of town they are really missed for sure!

The conservative music we sing each week is from the Trinity Hymnal. Here's a song someone requested last Sunday that we had heard only once before so it was still new and different for our family. I liked it a lot.

I Was a Wandering Sheep, Original Trinity Hymnal, #396

I was a wand'ring sheep,
I did not love the fold;
I did not love my Shepherd's voice,
I would not be controlled.
I was a wayward child,
I did not love my home;
I did not love my Father's voice,
I loved afar to roam.

The Shepherd sought his sheep,
The Father sought his child;
They followed me o'er vale and hill,
O'er deserts waste and wild:
They found me nigh to death,
Famished and faint and lone;
They bound me with the bands of love,
They saved the wand'ring one.

Jesus my Shepherd is;
'Twas he that loved my soul,
'Twas he that washed me in his blood,
'Twas he that made me whole;
'Twas he that sought the lost,
That found the wand'ring sheep,
'Twas he that brought me to the fold,
'Tis he that still doth keep.

I was a wand'ring sheep,
I would not be controlled;
But now I love my Shepherd's voice,
I love, I love the fold.
I was a wayward child,
I once preferred to roam;
But now I love my Father's voice,
I love, I love his home.

We hope you have an enjoyable Lord's Day!

~Deb

What Sundays Are Like at Our House

Thanks so much to the commenters who answered my question in this post and gave us some ideas to write about this month. (By the way, we're still open to additional thoughts; let us hear from you!) This post will give you a picture of our Lord's Day activities.

Sundays are always special because we get to see our church family again, and we love it when it's our week to host the meeting at our home. However, it can be quite a busy Saturday evening and Sunday morning getting last minute things together: extra chairs arranged; hymns picked out; communion bread made and put in the oven; plates, utensils, and communion cups gathered; food prepared for the main meal; the home readied for guests (ironing board put away--oops, please ignore it in the picture); and the dog stashed away upstairs just before folks arrive.

As folks arrive, so do the coolers. Welcome everyone! Each family helps out by contributing to the meal each Sunday, and the food is always delicious!

We enjoy singing hymns a capella or along with midi piano files from the computer or occasionally with guitar on a couple of songs. We especially enjoy Anna playing piano when our fellowship meets at her family's home.

After prayer requests and a time of prayer, today's teaching was a continuation of Ephesians 6:18-20.

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds; that in this I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak."

Communion follows the time of teaching (a previous post is here). And then we chow down! The food for today: Lasagna, both sausage and beef, (almost all gone when I remembered a picture!), Garden Salad, Roasted Garlic Bread, and Sarah's Cheesecake for dessert.

A time of fellowship at the nook table follows lunch, and there's play time for the children, too. Some Sundays we will gather outside and play lawn games. 

And likewise...a time of guy talk in the dining room. We are very thankful for the Lord providing encouragement to us through interaction with the saints.

After all the families leave mid-afternoon or so, we settle in and relax a bit. And that's Sunday at our house!

~Deb