Wednesday 30 May 2012

Confirmed in the Faith


Our son, Zac, was just confirmed as a member in the Lutheran church.  This was a momentous time in our family with my parents coming over for the week to celebrate this event.  Some of you, though, may not know what this is or you may even be thinking "what's the big deal?"  Let me see if I can explain.

We, as a family and as Lutheran-tradition believers, have had our children baptized as infants.  This not only shows our dedication to God in offering our children into His presence but it allows the Holy Spirit to dwell in the children.  This, I believe, helps to bring understanding as they grow in body, mind, emotion and spirit and lays the groundwork for true wisdom later in life. 

However, we all need to make the conscious decision to follow Christ and acknowledge his sacrifice and God's provision for us through His son.  This is where the "confirmation of faith" becomes important.  The youths first go through an intensive class that takes them through highlights of scripture, Luther's small catechism with explanations, and real-life applications and scenarios.  These are designed to highlight the need for Christ, the way to him and how they can keep that faith throughout their lives.  They then get to make the decision for themselves as to whether or not they want to confess their faith publicly to the congregation and receive full membership into the church body. 

This does not mean that we are no longer active in increasing our child's understanding or faith but it does give him the background to understand and defend his beliefs.  It can also be the net that catches him if he steps off the path; he will always know the web of knowledge and belief is there to catch him if he falls.  I am overjoyed that Zac chose to confirm his faith in Christ in front of the church and I will always be there to guide him, learn from and with him, and walk beside him knowing that we are both children of faith and God's beloved ones.

Monday 21 May 2012

Fun with building and engineering!

My sister-in-law, Jennifer, gifted us with this book aptly named Steve Caney's Ultimate Building Book.  We were taking a break from life and earth sciences this year and decided to go over structures and building and this book was incredible!  There are explanatory sections dealing with different types of structures written in a moderate-level style accessible to a wide variety of reading levels and each section is followed by an incredible number of projects using some quite unique building systems.  We have explored brick and block structures using sugar cubes with homemade mortar, jell-o and knox ice cube blocks, and even mini marshmallows (although the success of that one was very much in doubt but the mistakes were very tasty!).  Right now we are going over space frame structures and have used straws and string to build with and one of our favorites so far: Sticky Q-sticks.  These are cotton swabs with the ends dipped in rubber cement which makes them quite adhesive but re-positionable.  Here are some of our favorite Sticky Q-stick structures with thanks to summer helpers: Scott and Janny!





Sunday 13 May 2012

Another year... and saying good-bye

Shelby Salvatore, Dave Owen, Hadson Ngirikasau--friends, library workers, president, jokers

It happened again... we had our graduation ceremony and 26 of the students I have gotten to know are now moving onward.  I definitely have mixed feelings about the entire thing.  I get to know these students out of the classroom most of the time; in the library we have a mixture of serious study time and playful interaction.  I see these men and women on campus and they become incorporated into daily life; normalcy.  I love that!

But... things change.  That is not on my list of favorite activities.
 
Rommel Carino and parents--friend, brother, pain-in-the-neck

Jaynee Sam--friend, babysitter, musical genius
That is the difficult part for me.  While I am conscious of the fact that new students will come and I will be blessed by new friends and new interactions, I savor these last moments.  I know that many of our faculty and staff have been at PIU long enough to see more than a decade worth of students come and go, graduate and leave but I am not used to it, yet.  And I hope I never do become accustomed to it.  No matter how wistful I become, I want to always want to hold on to the moment and savor the brothers and sisters for as long as I can before new ones come to the family.  There is no more precious time than right now, no matter how wonderful the new things that come.

Friday 4 May 2012

Confessions of an Unfaithful Blogger

I confess.  I am an unfaithful blogger.  It has been a year since my last entry; 2011 graduation and now we're ready for 2012 graduates to walk the line!

The next question you might ask is, why?  "Why, Lisa are you so bad at blogging?"  Let's see...

  1. I have limited myself to library matters.
  2. Very few people want to read about citation styles and the new happenings in the Library of Congress cataloging system.
  3. I get bored reading my own posts.

Well, that's all going to change now!   (I hope)

I am giving myself permission to put entries up about anything I find of interest.  This will not just be about library stuff but a reflection of myself.  Which  means you will find things about homeschooling, crafts, libraries, parenting, churches, spirituality and more.

I am also urging people to write to my new email address:  lightheartedlibrarianlisa@gmail.com.  You can urge me to write more (hopefully not less), suggest topics, and ask questions freely. 

I hope you enjoy the new look and the new focus (or foci as the case may be), I will endeavor to be more faithful in the future.