In science, I have been working with a partner to create a replica of what happens during wave erosion. First of all, we read a book to learn some different terms and meanings of things that go on during wave erosion. Some of the things we learned about while reading the book where sea caves, sea stacks, wave-cut platforms, headlands, and longshore bars. The thing that I thought was most interesting about wave erosion, were the tall strange shaped rocks that sit in the middle of the ocean. Here is a picture of a sea stack in the ocean.

My partner Tori and I decided to make a 3D model of the process of wave erosion. The first image down below is before wave erosion has taken place. As you can see there isn’t really headland or any large sand bars, islands, sea caves, or strange rock formation.

In the picture below, you can see that there are many things that have changed like there is now a headland, the sediment from the river has made a spit in the ocean, there is an island, a longshore bar, sea stacks, and sea caves. Many of those things happen because of wave refraction that takes place when something causes the waves to change directions to a long period of time. The waves wear away at the rock, eventually making strange shapes and formations in the rock and land. The waves have also pushed a lot of sand to a certain area, building up an island and a sandbar. Wave Erosion happens all of the time and the world would be very different without it.

For the past three days in science class, we have been working on making a replica of a volcano somewhere in the world. My group choose to copy the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. The Mauna Loa is a shield volcano, which means that it doesn’t have really steep sides. It has gently slopping sides that lava slowly flows down. On our volcano, we put two kinds of lava. The chunky red kind of lava is called A’A and the smooth runny lava is called Pahoehoe. Both kinds of lava are hot lava flows. You can’t see this in the picture very well, but we made a cut-out of the volcano on one side. In the cut-out is the magma chamber that is full of hot magma. The magma chamber is where all of the magma is stored and it is connected to the pipe which is what carries the magma up and out the top of the volcano, where it explodes. At the top of the volcano is the vent where the magma leaves the pipe and turns into lava. Also, the crater is at the top of the volcano. It’s the ring around the top that the magma goes out of. Sometimes, there is weak rock on the sides of the volcano and the magma can go through the side of the volcano. That is called the side vent of the volcano. We painted a geyser and a hot spring on the side of the volcano. The cotton balls are supposed to represent a Pyroclastic Flow, which is when a cloud of hot ash and gas shoots out of the volcano with cinders and bombs. It destroys anything in it path and move really fast. Through this project I learned so much about volcanos and how they work.

For the past few weeks in Bible class, we have been learning about and studying persecution in the world and in India. We learned about the culture in India and how hard it is for Christians to live there. It is really hard for people in India to be Christians because everything around them is about Muslims and all of the Muslim’s beliefs and gods. They suffer from their families leaving them, and kicking them out of their houses and families.

Christian Persecuted

Stephen’s Stoning

Today I was in the city and I realized how many people have become Christians and how many people are talking about Jesus’ life and how he is changing the world around us. There are people who talk about him and how he is changing the ways that Moses gave us a long time ago. I don’t really have a choice about my faith. I have been raised in a strict Jewish family, and I don’t know any other way of life. I don’t know what to think about this all. It seems like He shouldn’t be able to come and change our ways, but what he says sometimes makes me wonder about my faith and how I live my life. We have believed in the same things for a long time, so what if Jesus really is telling them truth and there are new ways that we should follow? I don’t know the answer to that question. Again, I don’t know what to believe right now. There are lots of people saying lots of different things. Stephen is a man who really believes that Jesus is here and He is the Son of God. Stephen says that God sent him to the world to show us how to live like Him. The Pharisees and Priests are really mad at Stephen. They say he is speaking against God in blasphemy. Some people have begun to threaten Stephen. They said that he needed to stop talking about Jesus as if he was God, but Stephen doesn’t seem like he is going to stop anytime soon. I think that he might get killed because of his faith. There is a lot of tension in the city right now. People don’t know what to do with the Christians. Do we believe them, persecute them, or just let them be. The people here don’t know what to do, but I think that Stephen will end up being killed.

This past week in science we have been trying to make a spaghetti tower. There are three jobs that we could choose from to do in out group. The architect, the money person, and the technology person. I was the technology, Levi was the money person, and Maguire was the architect. Our deign was really cool, and pretty creative, but it didn’t work. Our tower totally collapsed at the last minute. It didn’t work out, but we had a cool design.

Who is the Holy Spirit? I think that that’s a good question, that not many people really know the answer to. It can be a hard question to because I feel like the Holy Spirit is the hardest to understand. We don’t hear as much about the Holy Spirit, even though he is an equally important part of God as the Father and the Son. We believe in the Holy Spirit because it talks about him in the Bible and we believe that everything in the Bible is true. The Bible does talk about a few attribute of the Spirit though. He is the one who makes you feel close to God. We receive power in Him because we are weak and can’t do things on our own. The Holy Spirit supports us and He lives within us. He is constantly there helping us through our day and life. Since we are all sinners, we all have wrong thoughts and actions. He is the one who corrects those actions and helps us stop those bad thoughts. He can be called the advocate, which means a person who stands beside you and is always with you. The Bible says we are never alone because the Holy Spirit is always with us.

I think that the Holy Spirit has worked in my life in many ways already and he still does in many ways every day. I am not good at praying. Not on my own and not in front of people. I usually feel like I am saying the exact same prayer over and over and over again. Thanks for this and thanks for that. Please help this person because of this and that person because of that. The cycle goes on forever. God gave us few ways to communicate with Him and we need to use them. The Holy Spirit has really helped me in the last few years be better at praying different and more meaningful prayers. I am a human, which means I sin, so I obviously have bad thoughts and actions. The Holy Spirit really has helped me to watch what I am saying and thinking. I also have been trying lately to thank God for everything throughout the day. If something good happens, say thanks. It is crazy how much more you think about God if you say two simple words many times everyday. The Holy Spirit has drawn me closer to God because of what he does.  

Sometimes, in math class, I wonder why we need to learn things because we are never going to use them in real life. How am I going to use transformations and congruence in real life? Why do I need to know the difference between rational and irrational numbers? Other times in math, I can see how we would actually use it in real life. In math right now I am learning and reviewing how to find area, volume, and circumference. I think that is something that I could actually use in real life in a lot of different ways. If you are building something, like a shed or barn, you are probably going to need to know the area and volume so you know how much you can put in it. If you are building anything that includes circles, you will probably need to know how to find the area using pi. There are lot of ways that you can use circumference, area, and volume in real life.

Yesterday afternoon we went bowling at Hudsonville Lanes. It was really fun. I came in last one time and won one time. I was bowling in a lane with Mikayla Hoeve, Katie VandenBosch and Anneka VanWyk. I was around all of my friends so it was fun. We made formations for people to bowl through. Once we all did backbends and the bowling ball went underneath us. I had a lot of fun.

I am a river.
I am a river because most of my life has been like a small stream that is smooth, calm, and quiet. My life has been pretty easy so far. I am blessed to live in a christian house with a loving family. I go to a christian school, I have a bunch of friends, and I go to church every sunday. I have supporting grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. I have so many people who love, support, and help me, that it makes my life enjoyable and happy. Life hasn’t been very hard for me. I haven’t faced lots of huge trials that have influenced or scared my life forever. Of course there have been things that have been hard, but I have never felt extremely far away from God because of trials or temptations. My life is usually like a stream that is calm, smooth, and quiet.
I am a river because a few parts of my life are fast moving rapids with lots of rocks to run into and lots of places to get hurt. My grandma, who lives in Iowa, got really sick a few years ago and almost died. I remember we were at our cottage and my aunt called. She said unless my mom flew to Iowa right away, she probably wouldn’t see her before she died. Of course, my moms flight got canceled, and we were really worried. That was hard because it was so unexpected and she was so far away. I thought I wouldn’t see my grandma again until after she was gone. Finally, she left the hospital, getting pushed out the front doors in a wheel chair, still in a foggy daze. Another rocky and hard part of my life was when my mom got cancer. None of use were expecting it, which made it harder. At first, I felt far away from God. I didn’t know why he would put her and our family in pain. I was confused and mad at Him. I didn’t understand. We were blessed that everything went as really well and she is now cancer free. There have been hard times in my life and those are some of the rocky rapids in my river.
I am a river because sometimes I have to fight the currents leading me away from God, and to other people and other things. There are lots of things that take up my time instead of God. It is tempting to go on my phone or watch extra tv at night instead of taking time out of my day to do devotions and pray. Things like homework, volleyball, and other activities take up a lot of my free time, so when I am done with that I just like to relax. People distract me from God. At youth group sometimes I find myself paying more attention to what my friends are doing, then the people we are helping. That’s a problem. I can’t pay more attention to people and things then God. He needs to be number one and everything else needs to be just minor details. I need to fight the busy currents of my life and pay more attention to God and my relationship with him.
I am a river because sometimes I flood. Big storms come and they overflow rivers. They can’t handle all of the pressure and water, so they flow out into the nearby land. Sometimes this can happen in my life too. I get overflowed with pressure and too much water and I flow out to the people around me. Some flood water of my life are being to busy, having to many people count of me for too many things, and trying to please everyone. It is simply not possible. God didn’t make us to live alone. He knew we would need people to flow out to and to trust. When my life gets flooded with things that aren’t God, I need help. I turn to my family and my friends to help me get the flood waters of my life back under control. Those are some of the ways that my life get flooded. I am a river.

In Bible class the last couple days, we have been talking about Jesus’ crucifixion and what led up to it. What talked a lot about his last words. They were things about trusting God, having compassion on people, and completing what we started. We noticed that Jesus said somethings while he was dying on the cross that really proved he was human.