God at Work

God used Pauls ability to speak many languages to help him during his travels. He could talk to people from different countries because he could speak in their language. God also used Paul because he was a tentmaker. He could be a missionary and spread the Word of God, and also make money on the side for his travels.

God could use me in my gift of music. I love to worship and talk to God through music. I can see God using me in a way to spread his Word through music. I enjoy to play worship songs, and really really like to sing and play the piano. God could be able to use this. He also can use my servant heart. Since my mom has a disability, I am constantly helping around the house or helping with dinner. I think it is a good thing that my mom has taught me and my siblings to help around the house, and help her out in any way that we can.

Spaghetti Tower

Our Spaghetti tower is alright. We hope that it will hold up the egg for 10 seconds. We made sure that everything was as stable as we could make it. We hope we do well!

Our Awesome Chain!

I think that the part that will work the best is the pipe cleaners. They have a small wire underneath the fuzzy part, which will keep the weights high enough up. I think that the only part of our chain that might have a problem is the paper. We folded it tight enough and taped it really good, but I have a slight feeling that it might break when we try to put all of the weight on it. We didn’t use any of the popsicle sticks, because there was no way to bend the popsicle sticks to make the chain link part. We also didn’t want to use the rubber bands because they would stretch out too much so then the bottles would touch the floor. Photo on 10-23-18 at 1.53 PM.jpg

Beginning of School Reflection

So far, I have loved getting to know my eighth grade teachers. I really enjoyed learning about Christopher Columbus in social studies, and having a court case to see who was guilty of the genocide of all the Tianos indians. I am looking forward to small group activity day tomorrow, and I am really looking forward to the eighth grade banquet. I also had fun cleaning up the courtyard in spanish class, and all of the funny things that happened with it.

Our Awesome Boat!

 We hope that our boat does really well! We are the team Umi Zoomi. We made out sail so that it would catch the wind as it goes. We really want an A on this project! The pieces on the side are supposed to help with balance. Hope for the best!

My Summer!

This summer I did many, many, MANY fun things! I went on a family vacation to Minnesota. I spent hours and hours hanging out with all my 16 cousins. I have 2 cousins that are my age. Isaac and Shaylee. We are all in different families on the Van Essen side.This summer, I got a lot better at water skiing, and I went tubing. I spent a weekend at a cottage with my friends right after school got out. We ate a TON of junk food. When I got home, all I wanted to eat was vegetables… My summer was the best!!!!

African Union Day Reflection

Last Friday, we had an African Union Day instead of normal classes. This was a very eye-opening experience. It was very difficult to figure out what your country wanted, and how they wanted to do it. It was fun to see other countries working together in different ways to get better democracy altogether. My country wanted to increase with democracy, so, we partnered with Algeria, Ghana, and Ethiopia, who all also wanted to increase their democracy. Our resolution was this, “knowing that there are limited voting opportunities, having seen other countries unified by democracy and equal rights, encouraging equal rights for all. We also had many operatives, like… Encourages all voices to be heard; Approves voting by the people for important gov’t leaders; Supports local voting booths upfront paid by taxes through the gov’t; Calls upon all to vote above the age of 18, if they so choose; Affirms equal rights to all people; We were trying to pass a resolution to help everyone get equal voting rights, and for everyone to have a chance to vote. Our resolution ended up passing the debate, with no further questions.

Invictus

On Friday at school, we watched the movie called Invictus. It was about Nelson Mandela in South Africa. How he was put in jail for 27 years, and he was looked down on. When he was released, all of the African Americans in South Africa rejoiced and were so happy. Later, Nelson Mandela was elected president. Rugby was a huge sport in South Africa, but the team was mostly white people.That caused the African Americans to always root for the opposing team that the Springbok team were playing. Nelson Mandela must have thought otherwise. Once he became president, he was the springbok’s biggest fan!

One of the characters was Francois, which was played by Matt Damon. Francois was the captain of the spring box team. I believe that he was the one character that changes the most in the movie. When their whole team went to the little black children and played rugby with them, he seemed changed. Another spot where he seemed changed, is when he went to the jail cell where Mandela was kept. He experienced for 2 minutes what Mandela experienced for 27 years. To him, it just didn’t seem right.

The reconciliation in the movie was between the white and black people in South Africa. They all were cheering together for the Springbok.

African Study

Today, we did a challenge to guess what country people were born in. A majority of the pictures we saw had people with darker skin color than us. My score was 10/22. I only guess 10 people correctly out of the 22. So many people these days make assumptions that people are from Africa or Asia or some other country, but really you don’t know. Sometimes you can take a wild guess, and maybe guess right, but you will never really know. We also did an activity where we had to write about what we thought of when we thought about Africa. Some of the most popular things that people thought about was the lack of water, and the poverty. Really there is so much more to Africa. In Africa, I wonder what it is like with all the different religions, how do they all worship different gods so close to each other. I wonder if there ever is a conflict about which god is better and such.

Country Hopping

During social studies on Thursday, We pretended to go through different countries on a trip. I lived in France, so I traveled to many different countries. Some of the challenges as a worker were the long lines. I was overwhelmed by all of the people at some points, and sometimes there was nobody waiting in line. One of the challenges as a tourist were going through checking in every country even if you weren’t buying anything. You still had to check in and go through customs. It was a good reminder to see what some people have to constantly go through if they traveling for work, or just traveling for fun. It would be a huge detour to stop in every country along the way. Imagine if all of the states in the U.S. had a customs, and different currency and all of that type of stuff. It would be hard to just get to Minnesota from Michigan. You would have to go through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. If you needed gas, you would have to buy some of their money and then buy some of their gas and do the same in a lot of the other states. Thank goodness that we don’t have that in our country.

Bible Themes

Names

Names are not as important these days as they were back in the bible times. God cares for us and wants to be in a relationship with us. There are two main names for God. One is Yahweh, meaning a loving or caring relationship, and Elohim which means the creator or to create. My visual example is a megaphone. It is a megaphone because my name means ‘the listener’. It is like I need to be a listener for others, and for God too. What I learned from this unit, that back then, names described the people. For example, Elijah, means ‘my God is Yahweh’. I think that Elijah is a perfect example of meanings of names. When the Baal worshipers saw God’s power on Mt. Caramel, they began to say, “Elijah! Elijah!” which translates to, “My God is Yahweh! My God is Yahweh!” Names really are an important part of our lives!

Conflict and Doubt

Conflict and doubt is a huge part of our lives today. We have a million decisions and problems to face. In the bible times, everyone had conflict and doubt. People would ask God questions like, “Why me?” or “What will happen next?” Abraham and Sarah are a good example. They had to trust God, in giving them a son. God told them that he would give them a son. Even though they were almost 100 years old, they still eventually had a son. I chose this for my visual because it has to do with trust. We need to trust that God will show us the correct path to take and make the right decisions. That, is conflict and doubt.

 

Covenant

I chose covenant because it really can connect with us today. A covenant means to make an agreement with someone or lots of people. There are two kinds of covenants. One is a conditional covenant, and the other one is an unconditional covenant. The only difference is, in the conditional covenant both people have a part to keep. For example, if you obey, you get blessings, if you disobey, you get consequences. An unconditional covenant is a covenant that only one person has to do something for it. Noah from the bible was in an unconditional covenant. God promised to never flood the whole earth again, and Noah didn’t have to do anything. I have never been in an unconditional covenant, but I have been in a conditional. My visual shows two people shaking hands which shows an agreement. That is what covenants are all about.  

Symbol of a Lamp

The symbol of the lamp was very interesting to learn about. God chose this example because that was the only source of light in the darkness in the Bible times. It has two meanings. One for sure is that Jesus is the light of the world. He helps us through every situation you could think of, and helps us make the right decisions. The second one talks about how Jesus will come from Davids line. So, God told David that he would keep his lamp burning all the time. That is because the biggest light was coming. Jesus was on his way. My visual shows a TV show called Survivor. In this show, people go to an island and meet 16 people who will be on their team. Every 3 days, someone from one of the teams are voted off of the island. That is what is happening in the picture. In that game, fire represents life. If your torch stays lit, you are still in the game. If your torch gets put out by the host, then you are out of the game. It kind of has the same idea as Davids lamp. If you light is put out, then you are out of luck, and out of Jesus. Keep your torch lit!

 

Slavery and Salvation

When a lot of people hear the word ‘slaves’, they think of poor people who are working for a king. What people don’t know, is that our ancestors were slaves way back when. An example is this is Joseph. His brothers sold him into slavery. He was sold to a caravan and then sold to Potiphar to work for him. He was eventually put into prison, for something that he didn’t do. God helped him to begin to know the meanings of peoples dreams. So, when Potiphar had a dream that he didn’t know the meaning, he summoned Joseph to tell him. He became the assistant leader for the drought that was going on. His brothers came to get food and saw him there. God used the brothers decision for good. My visual is the movie Prince of Egypt. This movie is all about Moses. How his mother sent him as a baby into a river in a basket. You know the story. In the end, he finds his good side and his Godly side. God spoke to Moses and he leads the people out of Egypt. That is slavery, turned into salvation.

Something is Rotten

No, it is not about something smelling really bad. It is about the kings of Israel. Israel kept on having one bad king after another. They went through, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, and Ahab. They finally got Josiah. Who was okay. God still sent Elijah. Elijah had to talk to them about which God was better, Baal or God. They had the competition on Mt. Caramel. God won obviously. Then, Elijah asked them, “How long will you waver between two gods?” The people were silent. They had nothing to say. My visual shows someone helping the other team’s player cross the finish line. We call that good sportsmanship. I chose this because I think of Elijah kind of like that. He was kind of like the miniature light in the darkness and sin of the Israelites. This lady is being the light on the track field and helping the other woman. That is what something is rotten means to me.

 

 

The Call

God keeps his promises. He showed this by calling Abraham and Sarah to be the parents of a huge family. Sarah and Abraham didn’t always trust God and tried to do things on their own. God still calls people today to do different things. For example, Mr. VanDyke. He felt called by God to go and work at North Pointe school instead of our school. Or, when the hurricane hit Huston, many people felt called to go and serve or send basic necessities down to help them. We all get called by God at some point in our lives. Sometimes it totally changes your plans, but God knows best. I would recommend listening. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and talk to the people about their wrongdoing. One problem, he was scared. So instead, he went to opposite way, got on a boat and rode west instead of east. A big storm came over the waters and the crew of the boat was terrified. Jonah told them to throw him overboard. So they did. Jonah was soon swallowed by a fish and lived in the fish’s stomach for three days. He prayed that God would save him. The fish spit him out on shore and he went directly to Nineveh. There are consequences to not listening to God.  

 

 

A Savior

The Israelites could not keep the Sinai covenant, so God gave them another covenant. The new covenant would be written in their hearts and minds. Not on tablets this time. They did not need to sacrifice animals anymore because Jesus was their only sacrifice needed. This is the most important theme of the Bible in my opinion. It is the promise of Jesus coming to earth to save us from our sins. Just like me, Isaiah gave the Israelites many visuals or different ways to think about God. You could think of God as a vine, or the light of the world. My visual shows the nativity scene. It is the coming of Jesus. This is definitely still used today. Many Christians look forward to Christmas because it is the coming of Jesus, (and you get presents of course).

Native American Visit

Yesterday we got the unexpected opportunity to go to Saugatuck and watch a documentary (We the 7th) explaining Native American history, current events of the Native Americans, and Native American art. We learned a lot about the pipeline that went in underneath their water source which is the Missouri River. The Indian reservation is located in South Dakota.

Living on a Dollar a Day

We watched a documentary about living on a dollar a day in Pena Blanca Guatemala I can’t even begin to explain how much that made me think about how fortunate we are. We somehow always have a meal on the table, and CLEAN water to drink. For us, a dollar is no big deal. It is like going to the store and buying a package of skittles for about a dollar. That is all the money that you get for one day. Can you believe it? I wonder what happens if they don’t get paid that day. Do they just have extra food laying around? Do they have to go and buy some food the day before for that day? I can’t wrap my head around always sleeping on the dirt, having a fire and not AC or heat. Or even a Christian school. Only eating a tortilla a day and a little bit of salt. If they are fortunate, once a year they can have a special meal, but only if they can scrap together enough money.