Silent Night - Jesus Lord At Thy Birth

Here's some thoughts I shared with the lovely people of Moonta at a concert I sang and played at.

We're familiar with Christmas carols aren't we, and often sing them without thinking of the full meaning of the words. I know I do.

In Silent Night there are the words "Jesus, Lord at thy birth". What does this actually mean?

Jesus came to earth as a baby. The Almighty, the highest of the high, the creator of the universe, a spiritual being, He changed His form and came here to visit us in the form of a baby. He chose to experience this world, as we all here did. We were all babies once and so was Jesus.

But Lord??? In the dictionary the word 'Lord' means

- a person who has authority, control, or power over others, a master, chief or ruler

- a person who is a leader

- a titled nobleman or peer

- a high official

These are not terms by which we think of a baby. These are terms associated with adults, aren't they. They are all about power, leadership, control. But a baby has none of these, it can't walk or talk, it can't do anything for itself, it is completely helpless, powerless and humble.

So how is it that Jesus was 'Lord at His birth' as the song says?

Jesus 'came down' to earth from His place in heaven. But when He took on human flesh, as a baby, He didn't loose His status, His Lordship. His life didn't have its beginning in Bethlehem, it has no beginning or end.

The prophet Isaiah spoke about Jesus many years before His birth and said that Jesus was 'Lord at His birth too',

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." The Bible - Isaiah 9:6

So at Christmas time we remember that even in the cradle Jesus was the Sovereign Son of God. He was Lord at His birth and He is Lord now. He can be Lord of your life too.

Making Christmas Presents

As I do most years I've been busily making Christmas presents. I'm loving making these bead necklaces and earrings and I think they're better than ones I've made previously. I'm getting better at putting colours together. It's therapeutic too, sorting the beads and threading them, creating something beautiful!

Another idea I came up with is a cd for kids with music, paper toys and audio stories.

The music is freely downloadable at Family Worship Resources.

Paper toys at The Toymaker

The stories I got from Project Gutenberg and I've recorded myself reading them and put in a musical backing track too.

Fun!!!

Guy Sebastian Elder Park, Adelaide

Guy Sebastian at Elder Park 4 Dec 2009 for Sunrise. Same as above I've left this video on the side to maintain the quality. Hope you like it :-)

Hugh Sheridan at Elder Park Adelaide

Although this video is at an angle I've uploaded it like this because it looses quality in the conversion and rotation. The picture isn't great anyway it's more the song which I wanted to capture!

What I didn't think of doing was recording it from the tv before I went to Elder Park. Anyway enjoy :-)

Sunrise (tv show) In Adelaide

Had a very nice morning at Elder Park in the city centre watching Sunrise the tv show being filmed. I saw Guy Sebastian sing three songs but I only saw Hugh Sheridan sing one. I love Guy and his voice is incredible and I was surprised with Hugh Sheridan because I hadn't heard him sing and he has a really good voice and did very well live too.

Guy talked to the crowd before and after his songs and said he was loving being back in Adelaide and joked that is was 'only for a minute'.

The regular Sunrise cast seemed as lovely and natural in real life as they are on air, chatting to the crowd and making time for photos with young and old alike.

I overheard Dorinda Hafner say to her daughter Nuala, I don't want you to go! I'm blessed that my children still live in South Australia. It must be so much harder for parents whose children live in another state or a different country!! And celebrity parents and children wouldn't get to see each other much at all. If I remember correctly Nuala hasn't been back from London all that long either.

I'll upload my video clips of Guy and Hugh too!

Make your own word search puzzle

Make your own word search puzzle

You can use this page to create your own word search puzzle with your own list of words. These puzzles are popular with different groups of people, especially teachers and students.

Please enter a set of words. When you are done, hit the "Make Puzzle" button to generate a word search puzzle. Once the puzzle is displayed, you can use the "Printable HTML" or "Printable PDF" buttons to get a clean page suitable for printing with your web browser.

I used this to make word searches for one of my students today. It is very good, it printed in large clear type with a good spread of words over the whole grid.

T H E T O Y M A K E R

A Butterfly Basket

T H E T O Y M A K E R

This is from the website of Marilyn Scott-Waters.

Welcome to my odd, little world of paper toys, holiday cards, valentines, sun boxes, baskets and bags, origami and ephemera... all for you to make. My goal is to help grownups and kids spend time together making things. It is my wish to amuse and delight. Enjoy, Marilyn.

This site is "chock a block" full of paper toys to make. Many of them are in colour for you to print out and make but there are also some which are black and white for you to print and colour in. All the files are .pdf format.

I'm going to make a paper airplane with one of my students today :-) These would make great Christmas presents!!! You could get the kids to make them for parents, aunties, uncles and grandparents as well as printing out a heap and putting them in a folder for a child's present! I think it would keep them occupied for ages.

Family Worship Resources

Family Worship Resources

Family Worship Resources is a UK based, non-profit organisation providing songs and other resources to help all ages in the church worship together.

Christmas Resources
Check out our Christmas page. As well as details of our most popular song ever - "Peace Child", also available are free drama scripts, and links to other Christmas resources.

I really enjoy their music, I've used a number of their songs in my own video and audio projects as well as playing and singing them in worship services. You can download their songs in mp3, backing track and the sheet music with guitar chords so it makes them very easy to learn and use :-) They're also good for families to use at home, small study groups, home fellowships, Sunday School or Kid's Church groups. If you don't have any musicians you can sing along with the singers on the recording or use the backing track to sing along to.

I love groups who provide grass roots, down to earth resources which are usable and accessable by everyone.

Literacy & Numeracy Tutoring

I love the tutoring I'm doing. It started out with one student and now I have three! Their ages are 5, 9 and 11. It's challenging to engage them and to give them work they can succeed at. Usually by the time parents engage a tutor the child has had quite a bit of time at school feeling like a failure so I try to give them tasks and games they can succeed at and still learn from.

I'm always scouring the Internet and shops for new resources. I often make my own though if I haven't been able to find just what I need. It's lots of fun :-)

I've started recording my own audio books, I use the Hot Potatoes software to make quizzes, cloze, crosswords and match up exercises. The Learning Place from the Queensland Government has lots of free information which I'm using word lists etc.

Papers Past

Papers Past contains more than one million pages of digitised New Zealand newspapers and periodicals. The collection covers the years 1839 to 1932 and includes 52 publications from all regions of New Zealand.

I found this site while researching my great, great grandfather's family the Boyds. His father was one of seven brothers born in Argyllshire, Scotland, 4 went to New Zealand, 2 came to Australia and the youngest we have yet to find out what he did.

Here's story I found which is possibly refering to two of the 4 brothers Allan & John:

Allan Boyd was once out on his run when a boar met him, and Boyd got such a fright that instead of using his gun he climbed a cabbage tree near, leaving his gun leaning against the trunk. After settling himself, he tried to draw his gun up, but it went off and shot him. John MacCrae found him and carried him home, when John Boyd ran to Dunedin for a doctor.

I love that all these records are being digitised!!! The more access we have to history, public records, libraries, and the Internet the better!

Hands on - Turmeric dye

Hands on - Turmeric dye

I'd love to have a go at using this for dyeing fabric. I'll have to try different mordants and see what works. I'm thinking vinegar or salt. I love the colour in the pot!