Moody Students

Hi! I am totally convinced that Sarah Grandinetti and I (and all the rest of the music majors on our floor) have the most fun at Moody. We’re always busy doing something fun in the afternoons and evenings. It’s usually never planned. Today, we joined some of our band family for a ping pong ”around the world” game, which ended up so intense and fast that we kept trying to get out the person who won the last game. It usually didn’t work. We tried hitting the ball off the walls onto the table, spiking it like volleyball, and using our paddle as a baseball bat. The people outside the game room watched with mouths gaping with awe. They were very jealous.

Then, to top it off, Sarah and I joined our friend Peter (who plays trumpet in band and goes to Covenant Presbyterian church) to sing “Carol of the Bells” in the Arch. Now, if you don’t know what the Arch is, I’ll try to explain. (It’s actually our mascot.) It is a hallway with beautiful arched ceilings made of stone….(aparently Pastor Tony has mopped it several times?).  Here’s the outside of it:

Pastor Tony and I at the Arch

The accoustics are so wonderful that the echo lasts for a whole second. It sounded beautiful! Sarah, Peter, and I agree that band members have the most fun at Moody. Tomorrow is our all-day, band fall social, and only the people in charge know where we’re going. To the rest of us, it’s a SECRET! :) All we know is that it will be 10 degrees cooler, and to dress warmly.

But, with all that, I cannot wait to come home to Kansas. Michigonians and Alaskans are hilarious, Californians are clever and outgoing, Iowians are great, Missourians are cool…..but I miss my Kansans! Hope to see you soon! Somehow, though, I must get my Old Testament homework done in two weeks. Please pray that God will give me strength and energy to read and write about all next 13 books of the Bible (including Psalms), and that I would gain something from it.

Soli Deo Gloria,

~April

 

How Do You Do?

 Hi, my name is April! I am almost 18 years old, and seek to serve my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to bring Him glory as my main goal in life. This blog has been dedicated to glorify God with my writing, music, and whatever else I choose to display. I pray that you as a reader will greatly benefit from this blog, as I will!

Let me share a little bit about me: I love all Classical, Celtic, Hymns, and fiddle music. I enjoy other genres as well, but not to the same degree or respect. As I play violin, harp, piano, and sing a little, I definitely love music. My favorite instrument is violin, (though if you asked me what instrument I’d love to learn next, it would be the guitar, and then after that the steel drums.) This fall I will be majoring in Bible and Music Ministry (with violin) at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

                                                                    

 Random facts: I adore bunnies, dogs, and chocolate; I always put chocolate chips at the bottom of my ice cream cone to keep it from leaking, I have a huge imagination, I love gazing at the stars, swimming, cooking, and reading; I have taught piano and violin since I was 13, I’m a firm believer in spelling “worshiping” the proper grammatical way it’s been spelled for centuries, and I can usually find Biblical applications to little things in life, even peeling potatoes.

 

Also, I fervently believe that Christian teens should be actively involved in their faith. Christianity affects each and every part of our life. It applies to work, going to the grocery store, doing homework, spending money, things we do with our friends, why we do the things we do with our friends (our motive), etc. We have to constantly keep this in mind again and again; otherwise we can easily be sucked into the the world just like a whirlpool—little by little, and then more swiftly—and have a beastly time trying to escape. Only God can (and will) preserve us and keep His own separate from the world; it is by His grace that we have been set free from sin and death.

 

 

 

 

Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

 

 

Jesus was tortured, beaten, battered, and brutally murdered—not because He sinned, but because we sinned! Few boyfriends would do anything half so selfless as to take the shame and punishment that the girl rightfully deserves—yet Christ did for us, and He calls us to also be selfless. This is far different from the world’s logo, “It’s all about ME” —as different as midnight is to noonday! How could we not fall on our faces out of love and awe, and be perfectly willing to risk even a drop of blood for Him who loves us so?

 

So, thanks for visiting my blog! I will try to post more songs every week, or at least write every other day. If you see anything interesting, or just want to say ”hi”, please comment! If I say anything you don’t quite agree with, or something that I probably should have worded differently, please let me know! I’m still learning. haha

      In Christ,

          ~April

 

Flowers and Fireworks

 

If you asked me to describe 4^th of July, 2008 in one word, I would say: “dazzling.” First, my parents and I took a trip to meet my grandparents at an enormous garden. We ate lunch there, and the food was amazing—even though my tortilla wrap was tinted green! It was a Greek wrap with artichokes, Greek olives, cucumbers, spinach, some sort of salad dressing that tasted very good, and feta cheese. I brought my new digital camera with me, which is a Panasonic Lumix with 10x zoom! I was very excited to take pictures of the flowers, trolley, people, dragonflies, the lake, the walls, the fountain, and yes, even the ground! Here are some of the results of our excursion. Enjoy!

Much of the art there was weird…but these are pretty cute!

Ready for takeoff!

:)

 After we left the garden, we went home (first, stopping at Fireworks City to buy sparklers) and I made barbecued chicken drumsticks for the first time. It was quite an experience ripping the skin off the chicken first! As soon as the chicken was done cooking in the oven, and the splendid, mouthwatering aroma of dinner filled the house with its pungency, it was 9:05—the time we had to leave in order to make it in time to see the fireworks! Sighing, we put the dinner away, grabbed some chips, (I grabbed my camera, even though the battery was practically dead from all the pictures I took that day), and headed over to our favorite place to watch the event. It took forever to find a good place to park (the show was going to start in 2 minutes), so instead we parked a ways off, and walked to a good viewing place. It was phenomenal! It said in the paper last year that this place spends the most money on their display! At the grand finale, the fireworks came so huge and fast, it literally sounded like a machine gun, which kept going and going for about 4 minutes! Fireworks are, in my opinion, some of the most wonderful displays of God’s power and glory. It was awesome to ponder that God’s glory is far more beautiful and magnificent than those enormous, vibrant fireworks! Indeed, it was “dazzling;” but God is even more dazzling—infinitely more so! Someday, we as believers will be able to comprehend how this is even possible!

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

In Christ,

        ~April