Amanda’s Musings

This article appeared on news.com.au today entitled ‘Uneasy Listening’ which was pretty disturbing. Well, the article wasn’t disturbing but the explaination of what they called ‘depressing’ songs and a list that’s been compliled of the worst ones of all time. I’m probably farily naive when it comes to the real meaning behind a lot of songs but some of these surprised me. I don’t understand why people need to sing about the contents of number 6. (if you’re curious you can check it out) or even number 2. I suppose some people are trying to express the deepest inmost feeling they have about some thngs that are a reality in life but I still found it very disturbing.

What a week! It was a great time of relaxing with family. A few of our favourite places down south include:

The Purist Gallery Yallingup
Margaret River Chocolate Factory
The Lavender Farm in Margaret River (couldn’t find a website)

and a new one we visited this time:
Yahava Koffee Works

Mostly though we either go for long drives in the country or stay in the cottage. A pretty good week away if you as me!

Ahhh, we’re down south for a week and it’s been quite relaxing so far. Our family tradition is lots of mucking around and board games, especially a scrabble game called take two and a card game called hand and foot. This will be our last week with my brother and his wife and our little nephew before they return over east so it’s nice to have all of us together.

I haven’t wanted to write this post because it’s too sad for me but I’ll get it out of the way.
One week ago today we had to put our little sausage dog Shana down. She was pretty sick and had a lot of fits last week. Friday was a hard day. We miss having her around as she was almost 15 and a house dog but I’m slowly getting used to it. Visiting the vet this morning with a thank you card and some choccies.

Rodney Olsen has tagged me for a Music Meme so here goes…

1. Total amount of music on your computer?

According to my comptuer I have over 1000 songs ripped from CD’s we own courtesy of my computer crazy hubby. (he say’s not MP3 but ogg - whatever that means).

2. CD you last bought?

Hmmm - I won Switchfoot’s The Beautiful Letdown off Sonshine FM quite a while ago
We picked up a strange CD called Putumayo Presents Music From the Chocolate Lands (which is full of world music) at a quiz night a little while ago.

I did however buy an old Steven Curis Chapman CD - Real Life Conversations to add to my growing collection a couple of months ago.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?

I can’t remember - was watching the teli! Whatever was on the radio about 5 hours ago. (unless you count the theme song to Neighbours!).

4. 5 songs you often listen to, or which mean a lot to you?

Forrest Gump Suite
My favourite movie is Forrest Gump. I’ve seen it more times than I could count and probably could quote it almost word for word. I’ve even seen it in Flemish!

No Greater Love - Steven Curtis Chapman
As someone involved in Missionary work, this song has special significance. Steven has dedicated this song to the memory or Nate Saint and his four missionary friends and families who lived and died to make the great love of God through Christ known to the Wadoni of Ecuador. Nate and his four companions were speared to death by the tribal men and later these men became believers. This song my SCC has the singing/chanting of one of those men’s sons as part of the song.

For the Sake of the Call - Steven Curtis Chapman
Another song which always draws me back to the thing I am called to do - the task of spreading the gospel.

We will abandon it all for the sake of the call
No other reason at all but the sake of the call
Wholly devoted to live and to die…

Not for the sake of a creed or a cause
Not for a dream or a promise
Simply because it is Jesus who calls
And if we believe we’ll obey
And we’ll answer….

The Great Adventure - Steven Curtis Champman
Yes, I see the pattern developing here too! I am a bit of a SCC fan and it’s these three of his songs that came to mind when trying to answer this question. This song is important because my hubby and I left our wedding to it as we headed off into our lives together.

Asleep In the Light - Keith Green
I’m also a Keith Green fan. I love the passion and honsesty that comes out when he sang. This song always helps me to focus on what’s important.

The world is sleeping in the dark
That the church just can’t fight
‘Cause it’s asleep in the light
How can you be so dead
When you’ve been so well fed
Jesus rose from the grave
And you, you can’t even get out of bed

I’ve tagged Bagga’s Blog, his Method and Mission Safari.

Bruce over at his method mentions the preacher George Whitfield in his blog this week. I’m a bit of a fan of all those old time preachers/missionaries. I love church history and Christian history. One of my fav’s is George Muller. He set a wonderful example of real practical faith, trusting God for even the smallest thing. He wasn’t a rich man but managed to start up but as this quote shows the Lord used him to do amazing things:

“Among the greatest monuments of what can be accomplished through simple faith in God are the great orphanages covering thirteen acres of ground on Ashley Downs, Bristol, England. When God put it into the heart of George Muller to build these orphanages, he had only two shillings (50 cents) in his pocket. Without making his wants known to any man, but to God alone, over a million, four hundred thousand pounds ($7,000,000) were sent to him for the building and maintaining of these orphan homes. When the writer first visited them, near the time of Mr. Muller’s death, there were five immense buildings of solid granite, capable of accommodating two thousand orphans. In all the years since the first orphans arrived the Lord had sent food in due time, so that they had never missed a meal for want of food.”

I only hope that I can be a woman of prayer and really trust God for the simple things in life as well as the big.

I discovered this verse a long time ago and have it pasted on my wall.
“When times are good, be happy; but whent times arebad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.” Ecclesiastis 7:14
I’ve needed this verse a few times this week with some things happening around us (including yet MORE dog trouble). I’ve had to learn how to rely on the Lord for peace within the storm!

Another ‘project’ I’m involved in through my work with SIM is WA’s version of Reachout NSW (which apparently has up to 1000 young people coming along each year) called Go! Reachout. Missions Interlink WA is starting Reachout here for the first time this year in September and one of the speaker’s is from my mission - SIM. Actually, he’s the director of SIM Australia. Should be a great camp/Conference with dynamic speakers and electives. I hope we can spread the word around that this camp is on. This is before my own camp (’Seize The Day’)which is approx 1 month later. Reachout is more about Challenging young adults to missions whereas my camp is a step two for those who have alrady been challenged to missions and have a lot of questions. The main problem with these two camps for me is that for the first one I’ll be due to have the baby anytime between then and the end of the month. For the second one I’m most likely to have a two or three week old baby! Should be interesting.