Friday, October 04, 2013

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus


Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
by Nichole Nordeman
Album: Jesus Firm Foundation, Hymns of Worship (Provident, 2013)

I found this new version of the all-too-familiar song Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus and I fell in love with it. I love how the chorus was given a new twist, all with a more modern tempo.

"I wanna grow dim...standing next to him" - my favourite part.

pearlie

Thursday, October 03, 2013

New toy or old tricks?

I have been trying to learn to read, write and speak Mandarin all my life, but to no avail.

When I was young, I did not have the interest. And having a teacher that took short cuts with us obviously didn't help. (She encouraged us to use our own version of pinyin, whatever helps, in our reading and not actually read the characters. Her exams questions were all word for word from the weekly exercises she gave us in class, and all I did was just memorise and regurgitate the answers. I did not learn a thing.)

When I went to university, I tried again but it didn't go further than just one year of classes and soon enough, with no practice and no interest in pursuing it further, I lost all that I have learnt.

When I started work, I bought books but they stayed on the shelves.

Many years have passed since then and now I am trying again. And I certainly hope it will come to something. I have purchased an iPhone/iPad app from StickyStudy, and after just two days with it, it seems promising. Here is how it looks like and it works perfectly on my iPhone as flashcards.



I have also downloaded a pinyin bible to read, and like when I was learning NT Greek that John is simple enough in Greek to practice and learn the language, it seems to me to be the same in Mandarin.

John 1:1
太初有道,道与神同在,道就是神。
tai4 chu1 you3 dao4 , dao4 yu3 shen2 tong2 zai4 , dao4 jiu4 shi4 shen2
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 3:16
神爱世人,甚至将他的独生子赐给他们,
叫一切信他的,不至灭亡,反得永生。
shen2 ai4 shi4 ren2 , shen4 zhi4 jiang1 ta1 de du2 sheng1 zi3 ci4 gei3 ta1 men2, jiao4 yi1 qie4 xin4 ta1 de, bu4 zhi4 mie4 wang2 , fan3 de2 yong3 sheng1
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

I only hope that this is not just a new toy, or in my context, old tricks that didn't work.

pearlie