The Sifford Sojournal

Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.

Category: fellowship (Page 4 of 6)

Community Singing – June 2014

June 24, 2014 / / 2 Comments

It’s been a while since we have recorded our Psalms singing from the psalter we use, but this past Lord’s Day/Resurrection Day, we gathered together and recorded the next set of Psalms. As always, it is our prayer that God glorify Himself and that He benefit His Church through these:

Psalms 28A-31G

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

Psalms 22F-24C

Psalms 25A-27F

Once again, we are eternally grateful to the Lord for His Word, and this opportunity to sing it, and His praises. We thank Him for bringing circumstance in our lives so that the words have much more meaning, and we pray He hears these cries of our hearts, again for His glory and the praise of His name! Amen!

— David

Passover 2014

April 18, 2014 / / 2 Comments

This past Tuesday, we celebrated the Passover as a group. Each year we observe this, mostly as a teaching tool for the children, although we pray for spiritual blessings and benefits from it as well, in greater worship of the Lord Christ.

Here are the tables prepared for the evening:

Passover Table Preparation

And we began the Passover seder. We use the Passover section from the book, “A Family Guide to Biblical Holidays“:

Beginning the Passover Seder

Part of the seder involves singing of Psalms 113-118, called “The Hallel”:

During the Passover Seder Psalm Singing

Here is the seder plate. The lamb represents Christ, the Lamb of God; the bitter herbs (horseradish here) represent the bitterness of bondage; the “matzah” is unleavened, representing how quickly the Israelites had to leave Egypt; the “karpas” (celery here) symbolizes the new life for the Jewish people and the hyssop used to sprinkle the blood on the door posts, and is dipped into salt water representing the tears of slavery; and the “haroset,” a mixture of apples, nuts, grape juice and cinnamon, represents the mortar the Israelites used to build the Egyptian cities, and the sweetness of a better world:

Passover Seder Plate

The seder continues:

During the Passover Seder

And then we partake of the Passover meal, the meat even from one of the community members’ sheep they graciously offered for the seder:

The Passover Meal

With drinks and dessert, the wine and grape juice being for the various cups to be drunk or not during the seder:

The Passover Drinks and Desserts

And meal time. It was all very yummy!

During the Passover Meal

And a final Psalm sung:

During Final Passover Psalms Singing

It was a very nice time of fellowshipping together in remembrance of God’s mighty works! We are thankful for the time, pray the Lord glorified Himself through the time, and we pray for His continued light and heat in our lives, and may we be a light to the world for His glory.

Passover Candles Lit

— David

Thanksgiving 2013

December 6, 2013 / / 6 Comments

That time of year rolled around again, and we gathered as a group to enjoy a meal and some fellowship time together; and so, we thought we’d show a few of the sights…

Here are the eating tables decorated very nicely!

Thanksgiving Decorated Table

And here’s the meal table:

Thanksgiving Meal

And the dessert table:

Thanksgiving Dessert

And a very creatively-presented vegetable plate!

Creative Turkey Vegetable Plate

Here’s everyone during meal time:

The Community Group Before the Meal
More of The Community Group Before the Meal
The Community Group During the Meal
More of The Community Group During the Meal
And Even More of The Community Group During the Meal

And everyone relaxing and fellowshipping after the meal:

The Community Group Afterthe Meal
More of The Community Group After the Meal

We are grateful to the Lord for granting us this further enjoyable opportunity to gather in His name, and may we be in CONSTANT thanks to the Lord God Jehovah, King of the universe!

— David

Community Singing – July 2013

July 24, 2013 / / 2 Comments

We are grateful once again to be able to gather together in Christ’s name to sing the Psalms of His praises and His wonderful works in, and protection of, His children. Last Lord’s Day/Resurrection Day, we recorded the next set of Psalms after the previous Psalms recording. We pray God glorify Himself and that He benefit His Church through these:

Psalms 25A-27F

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

Psalms 22F-24C

We again thank the Lord for His word and the opportunity to sing from it and learn it in this way. May He guide and strengthen our hearts by His Spirit, and may He write His law on our hearts that we might not sin against Him. May His great love, kindness and mercy toward His Church bring out from us love, kindness and mercy toward Him, His people and our neighbors.

— David

Community Singing – February 2013

February 28, 2013 / / 1 Comment

After our last fellowship time of recording Psalms from the psalter we use, we recorded the next set earlier this month, again so those who might be trying to learn them as well might have something to help them if needed.

And here is the next set:

Psalms 22F-24C

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

We are eternally grateful to the Lord for His word and the opportunity to sing it, learn it this way, and sing together in praise of His gloriousness, His mighty works, and His protecting hand. We again pray He glorifies Himself through this, and that He benefits and strengthens His Church through it.

— David

Pebbles Pork Chop Party

February 10, 2013 / / 2 Comments

In our last round of pig breeding, we decided to keep, raise and eat the offspring of our sow Pebbles, and breed her again because she had a good disposition and because we had a soft-spot for her, given she was the lone piglet from the difficult birth her mother had, and we had bottle-raised her on goat milk ourselves. But, as the piglets eventually turned into decent-sized pigs, and with the possible difficulty of finding a large enough mate for Pebbles, I decided to change the plans and revert back to the old way of doing things, where we process the mother as well and keep an offspring to continue the pork perpetuation.

Here is Pebbles and most of her offspring before taking Pebbles in (she’s on the left, one female had already gone to Michael and his family as a next breeder for them):

Our Sow Pebbles and Her Offspring

And this is Pebbles next to the offspring we are keeping for the next round of breeding, which we decided to call Lulu. We decided to keep her because she has more of the Duroc characteristics:

Our Sow Pebbles and Our Next Breeding Mother Lulu

With these previous blog posts, you can follow Pebbles’ interesting story from the beginning:
Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Piglet “Pebbles”
Animal Update – Pebbles and Fred
Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Piglets of 2012

And so, we took Pebbles and two of the males in to the butcher (two other of the offspring also went to the Michael and family).

Once getting the meat back, we wanted to continue to practice preserving without canning or freezing, so we had some strips of meat cut from one of the younger pig’s hams, and put them in the salt brine:

Brining Pork Ham Meat

And then I hung them in the meat dryer:

Drying Brined Pork Ham Meat

Then, it was time for the Pebbles Pork Chop Party fellowship meal! We held it on a Lord’s Day fellowship time, so every household contributed to the meal.

Here is all of the eating goodness:

Pebbles Pork Chop Party Dinner Meal

And the group communing together around the table:

Pebbles Pork Chop Party Communing Around the Table

And young Annabelle enjoying the time:

Pebbles Pork Chop Party Young One

We are so very grateful to the Lord for His provisions of the pig meat, and the opportunity to gather in His name and share His beneficence together.

— David

Community Singing – January 2013

February 1, 2013 / / 2 Comments

It’s been quite some time since we posted the recording of our first sets of Psalms we sing from our psalter, and recently we thought we’d continue on to the next set of Psalms, for those of you following along at home with your own psalter.

Psalms 19A-22E

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

We are thankful to God for His word and the opportunity to sing from it and learn it in this way, and we pray He glorifies Himself through this singing, that it might be of benefit to His Church, and that by it His word is hidden in our hearts that we might not sin against Him (Ps 119:11).

— David

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