Vaughnshire Farm

… the e-mail envelope please…  Whew, we barely made it in on time.

The Winner 

Congratulations to Mrs. Pear the winner of the Genevan Foundation CD Give away!  Mrs. Pear has already been contacted off list and will receive her free copy of these delightful new CD’s from the Serven Family.

Do not dispair if you were not the blessed winner of such a great prize.  I happen to know where you can pick up your very own copy of these great CDs.  Just stop by Genevan Foundation today to add to your family library and more importantly add to your families repertoire of great psalms and hymns to sing. 

Selection Criteria

Mrs. Pear was the eighth e-mail to request entry in the drawing and since we are about to have (as in any day - if not hour) our eight child we thought that would be a fitting selection criteria.  I know it’s about as lame of a ”random selection” as you can get, but that was as much creative energy as we had around here… did I mention we are about to have a baby.  Maybe next time we will do something real agrarian like putting all the e-mail addresses in a hat an letting one of the turkeys peck one out. ;)  For now random selection of the birth order will have to suffice.

Added Blessing

One last observation I want to make about this drawing.  Beth and I were very blessed by the encouraging comments included in your entries.  We shared them with each other throughout the week and found it to be a real source of encouragement.  For those that included a link to your family blog we spent time this week catching up with your families and were further encouraged by that. 

It seems that many of you are engaged in some sort of agrarian endeavor; either gardening, raising poultry or some other grand adventure discovering God’s food chain.  There are many that have large families (or seem to desire one) and are homeschooling your children.  I don’t have to tell you what a blessing the children can be.  Hard work,  yes.  Challenging at times, absolutely.  But the mortal tests fail in comparison to the eternal joy that will come as we see the children God has entrusted to our care grow into mature faithful Christian men and women.  What worldly pleasure could keep us from an investment that will give such eternal rewards?  It is a blessing to hear your testimonies about God’s faithfulness with your children.

Lastly, your love for the Lord Jesus Christ shows in your writings and your family story as you tell it.  It is refreshing to be reminded of the many others who are walking this path and are on a similar journey.  Many of us are at different places in the journey and we all have different challenges to overcome, but it is exciting to me to see Christ working in so many around the world.

New Vaughnshire Practice 

In fact, it was such an encouragement we are going to start doing something to encourage this more.  I think we will be looking to do a regular monthly give away because that is a lot of fun in itself.  But in addition to that, we want to start a semi-regular link post, where you can all post your site (or a favorite site) for other Vaughnshire readers to enjoy.  If anyone is half as encouraged by the other sites as we were this week, it will be an effort worth while… aka a worthwhile effort.

So to start with I have skimmed back through the contest entries and pulled out the links I found.  I included those links for your reading pleasure, below.  These are in no particular order just as I found them and pasted them.  There were a bunch of entries so if I failed to catch your link, or if you have one and you did not include a link in your e-mail please feel free to post a link to your blog or favorite web site in the comments of this post.  In the future, we will pick a day of the week and dedicate a regular post for this link sharing event.  For now enjoy the post below and be encouraged.  God is doing a great work in this world of His!

http://www.servenclan.blogspot.com/

http://tobefruitfulandmultiply.blogspot.com/

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/mlbainbridge

http://evanspatch.wordpress.com/

http://tonykonvalin.blogspot.com/

http://www.happygoldenyears.blogspot.com/

http://www.lifetimeblessings.blogspot.com/

http://jacksonmom.blogspot.com/

http://www.sabofamdynamics.blogspot.com/

Our wonderful friends, the Servens, have just released two brand new CD’s that we will be giving away here on the blog! 

Glory, Laud, and Honor

And

Nations Praise 

We absolutely love these new CD’s and highly recommend them!  If you are not familiar with the Serven Family and the Genevan Foundation, they have produced several CD’s with the purpose of teaching you how to sing the Psalms and Hymns in 4 part harmony.  It is an amazing resource for families (and churches) who seek to reclaim the lost art of singing in parts.  It wasn’t too many years ago that we were exposed to the wonderful sound and art of harmonious hymn  and Psalm singing from the Serven family.  Many of us have grown up in a church culture void of 4 part harmony and so attempting to sing in parts is quite an daunting feat for many of us!  We have been so encouraged by these CD’s and have been able to learn parts to some wonderful, foundational hymns and Psalms of the Christian faith. 

This weekend the most requested… the only requested CD… our children asked to listen to was Nations Praise and Glory, Laud and Honor.  They put the Psalm book and a couple of Hymnals in the truck so they could follow along with the CD and it was wonderful hearing their little voices singing to the Lord. 

Here is the information on the new releases:

Glory, Laud, and Honor seeks to teach families and churches how to sing the hymns in four part harmony.  The first ten tracks demonstrate the full harmony versions.  The following selections break the parts down to soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, so you can learn your notes and sing along.  All the sections can be found in the Trinity Hymnal, as well as many other fine hymnals. 

Nations Praise seeks to teach families and churches how to sing the Psalms in four part harmony. The first ten tracks demonstrate the full harmony versions. The following selections break the parts down to soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, so you can learn your notes and sing along. All selections can be found in The Book of Psalms for Singing. 

We would also highly recommend their other CD’s found here on their product page…  For your chance to win this give away— both CD’s!!!! — send me your name ( giveaway@vaughnshire.com ) and I will post the winner of the drawing next Monday, May 26th. 

What is a free giveaway?  Occasionally, we will be hosting free giveaways on our blog for this upcoming new year. 

This week, we are giving away a free doll carrier from Vision Forum to one of our blog readers.  

 I will draw a winner and post who won the baby carrier on Tuesday afternoon, December 18th. 

 Made of soft, cozy material and with adjustable straps, your daughter will love this pretty, lightweight version of your own carrier. Machine-washable. Fits all 15″ dolls.  Ages 3 yrs and up…

Edit:  See comments to see who won!