New Friends and a New Dulcimer

Wow! This week was such a blessing. We had Rick and Rita stay with us, a couple celebrating their 50th year anniversary!! God bless them for keeping the course that so many aren't in today's society!! They were our only guests before 5 nights fully booked starting today when they left. So we know God wanted us to get to know them. Of course they know the Lord Jesus as Savior and He is their Hope. The girls really enjoyed playing games with Rita a few of the nights. I really enjoyed playing Rick's handmade dulcimer that he brought with him. I was blown away when one morning he told me that he and Rita felt that God wanted them to give me the dulcimer. What a gift! It is beautifully made of solid black walnut and maple for a sound board and has hummingbirds built into the sound-hole. If you look at a previous blog I had mentioned that humming birds our one of our favorite birds. The sound is amazing on this dulcimer and I am really enjoying playing it, especially some hymns like I'll Fly Away, and Behold What Manner of Love. Be Thou My Vision also sounds especially nice with the D droning while I strum. Anyway, one more unexpected blessing that God bestows--But, the Christian fellowship was the best blessing of all :)

Visiting Schoenbrunn

A few weeks ago we started up our homeschooling year for Joy & Faith. One of the assignments is to visit an historic settlement in Ohio. We decided to visit Schoenbrunn Village. In a previous blog entry I shared about our seeing the outdoor play Trumpet in The Land which told the story of David Zeisburger at Gnadenhutten. Schoenbrunn was the other settlement he worked and lived at.

"First settled in 1772 by Moravian Missionary, David Zeisberger, Schoenbrunn (or "Beautiful Spring" in the native Delaware language) has become the window into our states past. Schoenbrunn Village grew to include over sixty dwellings and 300 Delaware Native Americans and Moravian missionaries. These residents drew up Ohio's first civil code and built its first Christian church and schoolhouse."

It was a really neat trip. The village has been reconstructed in detail based on historic findings. The buildings and layout of the village was very peaceful and conveyed a sense of what it would have been like to live there. The above picture is of the girls at the schoolhouse. They had fun with a scavenger hunt of places and things found throughout the village tour. Definitely worth visiting when you are in the area or staying with us at the Hasseman House. http://amishdoor.com/content/hassemanhouse.php.

I had shared in our first blog about the garden that Joy & Faith planted. We've had an abundant harvest of tomatoes from the four plants we put in - hundreds of them :) We bought a water bath canner and were able to can 12 quarts of tomatoes for the winter which was a new experience for us. Truly God provides us with what we need in all things.

Summer is fast fading away and Fall is almost here. We are thankful for the many blessings that the Lord bestows upon us and look forward to what He has in store for us as we serve Him together as a family here at the B&B.