A fun blog hop

My friend, Shade, invited me to this blog hop. I met Shade just before she moved from a WordPress.com blog and bravely ventured out to the unknown lands of WordPress.org to do her own thing. What a courageous lady. I am full of admiration for her and anyone else who goes it ‘alone out there’. Her blog is called Prophetic Voice, and Shade is a great source of encouragement and prayer for Christian believers. Make sure you check it out and say hi to her for me. Okay, this blog hop asks four questions about writing, and then we each introduce other writers we love so… deep breath… here we go…

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1. What am I writing or working on?

I am split in several different directions at the moment. On my blog, I have just started putting together an exciting apologetics adventure theme for kids about the Dead Sea Scrolls. By the time this is posted, many of them will already be up, but behind the scenes here at the moment, things are looking pretty scrappy as I think about what order to post everything and how to fit it all together. I am also working on a fun editing, design, and publishing project for Jack Dey’s new book – The Secrets of Black Dean Lighthouse. Being part of his team, I love getting a sneak peek behind the scenes into the mysterious world of publishing and of course, I get to read it first!  :)

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2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Most child sponsorship bloggers sign up to use their online voice to tell others about an organisation that they believe helps to rescue children in developing countries from extreme poverty. I initially started my own blog to serve the extended sponsorship community, and others like them – Sunday Schoolers and homeschoolers who are out there looking for fun and free printable paper gift ideas for their kids. I am passionate about the Lord Jesus; the authority of His Word; His creation (and making sure He gets the credit for His designs); telling others about Him; and using my computer for Him… and especially to help draw my readers closer to Him. If you don’t know Him, I would love to introduce you to the Creator of the universe. You’ve been a twinkle in His eye for a long time. Not that would REALLY make my day!  :)

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3. Why do I write what I write?

I adore my sponsored children, and yes, like many sponsors, spend wa-aay too much time on them. I love finding and designing pretty things for them. And I love sharing what I’ve found or designed with others, and I want my blog to be a fun and Biblical resource for other busy sponsors. But most importantly, to please the Lord Jesus and give honour and glory to Him.

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4. How does my process work?

When I first started, I worked on a very messy page within a program called ‘Windows Live’, filled with notes, scratchings and color coded text, like in-your-face-bright-and-bolded-fleuro-green(!) to remind me to ‘do’ things before I accidentally pressed that ‘publish’ button and then freaked out because I was still standing in my virtual online underwear, so to speak.

And now that WordPress have expanded the backroom of our blogs (it’s called a ‘dashboard’) and we no longer feel like we are hunched up on a stool over a tiny window of a screen, but can sit back and relax in our virtual armchairs, and our posts can pretty much fill the whole page of our screen (it’s wonderful), that very messy process has now migrated to the backroom of my web site, although I still use a Word document to jot down initial thoughts.

With most of my posts, there are a ton of links and information to find, check, double check and then triple check, sometimes taking weeks before a post goes ‘live’, plus finding fun photos that I like and can use without stepping on anyone’s copyright toes. It’s been a very steep learning curve over the last 18 months, but I love pushing buttons and am starting to relax now and even feel comfortable. Learning to blog is a bit like learning to play the violin in public. A few squeaky notes along the way, but pretty soon we’re up there playing ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ with the others in no time. But if you do happen to find any bright and bolded fleuro green anywhere, now you will know that it has slipped past my rigorous checking process. Please quietly come and tell me that my petticoats are showing!

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OTHER WRITERS

For various excellent reasons, all the online friends that I approached were unable to participate in this blog hop at this time. After thinking it over, I decided to go ahead and showcase their work anyway and am delighted to introduce them to you. I know you will enjoy them as much as I do:

1. Jack Dey is an author and blogger. His writing is spiced with his great sense of humour and a deep love for God, with strong themes of family and redemption. I admire and respect him for his strong gentleness and seeking only to be a ‘pencil in Papa God’s hands’. He wishes to encourage his readers to grow closer to Him and that is why I am delighted to be able to recommend his work to you. If you enjoy great Christian fiction embedded in real life, that will inspire you and make you think, make sure you go and check him out.

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2. I have only just recently discovered Connie from Children’s Church and will be including many of her links in future posts. Her site is similar to this one and is filled with a treasure trove of Sunday School resources and ideas so I know that you will love it… enjoy! This information comes from her ‘about’ page…

“Hi! I’m Connie. As I’ve taught Children’s Church over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time searching the internet for color pages, games, work pages and other ideas to help the children learn the lesson and have fun at the same time. It also takes a lot of file storage space. So, this site is an attempt to organize and keep the files more readily available. I hope that this site is also helpful to you, too.”

3. Sue from Heavenly Raindrops was one of the first bloggers to encourage me as I was stumbling around and finding my blogging feet. She is a wonderful source of blessing and encouragement and inspirational photos that she has kindly allowed us to use for our children. Her ‘about’ page says, ‘Anything God inspires me to write, I write. His words seem to fall like raindrops from heaven into my heart…’  I am delighted to introduce Sue to you.

4. Karina is another wonderful source of blessing for Christian believers who I met through Sue’s blog. Her gentle wisdom and encouragement is always a delight to read. Her ‘about’ page describes her as, ‘…an ordinary girl, but God’s love gave me an extraordinary life. He has given me a life with an abundant blessing. I am very grateful to God for His loving kindness. Through this blog I am longing to share stories from various sources, poems, quotes or thoughts that comes from my personal experience. I hope that can motivate and inspire to everyone.’

5. Christiane from Road trips and kids and Germany to Africa was also one of the first bloggers to encourage me as I was stumbling around and finding my blogging feet. She speaks 6 languages and lives a courageous and adventurous life, bridging worlds and travelling between Europe and South Africa. Between taking great photos of elephant kisses and trying to keep her children’s fingers out of lions’ cages – when the said lion is sitting just inches away behind chicken wire at the zoo(!)  :o  –  she speaks out about South African social issues. Particularly for anyone sponsoring African children, her writing is both disturbing and insightful. Christiane is actively seeking to be the hands and feet of Jesus in South Africa and encourages others to get involved, too. Her ‘about’ page describes her as ‘…involved in outreach to a special needs school, running anti-child-abuse campaigns, training teenagers to get involved in their communities and pastoring a church while also heading a preschool… Being a link between God’s dream and the sad realities on earth is what I want to be – help to water the desert.’

Go and visit – and tell them Paper Gifts for Estefany sent you!

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