Life at Willis Creek Ranch: Family Reunion 2016

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Sunday of Family Reunion

Sunday morning found us back at Kerry and Candace's for family church.

Jane, Donna and Paul

Jackson, Brianna, and Jonathan

Laura and Jane

Paul and Laura

Jonathan found a good spot

Uncle Mitch and Mama

Hannah, Brianna, and Jackson singing 'Days of Elijah'
https://vimeo.com/181354452

For family worship this year, we followed the Order of Service from the Dunblane Cathedral in Dunblane, Scotland. Mama, Julie, Jennifer, and I visited there in June. The ladies at the cathedral that day were so kind when they learned that our ancestor had lived there and that we were tracing our roots. They gave Julie a copy of the Dunblane Praise book of worship which we used for our family service.

This was wonderful! Following the Dunblane order of worship, we used their scripture reading for the day. Robin and Karen have a friend who is from Scotland who agreed to read the scripture for us. We facetimed him in to the living room and gathered round to hear the scripture read from the Scottish Bible in that wonderful lilting accent. So neat!

Can you see him on FaceTime there on the coffee table? :D

The scripture for the day was Colossians Chapter 1 from the Scottish Bible.

He was followed by dear Rachel, who read the scripture again in Gaelic (which she has spoken for years).

Rachel reading the scripture in Gaelic

And finally, Robin read the scripture for us in "plain old english"... (his words!) However, to our ears there is nothing 'plain old' about hearing Robin read scripture in his native British English. Lovely. (If you are interested, you can listen to all three of these versions of the scripture reading in a video that I have linked at the bottom of this post.)

Robin reading the scripture passage for the third wonderful time.

This was a hymn that came from the Dunblane order of service for that day. It was so hauntingly beautiful! It has a Korean melody. Brianna loved it so much that she took it back home to teach to her newly formed church choir!

Aunt Jan and Uncle Mitch

Hannah and Rebekah

Candace, Rachel, and Hannah sang

Julie playing for family worship

Robin and Karen closing the time with a song of blessing

This was hilarious! Aunt Jan wanted to be sure to observe Jackson and Brianna's 1st year wedding anniversary (that was going to be the very next day). So just before they hit the road to drive back home, Jan presented them with a special 1st anniversary gift... paper! As in, a bag full of paper products! :D It was great! I caught the last bit with a video clip (wish I had been fast enough to video the whole thing!) You can see the video clip by clicking this link... https://www.flickr.com/photos/williscreekranch/28696871686/in/album-72157671105364721/

Aunt Jan, Brianna, Jackson, Uncle Mitch

Jackson and Brianna headed out so they could celebrate that 1 year
anniversary in their own home and not on the road. :D

Hal, Rachel, Stephen, Beverly

Jackson, Brianna, Laura, Marvin, Jonathan

Julie, Jane, Donna

Liz and Candace

Mama, Liz, and Daddy

We went to lunch at a great Mexican restaurant in Norman, Los Dos Amigos. Very good!

We were all glad when Susanna's long time friend, Sarah, dropped by. She was part of the science class that Kerry taught for years (and Jackson & Jonathan were able to video in for). It was great to see her. :)

Susanna and Sarah in the reading nook

Another round of playing Matthew's game

The rest of Sunday was spent relaxing and visiting. It was a fitting end to a wonderful family reunion. We so appreciate all the Kerry and Candace (and everyone else down there!!!) did to welcome us to their home. We created many wonderful memories together.