True Confessions of Hannah Faith

Smalti

Posted on January 21st, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: Art, General.

My smalti glass arrived yesterday. I couldn’t wait to play with it, but I put it off until the kids were in bed and the house was decent.

Encyclopedia of Mosaic Techniques:

Smalti:
This is the material in which Byzantine mosaic were made. It is produced in cakes, often about 12 in. in diameter and is cut down from these into rectangular tesserae about 1/3 in thick and about 2/3 in long. Smalti is enameled glass and has enormous intensity of color. It is very expensive and not particularly easy to use. The glass is pitted with little holes and is traditionally left ungrouted because the holes fill up with grout, muting the vibrancy of color.

I did not get the traditional cut of smalti. I saved about 30% by ordering 2 in x 2 in cakes of smalti. Then I cut these down to size. This is not easy. I really need to get the appropriate tools (i.e. hammer and hardie), but these are completly out of my price range right now. I’m looking for used ones. For now, I’m cutting with my wheeled cutters - which does work, but it is hard on my hands.

Smalti is so beautiful when mosaiked. It doesn’t require grouting (hurray!), but isn’t always the easiest material to work with, as you need to precisely fit pieces together. Because there isn’t grout, it is possible to get a great amount of detail into smalti work. Last night, I completed a birch tree and part of a sky… wish I could post pictures, but ever since we got back from Christmas, I haven’t been able to find our camera cord to connect to the computer.

This mosaic can be found in the Wits End Mosaic gallery

The majority of the tesserae in this piece is smalti

My smalti work is a little more irregular than this piece. I don’t cut all of my smalti in to rectangular pieces. I like the effect of different textures and height of individual pieces.

1 comment.

Email to the Church Body

Posted on January 19th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

Dear brothers and sisters of COB,

We are writing this e-mail to say thank you. Thank you for allowing us to serve - thank you for supporting us. I cried as I shook the elders hand and drove home. This is very hard thing for us and we are very grieved. This was always been our home or sending church while my family was in P.N.G. There are people who watched me grow up here. Steve Nute baptized me in lower Wilson Pond. I started the grapevine bible study with the other teens here. It is very hard.

We had a meeting with the Elders to hear their side of events that had happened while we were away over Christmas and to remind them of a few passages that describe how the elders of a church should act and respond to conflict. They made it clear in that meeting that because we are leaders in this church we needed to support them. After the incident last Sunday it became clear to us that we could not. I met with the elders this past Tuesday to make this known and to once again remind them of these certain Bible passages. At the end of the meeting the Elders and I came to a mutual agreement that Hannah and I needed to step down from leadership. They wanted us to not only step down from leadership but membership as well. We feel like the events in the past few months and days have crippled our ministry. The events have divided people in youth group as well as built walls with certain people in this body. This was not a sudden decision, but one that has been building for the past few months as we observed the circumstances unfolding before us. Because of this we honored our agreement with the elders and submitted a letter of resignation Tuesday afternoon.

Our family will miss you guys and we hope to see you around town. At this point we have no intentions of moving. Thank you, once again, for this opportunity to serve your teens and we will miss the relationships that were formed and the love your teens showed our kids. In Christ, Philip, Hannah, Éva, and Seámus

3 comments.

Split

Posted on January 18th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

Well, with much sadness and grief, we split with our church today. The things that the leadership were participating in were completely preposterous. We could no longer be in support of them as leaders of the youth group. After two meetings, the result is posted below. Today is very hard, as we have many phone calls to make, both to teens and to our families explaining what happened. But there is also a weight lifted off of our shoulders and we feel finally at peace again. Next step: find a church - and that’s not something that’s easy to do around here! We might end up travelling as far as Bangor to find a suitable place.

—-

To the Elders at Church of the Open Bible:

We are writing this letter to inform you of our intent to step down from leadership and membership. It has become clear that we can no longer support your actions as leaders. This was confirmed in our last two meetings, on January 4th and January 18th. In the last meeting we came to a mutual agreement that because we could no longer support you as leadership it was best for us to resign. We are grieved and we thank you for the opportunity we have had to serve here. We will miss our relationships but we trust that God is sovereign over this situation and we must be obedient to what we believe He has called us to do.

6 comments.

Waiting

Posted on January 18th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

Phil is with our elders now. I’m trying to stay busy and keep myself going. I don’t know how long he is going to be. I finished cleaning, now all I can do is wait. Unless something drastically changes, this is probably the end of our ministry here. We know God is in control and is sovereign.

0 comments.

nothing is ever enough

Posted on January 17th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

This is what’s playing in my mind today. Updates tomorrow.

nothing is ever enough
derek webb

she’s not real, she’s the spokes on a wheel
but the way she moves will take you where you wanna go
and you’re the one that she steals from
but if not you she’s gonna find somebody else

and you love her
but you know you’ve got to leave her
’cause she’s leaving you with no way out

3 comments.

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