Sunday, December 20, 2015

SILENT NIGHT

   This morning, Dec. 20, 2015, Praising Hands gave our Christmas offering.  We signed Silent Night the very beginning of the service.  After the first "Silent night", right on "Holy" the choir joined in.  What a magical feeling.  Yes, we made a few little errors here and there.  But all in all, it felt good.

    Merry Christmas Everyone.  May God bless you and yours.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

PAT'S INSIGHTS

    There has been an absence in my blogging for which my only excuses is I have been overwhelmed as of late.  

    I talked with Pat about insights and thoughts she would like to share  with our readers.  She mentioned a few thoughts I will try to discuss here. 

     As with any group of singers, each member has their own voice.  We each express our own selves in our manor of expression and movements.  Pat, herself, moves with so much expression, where as Moe has so much expression on his face while he signs.

    Pat said she has been asked how our songs are chosen.  I asked her what her answer is when asked that question.  First, I as the director do not chose the songs.  I find songs that I think are with our capability and ones I like or other people have requested.  I then present them to Praising Hands as a group.  After considering them we all chose ones that make a connection with us at some level.  I think it is important that we all feel comfortable with the songs we are signing.   

Thank you for visiting.  May God bless.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

INTRODUCING PAT

      Pat has been a member of Praising Hands from the beginning.  That being said I would like you to meet Pat.
  

   
     
       When asked what brought her to Praising Hands, she said, “Since I took ballet lessons as a child, I have interpreted music and lyrics through dance, or through imagining dance or figure skating or moving color patterns. The Praising Hands Choir offers me the joy of experiencing the meaning of hymns more deeply and the opportunity to share this in worship.”

         Thank you Pat for being part Praising Hands.

         Thank you for visiting.  May God Bless.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

"FAITHFUL ONE" IN WORSHIP

     Today we celebrated All Saints Day in our worship.  Praising Hands offered the song "Faithful One". Even though we signed the song during offering time, the church was so, so quite.

      I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed signing it for worship. The last entry at the bottom of the Song Page has a link to youtube where we have uploaded Praising Hands signing this song.

Thank you for visiting.  May God Bless.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

SINGER AND SONG WRITTER

    I am sorry for the delay in my posting.  I have been a little under the weather for a few weeks.  

    Pat will be our guest blogger today.  

    A little about the song "Faithful One" which we are offering in worship on October 25.

    Robin Mark, singer of this  contemporary Christian hymn, is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he is a singer, songwriter and worship leader in his home church, Christian Fellowship Church.

   The hymn itself was written in 1989 by Brian Doerken, a Canadian who graduated from the Mennonite Educational Institute in 1983.  Since then he has been very influential in the area of contemporary Christian worship music, as a worship leader, Singer-songwriter, and worship music producer.  He currently lies in British Columbia and leads Prairie Bible Institutes School of Worship Arts in Alberta.


Thank you Pat.  Thank you all for visiting.  May God Bless.



Wednesday, September 30, 2015

THOUGHTS ON SIGNING SONGS

     Last Friday was the last practice that Sandy was with us.  Looking back on what we, PH, had discussed with Sandy about signing songs, I thought we could discuss some here.  

        First It is important to realize  Signing is another language.  In fact, if a person knew ASL or another form of signing and were applying for a job, said person could legitimately claim to be bilingual.
       
       The second thing I always explain to new comers is ASL is a conceptual language.  What we sign are thoughts, concepts, not word by word what is being spoken or sung.  One sign can cover more than one word, because it is a concept.  In the English language we have more than one word for a thought, action, or feeling.  Take the words "want, desire, long for", they all are covered by one sign.  Expression or manor of signing may differentiate the degree of wanting but the sign is the same.

     The next thing that we discuss is syntax.  When we are signing songs, however, we stay closer to English syntax.  There are times when ASL syntax works better.  An example of that is in "Faithful One", the song we are signing in October.  In the song the phrase is "my rock of peace"  we sign "my peace rock.

      I will return to this subject in latter posts as each member contributes their insights on the subject.

Thank you for visiting.  May God bless.
   

Thursday, September 24, 2015

CLOSING HYMN

      It is customary in our church to end the service with a hymn.  Everyone stands and joins hands while the closing hymn is sung.  Most of the year our closing hymn is "Let there be Peace ". While being sung by the congregation a member or two of PH stand at the front of the church and sign. 
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      However, during Advent and Lent the closing hymn is different and PH hasn't signed the closing hymn..  This year we have been requested to learn and sign the closing hymn, "Go Tell it on the Mountain" during Advent.  

       The first Sunday of Advent is November 29.  As I try to give our signing choir about two months to learn a song, this week we will start learning "Go Tell it on the Mountain."  That means that we will be working on two songs at once.  Always a challenge. 

Thank you for visiting.  May God bless.

Monday, September 21, 2015

GUEST BLOGGER

     Today's post is by Sandy, Praising Hands' new friend.



A great big THANK YOU to the Praising Hands of Trinity UMC

The first Sunday my husband and I attended church we were lucky enough to have the Praising Hands preforming.  Signing songs has been an interest of mine for a couple of years now and when I read in the newsletter that they were starting practices again for the season I decided to see if they would mind if I sat in while we were in town.
Rae, Moe and Pat made me feel very welcome and I have enjoyed “trying” to learn their next song (I’m not as good as they are but they really made me feel good about how I was doing.)

I am hoping to take this information home and encourage our home church to do something like this (we are lucky enough to have people there that know signing). 

What a beautiful, visual way to worship!  Again, thank you all for letting me join in for our month here in town.

Sandy



Sunday, September 20, 2015

HOME COMING PICNIC

     Yesterday, Saturday, Praising Hands had it's home coming picnic.  We are all back together after a summer apart. Our spouses and our selves gathered at the State park just east of town.  We talked, ate, walked, ate, and generally had a great time.  If anyone came away without gaining at least one pound, it would be very surprising. 
     
     Our new friend, Sandy, and her husband are the camp hosts at that state park.  How glad we all were to have such a lovely setting for our gathering.  Thank you Sandy and Erick for hosting our picnic.




Tuesday, September 15, 2015

RAINBOWS

     As I had explained before, we try to wear sashes in the appropriate color range for the liturgical season.  However, as we wore green (ordinary times) for "May it be" in August we did no really want to wear green again in October.  We decided that we would each choose a color form the sashes we already have with the exception of Pat.  She is going to have a new sash that runs from creamish yellow through the yellows to golden orange.  It has twinkly multi-color stars on it.  Pat is making this sash from a sample piece of fabric which we were considering for sashes.  It will be fun to each have a different color brightening our appearance.  

Thanks for visiting.
    

Friday, September 11, 2015

"FAITHFUL ONE"

     I thought I would give you the lyrics to the song we are working on.

FAITHFUL ONE

Faithful One
So unchanging

Ageless One 
You're my rock of Peace

Lord of all
I depend on you

I call out to you
Again and again

I call out to you 
Again and again

Faithful One
So unchanging

Ageless One 
You're my rock of Peace

Lord of all
I depend on you

I call out to you 
Again and Again

I call out to you
Again and Again

You are my rock
In times of trouble

You lift me up
When I fall down

All through the storm
Your love is the anchor

My hope is 
In you alone

Faithful One 
So unchanging

Ageless One 
You're my rock of peace

Lord of all
I depend on you

I call out to you 
Again and again

I call out to you 
Again and again

You are my rock 
In times of trouble

You lift me up
When I fall down

All through the storm 
Your love is the anchor

My hope is
In you alone

You are my rock
In times of trouble

You lift me up 
When I fall down

All through the storm
Your love is the anchor

My hope is 
In you alone.




I hope you enjoy it as much as we are enjoying learning this song.  I really love some of the visual pictures this song invokes.  What do you think?

Thanks for visiting.  Please let us know what you think. May God Bless.



Tuesday, September 8, 2015

NEW FRIENDS

     Friday we had a new friend visit our practice.  She and her husband are the camp hosts at the WA state campground near our town.  After Moe and I (Rae) signed "May it be" on August 30, and the pastor announced that Praising Hands would be starting our fall practices on September 4, she decided to come and see what we were all about.  

      Our new friend is a member of a Lutheran Church in her home town and has long wanted to start a group like Praising Hands in their church.  She watched how we conduct our practices and start learning new songs.  We really enjoyed having her spend our practice time with us and invited her back.  As they, she and her husband, are only going to be here through September she will only be able to attend through this month.  

      Yet, I feel that our signing choir is making an impact, even outside of our own church.

Thank you for visiting.  Comments are always welcome.  May God Bless.  

Thursday, September 3, 2015

A NEW SEASON

       Tomorrow we start our 2015 - 2016 season.  As we more or less take the summer off, our season is from September through June.  I know you are puzzled as we just signed a song in worship Sunday, August 30th.  Praising Hands was asked to sign a song on that Sunday, but Moe and I (Rae) were the only two in town.  So officially it was not during our season.

       Our first song will be "Faithful One."  I will give you the lyrics latter.  We are scheduled to sign it in October.  

        Tomorrow, I will be handing out the lyrics, playing the music video for the choir while I sign the song, and we will discus interpretation of some of the lyrics.  We will take a look at what we have scheduled for the rest of 2015.

        A brief note about the song page of this blog.  We have uploaded and linked almost all of the songs listed.  Please take a look.

Thank you for visiting.  May God Bless.     

Monday, August 31, 2015

BLOG SITE UPDATE

       We have added a new page to the site.  It is photos of Praising Hands members, both past and present.  Check it out and enjoy.

        Also, we have added our song offering from yesterday, Sunday, August 30, 2015, to the song page.  If you click the link after the song title, you can see Moe and Rae, me, signing "May it be."

Thank you for visiting.  May God Bless.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

COLORS

     Way back in the beginning we decided that we would wear black, ankle length black skirts with black tops or dresses for the women and black pants and shirt for men.  After our first time signing in service, someone mentioned that we looked as if we were in morning.  So we decided to were colorful, sparkly sashes.  We try to follow the colors of the liturgical year. however once in a while we depart from tradition.  An example is when we did "Just a Closer Walk with Thee", we chose to wear golden sashes.  

      Right now is Ordinary Times so tomorrow we will be wearing green.  However, when we next will be part of the service (October) we will not want to wear the same green sashes and pocket squares.  I do not know what color we will use.  That will be decided by the group at a later date.

Thank you for visiting.  May God bless.
    

Thursday, August 27, 2015

INTRODUCING RAE

      I thought it was about time you started meeting us one by one.  So it seemed I should be the first, as the blogger and director of Praising Hands.

      I first began learning sign language as a child when my friend, who is deaf, communicated mainly through sign language and gestures.  Later, while working on a Special Education Credential, I was required to take a course in ASL, American Sign Language.  

      All of my life I have been interested in music. Besides learning to play more than one instrument, I was in orchestra all through high school.  I also had dance lessons as a child and was involved in various folk dancing groups throughout my younger life.  During my first two years of college, I was a music major.  There fore I was in orchestra and choir.  

       When, after joining our church, someone talked to me about the desire to form a Signing Choir,  these two parts of my life came together.  And the rest of the story you know form a previous post.

Thank you for visiting and may God bless.


Sunday, August 23, 2015

MAY IT BE

      The song we are signing next Sunday, Aug. 30, is "May it Be".  As I said previously, it is an old Celtic prayer sung by Enya.  Here are the lyrics.

                   May it Be

May it be an evening star shines down upon you.
May it be when darkness falls your heart will be true.

You walk a lonely road
Oh! How far your are from home.

Mornie utulie          (darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way.

Mornie alantie         (darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now.

May it be the shadows call will fly away.
May it be you journey on to light the day.

When the night is over come 
You may rise to find the sun.

Mornie utulie
Believe and you will find your way.

Mornie alantie
A promise lives within you now.
A promise lives within you now.




Thanks for visiting.  May God Bless.

Friday, August 21, 2015

A GLIMPS AT PRACTICE

     We work hard at practice but we do have a lot of fun.   

     I thought you might enjoy a peek at what practice looks like.  So I offer  you these pictures.

                          Moe and Rae                                                                          Moe




Moe 

                                                           "Stay together now"




                                                    Nancy, keeping us on point.








            



                                                                                            
   
            "look she can blow it also"              Yes even I, Rae, .make mistakes.

Monday, August 17, 2015

FLEXIBILITY

     One of the precepts that we decided on in the beginning was flexibility. 

      First when and where we meet is flexible. We chose a place and time to meet and that is where and when we met until we changed.  With the addition of another person who had limited transportation, we changed our meeting time and place.  She was at church on Friday mornings so our meeting place became church and our time changed to 1 p.m.

      The size of our choir is flexible.  We started with four members, grew over time to six, than fell back to three.  We are currently five with four performing.  One person has found performing too much but still wants to be part of our choir.  So she now ques each of us from the front pew.

      Flexibility became key in that some of our members have physical limitations.  So we adapt some signs to fit the signer's limitations.

Thank you for visiting again.    

Saturday, August 15, 2015

A LITTLE HISTORY

     I thought that you might like to know about our beginnings.  In 2012 some members of our church thought they would like to start a signing group.  We had our first meeting the beginning of September.  After a discussion of what direction our group would take and how we would go about it, we left to meet the following week.  The decision was, as you see, to be a signing choir.  We were all to do some research on resources, music, and other such groups.

     The following week when we reconvened, we each presented what we had found.  As I, Rae, was the only one that had any back ground in signing, the other members elected me leader/director. So, I became the reluctant leader of Praising Hands.

Thank you for visiting.  We look forward to your comments.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

AND ON WE GO

       Tomorrow we, Praising Hands, are back to practice.  Moe and Rae will be doing a duet on August 30, 2015.  The song we will be offering is an old Celtic prayer, "May it be".  The music we will be using is a video set to Enya sing the song.  

       As with most Celtic Christian songs or prayers there is an element of nature spirit in it.  However it is a beautiful, you might say haunting, song.  It speaks to both Moe and I, Rae, of many Christian thoughts and ideas.

         Thank you for visiting.  Please visit again soon.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

MISSION STATEMENT

    We now have our Mission Statement up on the "mission" page.  I know it is slow but steady progress.  
  
      I will be posting the address to this blog on Face Book very soon.  

      We encourage visitors to leave comments.  We would really like to hear from you.  What do you think about the blog or our songs.  Also we would love to hear suggestions on how we might make this blog better, songs we have done that you would like to see, or songs that you think might be good for us to do.

      Thank you for visiting.

Monday, August 10, 2015

SONG PAGE

     Our blog site is developing.  We now have the Song page up and running.  If you check it out, you will see a list of all the songs we have done during worship services.  As some of you have already seen, we have uploaded some of our songs to youtube.  Those songs on the list that have been uploaded to youtube will have a link to that video after the title.  You need only click on that link and you will go to our video on youtube.   As time goes by we will be uploading more of our videos to youtube.

     We hope you enjoy watching as much as we enjoyed signing these songs.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

WELCOME

     Welcome to our blog.  The other pages are still under construction but will be ready soon. We would like to keep you informed of what we are doing and when we will be part of the service at Trinity United Methodist Church in Sequim, Washington.  As of this point that is our only venue.
  
       Please do visit us here again soon and see what is going on.