~Kimberly's Komments~

~Sarah and I doing our exercises with our violin bow~

When I turned 4 Daddy and Mommy gave me my cousins violin to use. At first I didn't do anything with it, then I started playing along with the songs on CDs, and Daddy and Mommy realized that God had given me an ear for the violin. When I turned 6 I started violin lessons with our good friend Janette C., and God helped me buy my own violin with my money from my kindergarten graduation. I had only taken lessons for about 6 months, when we had to leave AZ and do 8 months of deputation. Mommy didn't know much about the violin, but she and I kept working up piano and violin arrangements, to keep me practicing my violin. Right before we left the USA to study Spanish, the Jewetts gave Sarah her own violin. YEA! Then we headed to Costa Rica for 1 year, then to Colombia. All of this time, my Mommy had been praying that God would PLEASE, IN HIS TIME, send us a good violin teacher to teach Sarah and I. Well, our friend Carlos just got us in contact with a violin teacher, and she came for the first time last week. She WILL COME RIGHT TO OUR HOUSE FOR THE LESSONS (YEA!), she knows her stuff, is registered with Suzuki International and teaches that program, and we fell in love with her. God answered our prayers, and sent us a good violin teacher. Our new teacher's name is Adriana. She's all that I wanted in a teacher. She is sweet, patient, and good. While she was here, she asked me to name the strings of the violin in Spanish, and I said the note names in Spanish like this "E, A, D, G", and she said, "NO, I SAID IN SPANISH", so I said the note names again in Spanish, and she said, "No, they would be Mi, La, Re, Sol", and I about fell over, for I had NO CLUE what she was talking about. I guess here everyone learns music by Solfege, so I guess we'll be learning solfege, along with the violin. (I guess my cousins that have been missionaries in Russia and Romania have had to learn their violin notes that way too! =) We always have to do exercises with our violin and with our bow, and our teacher is making my Mommy do them too, so she can help us pratice! (and so my Mommy is learning how difficult it really is to hold the bow just right, etc.) We're excited about learning more on the violin, to play it for God's glory!
~Our teacher, Adriana, Sarah, Noah, and I~