Mosaic

              For my mosaic i did the fish symbol. I was an early christian symbol for faith. The Greek word for fish was ICHTUS and it was a acrostic for "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior." Jesus also chose several fisher man and declared them his disciples. The symbol also hid Christians to persecutes. There is also the picture of the fish with the word ICHTHUS inside. It also often has the word "Jesus" writing inside or the symbol of a cross. The symbol of a fish is also the symbol of baptism since a fishes home is in the water.
           I was hard to create the mosaic since i had to cut out each individual square and glue it into a specific spot. I cant even begin to imagine how long it would take to make a even bigger more detailed one. It only took about two blocks to complete mine and it would take many years to complete one to fit on the wall of a building.

Angela Merkel

        Angela Merkel is considered the most powerful woman in the world and the fourth most important person in the world (http://www.forbes.com/wealth/power-women/list).  Who is she and how did she get where she is today?  Merkel is the first woman Chancellor (our equivalent of the President) of Germany.   As Chancellor of Germany, she is the head of the most profitable member country of the European Union (EU) and she has great political influence in both the EU and the world.

Merkel did not start out in politics.  She was born in 1954 in Hamburg, Germany and studied science.  She received a doctorate in physics in 1978 and worked as a chemist for the Academy of Sciences for many years. (http://www.biography.com/people/angela-merkel-9406424).  Merkel got into politics when was appointed to the German Ministry of Women and Youth in 1990.  She continued to rise in the ranks of the party for 15 years.  In 2005 as the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) political party, Merkel was elected as the first women Chancellor of Germany.

She is has long been a close ally of the United States and has stated that she believes that Europe in too dependent on Russian oil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel).  In February of this year, President Obama awarded her the President Medal of Freedom for her contributions to contributing the U.S. interests and peace in the world.

St. Jude

St. Jude was one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus.  He is also known by the name Thaddaeus in the Bible. The name Jude means give of joy and Thaddeus means generous and kind.  One of the reasons Jude’s name may have been changed was to make sure to differentiate him from the traitor Judas Iscariot.

St. Jude is important because he is credited for writing one of the devotions which discuss the ability of “ordinary people to call upon their powerful faith to triumph over seemingly impossible odd in their daily lives”.  (http://www.stjudenovena.org/stjude.html)

It is believed that St. Jude was born to a Jewish family.  He was raised in Paneas, in the region of Galilee, the same area where Jesus grew up.  He probably spoke both Greek and Aramaic and was a farmer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_the_Apostle).  St. Jude died a martyr with Simon the Zealot around 65 A.D in Beirut.  After his death, his body from brought from Beirut to Rome and he is buried in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Saint Jude’s symbols club, axe or palm branch, which represent his martyrdom, or a scroll or book representing the epistle he wrote.  He is also shown in some picture holding a picture of Jesus, which represents his relationship to him as a blood relative.( http://www.carmelite.org/index.php?nuc=content&id=112)