WOO- HOO!!! A CONTEST!!!!

Rosetta Stone has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while -- next week they are unleashing a brand new curriculum, and you can WIN the *all new* Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3… FOR FREE!
This is a $219 program (and believe me it's worth every penny!) and the winner gets to pick from any of these 14 languages: Spanish (Spain or Latin America), English (American or British), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Hebrew, or Russian.
This will also include a headset with microphone, and students will participate in lifelike conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone still incorporates listening, reading and writing as well, in addition to speaking. Many homeschoolers requested grammar and vocabulary exercises, and with Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3, they're included! For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program and allow parents to easily enroll students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, and view and print reports.

To win this most excellent program -- in the language of your choice -- copy these (blue) paragraphs and post it in (or as) your next blog post -- then to enter the contest, go to the original contest page HERE: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/JenIG/501132/ and leave a comment with the link showing where you blogged about it. And please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post it. And good luck! The winner will be picked randomly on March 26, and will be notified thru the link they left to their blog pg. And if you have more than one blog, you can post them and enter those separately for more chances to win. Yay for free stuff!

Making Enemies At Church :-0

Our church has a business meeting on a monthly basis. To be honest, I know they need to be done but, they can get quite boring. They always follow a pattern of reports from various committees, update on old business, then ask for new business to be brought up.

Ah, the new business. Here is where I made the fatal error of going against the status quo. In my church we have several public school employees, both current and retired. We also have a few families (mine included) which are planning to homeschool. Nothing against the school. We feel it is the best thing for our family. Alabama law has two choices for homeschool families: Option 1 is to have a certified teacher/tutor instruct the students, Option 2 is to be a part of a church school. Most people choose option 2 because, well, most certified teachers have jobs in schools.

To be a "church school" does not mean that you have to be a traditional school with a campus that holds classes. Basically a church has the status of "school" but the classrooms are in each home rather than on church grounds.

So when our pastor asked if anyone had any new business I merely stated that within a two-week period that three families had been asking questions about homeschooling and how to go about the legalities of getting started. I asked how our church would feel about hosting a church school to help these families (and mine). There are no churches in our county that provide this for families. For a few seconds you could have heard a pin drop. Then a few old ladies started ranting and raving about how they did not approve of homeschool and how so-and-so was homeschooled for eight years and he is just shy, and how so-and-so worked all her life as a teacher and her daughter homeschools her kids and that just broke so-and-so's heart because she worked all those years as a teacher and now her own grand kids don't even go to school. Then they asked who the families were. Two of whom were sitting in the meeting. One dad just hung his head. Another mom looked like she was going to stand up. I shook my head and said that it really did not matter who it was because the point was not who is planning to homeschool and why, the point was are we or aren't we going to provide this as a service to people in our area.

The decision to homeschool is not just something to take lightly. There are many reasons why a family would choose to do so. You would think that with school violence what it is, teen pregnancy rates, the homosexual agenda plaguing the schools that people at church would be supportive. Oh no!!! You would have thought that we were insulting them, personally. No one has bothered to ask why are choosing this route for our kids. There are several things that could be said. The school system here is sub par, to say the least. That is not the reason. Some of the kids are really mean and nasty. That too, is not the reason. There has been a student at my children's school who is being expelled for threats made to both students and teachers. (his is one of the families looking into homeschooling) That is not the reason. They are kicking him out; the danger is gone. The boys each have some health issues that are not anything too serious, but make them feel like not going occasionally. Even that is not the key to why this is the best choice for us. The more we study the Bible, the more we see a recurring theme: parents teaching their children is the way for faith to carry over from one generation to next. "Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when the LORD said to me, 'Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.' Deuteronomy 4:9-11; ...and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 2nd Timothy 3:15

The main verse that sealed the deal in my heart was Proverbs 13:20-He who walks with wise men will be wise,But the companion of fools will suffer harm. Did you catch that? THE COMPANION OF FOOLS WILL SUFFER HARM. That really made me stop and think. We send our kids to school from 7:10(first bell) to 2:51(dismissal bell) each day. They get up at 6:00am, get home from school around 3:00pm, get in bed by 8:00pm so they can get up at 6:00am the next morning. That only leaves five hours a day of awakedness for us to be the ones influencing them. They spend 10 hours sleeping. That means (the most part) of the other NINE hours is spent with other children, many of them fools. Today at school a 10th grader crushed smarties and sniffed them. Do I need to give any other examples of why I say they are surrounded by fools?
Tomorrow is Wednesday. I managed to get out of church pretty quick the other night before anyone the chance to come attack me. (lol) I doubt I will be so lucky this time. ;-}

Up And Down At Church

I am a Christian. For many years I felt that meant getting dressed up and going to church a few times a week. Sure I would read my Bible now and then, sometimes I would even get on a "study plan" to read so much per day or whatever. I would pray. That was about it. Not too much out my life. Just enough to say "I am a Christian"

One thing that always stood out to me in the "church world" was the area of missions. My local churches would have missionaries come from all over the world and talk about how they were serving God. I used to think that I wanted to go off somewhere far away and exotic so I could tell people that there is a God and He loves them. It never occurred to me that there were people all around me that needed to hear that, too.

A few years ago my husband and I felt that God was really calling us to do more than just sit around on our bench looking pretty. We started looking into seminaries that we could attend. The hard part of that is that we do not live near one, and we had two children at that time. Guess what happened? Samuel came into existence at that same time. Moving out of state was not feasible.

Mark got approached about becoming a youth pastor at a nearby church. My first reaction was youth, you gotta be kidding me?!?!? Like a lot of people I even had the thought that at first that maybe if Mark served with youth for a while that he would eventually get a job as a pastor somewhere.

Fast forward to today: Still a youth pastor. New church. New town. We went from living in an apartment with close-by neighbors and schools to living out in the country with NO neighbors. That is not all that has changed. My whole outlook has changed. I used to think teenagers were all a bunch of self-centered whiny-babies. I used to think that they really did not know what it meant to go through hard times. Boy was I ever wrong.

Our youth group now has a lot of troubled kids. Kids that have lives I could never have imagined. Mark has to become counselor, referee, best friend, male role model, chauffeur, you name it he is it, in addition to husband, father, paper plate maker, teacher/preacher youth pastor.

Don't get me wrong, I am not meaning to complain. I am just saying that I never thought being involved in ministry could be so hard. We care so much about these kids and there are certain situations that we have no control in changing. Like tonight, a kid goes home from church and finds his dad on floor. The kid first thought the dad was dead; he was drunk, again. This kid has seen his mom walk out on the family. His older sister is in college. His grandmother just died. And his dad gets drunk. The kid pretends to be all tough, wearing black and listening to hard rock music. But inside he is still just a hurt little boy who needs his parents. We pray for him. We love him. But what can we do really for him? We were talking to him tonight, but truly what can you say? It is easy for one of us to say "things will get better, just hang in there buddy" when we are here with our family that is together and everybody loves one another.

So there you have it. All those years I spent listening to missionaries from cool places and I am now only an hour or so from where I grew up. I never knew then that the coolest place to be would be so close to home.

Gracyn Faith Gilliland

It seems like every single day on the news or in the paper you read something about a child being abused or abandoned. Children are so helpless when it comes to their own well-being. They are unable to pick their family. They are unable to pick their own home. What makes that even worse is when you talk to social workers and find out about how there is such a lack of foster homes and people willing to adopt these children who need someone. According to Shaohannah's Hope over 81.5 million people are considering adopting. Sadly very few of those who think about it actually do it.
However, I have some good news. My husband's brother and his wife are going to sign papers today (possibly tomorrow) and will bring home a baby girl!!!! One child that is not going to be stuck in the system. One more child that is going to hear things like "I love you," and "You are special,". One more child is going to have a real home.
Her life did not start out so sweet. The birth mother's family would not accept the baby because she is bi-racial. (I do not have any details about the father and his family) After she was born (Jan.4) she had to be in the hospital. The mother went home and the adoption agency could not get in touch with her when it was time for the baby to home. They placed her in a foster home. The adoption agency had found a family and was getting ready to give the baby to them when the birth mother called and said she knew who she wanted her baby to go to. She had looked at Richard and Michael's application and apparently liked them more than the other applicants. They have been praying for a baby girl to add to their family. (they already have two sons)
Too often we hear stories about foster families that are not good to the kids. Believe me, I have known people who I have wanted to rip their hair out over the way they treated the kids in their care. The lady who my new niece was sent to was not like the foster parents you hear about in the news. She has spent her time and effort making sure the baby in her care was well taken care of. She has kept a journal since getting Gracyn. Richard and Michael can actually know when her smile first appeared, the first time she slept through the night, etc. She also made pictures. How sad would it be to not have baby pictures from those first few weeks? I do not know this lady who has served as Gracyn's foster mother. I do have great respect for her.
Richard and Michael have got many challenges ahead of them. They have gotten past the toddler stages with their boys. Alex and Logan are are in the seventh and fourth grades. Now all of a sudden they are going to have to remember to pack a diaper bag, and make sure they have enough bottles and formula with them before they leave their house. In a few years they will have to memorize the kid's menu of every restaurant. They will have to know what stores have clean bathrooms. But you know what? That kind of stuff is worth when you hear "I love you, Mommy and Daddy."