A Road Less Travelled

2009-11-29T09:49:00.002-05:00

The following review was posted on Frank Viola's website, and I thought it so well stated how I felt about his book, From Eternity to Here, that I'd post it here. It's a review from a man named Brent Hansen, who is a morning talk radio guy apparently. To me, that's irrelevent. He just wrote down in words just what I would have written. When the message of this book got ahold of me, back in late Spring, I was forever changed and drawn back to the Lord in a way I'd never been before. Following the review is a link to a free downloadable chapter of the book.

Here’s the book we’ve been talking about: Frank Viola’s From Eternity to Here.

You can get it at the usual places online. And you really should get it. Like here: http://www.frometernitytohere.org/

I don’t say that often, and — of course — it’s true that one book does not fit all. But this is a very accessible book about a topic so important, the word “topic” seems diminishing.

It’s about Jesus. And you. And a wedding.

Many people think knowing Jesus is ultimately about one thing: Going to heaven. “I got my ticket to heaven, so the rest is details” — I’ve actually heard that.

This sounds right to some, at some level, maybe, but it doesn’t capture the love affair between God and His people. Not even close. Viola brilliantly explains what he calls the “eternal purpose of God”, and it’s a love story, since before time began.

When I read about this love story, this wedding-to-come, I can’t help but think the “ticket to heaven” idea of Christianity is a selling-short of this Great Romance. You see, it’s like saying, “All that matters is I get in the reception, and I get some of that cake. I loves me some wedding cake.”

Well, okay. We all do. But this is about love. Always has been. You see, it’s about much more than whether or not you get some cake. YOU ARE IN THE WEDDING. You’re being proposed to. You’re going to be standing up in this one, front-and-center, and the question isn’t whether you want some cake. The question is: Do you take this man…?

The question is, and always has been, not “Do you have your ticket?” but…”Do you love me?”

So do I?

Viola admits to being a romantic. I’m not — not in the typical I-love-”The Notebook” sense — but I’m glad he’s that type, because it’s allowed him some remarkable insight and appreciation into the romantic elements of the Bible, from start to finish.

Genesis to Revelation is all about Jesus. I knew that. But Viola points out the romantic storylines, played out over and again, that I’d never noticed. Fascinating stuff. (I’d never thought, before, about how “communion” is, among other things, a re-enactment, based on Jewish tradition, of the acceptance of a wedding proposal, for example. And there’s much, much more.)

This book is not overly heady, not written for scholarly-types only. And there’s far more to it than I can allude to in a short entry. If you read it, let me know what you think. It might rock your world, in the most exciting, freeing way.

- Brant Hansen

Frank gives away a free chapter of the book here. Check it out, and feel free to pass around the link. http://frometernitytohere.org/FETH_Sample.pdf

Ten years gone

2009-11-25T12:38:00.002-05:00

I wrote the following right after my dad and stepmom died in a car accident, November 26, 1999. It was written on one of my very old journals, so in honor of my dad's memory, I wanted to repost it here. I'm doing this not for sympathy, but because it's been ten years, and I think it's time for the story to be heard again. Ten years. Seems like just yesterday, and the pain isn't much less. My dad wasn't a wonderful guy; he had so, so, many issues, but I still miss him. I miss that we had just started reconciling, and there was still so much we needed to say. I hate it that he never even really knew my younger sister Rachel at all, such an awesome person and looking so much like him. I miss that he never knew my kids, including Ethan, who is his spitting image. I miss that ever since that time, the remaining Zamrazil side of my family has all but forgotten about my sisters and I. I wish the accident hadn't happened on Thanksgiving weekend. Every year, it's my most foremost thought. I miss you, Daddy. I wish we could have gotten to know each other better.

Written the First Week in December, 1999 (after returning home)

On Friday, November 26, my dad and stepmom were killed in a car accident in Florida. My father, who had epilepsy, was driving home from my grandma's house at about 11:30 pm and had a seizure while driving. Apparently, he hit the gas hard (when he had a seizure, he always leaned all his body weight to one side) and was accellerating to about 60 miles per hour, travelling half on the road and half on the grass, knocking over two street signs, before entering the intersection at Rt. 436. It truly is a blessing that no one else was hit, because 436 is one of the busiest streets in the Orlando area. Anyway, he approached the intersection going about 60 mph, hit an incline in the intersection, and went airborne. His car hit the median and flipped over, then bounced back right-way up and landed on the other side of the street, and then landed head first in about a 10 foot ditch (basically like a sand bar - Florda's dirt) on the side of the road. His back of his car, with the momentum, continued to flip over, and the car came to a stop upside down, against the incline of the ditch. My stepmom Pat died instantly because her neck was broken when the car came to a stop. It might have been broken by "blunt force trauma" to her neck from some tables that came forward from the back seat, or it could have been from the impact itself. My dad's airbag went off, but even airbags and seatbelts (which they were both wearing) were useless when the car came to a complete stop from 60 mph, and the car was heavy because they were all packed up with stuff for the flea market that they did every Saturday. Even though my dad's body was stopped by the airbag and seatbelts, the inside of his body "kept going" at the same speed, and his aorta burst. He died about 10 seconds later. (This is all from the police report and medical examiner.)

I know that Pat didn't suffer, except for those moments when she was sure to see the impact coming, and my dad would have suffered except that he was in a full seizure likely, so we know he likely wasn't aware of anything going on around him. These are very comforting to know. Also, we know that they are now in the presence of God, face to face. My daddy no longer has any seizures or any worries. This gives the family a lot of peace, but it is still very hard, very shocking. Unlike old age or an illness, we didn't get to say goodbye. I just got a phone call early Saturday morning saying that my dad and Pat were killed the night before.

My sister and I are the only apparent heirs, with the exception of our long-lost half sister that we are trying to find*, so it has been a very busy time. We cleaned out his apartment (so much accumulation... my dad was a pack rat) and began settling his affairs as well as planned a funeral (two, really). We really haven't even had time to grieve. But it is beginning now, and it is starting to hit really hard. Please pray for us.

One thing that was really interesting is that a friend of Pat's, Kaye, had been sending her weekly poems and letters for the past four years. We received another poem from her in the mail on Tuesday, postmarked that weekend. She hadn't yet heard about the accident. This is what the poem said:
Creator God, Lord of all Life
Teach me to cherish every moment of my life
To recognize the blessing and the gift of the present,
Instead of racing through my days on the way to the future.
To realize that on this day...
in this hour...
at this moment...
I am in the presence of the King.
(B.J. Hoff, "Faces in the Crowd")

I read this poem at the memorial service on Friday, along with some comments. Actually, I sobbed this story. Right now, Daddy and Pat are in the presence of the King. We all all, through the Holy Spirit, but right now they are joyously face to face.

The biggest lesson I have come away with this past couple weeks is this: My father had kept every reciept, every paper, every THING he had ever gotten his entire life. He kept it all. Cherished souvenirs, newspapers, free promotional, unopened t-shirts even... Within the course of a few seconds, none of that mattered. With the exception of some pictures, food, and flea market products that went to charity, my dad's favorite cat (which my sister took home**) and a few pieces of furniture, it was all in the trash. "Things" do not matter. Everything is worthless except the relationships you have with family and friends and your relationship with Jesus Christ.

* My sister, Rachel, was eventually located. It took a few years, and even private investigator searches had turned very little up. We were not able to settle my dad's estate until Rachel was found. (So the result was, that as the estate executor -or legal equivilent, since there was no will- I had to daily deal with massive amounts of paperwork and mail for my dad's affairs for several years. Please, for your family. Get a will drawn up.) When we did finally connect, it was a random event -- she felt like trying to call and talk to my dad to give "one more shot" at a reconciliation. She found my number, called me at work, and found out what had happened.

** The cat didn't last long in my sister's care. She had turned mostly feral in the course of living in my dad's apartment, along with multiple untrained cats. It was a very sad situation.

Our credit card debt is gone!

2009-11-24T10:30:00.003-05:00

Since February of 2005, we've humbled ourselves repeatedly - losing our house, going into a debt management program, seeing our credit rating tank even more, being humiliated at WIC, food stamp and medicaid offices by employees who think you are scum - and learned to live with what we can afford NOW (even if that meant...nothing, and stopping by a food pantry) instead of borrowing against some future money that may or may not come. As of yesterday, our last payment for credit card debt was paid off. I don't say that with a chip on my shoulder -- I know there is so much financial pain out there right now. I say that with a humble heart of gratitude that God has seen us through those times when we felt like we were drowning. Thanking God that my foolish financial decisions at age 18 are now FINALLY paid off.

We are not debt-free -- there's the house, we're still working on paying off Phil's car, and of course there's the SCHOOL LOANS, which are still painful. But the dumbest, most full of bad decision debt -- it's gone.

Gathering Sticks

2009-11-20T11:28:00.000-05:00

I came across this today on the WayoftheMaster website, and I thought it was well worth reposting:

"'Careful When Gathering Sticks'

A young man wondered if he should go to a Bible school.

His business was carpet-cleaning. Because he traveled around, he personally witnessed to six or seven people each day.

His future at a mission school would mean that he would spend six months with Christians.

Then he would go out and do mission work ... if he still had a mind to. Charles Spurgeon said, 'Be careful when you are picking up sticks, that your fire doesn't go out.'

So if you are considering going to a Bible school, make sure they have an emphasis on reaching out to the world, so that you will end up with more zeal than when you enrolled.

Better still, get into a lifestyle where you will be schooled by regularly rubbing shoulders with the world."

Three years ago...

2009-11-13T17:58:00.002-05:00

...nothing much was happening. Frustratingly so. I'd been having contractions for weeks and at my last checkup, I was dilated to 4 cm. And still Ella didn't budge.

But just a day and a half later (because of course my children all like to be born in the middle of the night), Gabriella Joy Gerth swooshed out as fast as she could, surprising everyone, including the nurse who was sure that "You have a lot longer to go. Honey." (Said about ten minutes before Ella was born, sans doctor, before anyone had time to call my doctor, nor the resident on call, nor "prep" the delivery room.)

Three years later, and I can't imagine life without my little love. Her middle name really is JOY and she lives that every day. She's still my baby. She always will be.

We've had a great couple weeks. It's remained unseasonably warm here, so we've been doing a lot of homeschooling out of doors. I'm amazed at how the kids can go outside, all three of them, and go off into their own little worlds of play. No toys needed - they just find sticks and random nuts and seeds on the ground, and they have a whole adventure for hours of fun. I'm so thankful that our homeschooling schedule gives them the freedom for that kind of learning!

We may be adding a new family member here in a couple days - the Gerth family is considering getting a kitty again! I found a sweet little grey kitten, about twelve weeks old, who was rescued with her litter from the Humane Society. The litter was scheduled for euthanization because they had no room for more kittens. They are all completely healthy, strong, and friendly and socialized to people -- they simply didn't have any room. And the best part? She has a nearly identical sister -- that my mom is considering adopting!

2009-10-09T08:44:00.005-04:00

As it turns out, I may be waiting one more week to get back into our regularly scheduled lesson plans. I just got a free unit study download that looks really good. It's an Amanda Bennett unit study called Autumn Treasures. A whole week of learning about the fall season! I'm going to read through it here today and see if it's as good as the description sounded. We've only ever done one other lapbook/unit study week before, and that was on Thanksgiving week two years ago. Here's the link to the free e-book for Autumn Treasures. Check it out if you are wanting a little something different for a week too!
http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=191_202&products_id=12934

We're back! But where did we go?

2009-10-08T14:04:00.002-04:00

I've not been posting lately, I know. It's been a whirlwindy time around these parts lately. For much of September, I was in planning stages of preparation for our vacation to Florida. Then we went to Florida. We came back on Saturday, only to find out that my sister was in the hospital with the delivery of her second child imminent. Her second child, who was scheduled to be due on October 24...Pllennnnty of time to get back from vacation, and settle back into our routine (ha- our routine?) before the new family member arrived, right?

Well, he was born on Sunday, October 4. Seven pounds 13 ounces, and completely healthy! Praise the Lord and once again so much for the doctor's predictions of due dates for our family. (All three of my kids were born between 2 to 3 weeks early, and all fully cooked and ready.)
There are photos posted of the baby and a whole huge set of photos from our trip posted on my Flickr.

This week we've taken off of our normal school schedule (just one more week - I'm glad I preplanned beginning our year in July, so that I have zero guilt over a three week fall break!) just to help things start to settle back down a bit. I'm getting vacation laundry done, the house put back in order (ideally I'd like that to happen before leaving for vacation, so that I can come back to an orderly house, but the flurry of packing activity never seems to allow that), and our minds back on school-y things. Even when we break, the "house rule" of no TV during our school hours of 10 to 4 remains, so the kids have been finding all kinds of fun things to get themselves into this week.

This afternoon I'm set to can up some apple pie in a jar. We went to the apple farm yesterday and I got three half bushel bags of Winesap apples, as well as a bag of Northern Spy and Ida Red. The winesaps will be used first for the pie filling, then I'll use what's left of those as well as the other two varieties to get some more sauce made. The 13 jars I made a couple weeks ago just won't hold us through the year! I made that mistake last year, and I ran out of applesauce by January. And since it was so tasty that I couldn't buy store bought applesauce anymore, I learned my lesson. This year, I'm canning as many jars as I can before the apples run out!

Final note of the day, and then I've got to get in there and get the apples cooking- I'm reading Hebrews in my morning reading time right now, and it's just striking me again how much I missed in that book. How could I have still been so beholden to the law, when Christ as the perfect high priest has come and fulfilled it? Thank you Lord for setting me free!

Ready for sauce day!

2009-09-21T16:56:00.004-04:00

Ready for sauce day!, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Step 1 - collect a sinkful of 3 apple varieties and rinse well! Next up, peeling and coring. (Keep some peels on for color. )

The variety of apples that you use is key to good applesauce. Today I used Jonathan, Cortland, and Northern Spy.

Sauce day! Time to cook.

2009-09-21T16:56:00.001-04:00

Sauce day! Time to cook., originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Step 2 - once you've filled a pot with sliced, cored and (mostly) peeled apples, add a little water or apple juice/cider (I use cider) in the bottom, just enough so that the apples don't stick and no more. Cook until the apples are squishy (like you do for mashed potatoes).

Sauce day! Get pot ready

2009-09-21T16:55:00.003-04:00

Sauce day! Get pot ready, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Step 3 - while apples are cooking, if you will be canning the sauce, get the canning pot on to a full rolling boil.

Sauce day! Prep accessories

2009-09-21T16:55:00.001-04:00

Sauce day! Prep accessories, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

While the apples still cook and the canning pot is getting to a boil, prepare the other items - blender, etc that you will use to puree the apples. Prepare the jar lids. The jars should be sterilized and hot, so run them through the dishwasher ahead of time. I usually just keep them in the still warm dishwasher and pull out one jar at a time when they are ready to fill.

Sauce day! Puree

2009-09-21T16:54:00.005-04:00

Sauce day! Puree, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Step 4- ladle cooked apples into processor/blender. After each batch, dump into another big saucepan until all apples are pureed.

Sauce day! Season

2009-09-21T16:54:00.003-04:00

Sauce day! Season, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Step 5- add sugar/sweetener and cinnamon, if wanted. Mine tastes sweet enough, so no sugar, but I'm adding cinnamon. Next up - putting it into jars!

Sauce day! Process jars

2009-09-21T16:54:00.001-04:00

Sauce day! Process jars, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Filling up the jars goes so fast that I wasn't able to stop and take a photo, so the next two are together:

Step 6 and 7 - after each jar is filled, leaving about half an inch to an inch of space unfilled ("head space"), center a NEW UNUSED lid on the jar and put a ring on it. Tighten ring. Once all jars are filled (my batch made 7 jars, which, conveniently also is the maximum number I can fit in my processor) place all jars in the boiling water bath. Make sure, when the last jar is in, that the water covers the jars by at least an inch.
Boil for about 20 minutes.

Sauce day! Let jars rest

2009-09-21T16:53:00.001-04:00

Sauce day! Let jars rest, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Step 8 - lift jars out of boiling water and let sit on the counter for about a day. Do not remove the rings until the jars are cool.
Once the jars start to cool, you'll hear a "popping" sound as the lids seal. Once the jars are cool, check to make sure all the lids are sealed by trying to flex them with your finger. If they are sealed, you can remove the rings to be used on another batch. If it pops up, remove the lid, put a new one on and reprocess the jar. This has only happened to me once.
Note that if you test the lids right after they come out of the water, they may still flex. Wait until you hear the "popping" sound and the jars are cool.

That's it! You now have applesauce that tastes so good you'll want to make enough to last all year. That's what I do - storebought is just disgusting by comparison!!

Yeah, I'm good.

2009-09-11T18:26:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I'm good., originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Sometimes you start feeling down. Not for any particular reason, but because the house can't stay clean more than two minutes, you feel like you can't ever keep up, the kids are fighting, on and on.

But then you realize, you know what? There are people very near to me that have situations much worse than the everyday annoyances that often consume my head. I remember that all the more today, eight years after 9/11/01.

I have a husband that adores me, and the kids. (He got each of us a carnation the other day. Guess which one is mine and which are the ones the kids have played with?)

And I have two apple pies, fresh out of the oven.

Yeah, I'm good. Thanks, God.

Jesus is the Light of the World suncatchers

2009-09-11T18:25:00.001-04:00

Jesus is the Light of the World suncatchers, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Melted crayon ironed between wax paper. Ethan made a sun. Natalie made a galaxy.

Art and Bible project for last week!

The size of Betelguise versus our sun

2009-09-11T18:24:00.001-04:00

The size of Betelguise versus our sun, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Natalie is holding a one inch round sun. To scale, between Ethan and Natalie is the size of Betelguise, to scale.
This was one of our science projects for last week.

Ethan is FIVE!

2009-08-13T10:35:00.001-04:00

Ethan is FIVE!, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

I can't believe Ethan is five years old today. Saying "he's only four" still sounds like he's little. But he's five now. That doesn't sound as little to me.

Anniversary lunch at Gold Star!

2009-08-10T13:22:00.001-04:00

Lunch!, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

I had two requests for food on our trip to Cincinnat - Swedish meatballs from IKEA, and Gold Star Chili. We had both on Saturday, so I would call that a successful day.

I never had any interest in Cincy style spaghetti. Then in April, my friend and I went down to the Midwest Homeschool Convention (in Cincy), and when we ate dinner, all that was open (and in my price range) was a nearby Gold Star. So I begrudgingly got that. And oh, it was just so very delicious.
So then upon coming back to Columbus, for the first time ever I was excited about having Skyline Chili (the only one that is sold in Columbus). It wasn't the same. At all. I remembered why I never liked Skyline, even though my mom loved it.

The only downside to our lunch at Gold Star? We ate it in Newport KY, next door to the aquarium center (where we thought we'd be going next, until we discovered that tickets were an outrageous $20 per adult, $15 per kid).
We forgot until we were getting seated, that KY still allows smoking inside of restaurants. And there were smokers there. Yuck! So we had a side of second hand smoke with our spaghetti, even though we sat in the very back, and the smokers were in the front area.

Having a "no smoking" section of a restaurant is the same as having a "no peeing" section of a pool.

My anniversary gift from Phil

2009-08-10T13:20:00.001-04:00

My anniversary gift from Phil, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

And yes, I WAS very excited.

When Phil checked out after our lunch at Gold Star Chili, he saw that they sold seasoning packets to make your own. Since there are no Gold Stars around here (nearest are Dayton and Cincinnati), I am thrilled to be able to make my own!

I wonder how packets of Gold Star Chili seasoning compare to the traditional anniversary gift for 11 years.

Some things just don't impress me anymore

2009-08-02T10:52:00.004-04:00

I used to really care about a lot of things that I really don't care one bit about anymore. There are several, but just for today, just , well, for **whatever reason** I might have, there are a few that have been on my mind for the last several days.

I am not the least bit impressed by "so-and-so's" church that has the biggest attendance rate in the city. First of all, I don't care how many people show up to put in their face time. I care about people whose lives are truly changed and transformed, who learn to live as the Body of Christ. And I certainly don't care one bit about Mr. So and So's church. It's not HIS church. The church belongs to Jesus Christ, not Mr. Big Shot Pastor. When I hear someone use the phrase, "Pastor [whomever's] church", I get chills on my spine, and when that statement is followed by, "is the biggest in the city -- and I used to know him very well! And last time we got together, he personally asked me to sit with him!" I get a yucky feeling all over me.

Secondly, I'm no longer a bit impressed by theological degrees. I'm not saying that education is not important, because it is. I'm also not saying that listening to those with Biblical education is of no value -- in fact, just this week I got some advice on a topic of Greek word usage from an old friend of mine who has advanced degrees in such areas. What I AM saying is that an advanced degree doesn't give you the right to shut down any discussion about Biblical matters, only because the discussion is among "the laity" and challenges certain aspects of beliefs you were taught, not by the Bible, but by the traditions of other Biblical scholars. The Lord can and does still speak to the foolish, the unlearned, and the person of humble status through his Word with the Holy Spirit giving us the understanding. The Lord can and does choose to reveal Himself to the foolish things of this world, to shame the wise. (1 Corinthians 1:27) There is a word that Jesus himself used to describe someone who held to the teachings and traditions of men, holding them up as equal to or surpassing the authority of Scripture itself -- he called such people Pharisees. The spirit of the Pharisee is alive and well in our culture today.

First week of our Adventures year!

2009-08-01T15:49:00.008-04:00

Our first week of our year of Adventures in My Father's World is finished! I think we are really going to enjoy this curriculum. It went fairly smoothly....at least, considering the added stress of house guest that was ...at times...okay, most times... distracting to the kids. I think that if it would have been a normal routine week, that the school time would have gone really well. The kids are so far really enjoying the mix of hands-on projects and stories that all pretty much relate together. The lessons are short and sweet, too -- no pointless busy work. It was just about the right amount for Ethan, also. There were several times that I had to work with Natalie on some subjects that Ethan didn't have a Kindergarten equivent of, so I gave him wiggle-breaks, when he would run off around the living room (getting the wiggles out) and then he came back when it was time for something new. He's really enjoying his MUS Primer book so far. He didn't do math every day, but three of the days this week he sat down with his math book and went through several pages each day. I'm not going to push math seatwork on him this year, but the book is there for him when he wants to do it. I had to stop him from going on to the third lesson at the end of the week.

For math, Natalie spent this week reviewing some of the addition facts, because when I spent the last couple weeks doing some review sheets with her, I discovered that she had forgotten some of the facts that I KNOW she had memorized last year. (Oh how I can't even imagine how frustrated regular school teachers get when their students are gone from math study for three months!!!) So this week we drilled plus 8's, plus 9's, and doubles (4+4, 7+7, etc). Next week we'll go through the 'doubles plus 1' (such as 3+4, 6+7, etc), and then I think we'll be ready to move on to the second half of her Alpha book on the following week.

The first part of the week, we finished up with Natalie reviewing her print letters, and then on Thursday we started cursive! She's really excited about learning to write cursive, although I had to remind her several times that I was NOT expecting perfection -- this was just an introduction to her cursive letters! She did great on the capital and lower case A's, but B's were a lot more diffcult for her, and she started feeling frustrated with it. So I just needed to remind her that she is just STARTING cursive right now; you can't expect every letter to look perfect the first time.

Ethan finished his cutting sheets that he's been working on for the past few weeks, and he began using a pre-writing book for his "handwriting" time. He has lots of lines to trace and (his favorite) mazes to pencil through. My biggest challenge for that this week was to remind him to hold his pencil closer to the tip, instead of what he sometimes tried to do, which is to keep control of his writing while holding his pencil higher up.

Here's how our "school day" went this week:

We started with our Character Building for Families studies. We finished the unit on obedience this week and moved to the next one: orderliness --something else we all need to work on!

Next we had our Bible study time, where this week was all about the importance and specialness of your name. (We are going to focus on the different names for Jesus that are in the Bible through this year, so this first week was all about getting the kids to understand the importance of their own names.) I wrote both Natalie and Ethan a letter to them, telling them what their names mean, and why their daddy and I decided to call them their names. Then on Thursday we made cookies, which they decorated with cookie icing with their initials. They are really enjoying the food aspect of Adventures this year so far. Doing food or recipe projects are something I've always wanted to add to our our homeschool time, but I've never done it much before because it wasn't scheduled in.

Then we had spelling (for Natalie only). The lessons we're doing, using Rod and Staff Spelling By Sound and Structure, so far are really simple and to the point, but include lots of phonics work and also handwriting practice right along with it. One of the biggest struggles I found last year was that Natalie would get 100% of her spelling words correct on the tests (even the really hard challenge words), but then when she would use her spelling words in "real life" situations, she would go back to inventive spelling every time. We used A Reason for Spelling for the second half of last year, which began helping with that, but the lessons were sometimes laborious, sometimes bordering on over the top busy work. Our spelling book for this year seems to be a good amount of real-world usage of the words but not too much to get annoying. Jury is still out, though. We'll also be adding in English lessons using an old book called Primary Language Lessons in a few weeks. Our curriculum doesn't throw everything at the kids all at once at the beginning.

So then next we did our geography and history time. On Monday the kids put together our history timeline that we'll be using for the whole year, and Natalie started her U.S. History notebook, which is a notebook where she'll keep all her history papers and projects. This year the focus will be on each of the 50 states, after we do a quick overview of U.S. history for the first quarter of this year. This week's focus was on basic map reading skills, which we covered in detail last year, followed by some study of Leif Ericsson and the Vikings.

On Monday night, I made an angel food cake for dessert, which the kids helped me decorate with whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries. It was our "red white and blue" cake, to celebrate the official start of our homeschool year.

We did Science twice this week, where we read about the scientific method, and what kinds of things scientists do. They learned about how scientists ask questions, develop theories, and make observations. On Thursday we did an experiment with two glasses of water - one plain water, and the other with ten teaspoons of salt added. Then the kids dropped a fresh egg into each glass, and had to guess if the eggs would sink or float. Natalie guessed that the egg in plain water would sink, and the egg in salt water would float. Phil's dad thought they would both sink. Natalie was right.

On Friday we took the first of our weekly nature walks. We went to the Jefferson Township Community Park, and the kids picked out a tree that we'll observe once a week for the whole next year. They picked a tree that I *think* is called an American Basswood tree. It has big, heart-shaped leaves that have serrated edges. The kids think that the tree is "at least a hundred years old" (it's really tall and so wide that it took all three kids stretching around it to touch hands). Natalie drew a picture of the tree on her notebook paper, and made a few observations about it. Then we did a rubbing of a leaf, and then the kids went and played at the playground. Not for long, though. It took one trip down the slide for Ethan to discover that the slide was covered in muddy water at the bottom. Which he discovered by HIS bottom getting soaked in the mud. We went home after that.

At least school-wise, it was a really good week. It was molto-stressful for me for other reasons, not the least of which was a flu that came on me starting Thursday night. Today is Saturday. I was hoping to get my "week in homeschool review" done yesterday, but it was just a few hours ago that my brain fog started to lift enough that I was able to think enough to write a few coherent sentences!

Next week I'm hoping to get our read aloud book, The Trumpet of the Swan, finished. (This kids LOVE this book, by the way. I think they are enjoying it even more than Charlotte's Web.) I also hope to start her violin lessons and art lessons with her friend Livvy. Her violin books came last week, so she's excited to get started with that!

Natalie's latest adventure saga

2009-07-24T17:56:00.004-04:00

Natalie's latest adventure saga, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

(Some of the photo got cut off. You can see the whole thing on Flickr.)

On the back side, it says: Made By Natalie Jayne Gerth. To Mom and Dad.

Here's the translation:
One day a princess took a walk through the woods. The princess once in a while stopped to pick flowers. The Princess saw a beehive. "Honey!" she said. The princess tried to get honey out of the beehive but the bees stung her. "Ouch!" said the princess, and ran to the castle, losing her flowers on the way home. The End.

She came to me as I was getting out of the shower and handed this to me. She'd been busy at work with this the whole time I was upstairs. And no, I didn't tell her to "write a story". This was all her. I love that she's starting to use apostrophes now. (Albeit incorrectly, but so what?) I love her so much. So, so precious is my seven year old.

An Interesting Dream

2009-07-20T11:27:00.003-04:00

Last night I had a dream where a big building where a big group of friends (and other people that I didn't know) and I were meeting -- it looked kind of like a business or school building -- anyway, the building caught on fire. In the next part of the dream, we were all refugees. I mean, we all had bags packed, like we were leaving town with all of our essential possessions with us. I remember a large train of people, myself and my family included, trudging through the streets, looking for someplace to go. No one knew where we were going -- we knew we just couldn't stay at the original building anymore, because it was burning, on every level of the multi-storied facility. Several people looked back at the building and were hoping to go back in, saying out loud that perhaps the fire would be contained on only the upper levels, but it was obvious to me, looking at the building burn through the many windows, that every level was on fire and that there would be no saving the building.

We (the train of people) eventually found someplace to sleep for a night, but it was like a cheap, Japanese-style motel. You know, the kind with the individual sleeping "pods". Everyone made a mad dash for the rooms that were individual pods, but when I glanced in them, they didn't even have pillows or mattresses; they were just basically stone slabs that you could lay down on. Still, the rooms were being taken rapidly, because everyone just wanted to have a place to sleep and they didn't want to have to share. Since all the "pods" were taken, my family ended up going on down the hall to what was more like a dormer room -- one large room with a bunch of bunks. Nothing fancy here - in fact, the only bathroom facilities were shared, and over by the more-desired pod rooms. Everyone was all really annoyed by our situation, complaining about the lack of bathrooms, how we had to share them, and how in the world were we going to be able to meet together anymore when we were all crammed together, in the full view of people who didn't want to meet with us, had no interest in joining us? Some thought the non-meeters would be distracting to us. They wanted to try to find another building to meet in, but no one had any money to buy a new building (all the money had been left behind in the fire).

So even though many thought it was not ideal, we just grabbed a central bed in the dormer room, and we all opened up our books and started reading together. Yes, lots of people were looking at us, observing what we were doing, but mostly we discovered that instead of being a distraction, they were actually quietly interested (though not yet committed to the point of joining us over on the bed where we were all meeting).

Just an interesting dream I had.

Last night at homegroup, after discussing some about the Lord's Supper, we decided to put it into practice and share communion together, using some grape juice that Caroline just happened to make for drinking, and a couple extra rolls from a dinner at Bob Evans, that Becky just happened to have in her car. Afterwards we sung a few hymns together, and then Natalie and Caroline's daughter came by asking for our extra bread and grape juice. I didn't know what they were doing with it (just figuring they wanted a snack since we were going to go get dinner after our meeting and they'd been whining about hunger the whole evening), but they took the juice and bread, grabbed a Bible, then ran about 50 yards away to the back of the yard (they have a BIG yard), sat down, and read the scripture verses about the Lord's Supper, and they took communion together! It was so sweet!

A Bait and Switch Gospel?

2009-07-18T16:54:00.004-04:00

The following text is taken from "The Current Move of God", by Frank Viola (Published in New Wineskins Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008. This article is freely available online, at(http://www.ptmin.org/currentmove.pdf) .

I don't agree with everything that Viola says in this article, particularly the idea that he stresses the corporate reality of being in Christ - not that I disagree with that, by any means, but it almost seems like he completely discounts the personal, individual need for a decision to follow Jesus. (Knowing everything else Viola has written, I'm almost certain he didn't mean to say that we can "be saved" as a group and that there is no need for an individual choice to be made, and perhaps I just missed a big caveat stating that fact --since I do tend to be a skim-reader sometimes! -- but I just wanted to note that while I did post the link above, for reference, I DO NOT agree with everything carte blanc in that article.)

What DID resonate with me, though, is the following passage.
...every sermon [visitors to local institutional churches] heard had the same essential message. It was this: "What you are doing isn’t enough to please God. You need to do more than you’re doing. You need to read your Bible more, pray more, help people more, come to church more, etc. You need to do better than the best you can do."

This is the script upon which most contemporary sermons are built. It is a gospel of duty—pure and simple. Interestingly, it was observed that these same churches give a very different message to the non-Christian. It sounds like this: "God loves you the way you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, His love is unconditional. Jesus died for you because He loves you without condition. You can’t please God. Your good works are as filthy rags. But God will receive you as perfect if you come to Christ. So receive Him today."

Ah . . . but once those same people receive Christ and ―get saved, the "bait and switch" gospel kicks in with a passion. Here’s what it sounds like: "Now that you’re a Christian, here’s what you must do to please God. You must try harder, you must do more, you must work harder, God won’t be pleased with you if you don’t do such and such, etc."

A question that every Christian should ask when listening to a sermon or a message is this: ―Am I hearing about the glories of Jesus Christ or am I being told what to do to be a better Christian? The latter is a duty-based gospel – it’s legalism in one form or another. It’s eating from the wrong tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the luring counterfeit for the tree of life.

Note that the forbidden tree contains the knowledge of good. According to the New Testament, good works are like fruit that falls off of a tree spontaneously as the result of life. In the same way, Christians naturally walk in good works with others as they learn to live by God’s life.

I've been thinking a lot over the past couple days about the gospel of legalism. It is so very prevalent in our American culture. We teach it to our kids in Sunday school. So much Bible curricula for children is based on "do good or God won't be pleased" Bible stories. We tell them to "obey God or you will end up displeasing God, like Jonah". This is not the good news of Jesus! The gospel is that we CANNOT please God by trying to follow the rules -- so God Himself provided a way to pay the penalty for us. The Ten Commandments are to point us to our need for a Savior -- not to try our dardest to follow as hard as we can and hope that the good will (in the end, whenever that might come) outweigh the bad that we've done! Have you ever lied? Have you stolen anything? (Even a quarter out of your mom's wallet when you were ten? ...No mom, I'm not admitting to anything there...) Well then, sorry, you've blown it! Yes, everyone else does it -- myself included...big time -- but if everyone else is a thief, and you get caught, will the judge throw out your sentence just because "everyone else has done it"? No! You'll pay the fine, or go to jail. But the GOOD NEWS is that God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to take our fine for us, so that when the Judge looks at us and all the times we've messed up, Jesus is right there, stamping out our death sentence in his blood.

It's REALLY good news. So why do we insist on making the Christian life so difficult?

I was listening to a podcast from Wayne Jacobson this afternoon during naptime. One thing he said really struck me: we've looked at the ten commandments all wrong. In light of the New Testament, we should think of the commandments as "you will love me so much that you WON'T WANT to have any other Gods before me"; "you will love God so much that you WON'T WANT to lie". Good fruit should just grow from a tree that is deeply connected to the vine, based on the goodness and strength of the vine itself, not ourselves. Good fruit just won't appear because we try really hard to grow it. It never will.

(Yeah, I just had to throw in another fruit reference.)

Tomato Perfection

2009-07-18T13:16:00.002-04:00

Tomato Perfection, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

The first of many tomatoes that are forthcoming from my garden!

This is the first one to come ripe. I have probably close to 40 green tomatoes, most close to this size, in my garden right now.

I'll have to take some photos of the garden later. My mom mentioned to me a few days ago that she hadn't heard anything about my garden for several weeks. She wondered if it was still growing. Um, yep. It's quite abundant. So far I have harvested a bunch of red and white skin potatoes, some pea pods, and a whole lot of lettuce (green leaf and baby romaine).

But this... THIS is the main reason for the garden. Home grown tomatoes. Perfection.

His first baby tooth is history!

2009-07-15T18:06:00.001-04:00

His first baby tooth is history!, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

It just came out a few minutes ago! He told me to look at how loose his tooth is --- which I've been asked to do about every half hour lately, so I wasn't expecting too much different.

This time, though, when I did the obligatory wiggle, I saw drops of blood on his gum and I could see all angles of the bottom of the tooth. So I just reached in, and popped it out. I don't think it was even hanging on by a single root. It was just in the tooth socket.

The boy is beyond thrilled right now.

Sunday recap

2009-07-14T17:42:00.005-04:00

I'm sitting here trying to concentrate on what I want to write; meanwhile, I have pork ribs slow cooking in my oven, and the smell is incredibly distracting! So if this seems a bit disjointed, you will understand why.

We are in the middle of our second "warm up" week of school. We've been focusing on Bible and character building (still on the topic of obedience), and then the kids are doing a little review of handwriting and math. Well, to be specific, NATALIE is doing some handwriting review. Ethan is doing handwriting PREview. It's amazing how much improvment I've already seen on his pencil control since we've been focusing on it. He's learning how to work the scissors, too. I have him tracing curved and straight lines with his pencil, then he cuts the same line with his scissors. He calls the cutting part "crafts time".

His tooth hasn't fallen out yet, but he asked me today to try to pull it out. I... haven't yet... I'm going to give it at least another day. (Yes, I am procrastinating that. I really don't enjoy yanking teeth! Besides, it's not REALLY ready yet, right?)

So I wanted to briefly touch on some highlights of our Anchor gathering on Sunday night. It really was an incredible time. We started by going around the room and sharing what God has been showing us since we last met (three weeks ago - too long!!). I shared my "square watermelon" story. Other people shared other things. What was neat was that everything shared related to the same thing that Phil was teaching about later on. Amazing how God works that way. After everyone had talked who wanted to (about an hour!) we decided to sing a few songs. We just sang them acapella, and I played chords on the piano for one of the songs. (One change we wanted to make was to let people pick out songs they wanted to sing or share a song that had been in their mind a lot lately, instead of me always picking out a "worship set" every week. It just flowed very naturally.

I guess that's all I'll write for now - we're heading out to take Natalie to her swim lesson. Then, home again home again jiggity jig, for BBQ ribs!

A great weekend

2009-07-12T21:56:00.004-04:00

I had an amazing weekend, including gathering together with our home group tonight at Ashley's and followed by a cookout around a fire pit at Caroline's, and also at the home of our old neighbors on Saturday. (Again, I don't mean they are OLD...I mean our neighbors at our previous residence...I need to rethink my wording...) I'll try to post about it tomorrow.

Just real quick tonight, though, I wanted to post The Jesus Manifesto, which was just written by Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet. I love the part that says:

"We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?"

I'll post a link to the right to the Jesus Manifesto, so you can read it in its entirety. More tomorrow.

Previously.

2009-07-11T12:22:00.002-04:00

Fuss, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

She has had attitude issues all week, saying "I haven't done anything fun" (not true) and "I just don't want to go/do/be there".

We had a good discussion about her attitude yesterday afternoon, when her brother was trying desperately to get her to go play in the Easton water fountains with him, and she rebuffed him with a scowl on her face.

Then last night after dinner, we went to a nearby Goodwill (which we never go to, even though we love thrift stores, because Goodwills are usually...um...overpriced). Right there at the entrance were two violins. Once was a nice condition, student-level, 3/4 violin for $50. The other was a Stradavarius. For $700. The thing is beat up, no strings, no bow to speak of, but it was beautiful. (Yes, I had to open the case to peek!) And very old! The date on the inside of the violin said 17-something. Natalie was there with me, and she said, "Oh, mom! That one is not good, is it?" Ha ha...

But we did get the shiny, clean, $50 one. And Natalie is thrilled. I've not seen a scowl turn upside down faster.

A study in contrasts

2009-07-11T12:15:00.002-04:00

Natalie's new violin!, originally uploaded by debbygerth.

Note the attitude she has now... as compared to what you can see above, previously that afternoon.

Fruit bearers

2009-07-10T10:32:00.004-04:00

I was reading this morning in John, chapter 15. This is the place where Jesus says, "I am the vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

I've read this so many times, but like other things I've read in the Word recently, I'm noticing so many things that I've never seen before.

In today's reading, I noticed two little words that either just suddenly -POP- magically appeared in my Bible, or God just finally opened my eyes to them. (I'm guessing it's the latter.) "In me." Jesus said, "He cuts off every branch IN ME that bears no fruit".

Of course the passage is also about remaining in Jesus, because if we are unattached from the vine we will eventually dry up and, like a dead vine, only be worthy of being thrown into the trash. I've read and heard this repeatedly over the years and I get that.

But those two little words - "in me". That's what stopped me in my tracks this morning.

He's not talking about the lost here; the ones who are already off on their own and not attached to the true vine. He's talking about the branches that are IN HIM. He will prune those that ARE bearing fruit, so that they will bear even MORE fruit. Those that are not bearing fruit, even if they are still IN him, still consider themselves to be in Christ, if they bear no fruit they will be cut off. Just like the branches that are not attached to him at all?

Hmm.

That's going to take some chewing on today.

I've been considering "fruit" a lot over the last couple days. Yesterday I was chatting with a brother in Christ who lives in Georgia. He mentioned about some watermelon that the Japanese have developed, that grow to be square. I googled it, and found some interesting things about these square watermelon. They are cultivated to be square so that they fit better in the small Japanese refridgerators. They look very lovely on the outside. Green, nicely striped. All the same size. And square. But there are some problems. First of all, they are extremely expensive. About $200 US per watermelon. They are expensive because they don't naturally grow that way-- they have to be maintained as they are growing to become square. Secondly, they aren't fruity. They don't taste good, so most Japanese only have them for decoration. Their natural purpose, to produce fruit good for consumption, has been lost in the process of being fit into a shape for which the watermelon was not designed.

Which leads to the question -- have we, as fruit-bearers of Christ, been growing in the most productive way we were designed to grow? Are we as "fruity" (haha) as we should be, dripping like an in-season, just-picked natural, organic (often mis-shaped and with ugly imperfections) watermelon, with the irresistable flavor of the watermelon vine from which we should be growing? Or have we, through convenience and the traditions of humanity, made ourselves pretty on the outside, all shiny and square, and convenient in packaging, all the while ignoring the fact that on the inside we are only fit to be used as decoration?

Ethan has a lose tooth!

2009-07-09T13:07:00.002-04:00

Last night we were on our way home from dinner with a family who has been in an organic church for over ten years (more on that later). Suddenly Ethan announced from the back, "Guess what? My tooth is wiggly!" I didn't think it was possible - he's not even five yet! (August 13th, so about a month from now.) When we got home, he had us feel his tooth, and it is REALLY wiggly -- not just a little loose, like I thought it would be. So I checked into the archives of my old journal (http://gerthfamily.debbiesweb.com/ ), and found that actually Natalie lost her first tooth in May of 2007, so she was just over five. So I guess it's not too early for Ethan. I just wasn't prepared for this yet! Phil is prepared though - he's kept a stockpile of gold dollar coins in his wallet for several months. (I don't think he thought they'd be going to Ethan, though!)

Oh, the joy of more teeth to extract. Not the most fun aspect of parenthood.

Here I go, challenging a tradition again.

2009-07-08T14:32:00.000-04:00

So lately I've been reading through a Chronological NIV Bible as my morning devotional reading time. (Just for completeness in thought's sake, I'll note that I'm reading through Hebrews and Colossians right now in my 'normal' NIV at bedtime.)

Reading through the NIV put into what has been studied as its --likely-- chronological order has been really fascinating on many levels. I won't try to go into all of it right now. But today I was reading about Holy Week (the week that Jesus was ultimately crucified), and in the section notes, it made the case that the days we've traditionally celebrated both the Last Supper and the Crucifixion is a day too early. In other words, it's actually quite possible that Jesus was crucified on Thursday, and the Last Supper was not on "Maundy Thursday", but actually Wednesday.

I know, I know...I had the same thought at first: Are you KIDDING ME? No way.

But then as I got into the word of God following the section notes, I tried looking at it with fresh eyes. (Something I've been doing a lot of lately -- reading the Word of God and asking the Lord to speak to me through his word, and not through the lens of teaching that I've heard all my Christian life.) I read, and noticed anew, the following:

Christ said that he has eagerly desired to eat this passover with the disciples before he suffered. I always assumed he meant THIS passover, as in, THIS meal. But then why, after Jesus has already washed his disciples feet and broken the bread and shared the wine, when Judas gets up to leave and Jesus tells him, "What you are about to do, do quickly", do the disciples think that Jesus is telling Judas (as the person in charge of the 12's money) that "what he is about to do" means "going out to buy what was to be needed for the Feast". This doesn't make sense -- why would they assume Judas is going out to get what is needed for the Feast (the Passover meal), if they've just completed it?

So, then within the section notes of the Chronological Bible there's a whole discussion of Jewish law and when the passover was to be celebrated. I don't want to go into all of it because it's not inspired, it's just the devotional writer's thoughts, but it is pretty interesting and it makes some neat parallels between the traditional days for the preparation of the passover lamb (which was killed to cover over the sins of the people): when it was selected, how long it was held for before being killed; and the timeframe of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his subsequent crucifixion.

I'm not a theologian nor a Greek scholar or anything, but I just found this whole idea pretty interesting. It could be completely wrong, and really it doesn't matter so much the timing of when these things happened in the grand scheme of things -- what's most important is that they DID happen, and we can accept that truth and be changed from living a life that's still under the law, being one under which no one can successfully live, to a life under the saving grace and freedom of Jesus Christ. But I like seeing the different ways that Jesus was the fulfillment of Jewish law, yet most in his day didn't even recongize him as such. And if it is true, I wonder -- when did it start becoming tradition to celebrate Maundy Thursday and Good Friday?

Just something to ponder today. If you ARE a theologian and/or Greek scholar, I'd love to hear your thoughts and if you've heard any significant proofs to the contrary. I don't say that sarcastically -- I really do want to know. Like I said, I'm not completely convinced-- I just found this idea pretty interesting, since its something I had NEVER heard of before.

First day of a new school year

2009-07-06T15:57:00.000-04:00

Today we had our first day of the "new school year". We sort of go year-round, but we take off about a month for summer. We start school early so that we can take off time throughout the year without feeling bad about it! I generally can go about four or five weeks before I have to declare a Week Off, just to get caught up on the de-cluttering, house cleaning and other non-school related tasks. Besides, we really needed to start getting back into some form of routine. A month off has been enough time for us all to feel ready for some structure to our days again. So today started Ethan's Kindergarten year, and Natalie's Grade 2 year (although we all know that as homeschoolers, assigning a grade level is really quite random and not particularly useful other than for helping non-homeschoolers understand how old our kids are!)

We haven't started into our actual curriculum for the new year yet, though. The next few weeks are sort of Warm Up weeks. Today we did a BAM Bible study*, read chapter 1 from The Light at Tern Rock, the first lesson in Character Building for Families, handwriting, and a bit of Math review. This year, being Ethan's first official K year (he did some K stuff last year, but just every so often..nothing structured), he went through all the lessons along with Natalie and I. The biggest thing (academically, that is) that I'm setting as a goal for Ethan this year is to work on his fine motor skills. He's already reading at about a first or second grade level (depending on his interest in the book - haha) but he's pretty much still age-appropriate for his writing. Meaning, he still likes to scribble and is not quite ready for formal handwriting. So today I had him trace some straight lines, then I had him cut along those same lines. Natalie is doing some review on her manuscript handwriting, and preparing for cursive, which we'll be starting in a few weeks.

It was good to get back to a bit of routine this morning -- mostly meaning, back to my "house rule" of no TV during School Hours, which for our house is from the time we start, until 4:30 pm. During those times, even though we don't have school for nearly that long, the kids have to find something active to do with their bodies or brains!

*BAM Bible study is something I picked up from a speaker at this year's CHEO convention -- You ask the kid to tell you "beginning, middle, or end", and then turn to that section of the Bible. Then you say "tell me when to stop", and when they say STOP you stop on that page. Then you ask them to tell you "top, middle, or bottom". Then from the section of that page that they choose, you make about a two inch space with your thumb and first finger, and without looking -"BAM!" - you plunk that space down on the page and read whatever is there. Then you ask WHO is this about, WHAT is it about, WHY, etc etc. Voila - instant family devotional time, with no prep work and no curriculum to buy. (We DO have a Bible curriculum for this year, as part of My Father's World, but since we're not starting that for a few more weeks, I'm just going to use this idea. Last year, whenever I finished a Bible study, I'd flounder around for a few days trying to figure out what to do next. This was so easy- and the kids got a big kick out of being the ones to decide what we would study, too!)

Coming soon!

2009-07-04T10:13:00.000-04:00

Follow our adventures as we live our lives simply and organically. And by organically, I don't mean nutritionally! (Though we do enjoy several organic foods...)

We've been homeschooling for a few years now. This year we are going to be using My Father's World for the core of our curriculum, and Math-U-See for...well, math, obviously. This will be our first year of "officially" homeschooling more than one, so I thought I'd use this space as a journal of our day to day activities.

We've also recently left the institutional church, to begin the discovery of the difference between GOING to church, versus BEING the church. More to come on that, and much more, after these messages!
(Um, I mean, after I get my thoughts together.)