Homeschool Convention Inspiration

My husband and I attending the Arizona Families for Home Education conference right around my birthday. It was almost like having a couple's getaway, except for the fact that we didn't see each other after the keynote speaker until lunch time and we were sitting listening to people for several hours each day. Ken Hamm (Answers in Genesis) was very entertaining and completely lucid and knowledgeable, which is not how the media portrays him. I actually heard a politician say something meaningful vs. a bunch of platitudes strung together in a sentence that says nothing so that it offends no one.

I now have six years of homeschooling under my belt. There is still undiscovered country called "Jr. High" and "High school", but there is a lot of stuff that is becoming easier. I feel a lot more prepared for John being in first grade than I was for Elizabeth, for example. So finding helpful seminars is a little difficult. A couple that sounded like they were helpful really just were things I had heard previously, like using the Charlotte Mason Method to teach language arts. It was a good reminder that I don't have to cover all subjects explicitly, but they get covered by having kids read good literature and copy it. The most helpful was the seminar about preparing for high school and beyond and a class on micro-enterprise businesses, as Elizabeth has an interest in turning her artistic giftings into early money.

However, the one that was initially the most disappointing in the beginning ended up being the one that has left the biggest impression on me. The title of the seminar was "The Biology of Auditory Processing" and it appealed to my inner geek. I thought it would be a detailed explanation about how information is physically captured in the brain from the ear. However, if I had done a little more homework on the presenter, I would have realized that her focus was in helping mothers schooling learning disabled students. It was also, apparently, the second lecture in a two lecture series, which was NOT spelled out in the information sheet. And the presentation was on how food choices affect your ability to learn and hear. I don't have any learning disabled kids, so I was tempted to walk out and ramble among the vending hall or find a quiet corner to ask God to help me assimilate all I had heard during the two days. However, I was in the fifth row right in the center, which would mean I would make an obvious exit. I would hate to have someone walk out on me in the middle of my program (if I was ever brave enough to become a public speaker, which I am not). So I sat there and alternated between listening and stewing over "false advertising" and, finally, hearing God's quiet voice tell me that He had me here for a reason.

Basically, she recommended limiting dairy or even eliminating it for a time being, eating foods rich in Vitamin E and taking lecithin supplements. Dairy seems to be an inhibitor and the mucus generating effects might affect hearing. Vitamin E is a good brain booster and lecithin helps with concentration and focus. So as a personal challenge (because I love all things dairy especially butter), I am trying to virtually eliminate it and substitute it for food high in calcium and high in Vitamin E. I am now drinking unsweetened almond milk for it's high calcium content. And I am enjoying it. I am also converting my family to the Mediterranean practice of dipping breads in oil, specifically, walnut oil, which is high in Vitamin E. I don't think that I could totally eliminate it. I definitely could not turn down my daughter's first dinner of quesadillas made completely without adult supervision because it was 90% cheese. Instead, I limited myself to one half. I also couldn't turn down pizza last night. And pizza without cheese is like eating an ice cream cone without the ice cream! Speaking of which, instead of ice cream, I am eating frozen fruit bars. Coconut is my favorite. I am also not counting items baked with butter and/or milk as dairy because that would also eliminate pancakes. If you know that I am "cheating", please don't tell me and ruin my day.

We will see if it helps me feel better or not and if it helps expand our palates for a wider variety of food.

Being Born Again

When I was 12, I was introduced to Jesus by my Grandma and Grandpa Carmichael. Actually, it wasn't my first introduction. I had people telling me about Jesus since I was a little girl and sang "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and "Jesus Loves Me." I had pored over a Bible story book and best loved the picture of Jesus holding a little child in his arms with an expression of loving bliss on his face. However, no one told me that I had to pray to ask Jesus to forgive my sins and receive him in my heart in order to be saved. In the two weeks I spent with Grandma and Grandpa Carmichael, I heard this message every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening at church, in addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. They took the words of Deuteronomy 6:7 VERY seriously. I remember thinking "Every discussion we have returns to the Bible and God". And yet, the last Sunday morning, when the pastor was preaching, a little voice (not a physical voice, just that little voice in your head that tells you things like not to put the glass that close to the edge of the table) told me that I needed to respond to Jesus' message of repentence and forgiveness. I whispered to my Grandma that I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart and she hightailed us to the preacher. He questioned me to make sure I really understood what I was wanting to do and led me in the sinner's prayer. After I was done, I immediately felt a great weight being lifted from my body and being filled with untainted joy.

This weekend, at the Illinois Christian Home Educator's Convention, I had another "born again" experience. For the last two years, I have been trying to figure out what I believed about creation: Did God make everything in six, twenty-four hour days or was it six indeterminite periods of time, which is another translation of the Hebrew word, as my former pastor had mentioned in a sermon many years ago? I was taught as a child that "scientific evidence" in the form of carbon dating, reported that the earth was much older than what would be considered by taking the times and geneologies mentioned in the Bible. There were also passages that supported the "old earth" theory", mainly Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 and the fact that the sun wasn't created until the third "day". How could God count 24 hours without the sun? On the other hand, any Being that could create everything out of nothing could do it all in six days or even less. At stake was my credibility (a.k.a. pride) as a graduate with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois. How could I (gasp) turn my back on all of my scientific training? Grammer was the key to my "salvation" (forgive me for getting melodramatically silly). One of the keynote speakers whose focus was comparing Biblical Creation against Evolution, starting making arguments for the young earth theory. He talked about the passages in Genesis dealing with creation and mentioned the fact that in Hebrew, when ordinal numbers are used (first, second, etc) combined with the Hebrew word for day, it always refers to a 24 hour period. Secondly, God defined day and night in Genesis 1:5, before He even created the Sun, Moon and Stars. But the final convincing evidence was when the speaker mentioned God's words about creation in Exodus 20, when He gives Isreal the Law. Exodus 20:11 states "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy." A connection was made: If God uses the word "day" in Exodus 20:11 and if He doesn't change as Numbers 23:19 and James 1:17 says, then God is saying that he created it in six days. There is definite logic in that argument. Sure I may look like a fool to people like Richard Dawkins and the Carl Sagan wannabes and even my dad, who is an evolutionist; but as that great philosopher, Connie Stevens sang "Everybody's somebody's fool". I would rather be a fool for Christ than anybody else's fool. I felt that same sense of release and joy that I did when I first asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior, mainly because I was no longer double minded.

1 Corinthians 3:18-20:
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness" ; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."