Rebekah's Insights

Warning: Declaration of categories_plugin::SkinTag($params) should be compatible with Plugin::SkinTag(&$params) in /home/scher3/public_html/blogs/plugins/_categories.plugin.php on line 0

In the interest of organization, cleanliness, and such, "Deep thoughts by Will" is moving from "Rebekah's Insights" to "Will's blog". Old content will stay on "Rebekah's Insights", cuz I can't figure out how to move them.

Growing up in the snowy north of the US, you learn how to navigate through snow, sleet, and inclement weather. I remember my father teaching me how to get almost every manner of motor vehicle out of snow. He showed me a plethora of techniques to get cars, trucks, ATVs, and tractors out of snow. It was not often we were not able to navigate or unstick something.

Now, take the boy out of his surroundings and throw new challenges at him. He will try to apply all of that gathered knowledge to the new problem, sometimes learning the differences in the circumstances.

This is what I have recently done in the floods around the area. We live on a reservoir and are currently in a rainy season here in the UK. The roads tend to flood if the rain continues for a day or more. This was never more true than a few days ago taking the in-laws to the airport. The exit road out is in a flood plane with dikes to alleviate overflowing water. (This is really just the worst spot.) The water fills the field and the road for approximately 100 yards. Worry not, because it can not grow much more than 100 yards due to geographic restrictions. It just starts getting deep.

Now enter our hero, on a perilless mission to nobly deliver his entrusted mates to safe harbor. (Well, more like safe airport.) Our hero sends a trusty scout through to test the waters (i.e. my SUV driving landlord). The scout gives the "thumbs up" and our hero pushes on. The hero moves his chariot across the 18" deep water. He realizes that when he hits the thick of it that he should ease up, like he would on the snowy impasses of his homeland, and maintains control of the chariot.

Now what happens with momentum on his side? The car chokes out from lack of good air flow through the engine, via the tailpipe. Thankfully the car coasts far enough along to carry the vehicle mostly out of the water.

Lesson from this event? Keep up the back pressure. Water may be another form of snow, but navigation is different.

Happy New Year! Wow! I am still getting used to writing 2008! It always takes me most of January to adjust! LOL!

Anyway, with the happy occasion of family visiting us through the first week or so of the new year, I am delayed in getting a jump on the New Year plans. What a lovely reason to delay! :) We are now hopefully past the getting sick nearly EVERY week stage of our big move! I look forward to being able to get back into the rhythm of our routine. This new energy has inspired me to reevaluate our homeschool organization and vision among other things.

As a homeschooled high-school student and already interested in teaching as a profession, I attended a local homeschool curriculum fair. There were a few Mennonite consultants at the "Rod and Staff" table who had made available copies of their own personal philosophy of education. While far from comprehensive in its scope and sequence, there was a Biblical focus and simplicity which appealed to me then and inspires me to this day, some fifteen years later. I truly wish I knew to whom to attribute the germ of these ideas, but with no published documentation, I cannot. But here is the main thought it conveyed and subsequent inspiration to me:

After relating the account of Jesus’ birth and early childhood, the final verse of the second chapter of the book of Luke reads this way,

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.” Luke 2:52 RSV

The writer of this philosophy asserted that if our goal as Believers is to raise our children in Christ’s likeness, then this account of His growth seems to provide some instruction. Interestingly, the areas of growth mentioned correspond to four of the commonly accepted dimensions of personal growth from worldly wisdom and which one hears a lot about when studying in the field of education:

Wisdom = intellectual/mental
Stature = physical
Favor with God = spiritual
Favor with man = relational/emotional

Now, let me just say that without doing a study on Greek word usage, I would personally not assert that the intention of this verse was to provide instruction on the areas of growth. It is because of this that I would not call that verse the driving force of my call as a mother and homeschooling parent. However, it motivated me at a young age to take an even greater interest in education and its critical role in raising children in the nurture and admonition of the LORD. As I studied educational theory through college and graduate school I learned a great many ideas—some of which I discarded as contrary to the teaching of the Bible, but others made much sense to me in light of Scripture. I believe that the above mentioned areas of personal growth are all capacities which we were given by God—a mind/brain, a body, a spirit, and feelings/emotions/relationships with others.

While I firmly believe that from the eternal vantage point, all areas except spiritual are fleeting and are ultimately of lesser importance (i.e., Genesis 3:19, “…you are dust and to dust you shall return”) I also believe that as stewards of ALL God has entrusted to us, we are to be good stewards of our minds, bodies, and emotions. Indeed, I feel vast passages of Scripture address these other facets of development, but it is made clear that spiritual growth is of the greatest importance.

Anyone may plainly see that we spend a great deal of time with our three and one-year-olds in addressing spiritual needs and instruction in Scripture. We feel that our primary calling in raising our children is to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4) This is to be the all-consuming activity of our parenting as is expressed in Deuteronomy 6:7, “…and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” In order to do this we must endeavor to have this focus permeate all we do at all times—as we work, and cook, and play, and EVERYTHING! (Incidentally, this is also why I feel called to homeschool my children, since it allows them to be present with me during all of those times of the day.) We will certainly never be perfect at it, yet it SHOULD be the goal for which we ever strive! LIKEWISE, the ways in which we nurture the physical, emotional/relational, and intellectual growth of our children may also be the practical steps of living out this instruction. One example is that if I hope to instruct my children in God’s Word and encourage them to return to it often as they grow, then the priority I place on teaching them to read fluently so they may READ God’s Word is of GREAT importance. Additional practical applications abound. :)

So it is with renewed vision and vigor that we begin the second half of Liam’s Preschool year! Aine is gleaning much from many books and participating with Liam. :) I count it all great joy to watch them grow and change and learn and it is my fervent prayer that He who formed them is working within them each moment to bring them to a redeeming faith in Jesus Christ.

I must go now! With my third load of laundry washing and lunch at the ready, a bookshelf of books for “M” week is calling to me! Look for a recurring post on Saturdays for school updates. Enjoy your week!

You know that you are getting older when "Christmas with the family" means that you stay at your own house to open presents with the kids. First you leave your 20s and then you spend Christmas day putting someone else's presents together. Good thing that children are just an excuse for playing with toys again:) (Especially for those toys that you never had, but always wanted.) How else would Liam get all of the train stuff that I never had? Aine received a play kitchen for Christmas, just like her mommy always wanted.

Makes me wonder what childhood toys the children will want and never get...

There are so many new customs, ideas, and things in England that you would never really pick up on if you were only a tourist, just check out the vast language differences. For example, Christmas parties and get togethers are a lot more prevalent here than in the states. (Probably due to the lack of Thanksgiving. Everyone needs to have a barrage of holidays at once:)) A fun and different tradition here are
Crackers. Now, before you go looking for the number of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, Crackers are little Christmas presents that contain surprises inside.

Now again, there are some differences that end up costing you. In moving to the UK it seemed that everyone was trying to temper your expectations, from shopping to environmental factors. A big item spoke of was that people in Brittan like to keep there house cooler and have a different tolerance for environment comforts. In fact, our land lords only recently had "central heating" put into their house. Before that there were two solid burning stoves to warm up the house for a bit.

Since we moved in, our house has always been around the upper 60's, but lacking decently hot water. I have been playing with the heating system for months trying to figure out the right combination of variables in order to give us hot water AND decent heat. There are 5 different thermostats and timers that need to be set in order to heat one room. Its an engineering pain in the toe for debugging.

After all of my trying I found out the cold hard truth of my labor. No really, it was fridged cold in here:) I could not get the house above 62F. I came to find out that our boiler had not worked since we moved in. How where we getting heat at all you ask? We have an immersion heater that warms the water enough to heat some, but not enough do the job completely. It was enough to cause really high electric bills (again, we were told the bills would be higher here), but not too high to cause a great deal of alarm.

At the end of the day, some differences are really cool to discover and others just cost you a lot of cold hard cash.

Cheers!