Busy Days and Knitting Days

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in so long. Since March my husband has been living in his new job town during the week, then coming home on the week-ends. Three of my teens have jobs (had - yesterday was the last day) but don't drive yet. School is not yet over for one of my teens. My husband would like me to pack up large portions of the house so that we can finish fixing it up and it will sell. The six people that are my children all seem to need such a vast amount of my time just to converse!

Okay - enough complaining. All that stuff above - those are my blessings and I'm very grateful for my work as a wife and mother!! These are the days that I will be proud of later and wonder how I got through! These are the people that I am thrilled to serve.

I have started a knitting day at my home on Friday afternoons. I am teaching a lot of teens and interested mums how to start knitting. Eventually I would like to get it to the point where we can teach each other new techniques.

I have been knitting since I was 3yo. Now that I have taught five of my six children at home how to knit, I know that my mother probably hung over my every stitch in order for me to knit at that young age. AND she must have cast me on and off as well as turned the rows. Just like potty-training, SHE was probably trained more than I was! But the end result was that my mother only had two children and both of us now knit and love it.

I taught my daughter and step-daughter how to knit about a year and a half ago. It was like teaching adults and really fun. They both have taken off and have a love for it. My step-daughter has even knitted a glove and a sock - and then decided that she would give them to people with only one of said appendage since she really didn't want to do a second! She's really funny. Both her and my daughter have made enough scarves to wrap the people of the town at least once. Now my step-daughter is making purses in beautiful colours with a strand of eyelash and a strand of chenille, and a funky button to close. She has made about a dozen now and they are super cute.

My daughter has an interesting story with her scarves. She made them for birthdays for everyone she knew - especially her skating friends. None of them were saved. Through her generosity and love for her friends, one of the girls went on a conference week-end with my daughter and became saved! Now this girl comes to my knitting Fridays and is learning how to do more than just knit! It is so exciting.

The funniest part of my knitting is my 14yo son. He has also learned to knit. He does touques (or beanies or hats as you all them down here in the US!). They have a little point on top and are VERY popular with his friends. He knits them up in really radical colours (like orange and pink together - ugh). Well, he would like to start an internet business called C*u*l*l*e*n's Hats and Hackysacks. (My step-daughter thinks that he should call it "Straight Knits" but he doesn't quite get it, which is good!) He just has to learn how to make hackysacks now! Then he has to learn how to have a internet business. There's no end to the creativity of some children, is there? I personally think that the purses could go on as well, but we'll see.

My 7yo son and newly-6yo daughter have learned to read this year and now they can read the Bible for themselves - it's so exciting and my first experience teaching children to read. After that success I thought that they would be ready to knit. And they were! Both have started with scarves and juggling balls and things are going well. My 3yo son likes to pick out wool for his knitting projects, which I have to do of course, and he's just starting to realize that he isn't involved. He wants to learn now what everyone else is doing, but I have no intention of teaching him before he is 6 or 7yo.

My husband is wrapping up his Creation Sunday School program next week. On top of starting a new job, and travelling back and forth, he has diligently done this Sunday School program for the adults first and now the teens, and only one week-end off in between. He has also been working on the house and doing repairs and upgrades. His list is long and I'm very grateful for a man that works so hard. The reception for his program has been very good. People weren't sure what to expect from such a science-y and intelligent guy, but he's a good-ole' midwest cowboy when it comes down to it, and he talks like regular people most of the time.

Time to get on with Father's Day. May all the dads on the blogs today NOT get any collect calls today!

Creation

A while back I mentioned that my husband was doing an eight-week Sunday School on young-earth creation. He has now completed it, and has started the program for the teen group. The requests for more information and future courses have come fast and furious. There seems to be a real thirst for the information and the truth.

My husband was born and raised in a Christian home. He has always assumed the inerrant accuracy of the Bible. Mentions of evolution in school pretty much just slid off his back.

Not so with me. I was not raised with any knowledge of Christianity and I had heard of nothing but evolution growing up. I remember my Grade 9 Social Studies teacher drawing a clock on the blackboard, and putting the Big Bang in the first minute, the first fish about the half-hour mark, and Man in the final minute of the clock. It was a powerful lesson. It was also wrong.

Geoffrey Burbridge is a science writer that isn't a Christian (at least not when I was doing my research a while back, although he may be now). He wrote fairly and honestly. He had some serious questions about the theory of evolution because the nature of science defies the direction of evolving into higher forms of life. Specifically, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or more commonly known as Entropy, states that all matter is in a process of degrading. In other words, work must be done in order to maintain any item in it's present state.

This is exactly opposite of evolution. We are not evolving into higher beings. That flies in the face of known and acceptable science. Even secular scientists know this. Which is why Steven Hawking and Geoffrey Burbridge and many, many others are questioning the Theory of Evolution, although neither one wants to accept Creation as a plausible possibility.

To me, the only good science is truthful science. I care not for this theory or the next if it belies truth. Science is one of the main reasons I am a God-fearing, Bible-believing Christian. Quite frankly, nothing else explains existance with such sufficiency and clarity. Then, once truth is allowed a foothold in a person's life, and you realize you're conversing with the Maker of the Universe (and what an awesome universe it is!) then you shake in your boots. If creation is this awesome, doesn't that make you bow down to the Creator?

So, as my husband instructs his listeners, as you can take all available scientific data, what you do with it defines your worldview. You can either decide that you believe God at His word, or you don't. That's the bottom line. There is no need, as a Christian, to 'interpret' the Bible. We only need to read it. It says exactly what God means it to say. It is clear and straightforward. It is not convoluted and mixed up with secret meanings and judgements and interpretations. It is only and exactly what it is.

When God says that He made the world and everything in it in six days, then that is what happened. Since God defined the word 'day,' He would also be the one capable of stating it in a sentence (or a chapter of sentences) and have it mean what He means it to be.

I struggle with any other method of reading the Bible. They are problematic and power-syphoning. The Bible is both the most understandable and beautiful piece of literature on earth. It is also the Word of God. Since He created both it and us, He would know what we would need to know how to live.

My husband has not yet heard the good reception he is getting after his first Sunday with the teens. The teens have not previously heard most of this stuff. It is solid and worthy of knowing. Science is easily supported from a Biblical worldview. Science is not easily supported with evolution. But sin is blinding. I am very prayerful that the truth will spread in science because the freedom that it brings is life-giving and stunningly beautiful.

Farmstead

Well, my husband spent the evening with a family that is going to sell their farm. They live a half an hour from my husband's new job, and about an hour from where we now live. They homeschool their nine children and they homestead their seventeen acres.

This family is looking for a section of land somewhere in the midwest - they are not fussy where, except that the price has to be right. They said that if they find such a piece of land, then they will sell this property.

But I am very intimidated by all that this family does. Let me see if I can remember it all:
- farm milk and beef cows
- sell excess beef cows for profit
- make their own cheese and butter
- farm heritage pigs
- sell their pork to a New York restaurant that wants hormone-free meat
- strawberry growers - 10 buckets per day during peak season
- echinacea growers
- large family garden
- steer breeders
- horse trainers
- can, freeze and dry food for the winter
- exist self-sufficiently on their land
Oh, and they are also performers with a couple of CDs out.

I think I would need to ask for instructions if I were to be mistress of such a farm.

Ironically (and really - is anything ironic with God?) I was looking on the internet yesterday for a career for my 14yo son. He has recently shown interest in being a Youth Pastor, and he would like to be a farmer in order to make his living. SO - I found a page where a farmer uses his animals in their natural tendecies in order to run his farm. The pigs are used to plow a field, for instance. Mother Earth News did an article on this man, Joel Salatin.

Well, the farmer that my husband visited with this evening does the same thing!How cool is that? I would love to learn how to farm like this but I worry that I'm not strong enough, or too busy with the kids (yet this family of nine children does it!) and I'm just not sure.... I would love to start my son on a feasible career though. That would be totally cool. This family has seemingly made a DVD on how to live like they do because they have so many people asking them how.

Anyway, I'm also very excited that something may be in the offing. Building a home is still in our minds, but we are willing to wait upon the Lord for the perfect timing. Or whatever God would like us to do.

Gratefulness

Three things I am grateful for:

1) My children: I know I have heard incessantly and forever that people are grateful for their children, but until I was there, I had NO IDEA! They make me better, and stick around even when I'm not at my best. (Okay - I know - where are they going to go?) They cuddle me, which is saying something, 'cause I'm not much of a cuddler. They love me. All I can think is, this must be how God loves us.

2) My lifestyle: I am grateful for the ability to stay home with my children. To be perfectly honest, I would fight tooth and nail (and I have in the past) to stay home with my children. I am grateful for the house over us to keep us warm. I am grateful for the little farm and it's quirky animals. I am grateful that we homeschool and all that stuff wrapped up together that makes my lifestyle.

3) My husband: The one who enables the all the other things is my gift straight from God: my man. We have, in some ways, much more to learn about each other, but there is goodness in growth.

ALL of the above is a direct result of being blessed by God. I had no idea when I started to follow the Lord, where it would lead. I had no idea that a lifestyle dedicated to God would change me so radically. I had no idea that I would like it.

I am so very, very grateful.

Homes in Various Flavours

We went to talk to a log home builder on the week end. We have a beautiful home planned. It is exactly what we need. And double what we can afford.

Now dh is trying to convince me that I can live in a metal home. I asked "You mean like a tractor shed?" Yeah, he said. "With windows?" I ask. "Okay," he said. "Maybe," I said.

I have asked to not live in a trailer house. I think they are wonderful for up to four or five people. I also think they are wonderful for those who send their children to school. Trying to run my school and bed down 6 children in a trailer makes me feel a bit cramped.

Then again - maybe we should buy a trailer and put it on some land and start on that log home.

The house we are in is a bit of a miracle. I knew it when we bought it, but it is really sinking in now. We have only paid off 10 percent since we bought it 5 and a half years ago, but it has increased in value about 30 percent. We should be able to recoup a bit of a down payment for the next house. We also have only 1700 sq ft, but it is well put together (with five bedrooms and a 'big' kitchen and living) and it is tidy. I can live with that.

DH has finished his 8 week Creation Sunday School with the parents-of-teens group. Next week will be the Q&A session. Then Easter Sunday. Then he will start the teens group for 8 weeks. He has committed himself to this now.

I keep wondering if God hasn't given us a home because he wants us to stay here and finish Creation teaching in this church.

Next week we are going to a log home auction. A lot of people have warned us about log home auctions. Not people that own log houses, though.

Deeply Distressed

I am Deeply Distressed.

In Sunday School today in church, two of our littles (5yo daughter and 7yo son) were given communion. Without our prior consent. Without our knowledge. And without our presense.

We feel violated. I am more choked than ever before, with regards to our church.

The children received communion from the two women that teach their class - a K-Gr1 class. I have always trusted the leader and her helper. I couldn't imagine that they would pull something like this. Never before has this happened.

Is this what it means to be a companion to ostriches?? Fill me in, fellow companions. Am I overreacting to my children's first communion? Are there that many clued-out Christians out there that they JUST DON'T GET IT??

History is Alive

I love the history course the kids and I are using. I don't want to mention it's name because I don't want to unrighteously direct google searches to my blog. So..it is the M*ystery of H*istory. Hopefully that will help. It is so wonderful. I have also had occassion to email the author a couple of times and she is a humble, God-loving woman. We did the first course (creation to crucifiction) last year and are within a week of finishing the second course (resurrection to 1465). It is for children younger than my three teens, but I make it tougher with expectation and we go at a faster pace. (Here it is March and we are almost finished.) Linda Hobar says that she is about halfway through the third course, but it won't be completed for my two girls (both finishing grade 11) to partake. Sad.

I am learning so much. It is done chronologically and in bite-size pieces. I hope the kids are picking up half as much as I am, but I suspect they are because my oldest has considered a History major in university. Her big question has been, "What can she do for a living if she did a History major?" I suggested that she could a) be a mum; b) go on a mission with a real appreciation and an historical perspective for different cultures; c) write more history courses that have a true ability to talk to and about real people. She loves to write.

We are definitely trying to finish the school year quickly now, with this pending move.

Please also pray for our future housing - we have looked at four houses with land so far, all of them yucky. I just cannot believe what people will live in. The land is beautiful, but we can't afford it with the houses on it. We also can't find appropriate land without houses. (So far.)

God in His timing.

My husband has been writing and delivering a Sunday School Course on young-earth literal 6-day creation throughout the 4 months that he was un/self-employed (indulgent facetiousness intended). He has written an 8-week course, which I will tell you about in another blog. BUT he has 2 weeks left to write and deliver. I am mighty suspicious that God will wait to give us housing until AFTER dh has completed his course. This is only the beginning, though, for my husband. He loves doing this research. He loves talking about God and the truth of putting scripture above all. I will tell you all about this later.