Come and join us!

Do you remember what He's called you out of? 

Do you remember where you were? 

Let us not take advantage of His love 

Lest we forget that we have been forgiven 

Without Him we can do nothing 

We gathered around an early evening backyard campfire at the home of brand new friends in Idaho.  Song time was about to commence.  As the guitar was being tuned, we asked our hosts if they knew any Petra songs.  

Eyes lit up, and a comment about not having heard a Petra song in years was made.

Red is the color of the blood that flowed

Down the face of Someone who loved us so

He's the perfect Man, He's the Lord's own Son

He's the lamb of God, He's the only One

That can give us life, that can make us grow

That can make the love between us flow

At evening devotions with friends in southern Mexico, while sharing favorite songs, our kids unanimously declared we must sing “Grave Robber”.   And so we did.  And now it is one of our friends’ favorite songs as well.

Many still mourn and many still weep

For those who they love who have fallen asleep

But we have this hope though our hearts may still ache

Just one shout from above and they all will awake

And in the reunion, what joy we will see

Death will be swallowed in sweet victory

Powerful words, powerful music, powerfully sung.  It only seemed fitting to us as newlyweds back in the ‘80s.  Songs by the christian music group Petra held common themes of valuing what God values, not being deceived, having faith in an almighty God, depending on him, praying.  

I lived an illusion with no one else to blame

I found a solution when I called on His name

I may not have money or riches 

but I found something better to be

To be a servant of Jesus, 

He means more than the world to me

I just want to be, I just want to be 

I just want to be His disciple

These were ideas with which we were not raised.  As we wore the dreaded “horse hoof” sounds into the cassettes by repeated play, the words and lessons were being impressed on our hearts. It was a means God used to encourage us in truth that is despised by the world.

Some say this life I live is only foolishness 

No waiting pot of gold in the faith that I possess 

But the treasures of this life will slowly turn to dust 

And this fool will find his gold in the Savior that I trust 

Fool's gold - it's waiting in a crown 

Fool's gold - in a city coming down 

I'll leave the gold I can't afford 

For the higher prize I'm pressing toward 

I'll preach the foolish cross of Christ 

And wait for my reward 

Fool's gold 

As children were added to our family, many of the analogies in the songs took on greater depth:  struggling with our own lack of self-discipline, the need to shift priorities, to care more for pleasing the Lord than pleasing men.  

And it takes so long to see the change

But we look around, and it seems so strange

We have come so far, but the journey's long

And we once were weak, but now we’re strong

As our children have grown, they have learned and loved these songs as well.  Petra put to music many truths, priorities and promises which they have been blessed to know from their earliest days.  

We love figuring out how to play and sing old favorites.  And so the idea grew...a Petra Sing Along night!

Our gracious friends at the Family Vision Library are excited to host this special evening, so we want to get out the word.  

Whether these songs are like old friends to you or you would just like some fresh encouragement from days gone by:  if you are in or near the Saint Louis metro, please come and join us! 

There's a Light over the horizon 

I'll keep walking down this road of hope 

Faithful in my prayer 

There's a Light over the horizon 

Though I may not know what lies ahead 

I know that you'll be there 

You'll be there

You won’t find the polish of seasoned road warriors, but we hope to make noise that somewhat resembles some of our favorite songs.  We will project the words and everyone can sing along.  We pray it will be a night of fellowship and refreshing as we encourage one another and praise the Lord with melodies from our hearts.  

You may be weary, but you gotta be leery 

When somebody says that you will never finish the race 

They can discourage but don't lose your courage 

You gotta narrow the margin and keep up the pace 

You gotta run for the prize

Don't look over your shoulder

Gotta keep your eyes

On the straight and narrow

Gotta run for the prize

There's no time to be wandering

Gotta make your way

Just as straight as an arrow

Please join us on Friday, March 16, at the Family Vision Library.  Bring snacks if you would like. And tell your friends!  

It would be fun and helpful to RSVP and suggest some of your favorite songs for us to consider as we compile our song list.  

More power to ya!

How to draw "the fear of the Lord"

We received a really great question from a parent of an 8 and 5 year old:  How do you draw "the fear of the Lord"?  It appears so often, I feel I need to include it.

Here are some ideas:

The "fear of the Lord" is kind of abstract, isn't it.  You can't draw it all by itself.  It reminds me of another abstract that we have had to teach our children:  the word "no".

With our oldest children, we didn't really consult God's Word too much; we were christians, but we relied on popular "wisdom" and we got the vibe that you don't teach "no" before age 2 or something like that.  I don't know, we just felt like it was frowned upon to expect little ones to understand that.  

The way it played out was that one day, we finally realized "This is ridiculous," and started telling our toddler "no".  So one day, they woke up, and there was this new expectation on them.  That went over less than stellar.  It made for a challenging and stressful transition to say the least.

With our last two babies, we taught "no" very early.  We started at around 5 or 6 months old!   It was easy!  Well, actually it was fun.  They would innocently grab an object, and we would say "no" (no spanking or yelling) and remove their hand.  Maybe we would do that 14 times in a row.  "No" doesn't mean much of anything without context.  So, we never just said "no" to them; we always said it in context with what he was doing.  No pictures! 

It was really teaching more than discipline.  That is what made it fun.  It was kind of an experiment.  (Like, we have experimented with at what age they would become ticklish as babies.)  When they started understanding "no", were just amazed.

A side benefit is that at this age, children have have very short attention spans.  So we didn't have to deal with the dedication and perseverance of a 2 or 3 year old wanting to jump off a table... and always getting there after impact.  When working with a little one, you have the benefit of their almost total immobility.  So all of our "no's" are successful; we can control their environment!  There is so much less stress just patiently repeating things to a 6 month old versus chasing down a 22 month-er who is RUNNING to the bathroom with the can opener.

Our youngest is a year now, and he understands "no" across many contexts.  If he crawls towards something and we say "no", he understands!  We haven't attained perfect obedience, BUT we do get some, plus we are seeing a child who is more content with not getting what they want all the time!  (Contentment is a lesson for LIFE!  We need it as much as he does!)  He understands "no" is a dead end, and, with his short attention span, he will then interest himself in something within his palette of choice, such as his toes or the corner of a table.

Well, that was kind of an aside, but the point is:  while "no" is very abstract, in context, it is completely understandable even to a very young child.  That transfers to the teaching of many concepts in the Bible.

An excellent article is "Teaching Our Children to Understand the Bible".  It gives concrete examples of defining such abstract concepts through studying the Bible as a whole.

Another booklet we have found helpful is "How to Teach Your Children a Verse a Day" on our website.  It gives many ideas for illustrating verses when you are not just talking about an ark or great fish.  

The goal of our instruction

But the goal of our instruction is love 

from a pure heart 

and a good conscience 

and a sincere faith.

I Timothy 1:5

From a late night discussion at our house

[neat insight from Dave]

The Apostle Peter was a fisherman. Do you think he ever fell out of a boat? What would his experience teach him about stepping outside of a boat?

And yet, in spite of past experiences, when Jesus called to him, he got up and stepped outside the boat and walked on water.

If God is in the equation, we can never assume our past experiences will define the outcome.

Jesus addressed this after the famous "camel passing through the eye of a needle" discussion. Here was something which common sense, if not experience, would tell us cannot be done.

"With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26

A verse a day!!

Our verse a day is going pretty well here in 2011, praise the Lord.

Our introduction to this idea came several years ago, while having friends over to visit at our house in Texas. Each morning, the families all gathered for songs and then working on their verse for the day. We found it so simple. One thing we really liked was the sense of routine and order it gave to the beginning of the day!

Now, years ago, we would think memorizing a Bible verse per day would be a bit to difficult and ambitious to keep up with, but we have found it quite doable, with the Lord's help. The key is not flannelgraph or mnemonic devices or index cards. Its just simple repetition and review!

Our habit has been to gather everyone in the morning before breakfast for devotions. Currently we are in our den, which is a huge room, but we used to meet around our kitchen table in our little house in the woods. We had a large white board in our old house, but ironically, there is barely any wall space for such a thing in our new huge den, so we use an easel.

Dave selects a passage for us to work on. We are just starting Galatians 6, but just finished the first part of Matthew 8.

The way it works is that every morning, after having some song time, Dave pulls out his Bible and reads the passage to us. At first, he just reads phrase by phrase, and then we echo it back, kind of like a responsive reading, except we are just repeating.

After day one, we have memorized the first verse, so on day 2, we all RECITE verse one together, and then continue the rest of the passage echoing Dave phrase by phrase. Because we RECITE together, those who have it down solid, or have PARTS of it down solid give a leg-up to the rest of us who may be a little slow.

After the reciting part, one of the big kids writes the day's verse on a whiteboard in our den where we gather. We discuss the verse's meaning, find related verses elsewhere, define words, etc. If applicable, we then make an illustration of the verse, too.



The little boys get our notebooks and pens out, and we write the verse on a new page of our book.


(We get out the notebooks after the verse recitation and discussion so as not to be a distraction!)


The little ones who cannot read or write have a notebook and we can make the words in dots for them to trace.


Despite their lack of reading, our little guys easily NAIL the entire passage, even the two year old! They can recite the passage with just a hint word here or there; sometimes they don't even need that and we hear them saying it in the shopping cart! Its not because we give them vitamins or because they are super-smart, either. Children are wired for memorization and, boy, do we wish we had taken advantage of this fact when our oldest were still very young!

[It is sad that some homeschool experts recommend that parents have their young children memorize all kinds of Latin and facts and figures, but then only recommend a Bible story book for teaching Bible.]

Certainly, their understanding may be limited, though not as much as you might think, but we are convinced there is great value in their participation at this early age. Because of the fruit we have seen, our older kids are all fairly determined to begin Bible reading with their babies from their earliest days!

So everyone does their best at writing our their verse for the day....especially if its going to be photographed!





After discussion and having everyone write the verse in their notebook, we go around in a circle and take turns reciting this. Even this helps, because the faster memorizers recite first, and so I can hear the verse over and over before its my turn to try it. Ooops.

As I said, the key is repetition and review. We have stacked up quite a few passages since we started this method and need to review them, so we will usually recite a past passage together before working on the new verse a day passage.

We have found that even parents with dwindling brain cells can make amazing progresss. We don't do any intentional review at other times of the day, but just work on this in the morning.

Also, it is such a blessing, a major blessing, to start the day together with the LORD, singing and getting into the Word and praying together.


When we first started, we were somewhat hit and miss with our consistency. But now it is very much a part of each day. The children know what we are doing first thing! We wish we had started this tradition from the very beginning, but thank the Lord for these 6 or so years of taking a verse a day!

We hope this will encourage you to consider this wonderful, simple way of starting your day with the Lord!

For more information, please read How to teach your child a Verse A Day.

Morning schedule

As previously promised/threatened, we are now posting our current schedule.

After trying to make a PDF to post and not being able to figure it out, I asked Abi to take photos of our schedule on the wall, which we have covered in clear contact paper to keep from getting frayed and splattered. So, you won't make out the fine details, but just the general idea....which helps to keep things brief!

We use Microsoft Word, with lots of columns, printed horizontally. I use the Word Art feature to label big blocks of time. You will notice a few rows with fine print for Zak and Ben, who work at their own business during the day, so don't join in for all of our daily activities. Ben still does do chores, and Zak largely helps in supervising little brothers, though he has been known to plunge a toilet or split wood on occasion.

The fine print above is who wakes up the little boys and gets them dressed!

The first three rows represent one hour each. The rest of rows on the schedule are in 30 minute increments, even though they may have more than one activity per block.

So, we start our day at x o'clock. Ha ha. Early risers like to get up by 5, though we do not always make it for that hour. Those who do have uninterrupted quiet for doing some or all of their Bible copy, which the rest of the family does later in the day. It allows quiet time with the Lord. They also have personal grooming time, enjoying a much shorter wait in line to use the facilities.

We wake up the next group at 6, and then things begin to get more lively. There is sometimes cocoa or mint tea involved in this time slot.

At 7, we start morning devotions, which includes learning and/or reviewing Bible verses which we have studied using the Verse A Day method. We usually start with some songs and end with prayer.

After devotions, in our 8 to 9 slot, we have several components that can shift around to suit our needs. Someone prepares breakfast. Now, sometimes the preparer had the foresight to stick this in the oven earlier. Sometimes they have to prepare it and bake it, and we have more time to do the " Daily A.M. Chore Packs" before we eat. And sometimes, breakfast is just yogurt with dry oats and Grape Nuts, so it takes no time at all to prepare. So the contents of this slot can be modified as needed.

On the schedule, we have things kind of modularized, so there is not a lot of detail on the main schedule. We do have lot of instruction sheets posted around the house for the details, so as not to crowd the schedule. Here are some explanations:

Morning Routine - everything pertaining to bedroom clean up. This is done first after devotions, before breakfast.

Daily A.M. Chore Packs - daily chores done in the morning, some are on rotation, each child has their own Chore Pack, which Mommy produces using Chore Ware. (During this time, Mommy and/or one of the big sisters circles the house with their Chore Checklist. This is produced through Chore Ware, and is a work of art!) Chore assignments are scientifically designed to minimize slow downs in the bathroom. Daily A.M. Chore Packs do not include meal clean up; that is on a separate Chore Pack called "Meal Cleanup". Chore Packs are the signature components of the chore system in Managers of Their Chores...

Mini-review of Managers of Their Chores: A Practical Guide to Children's Chores by Steve and Teri Maxwell.

This book lays an excellent biblical foundation for the use of chores in teaching servanthood to our children. It gives lots of suggestions and examples for specific ages and such, but the practical part of it, in our opinion, is how it combats the world's idea that "kids need to just be kids". You will probably not be surprised at the results of their poll of homeschool moms in which they compared moms who had chores as children and those who did not have chores: which group felt most prepared for their role as mother?

This book will encourage you to think beyond the laundry room floor and into your child's future. Highly recommended! End of mini-review.

Laundry catch up is there just so we can make use of time left over if chores are done quicker than usual. It happens. "Check laundry" refers, of course, to the moving of the laundry from one machine to the other.

Finally, Meal Cleanup Chore pack is a special routine which encompasses not only kitchen and dining cleanup, but bath schedules and general house cleanup (tidying areas).

And that takes us to 9:30....


When we first attempted scheduling, we had the various children in various activities and it was very complicated. Dave suggested we make things kind of modular. So, we start with Bible copy for just about everyone. Our oldest sons are working most days, so they have time allotted earlier for their Bible copy and head downstairs at this point (sometimes earlier).

During Bible copy time, we are trying to emphasize accuracy and checking our work, so we have things broken down in more detail for partners in checking. They do a certain amount of work copying, and then we stop in time to select a favorite verse, which is written in a different notebook with a comment, and shared in evening devotions. (We are currently trying to revive this portion of Bible copy, as we have neglected it for awhile!)

The dynamics of having the children partner for Bible copy are wonderful! First, there is the potential for deepening sibling friendships. (We say potential because we are always wanting to work on making these relationships what they should be -- not that they are perfect already!) Second, the checking is helpful teaching time for younger children and reinforcing time for the olders. With older partners, who are closer in age, it just makes it "fun" to spot errors and omissions. With Bible copy, we have seen the need to really emphasize checking almost as much as the copying: both penmanship and accuracy.

The blue text in the far right column refers to one-on-one time with Mommy for the younger children. We rotate turns, except for Gideon, who is learning to read, and this includes oral reading of the Bible, phonics, calendar work (recording upcoming events, checking off days, counting down to birthdays or events), practice with penmanship or copywork, nature walks, organizing projects, making shopping lists and sometimes artwork or letter writing.

Joanna (or another big sister) usually keeps Joshua (2) during her activities, and he does chores with her and sits with her when she does her Bible copy. When she's copying, he looks at book and plays with blocks. We simply do not permit him to roam the house, unraveling toilet paper or drawing on walls. But during the majority of his day, rather than looking for toys or videos to occupy him, we are learning to occupy him with real life! He loves it! What a concept, huh?


After Bible copy, we do some clean up and laundry folding and putting away. There is always laundry to put away! Since we have a room dedicated to laundry, we can just keep it moving without having to have it all finally put away so we can use the space for something else. That is an example of how our schedule is affected by our living space. Years ago, we had a dedicated school room, so things were kind of left on tables, but we no longer have that.

Actually, we don't mind not having a dedicated school room because we want our home overall to be conducive and used for learning.

Comida means lunch! We allow 30 minutes for actual eating, so we have to wrap up discussions. We are blessed to have every meal together as a family. Dave's mom, early on in our family, made a good case for not eating until every family member is at the table. We are so thankful for that input!

Again, the Meal Cleanup Chore Packs, again, include chores that are not necessarily related to kitchen cleanup. They can be straightening rooms, or taking a bath.

While it really helps to have things minutely detailed so that everything is in a certain sequence, we find it necessary to keep things a bit more flexible, since we have children paired up and things often come up that make it more convenient to vacuum or mop out of sequence. And of course, if we drop a Corelle bowl or have a toilet overflow, that REALLY impacts things in our day! Again, the schedule is just a tool to make sure we are hitting the priorities, but sometimes God allows things in our day to work on EXTRA priorities, like giving thanks in all things!

Lunch cleanup finishes at 2 PM, and we'll continue on in our next post with that. In the future, we hope, Lord willing, to share on how we fit in various errands. We will also solicit comments on how people keep track of their toothbrushes! (Does anyone chain them to the wall???? We are clueless!)

But before we click, we would like to remind you that our schedule, though we REALLY like it, is not perfect and we still have struggles and confusion at times. We also have peace and productivity at times. We are by no means experts, and we love to see what works for other people. It has taken us 12 years of trial and tweaking to get where we are so far. Each day requires walking in the Spirit.

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh:
and these are contrary the one to the other:
so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law...
But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance:
against such there is no law.

Galatians 5: 16- 18, 22-23

Our schedule is not "the law" but rather an expression of how the Spirit is leading us to live our days, unless God allows other factors to override. By persevering in his Spirit, we allow the Lord to grow his fruit in our lives.

We are always encouraged to seek to apply the words of our Lord in Matthew 6:31- 33 to keep our perspective about meals, laundry, and everything else:

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or,
What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.

Precious moments

Here is Joshie laying on Daddy's chest during our evening Bible time. We read about Noah, and Joshie usually listens attentively, especially if we quietly narrate into his ear as we listen. Of course, he doesn't grasp all of what we can, but he is making progress. It is amazing what little children can retain and we just wish we would have realized this sooner! One of our older kids has resolved that if they have a child someday, they will read to him or her the Bible daily, from their first day!