When your grandpa owns a t-shirt shop...

Happy birthday, Grandpa Edd! And thanks for the t-shirts!!

A new face

Ben worked hard to update our family website.  The new site is better organized, slightly expanded, and much greener, literally.  It took a bit of time, and not a little ice cream, but we are thankful for the great job Ben did.  We hope it will be a blessing.

Ben will now be beginning a larger project, Lord willing.  More later...

UPDATE -- Open Bus - March 10

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Ready, Fire, Aim!

(Had to revise the date!)

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You know you want to.

We are inviting friends and neighbors to check out our latest school bus/RV conversion, Sunday, March 10, 2013, from 1:30 PM to 5 PM, near our home in Ferguson.

Since our driveway is not very level, a beloved neighbor is actually hosting our Open Bus.  When you get to our house, just take a look, and you will probably find it pretty easily.

Hors d'oeuvres will be served.

RSVP not required.  Casual dress.  Email for directions:  daveanddebklein@yahoo.com

Hope to see you there!!

Something new

Cool homeschooling verses

Here are some cool homeschooling verses, 1 Peter 1:13-25

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

This scripture seems to give a good perspective for us as we raise our children, to keep our perspective on what really matters.  If we don't intentionally put this before us and our children, we could unintentionally teach our children that worldly things matter more than eternal.  We will not be teaching them to seek first the kingdom of God.

We have to do things differently from the way the world does things if we desire something different from what the world offers, especially in teaching our children.

Only the Word of the Lord endureth for ever.  

How can we demonstrate that to our children today?

A walk through Beaverlandia

Today we enjoyed a walk near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.  

Susanna turned 13 years old today!

As we walked along the trail, we noted signs of beavers at work.

Beavers are hard to find, and they obviously could hear us coming.

Trying to figure out the average size of the beavers based on the distance of the bark damage from the ground.

Joshie stays a step ahead.

Leafing.

The confluence.

At the flood markers.

"I thought we were going hiking."

Daniel spots the beaver!

There he is!  Just look at those chompers!

More effort

The whole world understands that a doctor or an engineer can’t be trained in a haphazard manner. It involves continuous study for 15 or 20 years. But very few people realize that the study of the Word of God requires even more effort. If earthly things require much study, what of the heavenly? By not giving that much importance to the Word of God, the vitality of the church has fallen and become only a religious tradition.

This situation cannot be remedied with a week of evangelistic meetings or with a short Bible lesson every Sunday in Sunday school. It can’t be remedied with emotional praise services or with miracles or with divine healings. It can’t be remedied with dramas, missionary trips, and other activities for the youth in the church. The people get excited about such things, but the next day they return to their same lives of spiritual ignorance because they haven’t made the Word of God to be their principal meditation.

Modern Christians have given ten or twenty years of their lives to the study of this world’s wisdom in the schools, and only a few hours to the study of the Bible, which is the Word of Truth that God communicated to the world through his prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the principal expositor.

The only remedy for this lukewarm state of the church is to put our children to study the Bible as if it were the thing of most value in the universe. ✞

-  Art Dappen (1946-2006), author of The Education of Kings.  This article was excerpted from his newsletter, PlaticAMOS.

Happy belated birthday, Gideon!

Susanna holds baby Gideon

Gideon was born in Texas, during a very special time for our family.  Of course, we have had many special times in our family.  But anyway, this was a SPECIAL time.  Also, this pregnancy was about the most challenging of all my pregnancies, and the Lord really helped us and provided for us and everything turned out fine!  Praise the Lord.

Gideon turned 8 on our previous cocoaconf trip!

And here he is!  We celebrated on the road, on October 23, and Sarah packed up all the festivities so we could make it a mobile party!

"That's pretty good for a boy my age."

In keeping with our new tradition, here is a poem Gideon wrote relatively recently...sans proofreading.

God love you and me he is good he is great he knows what we do and what we need. God is love. 

God is good. He died on the cross and rose on the third  day and now he is in heaven. He is going to com back
   
It's  good to be a christian because you will not go to hell when you die. You will go too heaven instead. We need to tell every one