Outside of the special ladies in my family, there are two women who made a significant impact on my life. Both of them were babysitters. These weren't just ordinary babysitters though. These were ladies who taught and nurtured me while I was young, and prayed for and befriended me for years after I needed watching over.

The first special lady's name was Mabel Miller. Of course I didn't know her by that name. She was always "T.T." to me. You see, she was my caregiver when I was very young. They tried to teach me to call her "Auntie" but all I could vocalize was "T.T.". Dad was the pastor of a church in Gratis, Ohio and I was probably only two or three years old at the time. T.T. was older, but T.T. was awesome. She taught me how to climb in and out of a chair when my feet dangled way above the floor. She would make applesauce for me using a single apple, just because I wanted some. I could definitely feel the love she had for me. But the most influential thing about our relationship were her prayers. Long after we moved away from Ohio I knew that she was praying for me. Although I never saw T.T. after we moved, we corresponded over the years until she passed away not long after I graduated from high school. Although I was not little any more, she always remained (and always will be) my T.T.

The other influential lady was Waneta Finster. I was her "Thursday's Child" for several years when we lived in Peru, Indiana in the mid 60's. Unlike T.T., Waneta was young with a family of her own. She offered to babysit me on Thursdays, because, at our church, Thursday was church night. That was when we held our mid-week service and Waneta wanted to be there. She knew that if she watched me on that day, she would have to bring me home that night. Hence, she wouldn't miss church!

Even though there was an ulterior motive, Waneta loved me nonetheless. And, there was always something fun to do at Waneta's. I remember our walks outside to go mushroom hunting, our inside play dates with play dough or snapics, and licking the bowl after making chocolate pudding. One of my best loved and most remembered activities was sitting on the back of Penny the pony. I wouldn't actually ride Penny. Waneta would have her staked out in the yard and I would just sit there. But, to me it was actually riding. I never wanted to come down. Waneta would have to make a sandwich for me to eat while sitting atop Penny, because I would refuse to come down for lunch.

One of Waneta's favorite activities was writing, especially poetry. When we had to leave Peru, to move in with my aging grandfather, my brother, David, asked her to write a poem for him and to make it "especially sad". Peru and Waneta (as well as her family) were special to us.

Waneta, her husband Jay, and her children remained friends with our family. We never missed a visit with them if we were close to Peru, and they often came to visit us. When we moved to Florida, Waneta and Jay would bring their exchange students down to visit us. They were "mom and dad" to nearly a dozen international students throughout the years. That was the type of people that they were. Always helping others. Always active in church. Always loving the Lord.

Waneta and Jay eventually retired in Florida and my parents moved four doors down the street from them. Waneta was there to take care of her ailing sister until she passed away. She was at the hospital with my mother when the Dr. came to tell Mom that Dad had died of a severe heart attack. She was there to take care of Mom, to take her to church and to run errands, to get her medicine ready for the week.  

It was also there that Waneta finally had the time to do something that she had always wanted to do. Write a novel. She had begun one years before, but the busyness of raising a family required her to put it aside. One day a package arrived in my mailbox. It was a completed copy of her first book-copied and bound by her son PJ. After reading it, I knew that someday it would be published, and a couple of years later my prediction came true. She immediately went to work on another. 

Last year, after my brother passed away of cancer, I talked to Waneta on the phone. We talked about David and how much she was going to miss him. She didn't miss him for long. Two weeks later, she was running along side of him and sitting at the feet of Jesus. She never lived to see her second book published. PJ is now editing her third novel. She had just completed the first draft. You can buy her books by visiting her webpage at www.WanetaFinster.com.

A few days ago I received another package in the mail. It was a collection of Waneta's poems that PJ had put together. Included was a note to "take a look at page 28" The following is what I found. 

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I blogged recently about all of the friends that I have been reconnecting with - mainly on Facebook. Friends from high school, friends from college, camp friends, Florida friends...you name it. Some names I have had to look twice at because they have gotten married and some names I didn't recognize at all. One of those names was Kees Boer. One day I got a notification that Kees (Kees is Dutch) wanted to be my friend on Facebook. I recalled hearing that name before, so I thought that it must be one of my college classmates that had been in one of my classes or something, and that it would come back to me. So I accepted him as my Facebook friend. Well, it never came back to me! I kept trying to remember. I read his profile and racked my brain, but nothing. One day Kees began to talk with me through Facebook's chat feature. I found out that he graduated from Florida Bible College a few years before me, and had just befriended me because we were both FBC graduates. Boy what a relief. I thought I was becoming senile.

Anyway, I had noticed that Kees was a big supporter of Compassion International and asked him about it. Compassion is one of those groups where you can sponsor a child from an underprivileged country for about a dollar a day. Sarah and I had toyed with the idea of sponsoring a child before, but were hesitant because we weren't sure which organizations could be trusted. We had a friend who had gone to work for a similar non-profit group only to leave nine months later because that particular group wasn't all that it claimed to be. After some discussion with Kees, and some research on my own, we found that Compassion International was an organization that was trustworthy. Kees had asked us to pray about sponsoring a boy from Bolivia whose previous sponsor had to drop him. After much prayer, we decided to apply. It became official today... 12 year old Marcelo Quispe is our new child! We feel like adoptive parents.

We cheated a little. Kees was making a trip to Bolivia to visit some of the kids that he sponsors, and said that if we wanted, he would take a packet of things along with a gift to Marcelo while our paperwork was being handled. So, a couple of weeks ago we hurriedly made a short video for him and sent it along with some pictures, a letter, and some Hot Wheels cars for Kees to take to Bolivia. Kees wasn't sure if he could actually see Marcelo or whether he would just have to leave the packet with the area representatives to give to him later. Last week, Kees was briefly on Facebook and told me that he was going to actually meet Marcello and perhaps even be able to make a video of him to send to us when he got back into the states. We are all very excited and can't wait to hear from him. Marcelo's picture is posted below. Please pray with us for him. All we know right now is that he is 12 years old, lives with his mother, father and two siblings in a small shack in the slums of La Paz, Bolivia and likes to play with cars, sing, and play with marbles. Compassion requires all sponsored kids to write to their sponsors at least three times a year so hopefully we will learn more about him through his letters. They also encourage the sponsors to write as much as they can, but they won't have to worry about reminding us! The kids are already planning letters and deciding what to tell him. Compassion may have to tell us to slow down.

Compassion International is a definite Christian organization that sets up "projects" all around the world. Our understanding is that to qualify as a project, there has to be a good Bible believing church with some type of a program  where the kids are fed, tutored, and given Biblical training. I will tell you more as we learn more, but check out their website by clicking on any of the Compassion International mentions throughout this post. Pray about sponsoring a child. We have just begun, but we know that it will be a life changing experience for our whole family and a life changing experience for Marcelo as well.

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 John Allen Shooting in the Standing Position

Recently I asked you to pray for John Allen and Joshua as they competed in the TN State BB Gun Championships. John Allen desperately wanted to be selected for the team that competes at the International BB Gun Championships again this year, and Joshua was nervous about shooting in his first major competition. Thanks for all of  your prayers! John Allen did great, he placed second in the alternate category and his team placed first in the State match. So, he made the International team as an alternate once again and we are Bowling Green bound for the International BB Gun Championship Match during the week of the 4th of July. Joshua also did well - better than John Allen did his first year. He is looking forward to the day that he can go to Internationals like his big brother. We are proud of both of them.

 

Brotherly Love

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Recently, The Old Schoolhouse started a new line of products, Wee-books, that I was really excited to try out. What are Wee-books? The TOS website describes them perfectly:

Packaging concise nuggets of wisdom from your favorite homeschool authors, covering a variety of topics of interest to homeschoolers, these bite-sized E-books are designed with today’s busy, homeschool mom in mind. WeE-book™ offer quick, affordable content that educates, inspires and encourages. WeE-book™ may be small in name, size, and price, but they are big in value.

When I first read that description, I thought "Aha...Joshua". Bite-sized nuggets of information are exactly what our asperger's child needs. I immediately found two Wee-books that I thought would be excellent fits for him. We are constantly looking for small, science unit studies for him, so I picked out "The Real Hummers" about Hummingbirds. He also is always needing help with math so I thought "Building Strong Arithmetic Thinking" would help. Then, "Writing Essays" caught my eye for John Allen, our 12 year old sixth grader. So, I ordered all three.

After first looking them over, I had mixed emotions. I was extremely pleased with one, satisfied with another, and a little dissapointed with the third. I quickly realized, though, that my mixed emotions were partly my fault. I was looking for mini-unit studies that I could take out and immediately go to work with my child. However, that's not what the description says. It says that they are "concise nuggets of wisdom from your favorite homeschool authors, covering a variety of topics of interest to homeschoolers". After rethinking, I concluded that all three Wee-books delivered exactly what they promised.

I was really encouraged with "Building Strong Arithmetic Thinking". It really gave me a new perspective on how to teach Joshua. It was written by Dr. Ruth Beechick and the more I read from her the more impressed I am. For arithmetic, she puts more emphasis on everyday activities than traditional math curriculum. One statement that I found very liberating was "...get rid of any textbooks or workbooks you have for kindergarten and first grade. And second grade, too, if you’re brave." Her approach was like a breath of fresh air. 

 "Writing Essays" was also written by Dr. Ruth (dare I call her that?). It, again, gave many good thoughts on how to teach not only essay writing, but all types of writing. I did find that it was geared for a little more advanced student than John Allen, but I am looking forward to using it with him in the near future.

The one Wee-book that I misjudged was "The Real Hummers" by Jeannie Fulbright. Jeannie is the author of Apologia's great elementary science series. Although it was not the ready to use mini-unit study that I was hoping, it was very informative and offered some great ideas for attracting hummingbirds. It's "further resources" section also led to notebooking and lapbooking ebooks that could be further used to study these smallest of birds.

All in all, I am very excited about these small (around 20 pgs each) ebooks. The topics are wide ranging and, along with the titles mentioned above, include, not only educational topics, but general homeschool topics as well. I'm looking forward to trying "Homeschooling the Rebel" and "I was Raised by Wolves" in the near future. Wee-books are also one of those items that are perfect for parents or grandparents that want to supplement their student's public/private school education.

With any product you have to read the description carefully before you buy. With larger ebooks, even if it's not entirely what you were looking for, there is bound to be something included in the ebook that you can use. The information in Wee-books is so concise that there is not much room for error. However, even if the Wee-book is not at all what you expected, the $1.95 price tag can make the mistake much easier to swallow, and you may be able to use it in the future. Have fun looking through the 41 titles, and happy homeschooling!

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Mood:  a-ok

When I first looked at "HomeWork - Juggling Home, Work and School Without Losing Your Balance" from The Old Schoolhouse, my first thought was "I don't have time to read something boring about starting a home business!" I was wrong on three counts. It's not boring, it's not just about starting a home business, and it goes by so quickly that it doesn't seem like any time has gone by at all.

This small, 95 page, ebook is packed with heartwarming stories of how families homeschooled, spent valuable time together, had fun, fulfilled dreams, and even made a little extra money on the side...all by doing just one thing, starting a home based business. The chapters are divided into five sections - HomeWork: A Labor of Love, HomeWork: Computer Based, HomeWork: Creative Writing, HomeWork: Business Support and HomeWork: Tricks of the Trade. The first three sections describe different types of creative home businesses. The last two talk about the technical stuff - bookkeeping, organizing, legal issues etc. Each chapter is written by someone who actually has begun a home based business but it is all written in a very easy flowing style. Even the technical sections are interesting. Before I knew it, I was finished! 

Even if you aren't planning on starting a home business, you will learn from reading "HomeWork". I learned tips on how to organize your school day; how to teach your children using unconventional methods; how to budget your money and so much more. Even if you think you have everything together, it's worth the read just for the stories of how these home business adventures began.

When I decided to try my hand at reviewing homeschool products, I made a vow to myself that I would not give every product a glowing review just to be nice. I was going to be critical where needed and complimentary if deserved. Before reading "HomeWork", I totally expected this to have more critical than complimentary areas. Boy was I wrong. I can't find a thing to criticize. I give this product two thumbs up!

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