Kids of Courage/VOM (part 2)

This is another publication put out through Kids of Courage...the Bold Believers series. They are really neat because they focus on a country in depth. Inside you will find geography facts, history and current events facts, religion and culture facts. There are stories with activities, crossword puzzles and other activities. They are geared to a child that is a little bit older, but can easily be adapted for young learners as well.

Voice of the Martyrs Newsletter...

In Every issue you will find stories of persecution, stories of hope in spite of the way the Christians in a given country are treated, updates on missionaries, pastors and other people who have been featured in articles, etc... They are such a testament to the FAITH that these Christians live out daily! We sit so secure in our warm homes with NO FEAR, NO THREAT of danger...why exactly are we all not out there on the front lines?! Why are we not down on our knees daily pleading with the Father on behalf of these brothers and sisters of ours? I pray that you will read and that once your eyes have been opened you will not be able to pretend to not know what to do.

"...once our eyes are opened,we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act." ~Proverbs 24:12

Kids Of Courage

Kids of Courage is the children's version of Voice of the Martyrs. Both are ministries near and dear to my heart. I'm going to share with you a post from a year or two ago, taken from my family blog. Then below it, I'll tell you a little more about VOM and KOC and how we use them in school.

"VOM is an amazing organization that is dedicated to bringing the Gospel to the areas of our world where Christianity is illegal. Places like China, North Korea, Egypt, India, the Middle East, Colombia etc...There are many, many ways in which one can be involved in this ministry. You can choose to send Bibles through Bibles Unbound to these countries that will be used in underground church settings or passed page by page among families and friends. You can choose to send blankets that will be given to people along with recorded salvation messages. You can send care packages and other forms of outreach. Once you make a contribution of some kind, you will receive the newsletter in the mail...the stories will make you weep. Dearest Friends, we take so much for granted...when was the last time you memorized a whole section of scripture because if you didn't commit it to memory you would never be able to "read" it again? When was the last time you had to flee from your home because you were under attack for your faith? Have you ever been beaten, kidnapped, or brutalized just because you won't deny your faith? Have you ever had to rip pages of a Bible out just so you could learn and study the Word? You can't even begin to imagine some of the horrors that these men, women and children face. These Christians risk everything for the religious freedom we have and yet we choose to hide it on a daily basis!!!! How many times have we heard someone ridicule Christians, or make an inappropriate comment and we've kept silent? How many times have we allowed ourselves to become caught up in worldly things or situations? How many times have we like Peter, denied Christ...even unintentionally...just because we have been afraid of what others might think, or we didn't want to offend someone? May I just point out that there are a LOT of people in this country that offend Christians by trying to remove God from everything our country stands for??!!! They don't care that they offend people and it is for a totally WRONG cause! Why should we care what people think!? We have the freedom to share our faith freely! Who knows how long it will last. I urge you to lift up these brothers and sisters of ours who are standing up to their governments and saying, "I worship the TRUE AND LIVING GOD!" They are giving their very lives for Him! Pray that God will flood those persecuted regions with His Word and that millions will come to know Him as their Savior. Pray that the hearts of these nations will change so drastically that persecution is nonexistent. Pray that God will supernaturally hedge in and protect those involved in proclaiming Christ in these areas. Then, check out the VOM website...get involved if you feel God leading you in that direction. Its an extremely worthwhile and meaningful ministry."

I apologize for the length of this post, but I really feel like I needed to share with you why this ministry means so much to me. Here are some pictures of the newsletter you get...VOM and KOC come together, but you must request the Kids of Courage one specifically. (due to the length of this, I'm going to share about the actual VOM newsletter in another post)

Each issue focuses on a specific persecuted country. Inside, you will find facts about the country and culture, school stories, fun facts and information about children who are persecuted because their parents are Christians or because they themselves have become Christians. We always look the country we are talking about up on the map. Then we read through the articles...usually one a day or every other day...and talk about them. We discuss differences and similarities between where we live and that country. We tend to skim the surface right now...Brett is still so young that he doesn't "get" a lot of it. But, we pray for the children and their families and the countries they live in. We haven't done this yet, but I hope to soon start implementing cooking some foods from the country we are praying for too. The great thing is that this is so easy to adapt for age. You can easily take it SO much deeper than what we are right now. I hope and pray that you will get involved in this ministry and begin learning about and praying for these countries.

I Heard the Good News!

Today in school, Brett and I were reading from a book called, I Heard The Good News Today. It is a book that has little one or two page stories about missionaries from around the world and the people they shared the Good News of Jesus with. Well, we finished reading (today's was on Karl Olson, a traveling Bible salesman) Karl Olson had been traveling in Poland and sought lodging in a home in a village he was passing through. He read the family who opened their home to him many stories from the Bible. Two days later as Karl was leaving the village, he sold the family a Bible. He was unable to sell any other Bibles while in the village though. After he left the family he stayed with began reading and sharing from the Bible with others in the village. They soon received Christ as their Lord and Savior. Many other villagers joined them in their salvation. Years later, Karl happened to be in the village again and went to the home of the family to see if he could stay with them again. They told him of all that had happened and he was overjoyed! He gathered the people together and asked if anyone could share a scripture verse. The villagers asked, "a verse or a chapter?" Karl was stunned and asked if people could recite chapters. The villagers replied that they had been so worried about losing the only Bible among them that they assigned every Christian a chapter to memorize and that between them all they could recite nearly the entire Bible! Afterwards, the villagers purchased every Bible and New Testament that Karl had with him! After reading this, I was talking with Brett about how God can take one small thing that we do and turn it into something glorious for his kingdom. And I went on to talk with him about being a missionary right where we live. In the next second, he jumped up from the table and ran upstairs. He came down carrying elephant, his pillow, his toothbrush and toothpaste, then he grabbed his Bible and said, "let's go!" I said, "go where?" And he said, "We are missionaries Mama...let's go tell the good news!"

Charlotte Mason

Charlotte Mason was an educator who believed in "the gentle art of learning". She firmly believed that children needed to be outside in nature exploring God's creation. She utilized "living books" as opposed to text books, short lessons, narration, notebooking and no grades.

We are utilizing many of her techniques in our homeschooling approach. Charlotte's ideas were to create a love of life long learning in the student. She is quoted as saying, "The more we do for a child, the less he will do for himself. If we give him watered down material, many explanations, much questioning, if we over-moralize, depend on the workbooks to work the mind, what thinking is left for the child to do? How is his mind to grow from within...?"

For those of you seeking to implement this style of teaching into your homeschool settings, I highly recommend reading this book by Karen Andreola. It breaks down the philosophies into easy to read chapters written in modern English. It is extremely helpful in guiding you as the instructor and introducing you to nature notebooking, implementing great literature, classical music and great art into your day, ways to teach reading, spelling, composition, how to use narration, etc... You will love it!

Nature Books

What the books look like inside~

The inside of The Handbook of Nature Study~

I was reading back through some of my posts and realized that I never got around to posting the pictures of the field guides we are using. I found all of them on half.com and was able to save a LOT of money that way! I'll be posting this under the Wonders of Creation link as well :)