In Loving Memory

We called her “Omoe.” (although I’m not really sure why, when all the other Dutch kids call their grandmothers “Oma”) She was a great storyteller, able to make any regular day occurrence an adventure. She made amazing “Mocha Tarte,” and grew beautiful flowers. As long as she was able, she turned any piece of yarn or thread into something useful (or snuggly).

When I last saw her, I told her that she should probably buy a new dress for her 100^th birthday. (She had just turned 95 in January.) But she would have no part of that. For the past few years her desires echoed these words from Chris Rice’s song “Smile”:

“My journey's here, but my heart is there, so I dream and wait, and keep the faith, while You prepare our destiny, till You come back for me. Oh, please make it soon! Cause I just wanna be with You, I just want this waiting to be over…”

Her waiting is over... on the first day of spring, the Lord answered her prayer.

At her funeral we recited the words to Q&A #1 from the Heidelberg Catechism. Words that summed up her life. Last year my family memorized these words and in the process of saying them day after day they began to sink in and change my perspective too. My prayer is that by God’s grace I may live them out with the certainty and sincerity that Omoe did.

What is your only comfort in life and in death?

That I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to Him, Christ by His Holy Spirit assures me of eternal life and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.

Changes to Our Blog

FYI - I've made changes so that you can now leave comments on our blog!

I was concerned about having "spam" posted but have found and applied some blockers.

Comment away, we'd love to hear from you!

Home Schooling Highs and Lows

(A post I've been mulling over for some time but finally took the time to type it out!)

One of the joys of home schooling your children is watching their little light bulbs light up when they finally grasp a concept. One of the frustrations, of course, is watching that light flicker, fade, flicker, fade, flicker…

But in this case I don’t blame the children, and honestly, I can’t really blame the teacher. I blame that which we trying to grasp, understand, and master. Our challenge…the English language!

When we first embarked on our journey we spent a fair amount of time learning the alphabet, recognizing that letters have names. Then we had to learn that those letters make sounds, which in some cases is the same as their name, but not always. This we mastered with little difficulty although the sound /a/ makes in “bag” is quite different than it makes in “can”, but we were able to adjust.

Then we had to learn that some letters make more than one sound, but once we understood that vowels say their names when they have a vowel partner or if the word ends in /e/ we were good to go. We were even able to master the hard and soft sounds of /c/ and /g/. I thought we were almost there. (Guess I should have noticed we were only on lesson 84 of 226 in their reading program! 2/3 left to go!)

Lesson 87 – break, grey, veil; What?!? Lesson 91 – read, and read? wind and wind? Can you tell which words follow the rules and which ones are outlaws? What about do and go? field and pie? All along remembering that it is strongly encouraged not to teach your children to sight read! /ow/ changes in now and snow. /ou/ changes in you and out. And /ea/ really messed them up going from pea to great to dead!!!

Then my brother sent me the following in an e-mail:

Don't delete this just because it looks weird. Believe it or not, you can read it.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsa ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

GREAT!!!! Now I was really convinced we should switch our mother tongue to Korean…the most phonetically correct language in the world!

But we've plugged away, and through much reading aloud (snuggled on the couch, under Grandma's afghan...my FAVOURITE part) the boys have progressed quite well.

A Classic

Today we experienced the classic event.

The kids got all ready to go outside.
(Note of gladness...my first winter of not needing to zip 3 zippers, don 3 hats, tie 3 scarves and put on 6 boots and mitts...YEAH!!! or is it YAY?!?! See "Homeschooling Highs and Lows" post...)

Off they went, all bundled up, dog in tow, to enjoy the snow with the beautiful warm March sun on their faces; numerous adventures awaiting. I sat down to enjoy a few quiet moments when just a few seconds later a small tap sounds on the door…growing increasingly louder…followed by the inevitable “MOOOOMMMMM! I have to go pee! Fortunately Shannon has a iron strong bladder and was able to wait for the "complete unveiling" to relieve herself!