Feb. 3, 2009 - Healing and Miracles! No more cancer! Praise God!

Have any of you ever heard of Freddy Clark? He came to our church Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; it was awesome! The power of God moved so intensely.

He ministered on spiritual gifts and how we must have a better understanding as the Bible states: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.” (I Corinthians 12:1)

If you visit his website at http://www.oldfashionedrevivals.com/ you can learn more about him. The site looks a little outdated, but I think that is only because he has an old picture of his family on the site. All his children are pretty much grown now.

Anyway to my point… (this is really good!)

I copied this quote from his website: “Brother Clark has a unique gift from God. The people he prays for have testified to genuine miracles and healings in the mighty name of Jesus.”

I’m posting today as a testimony to God’s divine healing. In his few days at our church, Bro. Freddy Clark prayed for several of my family members. God revealed our ailments to him and he specifically prayed for our needs. None of us asked for prayer or told him what we needed prayer for! He knew, because of that higher power, God, who knows all that spoke to his heart!

Everyone that Bro. Clark prayed for, God healed including myself and my husbands. Though some needs were greater than others, all were miracles!

The greatest of all miracles, though, was that of my aunt who HAD stomach cancer! She has been healed by the grace and power of God and will go on to live a long and productive life praying for and caring for her loved ones! She is doing great, has energy, and has been able to eat full regular meals! God is so good!

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Jan. 31, 2009 - A half a second left on the clock and....

The game was rough, the boys played hard, and the score was neck and neck the entire game. Tension was high. The fans sat on the edges of their seats knowing the outcome of the game could change with the next shot. Both teams had 20 points on the score board. Then finally with the clock flickering and a little over half a second on the clock, Brian went up for a shot…

The ball just missed the goal, due to a foul of the opposite team.

Brian stood at the free throw line and dribbled the ball. With a flick of his wrist it spun it in the air, he bounced it once more time, and then went up for the shot. Swoosh! The crowd went wild as the ball went in (nothing but net).  The scoreboard flicked 21 for the visitors and 20 for the home-team. And Swoosh! 22 and 20 for a victory!

And guess what, people, I missed it all! Arg!!! 

I had to get the play-by-play after the fact from my husband over the cell phone. I was at Emilee’s game at another school an hour away from them.  Her game left little excitement for the fans, as it was all one sided. Emilee’s team scored 20 and the other team scored 2. The sad thing is the 2 points scored were from when one of our girls put up the shot in the wrong goal. The only funny thing about it was that I didn’t realize it, and I clapped for the girl and cheered “good job!” ;o)

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Jan. 31, 2009 - This week at Agape Christian Training School

After this week we decided we would be making a few changes with Brian’s coursework this week. We aren’t changing his curriculum, just how he gets through everything during the day.  We tried doing things at different times, and it seemed to suit him better. We’ll probably try this out for another week or so to be sure, too. I reckon he is one of these kids that function better with tedious math skills after being up for a few hours than first thing in the morning. Adrian on the other hand does best with math first thing in the morning as does his sister. I kind of like my kiddos being on the same page so to speak, but if it doesn’t work well for them that way then I have to allow for what is best for each individual child.  To let my “schedule” go so to speak is a little hard.

I really think that is because I have CDO!  It is like OCD but with the letters in the correct order like they should be!!!!!! Lol! Okay not really, but I’m awfully close. Most my family would swear I’m OCD. :o) Anyway…I saw the little quote on someone’s myspace page, I think.  I about fell out of my chair laughing… it so fits me!

I am a everything has its place, everything in its place, and rather have everything going just so type of person, though. It isn’t such a good thing to be when your home-schooling, so I’ll pray about it. I like structure, but I think I have to get a little unstructured for my kids sake.

And on another note…

Adrian will be 5 in less than a month, so I know we have plenty of time but here goes the issue of the week... well not really the issue of the week. It was more like the issue for Wednesday.

We have been working on reading and it has been going pretty well. He has been learning sounds gradually for quite some time, but we recently starting blending. He has learned several three letter word sets that rhyme. This past week though he has been pretty aggravating. He won't sound out his little words or look at them without me getting on to him to “look at the book” or “look at the word”.

He would just look into space and repeat after me, but not actually read the words off the page.  The few times I told him to sound out the words that he actually did look at them...well, he pointed at them, and then said I don't know. I know he knows or he did last week! :o) Other times he would not even look at the word and just guess a word at random.  A few times he would sound out the word and move on. Then we would do two or three other words and go back to the first word. He would not be able to tell me the word.

Thursday we got through all his reading words in no time flat sounding out each letter m-a-n and then saying man. It was a good day.

Then there was Friday. It went just the same as Wednesday. He didn’t know anything. I gave up quickly and just let it go.

I remember to my dismay that my oldest was the same exact way when he was little. Reading was like pulling teeth. I finally gave up and he got it in public school but through this horrid teacher.  She evidently was either mean or knew a few tricks that I don't for kids like mine. I actually think her tricks were not that grand, though, because Brian learned how to read but never really liked to read until these past couple of months.

My daughter was just the opposite of the two boys. She was eager, ready, and learned how to read without much help from anyone. I actually don’t remember having to do anything with her… I know she didn’t just wake up reading, but I honestly remember it almost that way. Lol!

I just don't want to have a repeat of Brian with Adrian. I want Adrian to enjoy reading. Am I just freaking out!? or are some kids just this way???? Are they one day refusing, the next reading, and the next time refusing yet again? Well… someone give me a ray of hope. I really want him to love reading! I do! I do!

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Jan. 28, 2009 - Not one thing in my teaching expierence has prepared me for this!

I think I am freaking out! Can I do this? Can I teach reading?! Ah… give me a health class full of smart mouth ninth graders …walking hormones in tennis shoes… and pull a few of my teeth, but don’t make me teach reading to my baby!!!!! HELP!!!!!

So, I'm curious... When did you start reading with your kid?

In the public schools, kids are reading in Kindergarten, now. My oldest two were actually pretty fluent readers by the end of kindergarten.

My first year of teaching, I taught Kindergarten for a half year. Back then we only taught sounds... no blending until the very end of the year! Boy am I glad I switched grades before the end of the year, because I don't think I would have had the patience for it.... I don't have much patience with my 1 let alone 23 little dumplings trying to read. 

All the other kids I ever taught, thankfully, knew how to read by the time they got to me...I taught a half year in Kindergarten and opted to move to 4th grade when the teacher had to leave. The next year is when I stayed home with my baby girl, and home-schooled Brian through pre-school.  Then, I moved to a school closer to my home. It was extremely small, so there was always a bit of moving around each year in order to stay. I ended up getting “T” certificates to teach in some areas, and adding on to my certifications to teach in other areas. My first year was HS Home Economics & 8th Grade American History. They all could read...or most of them! lol!  Then a year later, they told us we could have a full time gifted teacher. I snapped that up, taking additional grad classes to add that to my certification. Since it was such a small school each year I taught whatever they needed due to overflow along with my gifted classes. Over the years, I taught HS Speech, HS Publications (yearbook),  7th & 8th Grade Math, 7th Grade Language Arts, Jr. High Enrichment(computer skills), Health, & PE (coaching cheerleaders, but not sure if all the cheerleaders could read, though). lol! jus kidding, girls!

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Jan. 24, 2009 - This Week

On Monday, when the regular schools were taking a holiday, we continued to have school. We learned about MLK. We visited a few web links, read a bio, created a booklet on the life of MLK, and filled in a writing prompt page. We talked about peace and how we could make peace in our world or our life. This is where I hoped my 12 year old, would have been a little more detailed. The writing template was a dove, since a dove is symbolic of peace, and said "My peace pledge is"....

Brian, 12 years old, who has been getting under my skin in more ways than you can imagine, wrote not more than one sentence. I was quite disappointed in his lack of interests. When I told him, at his age, I expect more of him than this (and referred to his dove) he flat out said "I don't care"... needless to say I got extremely mad, because I think that is his biggest problem. He doesn’t seem to care about anything.

On a better note, though… Emilee responded with “My peace pledge is to be a good example to my little brother, to be nice to my family, and try to obey my mommy and daddy.”

Obviously feeling the utter turmoil in our home, Adrian, my 4 year old responded “My peace pledge is to be peace and quiet, because we need peace and quite.” I nearly cried as he dictated and I wrote.

Tuesday, was of course the Inauguration.  I posted an earlier blog on this. Following that, during creative writing time, we talked about how several people admire President Obama. The oldest two were assigned to write a journal on who they admire. It was like pulling teeth with Brian. He couldn’t think of anyone he admired. We had a long discussion… I told him about several people he knew and why they would be an admiral person. I kind of shamed him a bit, for not thinking better of people. I even used his sister as an example of someone that could be admired. He finally agreed I had a point, and nearly cried. I thought maybe I had a break through…. Whew!

Well, the week continued with some rough patches, but we made it (more details in an earlier blog). Please keep us in your prayers, though! We sure need it!

Friday was a fun day, though. The kids did any necessary testing, and scripture recitations, vacuumed, and dusted their bedrooms, and then we played a few games.  We had the most fun with Human Body Jingo. It fit perfectly with what Brian was studying, so he knew everything and won. He was thrilled.

The other two games, nearly made me feel like a total bone head…lol! We played USA Trivia and Tri-Bond. I did fairly well with USA Trivia, but I still missed more questions than I care to admit.  Tri-Bond on the other hand was horrid. I guess making connections is not a strong suit for this family. LOL! think I’m going to modify this one a bit. If you’ve never heard of it…given three words, you tell what they have in common. I’d give you an example, but I’m latterly working on fumes here… so tired. Maybe next week I’ll post one and see if anyone can get it? Know there has got to be people out there that are really good at that type o’stuff! It’s not me! Lol!

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link