Vote now for the 2009 Homeschool Blog Awards. The nominations are in and voting has begun for the annual Homeschool Blog Awards. Check out the list of nominees and vote for your favorites until midnight on November 21st. You may find some new favorites along the way - I know I did. Have fun!
This Sunday, November 8, is "Orphan Sunday". As you are aware, this is a topic very dear to our hearts. Please pray and consider how God wants you to be involved in this "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:27). It may be by praying fervently for the orphans and the families who adopt or care for them. It may be by financially or materially supporting orphan ministry or adoptive/foster families. It may be God is calling you to be one of the families that make a personal difference in an orphan's life through adoption. Whatever God calls you to, be courageous and embrace it. Each of us has a vital part to play - I encourage you to do your part wholeheartedly.
It's that time of year again. Time to pick your favorite homeschool sites for the Homeschool blog awards. I had a lot of fun voting last year and am excited to submit my favorites again this year. To read all about the awards and guidelines, click the logo above. Have fun and lets get busy blessing our favorite homeschool bloggers!
"Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit" - Wilma Rudolph
The video below made me weep - yes, a commercial reduced me to tears. Okay, so that has happened before, but a shampoo commercial? It reminds me of how God uses the weak and seemingly insignificant among us to confound the wise. Watch it and be inspired. Oh, and if you are like me, have tissues ready.
Today, October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Too often, those of us who said goodbye to precious little ones this early in life are forced to grieve in silence. Long after the initial loss, the pain is still there, but it is far enough away in other peoples minds, that they have forgotten. It's not that they don't care, but when you haven't borne something like this yourself, it's easy to put it aside and move on to other things. Mothers don't forget. We still feel the pain of loss years later. I am grateful someone realized this and established this official day of remembrance. It helps to not feel so alone. Memories are easier to carry when you don't carry them alone.
My husband and I have been blessed with six children, four of whom we knew only briefly en-utero. They are waiting to welcome us home to heaven someday. They were not with us long enough to know their gender, so we don't have names for them, but they are precious to us nonetheless.
Remembered with love:
Baby H - July 2001
Baby H - June 2002
Baby H - September 2007
Baby H - August 2008
I was just blessed with a fun blog award from Bronwyn. I never expected to get any kind of award, so this is a fun surprise. My part is to answer the questions below with one word answers, so here goes:
#1. Where is your cell phone? purse
#2. Your hair? brown
#3. Your mother? unique
#4. Your father? steady
#5. Your favorite food? potatoes
#6. Your dream last night? weird
#7. Your favorite drink? tea
#8. Your dream/goal? family
#9. What room are you in? living
#10. Your hobby? genealogy
#11. Your fear? expectations
#12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? family
#13. Where were you last night? home
#14. Something you aren’t? perfect
#15. Muffins? chocolate
#16. Wish list item? books
#17. Where did you grow up? California
#18. Last thing you did? gardening
#19. What are you wearing? turtleneck
#20. Your TV? off
#21. Your pets? none
#22. Your friends? blessings
#23. Your life? unexpected
#24. Your mood? tired
#25. Missing someone? babies
#26. Vehicle? car
#27. Something you’re not wearing? makeup
#28. Your favorite store? bookstore
#29. Your favorite color? blue
#30. When was the last time you laughed? today
#31. Last time you cried? today
#32. Your best friend? Jesus
#33. One place that I go over and over? Psalms
#34. One person who emails me regularly? friend
#35. Favorite place to eat? Panera
Wow it was harder than I thought to answer with single words. It was fun though! Thanks Bronwyn!
I just downloaded a free resource from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine (my favorite) and I wanted to share it with you. Just click the link above to get your copy. Enjoy!
Where does the time go? I'm amazed that it is the end of September already. I meant to blog at the end of each school week and summarize what we learned, but that idea got lost in the shuffle really fast. I still want to do a recap of each week - we'll see how this week goes. For now, I'll give a brief summary of this past month, in a nutshell (the "natives" are getting restless):
The first week of the month was spent in doctor appointments and an eye exam under anesthesia (DS won't cooperate to have a regular eye exam & doesn't understand why we need to do them either), and a parent/teacher welcome & info meeting before the EI preschool year starts.
On September 6 my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. Wow! That's very rare in this day and age, sadly. DS started his weekly EI preschool class again that week. We also had a formal ASD (autism spectrum disorder) screening for him, followed by an official diagnosis [sigh]. I haven't processed all that data yet (emotionally or mentally).
Our first official day of school was September 14. On Mon/Wed/Fri mornings while DS is at his preschool class, I get to work one-on-one with DD. After lunch on weekdays, and on Tue/Thu we get to have "school" together. We cut our school-week short to go visit grandma and help make applesauce. Even DS helped! It's yummy too!
Since our first week of school was cut short (lesson wise), I decided to push our calendar of lessons back a week and continue week one the following week. This proved to be a good idea since we are still trying to get used to the new "school-time" routine and not everything works as scheduled. We also received the doctor's report from DS's autism screening (still trying to absorb all that info).
And now this week - yesterday was picture day at the EI preschool. Last year DS did very well (he loves getting his picture taken - I think its the flash he loves more than anything), so I am eager to see the photos from this year. We have had two good days for school-time, and I am hopeful that the rest of the week will go as well (or better?). I'll have to let you know...
I am so excited! I just finished creating my first bulletin board. I wanted to make something attractive and also inspiring to decorate the one really "school-y" thing in our learning area (aka: the living room & kitchen). I looked at several bulletin board ideas posted online and saw several that were intriguing. I knew I wanted something autumnal, creative but not too complicated (didn't want to spend hours working on it), and I wanted something that would suit several months (or the whole year, perhaps?).
Finally I decided on a tree, but not just any tree. Ours would have fruit or leaves (or something) on it labeled with some of the different things the children would be learning. And I wanted some kind of title to go with it. Some of the ideas I toyed with and later set aside were:
Fall-ing for Learning - cute, but I didn't like the implied randomness; I'm pretty deliberate about our learning (semantics, I know, but it irritated me)
Harvest of Learning - nice, but we're sowing the seeds here; not quite ready to reap the harvest
Nuts about Learning (with acorns) - liked the idea of using something other than fruit, but I have enough people thinking we're a little crazy because of our homeschooling and lifestyle choices without plastering a synonym on our bulletin board (yes, semantics again...)
The Fruit of Learning - not bad; I almost went with this one except when I thought about it, the academic subjects are tools for learning, not the fruit of it.
Soooooo....
I decided on "Our Learning Tree".
I made red and yellow circles out of construction paper for apples and labled them with some of the academic subjects and character traits the children will be learning this year. The tree trunk and a couple side branches are just rectangles of brown construction paper. I drew random lines and knotholes to make it look a little more like tree bark. For the leaves I cut puffy cloud-like shapes out of two shades of green construction paper and fiddled around with their placement until I liked how it looked. To finish it, I drew a few random leaf shapes on the greenery, stuck a few individual leaves on the apples, and for the piece-de-resistance, added some little sparkly fall leaves from our Autumn decor stash. The last detail was the title of our bulletin board. I sketched the letters roughly on blue construction paper, cut them out, and pinned them up (I stapled all these elements to the bulletin board - a trick I learned from a school teacher years ago). The result is what you see above. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I hope you like it too.
These past few weeks have been full. We've been enjoying the summer weather while it lasts and I've been busy as a bee getting our things ready for the new school year. Below is an overview of what I've been working on lately:
I've been fine-tuning and implementing the much anticipated family "schedule". I got the "Managers of Their Homes" (MOTH) book for my birthday in July and after reading and digesting the detailed and very helpful information a couple of times, I started putting together our schedule. Let me just say that I LOVE this system - it is so helpful to me! I've tried to use several other styles of routines/schedules in the past and they've all flopped. We've been taking the baby steps and slowly adding more parts of our MOTH schedule as we get used to it and it's working. I'm getting a lot more accomplished and feeling much more organized - it's great! We're not done yet (there are some blank spots yet to plan) and we haven't got to where we're doing the whole thing, but we're headed in the right direction.
I've been sorting through our books and supplies and organizing our shelves again. Now things are easier to find as we need them.
I bought a 6-pack of magazine storage boxes to help organize our school books/materials (see blue boxes on bottom row above). They have been very helpful, and I wanted to be able to organize some more things that way, but couldn't bring myself to spend the $$ for them at the store. Thankfully I saw an idea for using empty cereal boxes and decided to make some storage boxes.
I started with several of these:
And after several days of cutting, gluing, papering, and drying, I had several of these:
Normally I wouldn't choose a modern circle pattern paper (I'm very much an "old-fashioned" girl), but the main paper I had on hand to cover the boxes was brown kraft paper, and the blue & green circles matched my decor, while the beige/brown circles matched the kraft paper - so it works. And in case anyone is wondering, I used larger size cereal/cracker boxes such as one gets from the big warehouse stores. These were sufficiently deep to hold 8x11 or slightly larger papers & materials (like a plethora of coloring books!). It also took longer than I anticipated because I had to keep clearing off the kitchen table so we could eat there at mealtime (imagine that!), but they're finally done - until I decide I need some more!
I've also been inspired by the workbox idea that so many are talking about. I have neither the book or the floor space to implement the full system, but one homeschool mom showed how she adapted it to use with a portable file box, and I thought that would just suit us to a tee. For the moment, the children's boxes are holding their school materials - pink for her and blue for him (what can I say, I'm a traditionalist!).
My box (in the center) has the only empty hanging folders I could find - thankfully, there are 5, one for each day of the school week. I have labled them Monday through Friday and color coded them to match the folders inside. In each day there are 3 clear folders (I got the package of 15 folders on clearance at the office supply store for $4). Since the folders have three different tab positions in 5 different colors, I matched the color with the day of the week and labled each of the three tab positions for each of us. Mine are the first tab on the far left, DD is the middle tab, and DS is the far right tab. That way I can see at a glance whose folder is out for any given day. And because they are heavy-duty plastic they should hold up to repeated handling pretty well.
So far I plan on using this to assemble the basic materials/papers needed for each day of the week to go with our curriculum, rather than dividing it up each day. This is our first "official" year, so I want to take it easy and not try to do too much all at once. In our state, record keeping is required when a child enters first grade (or is age 8, whichever comes first). Since we're doing K & PreK levels this year, I plan on keeping my records as if I had to for state requirements (like I will have to next year), as a practice run for record keeping. My hope is that by the time next year rolls around, I will have a pretty good handle on maintaining regular records and it won't seem so daunting when I need to have them for state requirements.
I've also been exercising my creative muscles and creating some visual charts/displays to use in our daily school routine. I have a bulletin board mounted on the wall above my computer. I cleared it off and am prettying it up to use for school stuff...
The border above the bulletin board is a Susan Winget border I found at Michaels in their new teacher stuff section. I love Susan Winget's artwork! I cut the scalloped ABC border from black cardstock and used a white paint pen to write the letters. The type of letter I used is the D'Nelian style font. I really like the contrast and how it looks like a chalkboard around the edges. I also have the numerals from 0-9 along the bottom of the frame.
Like many others in homeschool blogland, I found some handy pocket charts in Target's dollar section. I used one to make a chart of our daily routines:
I got tired of the endless, "Is it time for lunch?" and "When are we doing ------?" questions. There are only 8 rows, but it is enough to list our main morning-afternoon activities. It will also help my DD practice reading the clock. Each activity has the time beside it (not shown) and she can just check the clock to see if the time matches. I added pictures beside each event to help recognize the different activities since I have pre-readers on my hands.
The other chart I will be using as a learning chart to help us review what we are learning each week:
I am using the Sonbeams curriculum I was blessed to receive in March as our "spine". I will be adding things & adapting it to make it more challenging for DD and simplifying it for DS. The 26 week curriculum follows a letter of the alphabet each week, the numerals from 0-25, a color a week for the first 11 weeks, a shape a week for the next 10 weeks, and finishes up with various gross motor & fine motor skills. I'll share in another post some of the modifications I am making to fit our family, but that's the program in a nutshell.
Finally, I have put together a Calendar Board to use at the begining of our school day. I made this on a tri-fold board for several reasons: 1) we don't have the wall space to hang it (and it won't stay put if I hang it on the glass door in the kitchen - condensation is the enemy of adhesive); 2) DH prefers not to have dozens of school things scattered everywhere, so I wanted something I could put away each day; 3) and having something we take out each morning helps make the start of our "school time" feel a little more official.
I found the calendar numbers/months at the dollar store. I am using black velcro to attach the calendar pieces because they are easier for DS to see. It may not be the prettiest, but high contrast materials are a must with low-vision. I realize it is not yet September 1st - I added them for the photo shoot.
Here is a close up of the right hand side:
Besides doing the calendar, we will recite the salutes to the American flag, Christian flag and the Bible (a tradition I'm bringing in from my own homeschool days). I have the US flag picture mounted on the left hand side of the board and the Christian flag & Bible pictures here on the right. If you look closely you will notice that the bottom of the pictures is not attached. I mounted them so they can flip up and we can read the words of the salute underneath (in case I forget sometime). I've also printed out and mounted on cardstock several verses that I want to be a theme or motto for our learning.
On the left hand side (below the US flag) I have another verse and pockets to put the numbers in Chinese & French we'll be learning with our dates. Why Chinese & French? Well, DS was born in China and I have French ancestry. We'll also be learning the colors in Chinese & French, but more on that another time. To make the clear pockets for the number cards I used one of my clear sheet protector pages, cut to size, and taped to the cardstock with clear packing tape. I wanted a clear pocket that would survive repeated handling and this seemed to fit the bill. We'll see how it holds up to daily use - I may do this part myself just so I know it won't be mauled by eager little fingers.
Well, those are all the things I have pictures for. I've also been typing up lists, school calendar activities, title pages for the children's learning notebooks, and ironing out the lesson plan details. It's been fun (and I'm not quite done yet), but I'm glad I have this "practice" year before the formal "you must keep records" stuff really begins, because even this simplified planning has been a lot of work. Much of that is due to planning for a regular K level child and a special needs PreK child schooling together, and I hope that gets easier with time and experience.
A little over a week ago I took DD with me for a weekend visit with my parents and to celebrate my Great-grand Aunt D's 95th birthday. Five years ago family and close friends got together to celebrate her 90th birthday, and we took our 4 month old DD to meet her Great-great-grand Aunt. Aunt D is my Great-grandmother's sister and a sweeter soul would be hard to find. We were so blessed to be able to celebrate with her.
For her 90th birthday I made a little scrapbook with a two-page spread for each decade of her life. I included pictures and journaling about the milestones in her life along with newsy tidbits about culture/society/history each decade. It was a lot of fun to put together - and my how things have changed since the early 20th century. This year I framed a two-page digital scrapbook spread I created showing how our family has grown in the past five years. I think it turned out pretty nice, do you?
The large circle photo on the far left (under the title, "5 years of blessings") shows me with Aunt D holding our 4 month old DD at her 90th birthday party five years ago. Below is a picture of our 5 year old DD with Aunt D at her 95th birthday party. My how she's grown!
As much as she enjoyed seeing Aunt D again, there was one thing she loved even more - meeting new cousins her age (a nice surprise) and a little one about the same size she was 5 years ago...
Our DD absolutely LOVES babies! The sweet little one she's holding above is just a few weeks younger than she was herself at Aunt D's 90th birthday five years ago. They made a darling picture.
This morning we packed up the children and took them on a little mystery trip. Telling the children we had a very special surprise for them, we drove to a church south of the city where our local Christian radio station was hosting the Pittsburgh premiere of the newest Veggie Tales movie, "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella". Since our children (especially DS) are fans of the wacky veggies, we decided to brave the crowd and hope that seeing his favorite characters on a big screen would distract DS from being overwhelmed by people and keep him quiet. Praise God our hopes were not unfounded! I knew DD would do fine, but wasn't so sure of her little brother. However, once he realized the Veggies were on that big screen, he sat spellbound and largely, quiet! Sure, in his excitement he bounced and flapped his hands, but in the relative darkness of the auditorium, it did not distract anyone. Whenever he did turn around on my lap to tell me a word he heard or something he saw, his voice was masked by the movie and sometimes another child nearby doing the same thing. He made it through almost the whole movie. I had to take him out during about the last 5 minutes because he wanted to get down and go and was starting to get anxious. But even then, we got to see the last part of the movie because there were TV screens in the lobby outside the auditorium. God is good!
I like the old paths, when Moms were at home. Dads were at work. Brothers went into the army. And sisters got married BEFORE having children! Crime did not pay; Hard work did; And people knew the difference.
Moms could cook; Dads would work; Children would behave.
Husbands were loving; Wives were supportive; And children were polite. Women wore the jewelry; And Men wore the pants. Women looked like ladies; Men looked like gentlemen; And children looked decent.
Cursing was wicked; Drugs were for illness; And divorce was unthinkable.
The flag was honored; America was beautiful; And God was welcome!
We read the Bible in public; Prayed in school; And preached from house to house.
To be called an American was worth dying for; To be called a Christian was worth living for; To be called a traitor was a shame!
Preachers preached because they had a message; And Christians rejoiced because they had the VICTORY!
Preachers preached from the Bible; Singers sang from the heart; And sinners turned to the Lord to be SAVED!
A new birth meant a new life; Salvation meant a changed life; Following Christ led to eternal life.
Being a preacher meant you proclaimed the word of God; Being a deacon meant you would serve the Lord; Being a Christian meant you would live for Jesus; And being a sinner meant someone was praying for you!
Laws were based on the Bible; Homes read the Bible; And churches taught the Bible.
God was worshiped; Christ was exalted; And the Holy Spirit was respected..
Church was where you found Christians on the Lord's day, rather than in the garden, on the creek bank, on the golf course, Or being entertained somewhere else.
Last week was VERY full. DS had his July week of EI preschool in the morning on M-W-F (one week each month during June, July & August) and in the evenings all week (M-F) we attended VBS at a friends church. I say "we" because I was there to help DS so he could participate. The curriculum was Operation Space from Answers in Genesis and everything from decorations, to crafts, to games, to drama, music and lessons was about the Bible all wrapped up in an outer space theme. The children loved it (hey, even I had a great time!) and DS participated in almost every part of each day. I had to take him out of the class during lesson time because he would not sit still & quiet, but that was near the end of the evening and that's not his best time of day anyway. The children were "cadets" in B.A.S.I.C. Training for the week, learning facts about God's awesome universe as well as foundational truths about God's Word.
B.A.S.I.C. stands for:
Book of Books - the Bible is the most important book, bar none Absolute Authority - when the Bible talks about something, it's right - all the time Salvation Story - why we need a Saviour and how Christ came to save us Incredible Impact - the amazing influence the Bible has had in history and us personally Cadet Challenge - encouraging children to read the Bible from cover to cover & live what they learn
I am so glad we were able to participate in this VBS (even though it was in the evenings). I am thouroughly impressed with the curriculum that Answers in Genesis developed and blessed by the friends we got to hang out with for the week. I'm already looking forward to next year!
Well a few posts back I mentioned that I had recently spent two weeks in China and that when I recovered I would have something to share. Well I'm here to make good on that promise. I won't go into all the details about the trip - some things are a little sensitive given the country I was visiting - but one of the things we did while we were there was to visit an English training school. Schoolteachers from the countryside were given the opportunity to come into a city and study English for two years. Upon graduation from this program they return to their villages as English teachers. We were invited to visit this school for two days and talk with the students so they could practice their English with us.
We were asked to bring something to share with them about our families, where we live, our jobs and the like. We were not allowed, however, to openly share our faith. I did not know how I could talk about my family without sharing how God's hand was in everything so I decided to share about our home state - Pennsylvania. Since they asked that we bring photos, and anyone can look at and enjoy pictures even if they don't understand all the words, I decided to make a lapbook on Pensylvania to bring with me.
I thought an overview of the basics of Pennsylvania history, people and places with lots of color and pictures would at least be interesting, and a lapbook is flat so it wouldn't take much room or be too heavy for my suitcase (space and weight are at a premium when you travel overseas - especially these days).
So this is my second lapbook - you can read about my first lapbook here. I used the free Pennsylvania lapbook files from Homeschool Helper with very few modifications. I found the free PA lapbook by typing "pennsylvania lapbook" in the Google search box. It was one of the top search results. Then I supplemented their graphics with some images of Pennsylyvania and the topics in the lapbook, also found using the Google search. Some of the clip-art in the lapbook files was a little cartoony and since I was making this to share with adults, I thought I'd "mature" it just a little. I didn't want to change too much because I didn't have time and I wanted my children to enjoy looking at it too.
I made my lapbook base by refolding two file folders shutter style, so their flaps met in the center, then I glued the two folders together along one of the side flaps. I chose blue and red to reflect the colors on the PA flag, our country's colors and because I like red & blue together. I won't describe every part of the lapbook shown below because you can see all that on the Homeschool Helper PA lapbook page, but I will tell about the things I did a little differently so this lapbook would be a tiny bit more "grown-up".
Here I have the lapbook open face down so you can see the front (blue) and back (red) covers. I found several images of Pennsylvania symbols and state postcards online and resized and printed them to fit the cover. I wrote "Pennsylvania" in blue sharpie on the front and enveloped it in clear contact paper to protect it from travel wear & tear. I chose the scripty lettering for the title to satisfy my love of flowy, swirly fonts. I think it looks pretty, don't you?
Next we can see inside the front (blue folder) section:
And the back (red folder) section:
Pretty much all the white elements you see in the above photos are printed from the Homeschool Helper site. I just printed them on regular white paper, cut them out and mounted them in the lapbook. Normally I would use cardstock for the mini-books, but I did not have white cardstock and I needed to assemble this on rather short notice. Some of the pictures and a few elements are mounted on colored cardstock for stability, but most everything was just glued in as is. It works for an adults lapbook that won't be mauled by children, but I really prefer cardstock for the mini-books.
In the photo just above there is a picture I colored of an Amish style quilt pattern. This is the cover to a one-page flip book. Inside is a very brief description of the Pennsylvania Dutch people - the Amish. Above that is a photo of a scene in Amish country. The Homeschool Helper element for the Pennsylvania Dutch was a mini book with clipart, but I wanted something that really reflected something of the people.
Below the info on the Amish is a picture of a PA licence plate. I saw this idea in another homeschooler's state lapbook and thought it would be a fun touch. They do have cars in China and I thought they might like to see what one of our licence plates looked like.
Lastly, in the center of the red folder section, near the top right, is a mini-book about the famous battles in PA. I put a picture of Washington at Valley Forge behind the title on the cover, and inside are about a half dozen little pages with a very brief description of several battles that occurred on PA soil. If I remember correctly, the Homeschool Helper element for this was a one page journal block with clipart.
The other elements I added or changed a little are described with photos below.
The photo above shows the inside of the Pennsylvania state symbols flap-booklet. The instructions were to write the names of each symbol under the flap, but since I didn't know how many of these items would be familiar to the students, I found a picture of each item and glued them inside with an arrow from the name to it's picture.
Above is a page I made about the Liberty Bell. The Homeschool Helper page has links to a couple resources but not really any mini-books. I found a couple pictures of the bell - one I colored and glued to a pocket, and the other was a photo I made as the background for my data sheet on the bell. The info sheet folds up neatly and fits in the pocket.
On the other side of the red folder I have information about the Native Indian tribes that originally lived in the area. I think the Homeschool Helper element for this was a tab-top flip book with clipart. The area of China we went to is very artistic (music and handcrafts) so I wanted to show something artistic. In the fourth photo of the inside of the lapbook you can see I found a picture of some Indian beadwork for the outside of this mini-book. Above, you can see inside. The main Indian tribes lived along rivers (and generally had names to reflect these locations) so I included a picture of what a typical PA river looks like and a little map of Pennsylvania with the main rivers associated with the tribes marked.
The photo above and just below here show four famous documents that were written in Pennsylvania. The photo further up with the whole two page spread shows the little pocket I made to store these "documents". The graphic on the pocket came from the Homeschool Helper page, but I can't remember what the whole thing was, I just remember it wasn't quite what I wanted to use. Instead I found images of these documents online, printed them and mounted them on info cards I made. Basically I wanted to have the name of the document, who wrote it, when, where and briefly, why it was written. I had to be very careful here to keep to just the facts - thankfully, no one asked me to elaborate.
Finally, I added a liberal sprinkling of shiny star stickers to make it a little more festive. I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my Pennsylvania lapbook. I had fun making it and sharing it with the teacher-students.
I am profoundly grateful for the sacrifices made by our founding fathers and our brave military through the years. Because of their courage, vision and sacrifice we have been blessed to enjoy such freedom in this country that many others can only dream of. But there is a greater freedom that has been purchased for us - in blood. Christ paid the ultimate price for our sins so we could be free from sin & death and live eternally with Him. However thankful I am to be a free American, it pales in comparison to my gratitude for Christ's sacrifice in my behalf. Remember those who sacrificed to keep our country free and the One who gave Himself so we could truly be free - forever. May God bless you this Independence Day!
I just watched Ken Ham's "State of the Nation" address online. In it he discusses why America has wandered so far from her roots in Biblical values and Judeo-Christian principles and what needs to be done to remedy it. It is excellent and I encourage you to find an hour and listen to it: "State of the Nation" address with Ken Ham
THE OLD PATHS
