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Special Needs – A Blessing or a Curse?

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I read an article on AP News yesterday, titled “Testing Curbs Some Genetic Diseases” and was stunned by its blatant tone of support for diminishing inherited diseases at any cost, even abortion. Testing Curbs Some Genetic Diseases appears to celebrate the fact that most parents are choosing to forgo bearing a special needs child, by whatever means possible. And by implication leads its readers to believe, “There is nothing good about special needs, God would not want this for you.”

If after reading this article you are as disturbed as I was, then you may find these resources helpful:

CHASK (Christian Homes and Special Kids) – A wonderful resource both for families who cannot care for a special needs child and for the families who would love to.

The Works Of God (The volunteer disability ministry blog for Bethlehem Baptist Church) – John Knight shares an honest, practical, personal, and God-centered view of caring for those with special needs.

If God is Good by Randy Alcorn – for all the questions that articles like this cause: Why is there suffering? Where is God in all of this? How should we think about suffering? What is the point of all this? Etc, etc.

It is so important to have God’s heart on this! Talk about it with your children, explore what they believe and why and then lead them to discover what God’s heart is towards special needs.

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Discipline and Murder

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Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz were arraigned in court last Tuesday, accused of murdering their 7-year-old adopted daughter during a discipline session which occurred the Saturday morning before.

Most disturbing? Apparently the Schatz’s are homeschoolers and their discipline methods can be traced back to Michael and Debbi Pearl’s child training book.

Here are two bloggers’ thoughts on this devastating event which I found helpful: Child Discipline or Child Abuse by Virginia Knowles, and When Parenting Kills by Katiekind.

Read, be informed, and share with your friends. There are many new, well-meaning parents who are looking for instruction and help in parenting. Use your knowledge to help them keep away from this dangerous path.

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Women – What You Ought To Know (By the Brothers Winn)

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In honor of Valentine’s Day this Sunday… here you go!! 🙂

Laugh while you learn and retain 800% more! This Friday’s laugh by The Brothers Winn is titled, “Women.”
Brett and Jedd produce an innovative vodcast,
What You Ought To Know (http://www.whatyououghttoknow.com/show/2008/09/05/women/), covering many and varied topics. Check back next Friday for the next informative installment!!

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Mexican Standoff

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Simeon, one of our employees, has a 23 year-old brother leaving today for a short-term mission trip to Mexico. Titus, this one is for you!!

Laugh while you learn and retain 800% more! This Friday’s laugh by The Brothers Winn is titled, Mexican Standoff. Brett and Jedd produce an innovative vodcast, What You Ought To Know, covering many and varied topics. Check back next Friday for the next informative installment!!

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Super Bowl and Those Who Worship It

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Do you have family or friends for whom Super Bowl Sunday is the “Holiest Day of the Year?” Then you may find this article by Shepherd Press a helpful explanation for why this day is so important to them and why its perceived importance threatens the very happiness your friends and family seek.

The Holiest Day of the Year

Greg Doyle is a writer for CBS Sports. He is a good sports reporter and I enjoy his work. I also believe that he represents what many think about the role of sports in our culture. As you may know, Tim Tebow and his mother are going to be featured in an ad sponsored by Focus on the Family during this year’s Super Bowl. Mr. Doyle provides this description of what he thinks the ad will be like:

“Apparently the commercial has a beautiful, undeniable message. Tebow’s mother suffered a life-threatening infection during that pregnancy, and doctors advised her to abort the baby. She didn’t. She named him Tim. Just typing this paragraph gives me goose bumps. The commercial might just make me cry.”

Yet, Mr. Doyle is offended by the ad. Why? Because it is airing during the Super Bowl. Listen carefully to his reasons for not wanting the ad to run. His comments honestly reflect his priorities.

“And I’m not complaining about the ad because it’s anti-abortion and I’m not. I’m complaining about the ad because it’s pro-politics. And I’m not. Not on Super Sunday. If you’re a sports fan, and I am, that’s the holiest day of the year. That’s a day for five hours of football pregame shows and four hours of football game and three hours of postgame football analysis. That’s a day for football addicts to gorge themselves to the gills on football.

It’s not a day to discuss abortion. For it, against it, I don’t care what you are. On Super Sunday, I don’t care what I am. Feb. 7 is simply not the day to have that discussion.”

This is a clear statement of allegiance. There is deep passion voicing these thoughts. Sports is at the center of Mr. Doyle’s life. He clearly believes there is room for other things—just not on Super Sunday. This view would be fine in a world where man decided his own fate, determined what was moral and what was not, and God was not a jealous God who requires undivided worship and fidelity from man. But that is not the world we live in. We live in God’s world, in which he determines where we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:24-28). So issues like abortion, sexual purity, and personal holiness and righteousness matter every day, even on Super Sunday. The living God of the Bible will not be pre-empted, even for a day.

Despair and difficulty burden many in our culture because they have embraced Mr. Doyle’s worldview. To be sure, he is not the originator of this viewpoint, he is just a subscriber. But living with anything other than God at the center of life is living in the world of idolatry. Idolatry always leads to despair because it can never deliver on the promises it makes. To quote from Tim Keller’s latest book, Counterfeit Gods, idolatry can happen anytime someone takes a good thing and makes it the ultimate thing. In this sense, only God is ultimate, because no one or nothing else can compare to him. Idolatry may focus on things that are evil in themselves, but not necessarily. It can also result from taking something that is good in its proper context (like sports), and making that thing more important than anything else. If I make sports ultimate, to the point where I put aside issues of morality and holiness, then at least three things happen. The first is that sports will become the center of my life. The second is that relationships with others will be secondary to this primary pursuit. The third thing is that sports will turn out to be a cruel god, for it cannot deliver what it is that it promises. So all of the time that has been invested in the pursuit of this idol will come to yield emptiness.

Are Christians ready to state clearly what is most important in life? For Greg Doyle the ultimate thing is sports. But that answer won’t do. God demands all of our worship and attention each day. It does matter whether or not infants are killed in the womb. It does matter whether or not drunkenness is permissible when your team wins the big game. It does matter if you look at women to lust after them. It does matter whether or not God has first place in your life. It does matter whether or not men respond to the gospel.

Next Monday the game will be over. But the real, pressing issues of life will remain. There is only one path that allows you to live in harmony with God’s purposes. That is the path you must point out to your children each day. Jesus Christ is Lord of Lord and King of Kings. The spectacle that is the Super Bowl attempts to say that, just for few hours, something else is ultimate. But that is a lie, an idol that delivers only emptiness. In this sense, the idol of sports is symbolic of any pursuit other than living all of life for the glory of God. As Christians we need to live with fidelity to our King and Savior. We will not be perfect in our pursuit, but we must be consistent with it. May we show our children and people like Greg Doyle what is truly important and fully holy in life. May we take hold of life that is truly life.
—Shepherd Press, Newsletter 85

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Who Are Your Kids Teaching? – January Newsletter

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By January, the anticipation of a new school year has become a distant memory and the remaining months of homeschooling loom either as mountains of drudgery or peaks of delight. While using a relevant curriculum is paramount, I suspect that there is another key element at play here, one that most homeschooling parents would do well to consider.

Whatever your reason for undertaking a task of this great magnitude, the relevant question to consider is how you see your decision to homeschool altering with time? In your wildest dreams, do you think that in years to come government schools will adopt a curriculum that teaches core subjects without promoting hedonistic lifestyles? Do you think it will be as acceptable to have a nine-year-old who does not read as it will be to have an eighteen-month-old who does? Or do you think that private school tuition costs will actually drop? If you share our view that public education is on a downward spiral, then one of your obligations as homeschooling parents is to ensure that your children will know how to teach their children.

The easiest way to accomplish this is to surround your children with teaching opportunities. Because it is easy for children to confuse teaching with bossiness, initially it is helpful to formalize the course of action. Just like you, your teaching children need to see that what they are teaching has value; they need to know that there is a need to know. And your children need a method of accountability, which is best realized by measurable goals. Whether it is teaching the new puppy to come when called or teaching a younger sibling multiplication, be alert to both natural and created opportunities that demand more instructive effort on the part of your children. As your children’s teaching abilities increase, they will discover that teaching others can be a natural part of daily life.

So why not make 2010 the year of learning to teach? Set some concrete goals and enjoy the exciting adventure of raising young teachers!

Timberdoodle Co
Dan, Deb, Joy, Hope, Grace, Abel, and Pearl

P.S. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. How are you cultivating your childrens’ teaching abilities? Join the discussion on Facebook here.

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Family Devotions with Special Needs Children

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In response to an article I recently reposted about family devotions, there was a comment about the difficulty of doing family devotions when your family includes special needs children. This is a very valid and relevant concern, and one that many families are facing, so I will make mention of a few personal experiences.

While our family currently does not have any special needs members, we did have an 8-year-old girl with severe autism live with us for about a year. I acknowledge that our experience is limited but here are a couple of things we found helpful.

When Krissy came to stay with us…
Krissy was severely autistic with few words, many destructive behaviors, and endless energy. What we would teach a typical child by accident could be taught to Krissy, but required us to break it down into simple steps and have rigorous follow-up. We used this approach during family devotions.

During our family devotion time, we did not focus on Krissy’s understanding but rather tailored it for the rest of our family while insisting that Krissy cooperate by staying quiet and seated during devotions. Starting with short times, we were able to eventually achieve this.
But a quiet child during devotions does not necessarily mean a spiritually inclined child, so we made sure to include appropriate devotions specifically for her throughout the day.

We went through simple Bible Story books, simply read or retold the stories in her language, often demonstrating or acting out the ones we could. We especially liked the Big Picture Story Bible because of its God-centered chronological approach.

During Christmas we used a picture Bible advent book, each day we reread the previous pages and added a new one.
Because Krissy began to read while she was with us, we also had her read the Scripture passage daily until she had it memorized, but even if your child is not a reader just reading it to them or having them repeat it line by line would be wonderful ways to give them familiarity and eventually memorization of God’s Word.

We also took pictures as we acted out Bible stories and scrapbooked them for her to look at over and over. Our thought was that the more stories she knew by heart the more we would have to reference to and to help her pull together. Eventually she would enjoy talking about them with us and we could gradually get to deeper meanings the more she grew in understanding.

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If we had it to do over again, I think we would also have started using a simple toddler Bible Story book during family devotions. It would not have hurt the family to listen and Krissy would then have been able to have a more active part not merely passive.

So what would we recommend for families with special needs children if we were asked?

Commit to a family devotion time, lay down the rules for participation and then follow through. This may mean that for a month all you do is try and maintain control. Children with special needs need to be shown, just as typical children do, that we were made for God and that God comes first. If we never demonstrate this for them, even in the smallest of ways such as insisting on family devotions, then how can we hope that they will eventually somehow understand?

For an active child maybe invest in some felt Bible figures or window cling-ons and tell the stories multiple times until they can tell/act it themselves.

Don’t over analyze it, you can grow with the process, just start and as you see different ways it could work better, change.

But don’t neglect the more mature members (dad and mom, etc) in your family. Maybe you could give the child a puzzle, etc, to work on in the same room during the  advanced devotions and then pull them in with one tailored for them.

Don’t feel like you have to have a “traditional” family devotion time, but do make sure that everybody in your family has the opportunity to learn more about God together so that you can encourage each other, hold each other accountable and proclaim with your actions that Jesus is your life.

KAngelpointing

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Family Devotions

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If your family is like ours, you likely have been looking into what your family will be doing for family devotions in the next year.

But one issue that can cause trouble for family devotions is how to include and apply them for all ages in your family. We have done different things over the years, for example using both an older and a younger devotional, which everybody listens too, this way both ages are fed but everybody has gathered together and everybody has a common knowledge now to work from.

A couple of months ago I read an article on family devotions by Voddie Baucham which I thought had some very helpful points/tips for family devotions with younger children. Take a minute and read it, I hope you find it as practical as I did.

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Making Camel Bags

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There are dozens of ways to make camel bags. Ours are very crudely made and yet have served us well for many, many years.
Here is what you will need:

-2 yards of burlap

-glue gun

-coarse glitter

Fold in half lengthwise, for easier cutting and cut so that the finished piece measures 72 by 24 inches. We drape our bags over the back of our dining room chairs. If your chairs are appreciably wider or narrower, you may want to adjust the second measurement. Measuring The Burlap
Using a glue gun, glue along all the edges and fold over about 1 inch so that the burlap does not
unravel.
Glue The Edges, then...

fold it over

Fold over 16 inches from each narrow end. These will form the pockets for your camel bag. Using the glue gun, glue and finger press these pockets down. making pockets
On the outside of one of the pockets, use a permanent marker and write the name of the child. Writing The Name
Trace the name with the glue gun and sprinkle heavily with large course glitter, carefully pressing the glitter into the burlap. If your burlap is woven especially loose, you may wish to slip a piece of cardboard into the pocket first, to prevent the pocket from being glued shut. Personalizing
Shake off the excess glitter. Remove Excess Glitter
Hang and enjoy! Finished!
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