Showing posts with label Why?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Why?. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Raising Olives is Moving

Ok, take a deep breath and get ready for some action. Raising Olives is moving. Come visit the new Raising Olives and then change your links, favorites, bookmarks, feeds, or whatever you use to read Raising Olives, you don't want to miss out on all the action.

I will be leaving this site up, but all new posts will be over there. Come on, what are you waiting for http://raisingolives.com/, move it!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Reasons We Have a Large Family

In no particular order:

1. When God said, "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord...Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them (Psalm 127)", we believe He meant it.

2. World domination.

3. We know what causes it.

This post has moved to our new website. Read the rest of this post or visit our new homepage.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Our Hot House

When plants are young and fragile you put them in a hot house where you can control the climate they are in and the conditions to which they are subjected. In the hot house they are able to grow strong and well. They are cared for and nourished in a special way.

Our family was blessed to begin our journey in a hot house. Our home church was a place where loving God and loving your family was expected, where desiring God's blessing of children was taught, understood and practiced. A place where fathers were the leaders of their homes and where parents took their responsibility to educate and train their children seriously. It was a place where the word of God was faithfully proclaimed and was the standard by which we attempted to measure everything.

It was our hot house. Our place to learn and mature and grow strong, a place unlike any other that we have known. It was not a perfect place, you know that. It was a place full of sinners saved by grace, but it was a place where we were taught and we learned so very much from our brothers and sisters in Christ. Of course, our journey is not over, we have not arrived, but now, now we are planted in a different place.

Why am I telling you this? Because this place, this hot house, made us what we are today. Our family was not remarkable back in the hot house. There were many other families doing what we are doing. This blog is simply a conglomeration of what we have learned from others. It is not only our wisdom that we share, it is also the wisdom of the other families who were learning and growing with us in the supportive and nurturing environment.

Three and a half years ago God moved us to a place where we were outside of our comfort zone. A place where we had reach out to look for others who were traveling our path. Through that experience, we learned that there are many travelers who believe they are alone and do not know that there are others who have the same aspirations and goals.

Knowing that you are not alone on this path of following God and attempting to submit to His word in every area of your life brings comfort, encouragement, and peace. We want to share a little of this here. A little of that hot house of encouragement and love, a place to learn and grow and know that you are not alone. There are others who are on the path learning and struggling and growing also. There are families farther along the path from whom we can gather so much wisdom and there are those who have just started who could use a helping hand.

We want to thank our home church friends and family for teaching us, being examples for us and praying for us. Thank you for being willing to invest in us. Please keep it up, we have a lot to learn.

Read more about our background here.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Before the Beginning

I was home schooled as a child. That was back when people asked if homeschooling was legal, when mom didn't allow us to go outside until after the schools let out, and when our neighbors called CPS because they noticed that we weren't getting on the school bus. That was also back when many curriculum publishers did not sell books to homeschoolers and there certainly was not any curricula written or designed for homeschoolers. I was home schooled back in the dark ages of homeschooling.

God used the amazing experience of my mother being diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live at the age of 35, to push our family into homeschooling. My mom was thirty-five years old and pregnant with her fifth child. I was the oldest at eleven.

This post has moved to our new blog. Read the rest of Before the Beginning: Our journey to homeschool or go to the homepage of the new Raising Olives.