Teach Me Thy Paths

Shhh!!! It is quiet time and two of my three kiddos are actually sleeping!  Phebe and Ian are snoozing peacefully, and Martha went with Daddy on an adventure to the Post Office!  So here I am typing as fast as my little fingers can go, so I can post this before someone needs me!  Hee!  Hee!
Today I would like to share with you about a brand new website.  It is a website that is designed to help Sunday School teachers, missionaries, or anyone who finds themselves teaching a children's class or needing a visual for a lesson you already have prepared.  My dear friend Sandra Means (whom I admire and respect and love greatly!) has put together a website called Teach Me Thy Paths.  She has Sunday School lessons, visuals, coloring sheets, and other resources.  I am so excited to have a website I can go to that already has materials with verses in the King James Version!  She has even graciously added a section of coloring pages done in Spanish! (I can hardly wait to put those to use!)  She is still adding information to the website, so check back often!  If you have questions for Sandra about something you are looking for, please feel free to contact her.  I trust her website will be a blessing to you as it already has been for me.
Have a Beautiful Day!

Teaching and Training

"As the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so is a man to his praise." Proverbs 27:21

Yep, I'm still reading through Proverbs!  It's hard to believe January is almost gone!  I'm already pondering and asking the Lord which book to study next, but I believe this year I will read Proverbs with along with every other book I read this year.  When the new year began, I thought I'd try to read my Bible all the way through....now that the first month is almost gone, I'm thinking I'd be better equipped to teach and train if I just studied 12 books (one for every month) and Proverbs.  So that's my goal for this year.

Recently, a friend and I were sharing some of the challenges of raising our children for the Lord.  The Lord reminded me that I cannot stand still in the "Motherhood Department."  If I want my children to succeed for the Lord, I have to wisely teach them and train them.  One of the areas that I have noticed is most effective (at least with my kiddos) is PRAISE!!  My kids thrive on praise!  I was reminded of that when I read Proverbs 27:21 this morning.  Just as the refining process is for the good of the gold, praise is for the good of man (who doesn't like to be praised?).
I have noticed when I praise my children, they try even harder to do right.  When I nag at them.....well, they're like me - they just want to skate by - doing the minimum requirements!
Martha and Ian love to help wash the dishes, and when we're NOT in a hurry, we let them help!  Last night I had Martha set the table for supper (one of her normal responsibilities) and I noticed the silverware were out of place.  As I looked at the table, two thoughts came to my mind:  1.  Martha didn't do her job right!  2.  I have never taken the time to SHOW her the right way to set the silverware!  So, I took a few moments, showed her the proper way to set the silverware, then let her correct the other places settings...and I remembered to praise her for a job well done!
We are training our children to respond with "Yes/No, Ma'am/Sir" when spoken to.  Ian forgets many times (as does Martha), but I have noticed that when I praise him for remembering by himself to respond the proper way, the next time he is even faster to respond the right way!
How thankful I am in my own life for the God-given gift of PRAISE!!  What a blessing to have praise to use to help teach and train our children to serve the Lord!

School Days

For quite some time, Martha had been asking me if she could have "school."  So for a while we were having "school" whenever I could fit it into the schedule (she is only 3 after all!)  Then I decided to schedule school into weeks - choosing Mondays and Fridays as the best days for school!  Martha was thrilled!  Well, when she discovered there was more to it than just coloring, THAT was another story!  But we continued and she began learning her numbers and letters.  Praise the Lord, for that has helped her tremendously!  She always wants to know what something says so I told her when she learned her letters, then she could learn to read!
Then one of the missionary wives told me Martha could go to the class they have here for her age.  Mateo and Benjamin are the same age as Martha and they are learning English.  Matt and I talked it over, decided to let her go, and told her the glorious news!  She's been going to school for about a week now.  The first day she came home from school she was sad!  I couldn't imagine what had happened, so I questioned her about it.  It turned out she was disappointed because she didn't get a lollipop!  It wasn't even a comfort that the boys didn't get one either!  I realized she had confused "School" with "Sunday School" since we always refer to her Sunday School class as "Class."  Oops!  We've cleared up the confusion, and now it is smooth sailing!

I took her down to school the first couple of days, but now she goes by herself.  Sometimes Daddy walks her to school.  She is enjoying it.  She starts at 8 a.m. and is done by 10:15. She came home yesterday and was telling me all about Nicky Narwhal - the animal that goes with the letter "N."

Ian misses her dreadfully.  His first question every morning is usually, "Where's Martha?"  I can usually count on answering that question at least a dozen times before Martha comes home!  Sometimes I don't get Ian up until after Martha has already left for school.  If he happens to be up and around when she leaves - he sets up quite a howl for Martha!

Mommy misses her dreadfully, too!  Martha really isn't that far away, but to Mommy it seems like a million miles, and those two hours are the slowest ones of my day!  On Mondays, Daddy preaches in chapel for the Deaf students, so we try to go down to see him preach.  Right now he is teaching through the story of Naaman.

Now if I could just teach Ian that not every color is YELLOW......