Hatchet

Hatchet, Gary Paulsen

This great series of 5 books by Gary Paulsen are about survival in the wilderness and would suit kids aged 10-15. They are quite short, so a keen reader will devour each in an hour or two. However because of that, they would also be excellent for reluctant readers, or to read aloud.

In Hatchet, Brian Robeson, age 13, is in a small aircraft on his way to visit his dad in the Canadian wilderness. A fatal heart attack strikes the pilot and Brian is forced to crash land. As he escapes the wreckage of the plane with only a hatchet attached to his belt, he learns first hand what he needs to survive on his own.

There are then 4 more: Hatchet: The Return (also called The River) – when he returns to try show a psychologist how he did it, but tragedy strikes making it again a matter of life or death. Brian’s Winter is what surviving the first winter would have been like.

By the time you get to Brian’s Return and Brian’s Hunt it is clear that the woods of Canada have changed him forever, and he needs to live in the wild. As you read these books, including the author explanations, it seems clear the Paulsen knows what he is talking about. Many of the situations Brian encounters are based on real events either the author or others have experienced.

For many city kids out there, of which my Mr 12 is included, these are great stories which present a very different reality from the one they live and operate in. It is clear from the writing that Paulsen loves the wild, and it is part of who he is. He doesn’t talk about taming it or conquering it, rather how it conquers you. We both really enjoyed these books.

A useful little application

I wonder if you, like me, don’t realise quite how much time you spend online, frittering away time?

Do you sometimes feel you need some help to manage the time spent, but aren’t sure how to go about it? I did and I have recently found a web application that has helped greatly.

There are now time management applications that can be set to monitor what you look at and how often you look at them. You can set time limits for various websites, you can block any number of sites or groups of sites, and/or limit the times of day you can view certain sites.

I have used one to limit my Facebook time to 10 mins during 9-5 and 10 mins in the evening. When I have two minutes left, it starts a countdown to when I will be blocked and shows it very clearly. I can imagine it would very useful for those who like to watch lots of online video clips, or get lost in some blogs/news sites for longer than they would like to.

I am using WasteNoTime which works for Safari and Chrome, but the other one I know for Mozilla is called LeechBlock (which Tim Challies also uses & how I heard about such things).

Of course you can get around it, as you set it all up and can change it anytime. But as a reminder and guide to limit the amount of time you want to have online, it’s very worthwhile.

John Wyndham

In high school my absolute favourite English text was The Day of the Triffids. Every couple of years I read it again and discover even more depths to it.

A new breed of plant, the triffid, which can walk, communicate, kill with a flying whip-like sting and feeds off rotting meat has been slowly colonising the world. When one night almost all humankind is struck blind by a dramatic comet fireworks display, Wyndham explores what would happen to mankind if a natural predator was on hand who now had the advantage.

It’s the story of Bill and Josella who through luck & circumstance remain sighted, and so both literally and figuratively see the decay of England around them. Who would you care for? Do you take responsibility for others in need or fend for yourself? Do you band together with others to survive or go it alone?

I have always found it a fascinating analysis of what man might do in such a situation and Wyndham’s assessment is quite possibly a frighteningly accurate one.

In all these years it never occurred to me to see if Wyndham had written other books. And, wonderfully – he did, quite a few in fact!*  There is no doubt he liked apocalyptic themes, and the question of how mankind would react to them.

In The Kraken Wakes, the threat to life on earth is something in the water; something that colonises deep water from outer space and moves calculatingly to threaten all life on earth. I won’t give all the details away, but similarly to The Day of the Triffids, Wyndham presents an alarming scenario of what might happen through the eyes of Mike & Phyllis Watson, a couple who see the events unfold from start to finish.

In The Day of the Triffids, you can sort of predict what’s going to happen and the interest lies in the telling of it and how it unfolds. By contrast in The Kraken Wakes, you have no idea what is happening, the reader discovers it alongside the characters when events take place, with explanation following later. As such the tension was markedly higher.

These are great books that make you think. Wyndham’s writing is very enjoyable to read: it’s highly intelligent and educated, with references you sometimes need to look up to understand. His prose is insightful, thought-provoking and very interesting. What a gift some writers have!

I started The Day of the Triffids with Mr almost 12, and he struggled a bit. Adult novels like this do not always have predictable happy outcomes and raise many moral challenges along the way. Interestingly what he struggled with was the tension of me reading it aloud – it took too long to find out the solutions to the problems raised. He went on and finished it himself. It seems he is on the cusp of being able to read adult fiction, yet with the caveat that he will not understand the full meaning. It made me realise that I could not possibly have understood it fully at high school either, but it whetted an appetite for good quality writing and interesting themes, which I am still enjoying feeding, over 20 years later.

* I also read The Chrysalids which explores the idea of genetic variation, and how people might decide which 'form' of humankind was the true one, in the image of God and which would be the work of the devil.  It's told through the eyes of children who gradually realise they are not in the 'acceptable form' of their society, and is an interesting analysis of religious fervour gone awry and how people are generally threatened by those who are different to themselves.  Wyndham chose interesting topics to explore!

Easter

Easter is approaching - no doubt the large amount of chocolate in the shops has alerted you to it!

If you would like to think about some ways to celebrate Easter with your family, you could read my previous posts on Easter.

If you would like to use the "Preparing for Easter with your family"  readings the link can be found via the resources tab on this blog.  It starts on Monday.

Also, this year I have included a pdf of the titles, key verses and clipart pictures I use, in case you want to cut them up and put them in your eggs.   This photos shows the things I print out and use.

Have fun with your family preparing for Easter!

The Girl in Times Square

The Girl in Times Square, Paullina Simons

I love this book. I have probably read it 4 times over the last 10 years and every time I come back to it, I enjoy it again.  A good, extended, long, involved story is a special treat.

Lily Quinn is 24, an arts student, and almost broke living in New York. Life just seems to go on around Lily, big things happen to those around her, but not to her. She heads off to Hawaii to visit her parents, yet on her return finds out her flatmate and good friend Amy has gone missing.

Enter Detective Spencer O’Malley from the missing persons unit, in his mid 40s and battling his own demons. As O’Malley searches more into Amy’s life, what was really going on, and how Lily’s family were a part of it, it takes a long time to unravel what has happened.

At the same time, some big things finally start happening to Lily – one very good and one very bad.

This novel has enormous scope covering the vast complexity of extended family relations especially mothers and daughters, the life of immigrants to the USA after WWII, and the careful unravelling of what happened to Amy.  What I love though is the development of the friendship between Spencer and Lily.  A great, enjoyable, long book.

Mission Accomplished

Mission Accomplished, Scott James

It's been some time since I have reviewed any of the books sent to me by New Growth Press.  The only reason is not having time to read them - I hope to rectify that very soon!

This one however seemed worth putting time aside for now and indeed it was.   

This family devotional by Scott James is designed to be started on Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter) and continued through Easter for two weeks.

I love the format: one week is spent "Walking with Jesus to the Cross" and the second week looking at "The Risen King" and our response to him.

When I first began looking into Easter material many years ago, the only things available focussed heavily on the Passion Week, with details that I did not think needed dwelling on, especially for families of young children.  So as regular readers of this blog will know, I wrote my own material   (accessible via here) that our family has used for the last 6 years. 

James done a similar thing, with even more emphasis on the risen Jesus.  Each study (mainly from Luke's gospel), has a 1-2 page explanation, some questions to discuss, things to pray about, and then either a song to sing or an activity to do.  Each could easily be done in 10 minutes, but some of the things to talk about could take longer if there was time and everyone was interested! 

I think this will appeal to families with school-aged children.  James has pitched the explanations at a reasonable level of understanding, which could be simplified if needed for younger children, or used to stretch older children and teenagers.  

As our family has a tradition of doing our own material, we will stick with that, as well as the other things we do to celebrate Easter. 

However, I think Mr (almost) 12 would really benefit from this material.  I will give it to him to work through for his own devotional time though Easter and then talk about with him.  It will be good to stretch him a little further and I think this book will do that.  Because of this, the only thing I wish was different was that the answers to the questions were at at the back of the book (if you needed to look them up) rather than alongside the questions themselves.

New Growth Press are trying to get this to Australian distributors in time for Easter.  If it doesn't make it in time, perhaps look out for it over the next few months and save it for next year!

Pigs in Heaven

Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver

I love my local library. They sell old fiction books for 50c, so whenever I see something I might want to read, I tend to pick it up.

After having loved a more recent Kingsolver novel, The Poisonwood Bible, I thought I’d try this one.

Taylor is adoptive mother to 6 year-old Turtle, a child who was handed to her by a desperate aunt in a carpark to care for 3 years before. When Turtle becomes famous after helping to save someone’s life, she is recognised by the Cherokee Nation as being one of their own. Annawake Fourkiller, a Cherokee lawyer, with her own sad family history of Indian child removal, intervenes to ensure Turtle knows about her history and her people and in so doing, threatens the strong and loving relationships that Turtle and Taylor share. As events unfold it seems that all sides just might be most closely connected that anyone realises. This is another book where it pays dividends keep of the track the characters by name and relationship so you can see events unfold.

It’s a wise author that can raise issues well for both sides of an argument, ensuring that both are heard, understood and matter. The story of native American Indians is not one I know well, though there are strong parallels with our own Indigenous population.

Just like in the Poisonwood Bible, the beauty of Kingsolver’s writing shines in this book. It is a delight to read. A review of her website revealed that this book actually follows on with the same characters of her previous book (The Bean Trees). I read that one after and while it was fine, I  definitely preferred Pigs in Heaven, both the subject matter and the writing.

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom

This is a gentle, honest book about a man’s descent to death. Morrie is a sociology professor who taught Albom in the 1970s. Sixteen years later when he is diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Albom gets back in touch and they have one last ‘class’ together. A class about the lessons of life, what it important and what Morrie has learnt about living and dying. As he states “When you learn how to die, you learn how to live”.

I have never seen death close up, not really close up. I have seen it from afar and a bit more distantly, but I have not sat & watched it, week by week, day by day, all the while talking to that person about what really matters. Perhaps not many of us have, especially those of us who spouses and parents are still living.

What is clear is how things gain true importance and clarity when you come face to face with death. Does a career, or a house, or someone’s opinion of you matter? Morrie’s view is that what does matter is how you have lived – the way you treat people, whether you forgive, whether there is love in your life.

There is almost no spiritual element to this book, but it still has much to offer. For those of us who know there is more than this life, but sometimes forget to live that way, we can still be reminded from books like this of what really matters.

This would be a great book for a book club, it could open up discussion about things that really matter to each of us. 

Albom has also written some fiction – I am tempted to try them also. Have any of you read them?

Dangerous Calling

Dangerous Calling, Paul David Tripp

This is a very powerful book that everyone in ministry should read.

Tripp has spent years talking to and counselling pastors and he is convinced there is a malaise that has taken over ministers of the gospel: that pastors are in great danger of both losing their awe of God and of thinking they have ‘arrived’ and are no longer in need of change.

Tripp is clear from the beginning this is a diagnostic book encouraging pastors to look honestly at their lives and hearts, and to hold them up against the gospel for Christ for analysis. He calls on pastors, and those around them, to try read it with an open heart and mind, to deactivate their ‘inner lawyer’ and to be willing to address things in their lives that need change.

Boy does he use a scalpel to dig deep! Tripp starts with pastoral culture and the risks it brings:

• Letting ministry define your identity
• Letting biblical literacy and theological knowledge define your maturity
• Confusing success with God’s endorsement of your lifestyle
• The regular disconnection between public and personal life
• The fact that in the ministry of the body of Christ, often the minister does not allow himself to be ‘ministered to’
• That there is always a battle going on between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of self (a key idea also in Tripp’s marriage book What did you expect?)

He has quite a challenge to those responsible for employing ministers that they must try to see their heart, what really matters to them, not their ‘on paper’ success. Rather, how they relate to their families, treat their wives and listen to rebuke. I imagine this would be a very hard thing to do well in an interview process.

Then he comes to the first of 2 key areas – the danger of losing your awe of God, in forgetting who God is. When this happens, various things can result:

• A familiarity with the word of God, to the extent they are no longer moved by it
• Living in fear of man, caring more about what others think than how to be godly
• A contentment with mediocrity. This was a very helpful, sad chapter about the way we accept mediocre sermon preparation. If you are still preparing a sermon on Saturday, there is no way you have worked out its truths in your life, so how can you properly apply it to the lives of your hearers?
• Losing your awe of God, results in you starting to think you are pretty good, and therefore leads to the second area – the danger of forgetting who you are.

The risks of thinking you have arrived are:

• Self-glory – promoting ourselves, not God
• Always preparing – personal time with God gets squeezed out and preparation time takes over. We no longer let the word of God shape us personally
• We risk separating our public life from our personal life – we don’t let people in, we find it hard to hear rebuke, etc

As you can probably imagine, it’s a pretty devastating critique. Yet I also think it’s very accurate. I saw his truths in myself, in our lives and have seen evidence of them in others.

For those who are willing to listen and learn, there would be great benefit. Not many people are willing to stand up to their pastor and challenge their godliness (and perhaps not everyone should); but every pastor should make sure they have people around them who are willing to do so. I would say the same for ministry-wives.

Tripp’s solution is that pastors much keep coming back to the gospel, dwelling on God’s majesty, their sinfulness and the grace of God in Christ. When we raise again the glory of God and decrease again our own important, we are willing to change. There were ideas throughout the book about a way forward, although really much of it was depressingly diagnostic. The final two chapters were a proposed way forward which were helpful. However to really get into this further and analyse one’s heart and motivations, I would switch over to Lane & Tripp’s book How People Change and do some serious work from that one!

Very worthwhile reading for all in ministry, and those who are responsible for them.

The Rosie Project

The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion

This book is great fun. Graeme Simsion hooks you in from the first page and keeps you interested and entertained right to the end. 

The story is told by Don, a university genetics professor, who is asked to cover a lecture for a friend. With very clever writing, it becomes apparent to the reader that Don is uniquely qualified to speak on the topic: 

"The sequence was initiated by Gene insisting I give a lecture on Asperger’s syndrome that he had previously agreed to deliver himself. The timing was extremely annoying. The preparation could be time-shared with lunch consumption, but on the designated evening I had scheduled ninety-four minutes to clean my bathroom." 

Don’s goal in life is to find a wife, up to now however he has been unsuccessful:

"I am thirty-nine years old, tall, fit and intelligent, with a relatively high status and above average-income as an associate professor. Logically, I should be attractive to a wide range of women. In the animal kingdom, I would be successful in reproducing. However, there is something about me that women find unappealing. I have never found it easy to make friends, and it seems that the deficiencies that caused this problem have also affected my attempts at romantic relationships." 

So, he designs a questionnaire to weed out unsuitable women – smokers, vegetarians and the like.

At the same time Rosie enters Don’s life, interested in genetics and searching for her true father.

What ensues is the lovely interactions between Don who analyses everything rationally and logically, who has set meals for days of the week and a schedule that he must stick to; and Rosie who is rather more free-spirited, is bewildered by him yet also finds him interesting and appealing.

It is great fun. I laughed out loud at points, the humour is so dry. You watch both Don and Rosie learn to adapt and consider things from another point of view. Don’s analysis of his own behaviour and experiences are very clever and astute. Simsion has created some excellent commentary on people in general, social situations and how those who struggle with them learn to negotiate their way through. 

Highly recommended enjoyable reading. And there is a sequel too – The Rosie Effect – already on hold at the library…

Later note:
Definitely enjoyed The Rosie Effect. I won't write a whole review, but I suspect that anyone who liked The Rosie Project will also like this one. Similar ideas again, very well written and very funny along the way.

Man on a Wire

This new CD by one of my favourite Christian artists has been on constant replay in the car.  I have reviewed Nathan’s CD Home previously and he has also had some great hymn CDs since.   

The Taskers have faced major grief in the last few years with the death of his father-in-law and then their unborn twin son & daughter all within a few months.

This album has raw emotion and honesty about those times, yet is also infused with hope.

I always get a bit choked up listening to ‘Nowhere to be Found’ – that raw feeling that God has left you alone. Other songs clearly talk about their sadness or grief, yet that God is in control and knows what He’s doing, such as ‘Sowing Tears’ and ‘Trust You in the Darkness’. This has always been a theme of Nathan’s music – that God is in control, He knows His plans and we can trust Him. In fact ‘Whole World’ (a new version of ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’) very catchily does exactly that.

In a recent concert, Nathan talked about songs that travel from grief to joy in 3.5 minutes; and how it may only take a short time to sing but the process of writing them and feeling their truth may take 18 months or more. It was a reflection that has enabled him to understand the Psalms better and one I have appreciated.

This is a great album to remind you of the promises of God, whether or not you are in times of struggle and grief.  Love it.

Grandma's Attic

Grandma’s Attic, Arleta Richardson

The first four of this series of books was given to our daughter and they have been quite a treat.

Written by Arleta Richardson they tell the stories her grandmother Mabel told her of her own childhood growing up in rural Michigan in a strong Christian home with parents who taught her the faith and how to live it.

Each story (chapter) tend to have a teaching point – what can result if you lie or disobey or don’t think. So a moral truth can be drawn from it and talked about. At the same time they are just lovely stories about families and children, the silly things kids do and the mistakes we all make and learn from as we grow up. There are positive adults in them and fun friends.

My daughter still laughs about the story where Mabel wore a hoop skirt (without permission) to church for the first time and not knowing how to sit properly in it, ended up with it flicking up and her showing the minister her underwear!

I read them with Miss 7 and she loved them, and Miss 9 enjoyed listening in as well. They will probably mostly appeal to girls, but could well be enjoyed by boys. I have just discovered there are more books in the series, so we may well try get those as well!

Being involved at school

We are now in our final year of all children at the same school. It’s been a great seven years of concentrating on relationships in one place and  we now know many students, parents, teachers and staff.

There are many ways to be involved in a school, but as with all things, no-one can or should do everything.  Each year we reassess how we can be involved. I talked about it a couple of years ago, but haven’t for a while. 

It’s worth mentioning that we consider it a ‘joint involvement’ and make the decision as a couple. Sometimes Husband will be more involved with a school team or on council, which means I have less time to help; sometimes it’s the other way around. As every decision you make impacts the whole family, we make sure we consider these things together.

As we start another year, these are some of the things we try to do.

1. Get to know their teachers

This has been a priority each year. Our children’s teachers have all been excellent and I have always felt we were 'on the same page' when dealing with any issues that arose. We try to get to know them personally, ask about their families, weekends, etc, so that not every conversation we had was about our child.

I have come to realise that this is not what parents generally do. Each year, teachers have thanked us for being so supportive of them and the class. We just thought we were taking an interest, but apparently it stands out.

2. Figure out how to be involved in the school community

Over the years we have been involved in various ways: sports committees, Governing Council, sports team coaching, listening to reading, testing students at times tables, going on excursions and hosting get-to-know-you events for class parents. I have found that most years I commit to more than I can manage and end up feeling guilty about pulling out of something.

In the past I have listened to reading, but I no longer sign up to do this straight away.  Quite frankly, after years of listening to reading, I am a bit over it, last year I offered to test times-tables for one of the older classes, that was much more fun!

Our school has had a change of all senior leadership in the last 12 months and I did spend time last year trying to meet them, be supportive and make connections so that we have develop those relationships. I will need to do the same this year.

I always try to get to know the staff in the front office by name, and again being a friendly cheerful face with no agenda appears to be a refreshing change!

3. Get to know the children at school

In the years that I did go into the classroom, for reading or times-tables, the main benefit was meeting all the children and that they all know whose mum I was. I was able to understand some of the class dynamics a little more, and I could encourage certain friendships.

As the kids get older and I have done less of this, I don’t get to know the kids in class as well anymore. Although really, once you meet them in Reception (Kindergarten) or Year 1, you still know who they are for the next 7 years!

Sometimes, an excursion has helped fill in this knowledge gap a little.

4. Get to know the parents and families of the children in the class

This is easier in the first few years of school, but gets much harder later. We have almost finished meeting new parents in class now, with the kids in Years 7, 4 and 2. Not many parents are in classrooms regularly anymore, including us.

The main way we now get to know parents is by being involved with sporting teams. We know all the kids who play soccer and their families, and are now getting to know a lot of netball families. That has been great and we are very thankful for that opportunity.

5. Pray for the school

Obviously we pray for the school, students, teachers and families personally.

We have had a prayer group on and off over the last 7 years. The most exciting thing to come from that was our gingerbread event last year. We are hoping to do the same this year and keep building connections across the school.

We have loved being involved in a school community. It takes time and effort, but it is certainty worth it – both for our kids, for us and hopefully, for the people we meet and support along the way.

(If you want to read more about school involvement and our potential roles in a school community, I found the book Going Public very helpful a few years ago)

Thoughts on all kids at school

A friend recently asked if I thought about what I would do when our youngest child started school, rather than just let it happen and go on as normal.

It was a great question and one that got me thinking about it again, two years after the event. Sometimes other people find these thoughts helpful as they consider their own situation, so I’ll share some of it here also. This is long post though, sorry about that!

We did give thought to what would happen that year. Husband always said that when they all started school, I should have a ‘down year’ and think about the next stage. That is, not say yes to everything and do more just because either I though I could or should. Someone had suggested it to him years ago when we just had one little baby. He felt quite strongly about it and I came to realize:

1. He was right and

2. It was his way of recognising and acknowledging the work I had put it at home with little ones for the previous 10 years.

The comments on that post showed that there were a few who wished they had done the same or were interested in thinking about it more.

I realized looking back I never talked about it much on this blog again.

My goal for 2013 was to take on no new things. That was the goal (ha!). In reality I did commit to a few extra things without realising I had - an extra repeated talk series here, a seminar there, an extra catch up with someone new, and so on.

However, what really forced it was that same year, I started to get very tired: tired/fuzzy in my brain and tired physically in my body. A dear friend who has chronic fatigue looked at me critically, then spoke up saying she could see in me the same early signs she had ignored in herself. It was the clear voice I needed to hear. Husband and I spoke about it in detail right away and decided to pull me out of a whole lot of stuff. I alluded to it a little here.

Upon reflection, it was an interesting time. I was expecting to have this great clear year with all the kids at school and in the end I was quite tired and worn out. Husband’s theory (not medically backed in any way, but still with some sense in it) was that my body/brain had coped well for 10 years, but once it finally realised it could relax a little it kicked back and spoke up saying it needed to rest. Sort of like how you get through the sleepless baby nights and then once you start to sleep again, you get really, really tired!

It was also a good time for me spiritually. I have always been someone who could see their value in what they can do rather than who they are in Christ. It was a good chance to realise that whether I could ‘do ministry things’ or not, I was still a child of God and that I have value in his sight because of what Christ has done, not because of what I do. My prayer life grew too and I wrote out lots of prayers from which I am still benefiting from.

In the end, we viewed 2013 as a recovery year and then 2014 as a ‘down year’. I still committed to less last year, which was a good decision. In about October last year, I felt like I woke up. I felt like I had been at a lowered brain output for about 18 months and that both my body and brain were picking up again. It was quite an exciting feeling. I was excited about doing new things, able to run again, keen to do more marriage ministry, talks, etc.

2015 looks good at this stage, I have some things planned, but not too much and I am looking forward to  one more year of everyone at the same school before Mr 11 starts high school in 2016.

So, that’s what happened. As for my thoughts one to two years later?

1. Husband was right - I had been home with little ones for almost a decade and my body and brain needed a break. My body apparently decided to take it into it’s own hands to force it, perhaps knowing I wouldn’t have done it properly by choice!

2. The idea of a ’down year’ was a good one. Upon reflection I think 2 years is a good option too. The next stage for me is 7 years with all kids at school, and then another 5 till all are out of school. In the midst of it, it seems like forever, but I know how quickly the last 10 years went and we still, God-willing, have at least 30 years in us for ministry and parenting and so want to do it well, long-term and sustainably. Therefore 1-2 years at a slower pace every now and then seems wise when considering the long haul.

3. There is no extra time once all kids are at school. In some ways there is less. With a pre-schooler, the cleaning, shopping etc happen with them, not only because it has to, but because it is a good way to fill in the days. With school-aged children, all the shopping and cleaning happens mainly now in school hours, so that we are free to either chill out at home after school, or do extracurricular activities, which are now creeping to our lives more as the kids get older.

I bought the lie for a while that I would have more time and then couldn’t figure out where it had gone! Children at school does not make the day 26 hours long!!

I need to try keep 3-7:30pm clear for the kids every school night. So I can be taxi, cook, confidante, homework & piano practice enforcer, bible time encourager and read-aloud-er! It has taken a mindshift for me to not creep over to my email or other things in the hope of getting them done in that time frame. So all the things I do and plan for that I count as ministry outside the home have to happen in school hours. Once you account for all the other things that happen in school hours (catch ups, etc) there really just isn’t that much time. I am amazed at women who also manage to work, although I realise they are usually trying to do less other things than I am.

4. Part of this has been a realisation that since we have decided my main role is wife, mother and household manager - a decision I am happy with - it does still take up most of my time and I need to learn not to be dissatisfied with it. I have been amazed at how much more time goes in to maintaining this house which is bigger than our last one, but also - and I think this is the real difference - a house that we own. I had no idea how much home ownership changes your attitude about a house and what could be done in it. That’s one of my personal issues, but it definitely gives weight to my advice to young couples not to buy a house for a long time!

5. One final thing that I always have to take into account is my own ‘introversion’. If I overload with people in any way, I don’t have the energy for my own family. If I view my day as having 3 time-slots - morning, early-afternoon and evening; I can function fine if one has extra people in it, 2 is a stretch and 3 is way too much (I don’t have words left for Husband at the end of the day!) So, just because I have the time-slots free, it doesn’t mean I have the emotional capacity free. I make sure every day (if I can) before school pick up I sit down from 2-2:45 to have a cup of tea and clear my head. If we have a very busy hospitality weekend, I schedule a quiet day for the Monday to recover. If we have lots of nights busy, I keep the day slots free-er. That way I have time for my family when they need me. I have made it an extra priority in recent years to have energy for Husband at night, so that we continue to have fun together!

So, that’s my thoughts about transitioning into having everyone at school. They may or may not be relevant to you, but they were helpful for me to think about again.

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

I spent a fair bit of time over 12 months last year reading this series of 7 books to my eldest two.  At the time they were aged 8 & 10.  We started with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which even though is chronologically the second one, I felt was the one to set the scene and it reveals Aslan in a wonderfully slow and descriptive way.  If that one grabs their attention and they love it – they will be ready to cope with the rest.  If they can’t quite manage it yet, wait before you go on to the rest.  

There are many wonderful things about these books – the beauty and creativity of Lewis’s writing; you can just enjoy the story; or as a Christian you can read them and see all sorts of analogies with Christian teaching and thought, and use that as a springboard to talk about matters of God and faith.

Personally, I loved it – I had not read the final five in the series before myself, so for all three of us it was the first time we were experiencing it.

We would read a book, chapter by chapter at night, then take a break for about a month and then start the next one.  Some were harder going than others.  We felt The Horse and His Boy was slow to get going.  I found The Silver Chair a bit hard going myself.

In the end though, we loved them all.  They were detailed, interesting, good stories with strong characters.  The absolute highlight was the final chapter of the final book, The Last Battle.  For those who have read it, you know what I mean.  For those who have not – it is a fictional picture of arriving in heaven.  We finished reading it and all just looked at each other, in silence and amazement and awe.  All we could say was ‘wow’.

The best moment of all was about 10 minutes later when my son came up to me and said "If that is what heaven is like, it makes you definitely want to make sure you believe in Jesus so you get to go there".

There it is in a nutshell – why I read to my kids and why I teach them the faith. Thank God for these wonderful authors!

Kids Christian Camps

Our two eldest (age 9 & 11) went to their first Christian camp this holidays. It was a big deal – mainly because they were both away for 4 nights and had never been away for that long without a family member. Also, because we have been waiting for these fun times to start for a while now!

It was the perfect choice for them: they could go together, the camp was aimed at 9-13 year-olds and thanks to some planning and a number of dear friends across Adelaide with similar age children, each went with a group of friends who were in their small groups and dorm rooms.

I had some feelings of misgiving when I dropped them off. There was no reason to: the camp was well-organised, the kids were welcomed wonderfully (as was I), and due to Adelaide being a small place we knew a number of the leaders personally. Yet there is always that feeling of anxiety when you leave your children anywhere.

Fast forward five days and I was back to pick them up. The end of the camp was in an auditorium packed with kids, leaders and parents.

I spotted my two surrounded by friends and leaders. They, with all the others, recited from memory the verses they had learnt during the week - Hebrews 12:1-2. The all leapt up to sing and dance unashamedly to Colin Buchanan’s “Super Saviour”. They hugged and thanked their leaders. Then a photo collage came up and showed snapshots of the week.

I found myself a bit misty-eyed as I watched. For what a gift and privilege it is to have people who are willing to teach and lead camps for kids. Who are willing to be Christians and be fun with children. Who are willing to talk about Jesus unashamedly. Who are willing to sleep for a week with a bunch of giggling 9-year old girls or a bunch of noisy smelly older boys. Who are willing to lose sleep, listen to inane conversations, make craft, be silly, yet do it all in the name of Jesus so that these kids have role models who follow Jesus.

I know for certain that we, their parents, are their main teachers. It is our job to teach them of Christ and his marvellous work. But I also know that we do this as part of a team, and we are entering that youth stage where the team is growing. More members need to be enlisted. Young men who will show my son how to stand up and stand strong for Jesus. Young women who will show my girls what it looks like to find your value in Christ alone.

I am so incredibly thankful for all the people who give their time on this camp, it was great for the children and the kids loved it. But, we as parents loved it too and are incredibly thankful.

This camp (and others in time) will now be a regular feature of our January. We will need to re-think the timing of our annual leave to make it work. Our youngest is now counting down the two years until she is allowed to go. I know not everyone lives in places where these options are available, but if they are – it’s worth making it happen. Expand the team of role models for your kids!

Enid Blyton

Enid Blyton - again.

I have just finished reading the three related farm books by Enid Blyton to our 7 year old daughter - The Children of Cherry Tree Farm, The Children of Willow Farm and More Adventures on Willow Farm.

We loved them. The first book tells the story of a family of four children who go to live on a farm (Cherry Tree Farm) with their aunt and uncle because they have been sick in London and need to recover. So they head off to the healthy countryside and learn how to live in the country rather than the city. They meet Tammylan, the wild man who lives on his own and who teaches them all about the animals of the English countryside. At the same time, they start to learn about farm life.

By the end of the book, the children’s parents are convinced that farm life is for them and so they buy a nearby farm, Willow Farm and the following two books tell the story of the first two years of life on the farm.

I have finally put my finger on why as a family we like these books so much. They are similar in expectations and behaviour to our own family. The children are loved and cared for by their parents and other adults (unlike a Roald Dahl book for example!). The children are generally kind to each other and respect authority. When they don’t, there are obvious consequences (Rory nearly burns down the farm in book 3, because he thinks he is cleverer than he is, yet there is real contrition and an admission of the mistake). There is no praise or tacit acceptance for poor behaviour, rudeness and cheekiness like there is in so many more modern books. Makes me sound like an old-fashioned bore I know, but I have expectations of my children and I like it when characters in books don’t constantly undermine that!

Obviously, these books are getting old now, having been written in the 1940s yet they still have great appeal. We loved the descriptions of farm life, and though obviously the practices described are much out of date, it still gave us all more insight into farm life than we had before.

Enid Blyton books certainly still live on with great popularity in our home!

* We have the old versions, but I recently saw they have been republished into one volume containing all 3 books.

Parvana

Parvana, Deborah Ellis

This series of 4 books by Deborah Ellis are for the 9-13 year old age group, yet deal with a reality of life for women and girls in Afghanistan that is quite confronting.

My son’s teacher (Year 6) read it aloud to their class, which was good (that’s how I found out about them, he got the rest at the library and told me to read them). Yet there was no discussion at all about the issues raised in the classroom, which I think was a real shame and a little irresponsible.

A quick précis of each book for you:

Parvana – Parvana is 11, and she and her family have been mostly confined indoors since the Taliban took over Kabul. After her father is dragged off to prison for being educated, Parvana dresses as a boy to get small jobs in the market to care for her family. Her mother and elder sister leave to arrange a marriage for her sister, and at the end when the father is released from prison we find out the mother and sister’s destination has also been taken by the Taliban, so they plan to go and find them.

Parvana’s Journey opens with Parvana burying her father during their travel. She continues on alone, finding 3 other children and babies along the way who have also been orphaned in the ongoing war.

In Parvana’s Promise, her mother has now established a school for girls yet faces considerable opposition from locals. In the end of the book, we find out the mother was tortured and murdered. The chilling part of this book is that it is told during the parallel account of her imprisonment by US troops while on suspected terrorism charges.

In Shauzia (which would be better to read 3rd not 4th), we read about Parvana’s friend from book 1 and her attempts to leave Afghanistan and then Pakistan, always dreaming of escaping to France and it’s lavender fields.

This could be disturbing reading for children. I found them quite confronting myself. It was odd to read something so powerful, yet with a level of vocabulary that my 9 year old could have handled (not that I would let her read them yet).

Having said that, I still recommend them. When children around the world really live like this, it is eye-opening for my very protected children to have a glimpse of it.

However be careful letting children who are very sensitive read them. And if your children do read them, please make sure you talk about it with them.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

This is a beautiful book.  First published in 1927, it is the story of the first Catholic Bishop of New Mexico, Jean Marie Latour and his faithful friend Father Joseph Vaillant and their 40 years of service to God in the new world.

Set between 1851-1889, these two gentle, gracious and godly men from France choose to serve God and his people in the new world; before railroads and before roads when the new diocese Latour was given was unknown, mostly unchartered and sparely populated by Mexicans and native Indians. It seems based on fact also, although written as fiction.

It has a very similar feel to Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, with a gentle relentlessness. It is a series of stories that link together to tell the story of a life of service, there is no one climax or plot overall, just the ebbs and flows of lives lived for God.

If you read it, I suggest you do what I did and keep some paper nearby to track characters and details; it makes it much easier to follow when the characters reappear at a later time. (This something I should definitely have done more accurately while attempting Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment recently – very hard to follow those Russian names!)

Obviously the theology in this book is Catholic and so there are elements which do not sit comfortably with me. However, her writing and descriptions of these men and their lives is so beautiful you are encouraged just in the reading of it.

Some highlights:

“He said his prayers before he rolled out of his blankets, remembering Father Vaillant’s maxim that if you said your prayers first, you would find plenty of time for other things afterward” (p99)

“The Faith, in that wild frontier, is like a buried treasure; they guard it, but they do not know how to use it to their soul’s salvation. A word, a prayer, a service, is all that is needed to free those souls in bondage. I confess I am covetous of that mission, I desire to be the man who restores these lost children to God. It will be the greatest happiness of my life.” (p165) 

“The Vicar was one of the most truly spiritual men he had ever known, though he was so passionately attached to many of the things of this world. Fond as he was of good eating and drinking, he not only rigidly observed all the fasts of the Church, but he never complained about the hardness and scantiness of the fare on his long missionary journeys.” (p180) 

“You have been a great harvester of souls, without pride and without shame… If hereafter we have stars in our crowns, yours will be a constellation” (p208)

After enjoying this one so much, I then turned to another Willa Cather novel, My Antonia.  While interesting as a story of early rural life on the prairie, I didn't enjoy it as much.  

Counting by 7s

Counting by 7s, Holly Goldberg Sloan

This is the third book my son and I have read in the last eighteen months which focuses on kids that are bit different. The others were Wonder and Out of my mind.

This is the story of Willow, a 12 year old genius who is obsessed with the details of medical conditions and the growth of plants, and who reverts to counting by 7s to cope with stressful situations. She was adopted as a baby by loving parents but in the opening scenes, her parents are both killed in a car accident. For Willow, whose life is centred around them devoid of any friends or family, her world falls apart.

She is taken on reluctantly by a school counsellor and more so, by a new found friend, a Vietnamese girl along with her mum & brother. Willow starts to see that life just might go on. When they all go to extraordinary lengths to care for her, she finds herself able to adapt and change in ways previously unknown.

I read it in one sitting (2-3 hours) and while still think that Wonder and Out of my mind were better and covered situations with more depth and insight; this is still an excellent book for young readers. My son (11) really enjoyed it and kept telling me to read it, and I’m glad I did. He preferred it to Out of my mind, finding it funnier and also liked the way that it had people helping one another who weren’t family.

The books my son now reads cover some very mature topics and I enjoy reading them alongside him and being able to talk about them. I am actually enjoying youth fiction more than adult fiction these days. More kids book review coming in following weeks...