Hal Young's Blog, page 55

Truth Seekers

[image error]Now here's a neat story-behind-the-story.  Christina Gerwitz was a 14-year-old homeschooler who started writing novels for fun.  She asked her mother, Felice Gerwitz of Media Angels, for help with the process of writing, and the two ended up collaborating on this cool, three-book series of adventures … which also, by the way, teach about creation science, and how to respectfully challenge the evolutionary culture around us!

Would you like to find out more?  One of our visitors will win all three — just put your comment below and we'll draw a name to receive the whole Truth Seekers set!

Printable Kids Games from Teach With Games!

Win one of Three Sets of Printable Children's Games from Teach With Games! Enter by commenting below!

Lighthouse Productions

Boys seem to love dirt.  They seem to just attract it, almost like dirt loves them, too.  Charles Schultz's little guy, "Pig Pen," is a real-life character some days.

Well, if they're going to gather dirt and germs and stuff around them, why not do something educational with it?  Joe and Teresa Wirtz of Lighthouse Productions are dear brethren with some really neat products to offer.  They've got a Petri Dish & Agar Experiment Kit which allows you to grow bacteria under controlled conditions.  It can be yours if you post here!  We'll choose a winner from the comments below.

The Young Leonardo

Catherine Jaime is fascinated by the life and accomplishments of Leonardo da Vinci.  Unhappy with the accounts she found of him and his early years, Catherine researched and wrote her own lively narrative of the life and apprenticeship of the young artist.  Leonardo the Florentine is entertaining and engaging, and I thoroughly enjoyed it myself.  You could enjoy it, too, if you win the copy she's provided for one of our visitors this evening!  Post a comment if you'd like to be in the drawing!

Trek The Maps with Knowledge Quest!

Win a Copy  of Knowledge Quest's "Map Trek: World+USA"  Hardcover Atlas of Historical Maps, plus Outline Maps on CD-ROM!

 

Map Trek: World + U.S.A.

Hardcover Atlas + Outline Maps on CD-ROM

The Complete Collection of Historical Maps

Have you ever been teaching a history lesson when one of your children pipes up with a question. "Mom, is Carthage a city in Oregon or some other country?" Oh dear, you think to yourself and then calmly explain, "Honey, first of all, Oregon is a state, not a country. And Carthage no longer exists, but I think it was located on the northern tip of Africa across the Mediterranean Sea from Italy." After receiving two or more questions along this vein, you realize that you need some better resources.

Actually, you only need ONE!

Map Trek is a historical atlas plus outline maps that allow you to teach geography alongside history. This is a resource that any homeschool parent can use with brilliant success, even if you don't remember a thing from your history or geography classes in public school.

Comment below for a chance to win!

Doorposts

Some of the first family life resources we discovered as new homeschoolers were the outstanding materials published by Doorposts.  Their books and training tools are attractive, thoughtful, practical, and most of all, Biblical.  Their charts on diligence ("Go To The Ant") and reconciliation ("Brother Offended Checklist") were early items of decor in our home!

The Forsters are offering one winner a choice of any item from their "For Boys" collection.  While I can highly recommend several of the books they carry (I love J.C. Ryle and Voddie Baucham, and they even carry one by some people named Young I'd encourage you to check out their Plants Grown Up resources for project ideas for your young men!

Post a comment below for your chance to win!

Party Favors!!

Getting worried about the Teens? Seeing some changes?  We are going to offer a $13 discount on our summer LIVE webinar series for parents wanting to get geared up for the teen years – BootCamp 9-12!

Free Shipping tonight only on our Hero Tales from American History! It's our new bestseller and usually shipping is $2.50!

Get a $10 refund on purchases made today and tomorrow from our boys Grain Mill business. Go here to find out more!

Kim Kautzer of WriteShop is joining the celebration by offering 50 World of Sports StoryBuilders for just $1 ($7.95 value) tonight for 1 hr ONLY (8-9 pm EDT) for the first fifty attendees of our Facebook Party to sign up!

Kate Estes of Hands and Hearts is giving everyone who attends a 15% off coupon!! How wonderful!! The code is bestbook and this is good for 15% off any order until tomorrow midnight!

Lisa Hogden of Me and My House Ministries is giving us ALL her Freedom & Simplicity™ for Homeschool Conventions (ebook). Good through this weekend (May 15th!). Get it here!

Sybil Lane of Baby Signs will offer a 15% discount to Party goers! Email her at  sybil.lane@babysignsprogram.com or call her at 817-768-7191 with your order and tell her you're with Raising Real Men's Facebook Party!

Laurie Neumann of the Christian Home Business Connection is giving away a copy of Lessons from the Proverbs 31 Woman for Homeschoolers to everyone! Click here to download!

Candace Allgood of SONBeams offers the code "REALMEN'" which will give 15% off of any of the Let's Learn products or Bible verse songs related products at SONbeams!

Hooray! Let's Celebrate!

Raising Real Men has been named Christian Small Publishers 2011 Book of the Year!!

We can hardly believe it ourselves, but it's true! Won't you come celebrate with us at our first ever Facebook Party tonight at 8pm EST?

All you have to do is go to the Raising Real Men Facebook Page, login to Facebook, "Like" the page, and join the fun!

Hal and Melanie will be there the whole time to answer your questions and enjoy your fellowship and so will quite a few special guests we've invited!

We've also got some party favors (freebies) planned, and a whole host of giveaways! Including items from:

Daniel Forster of Doorposts is going to let a winner have Their Choice of any one book in their For Boys Section!
Joe & Teresa Wirtz of Lighthouse Productions (formerly Home 4 School Gear) is giving away a Petri Dish & Agar Experiment Kit and a boss Owl Pellet Kit!
Joan Rudder of Visual Psalms is offering one of their gorgeous prints!
Candace Allgood of SONbeams is donating a copy of both The Get It All package of their Let's Learn preschool curriculum and ABC Bible Memory Verse Songs in the download forms. Wow!
Diane Hurst of Gentle Shepherd is giving away four copies of My Alphabet and Number Pictures!
Chautona Havig is giving away a complete set of her Wynnewood series of novels set in Medieval England!
Felice Gerwitz of Media Angels is giving away a complete set of the Truth Seekers mystery novels!
Nancy Sasser of Savory Favors is going to customize five free Hershey's bars for a blessed winner! 
Catherine Jaime of Creative Learning Connection is donating a copy of York Proceeded On and Leonardo the Florentine! See our review of York here and Leonardo here.
Kate Estes of Hands and Hearts is donating a 25% gift certificate to her wonderful store of history kits and more! And check out the party favor below!
Lisa Hogden of Me and My House Ministries is giving away a Freedom & Simplicity of Lifestyle Education through Discipleship (Biblical home ed) Seminar (downloadable OR LIVE, if they want to come to North Platte, NE on the 28th!) And see the Party Favor below!
Marie Rippel of All About Spelling will give away a complete "All About Spelling Level 1″ plus a Deluxe Interactive Kit. This is everything that you need to teach Level 1 of their spelling program. This is a $79.90 value!
Sybil Lane of Baby Signs will donate a Baby Signs Complete Starter Kit! And see below for their favor!
Anita Mellot is going to giveaway a copy of her soon-to-be-released new devotional book, School Is Where the Home Is: 180 Devotions for Parents
Chris of Teach with Games is giving away three sets of Printable Games!
Brooke McGlothlin is giving away a copy of her great new book Warrior Prayers: Praying the Word for Boys in the Areas They Need it Most
Dan & Deb Deffinbaugh of Timberdoodle are donating a copy of Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes: Unforgettable Experiments that Make Science Fun!
Terri Johnson of Knowledge Quest is giving away a copy of Map Trek! We loved this resource!

And wow! Harvey & Laurie Bluedorn of Trivium Pursuit are offering us a wonderful collection of their fantastic resources! Highly recommended stuff here!

4 copies of Teaching the Trivium: Christian Homeschooling in a Classical Style by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn On Sale this Week!
4 copies of The Fallacy Detective by Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn – Our guys loved this!
4 copies of The Thinking Toolbox by Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn
4 copies of Bless the Lord by Johannah Bluedorn Stanford

Why don't you head over to their Teaching with the Trivium Facebook Page and "Like" it as a thank you?

Party Favors

Everyone who gets there before they run out gets the Party Favors! Show up at our Facebook Page at 8-10pm to get these treats!

Kim Kautzer of WriteShop is joining the celebration by offering 50 World of Sports StoryBuilders for just $1 ($7.95 value) tonight for 1 hr ONLY (8-9 pm EDT) for the first fifty attendees of our Facebook Party to sign up!

Kate Estes of Hands and Hearts is giving everyone who attends a 15% off coupon!! How wonderful!!

Lisa Hogden of Me and My House Ministries is giving us ALL her Freedom & Simplicity™ for Homeschool Conventions (ebook). Good through this weekend (May 15th!)

Sybil Lane of Baby Signs will offer a 15% discount to Party goers!

Laurie Neumann of the Christian Home Business Connection is giving away a copy of Lessons from the Proverbs 31 Woman for Homeschoolers to everyone!

We are going to offer a wonderful discount on our summer LIVE webinar series for parents wanting to get geared up for the teen years – BootCamp 9-12! You'll have to come to the party to see how much!

Keep checking back for more!

Looking up to George Mueller

This afternoon I told a friend, "I'm thankful God will provide what we need to get us to South Carolina and Ontario next week."  It was really hard to say, a real act of faith, because the situation just had no logical, obvious solution. Later I told her with a laugh, "You know, I've always admired George Mueller, but I never wanted to be him."

We are really there, though. We find ourselves, after an incredible chain of providences dating back well over two decades (and many generations, if you look at the Lord's providence in giving an abundance of sons to both our families), in the middle of this ministry/business traveling all over the place speaking and writing, and now we have lost our main transportation. This afternoon our mechanic of 30 years told us our van needed a new engine, which would cost $5000. We are committed and have contracts to speak at conferences about every two weeks between now and the end of July at least. We are also committed to bringing our family with us as much as possible. We do not want to lose our own children trying to help other people with theirs.

After the past couple of years of health problems (Hal's cancer, our little one's life-threatening heart problem, and more), though, we really don't have the money either to fix it or to replace it. We know, however, that the God who gave us the van can either provide for it to be fixed or give us another. Remember that story? How we told my worried mother, "Mom, we have no money. If the Lord wants us to have a van, He's going to have to give us one!' Two days later, a family in our support group called and God did give us a van! The title was signed over the day before we left on our big speaking trip last year.

I know George Mueller did not generally let his need be known, but we have so been so incredibly blessed by the prayers and encouragement of the brethren during our health trials, that our first response after praying is to share with you. We need you to uphold us in prayer! 

After we posted about this situation on our Facebook page, we were blessed by lots of prayer and quite a few great suggestions.

Someone suggested we rent a van and we looked into that, but the cost of renting for just the speaking travel in the next two weeks is over $1500, with nothing to show for it at the end.

Someone suggested we borrow a van for conferences, but that would leave us with no way to even do the basic hauling we need to between times (our only other working vehicle is a tiny jeep and it took us three trips to get our family somewhere this weekend!) — and besides, no one has offered!

Several people asked that we put up a way for people to donate. I have tears in my eyes over the kindness you dear friends are showing us! But, well, this is hard! We have tried never to ask anyone for money, even when we really needed it, trusting the Lord to take care of it — and he always has — with folks that didn't even know we had a need being part of the Lord's provision! Would this be asking for money, or is it allowing folks who had already been moved by God to give safely and easily? We did not want to let our pride refuse the help the Lord had already provided for us.

So, at the urging of folks following our fan page and others, IF the Lord has persuaded you to help us stay on the road so we can keep on speaking about Biblical family life, here goes:

 If you feel led to help us out, and you don't need to use a credit card, you can send us a gift through PayPal to our personal account address youngfolder(at)gmail.com, and we won't have to pay any PayPal fees.

If you feel led to help us out and you'd like to use a credit card, you can send a gift to our account that accepts credit cards at

Note that donations that benefit particular individuals are not tax deductible. Please don't feel obligated in any way, but when folks asked if we'd do this, we didn't want to let our pride hamper whatever it was God had planned. We so appreciate all of you, and especially your prayers, they are the most important! We're trusting God that he wants us to fulfill our contracts and keep our children with us. We don't see how, but He does!

And if you have never read about this remarkable man and our even more remarkable God, you can read more here.

Stereotypes or Created Types?

I was intrigued when our son sent me a link to a graphic illustration of the most commonly used words in toy advertisements for boys and girls.

Scanning over the words, I see something very different than the original researcher did…

The words used in advertising toys for boys are things like battle, power, heroes, action, stealth, and mission, while the words used to advertise to girls are love, fun, friendship, magic, babies, mommy, hair, and style. So, do you think this is about "How Toy Ad Vocabulary Reinforces Gender Stereotypes?" We don't think so. We think that advertisers use words that sell, and these words sell not because kids are forced into stereotypical gender roles, but because boys and girls are reflecting how they are made.

The boys' words reflect dominion, conquering, competition, risk-taking or adventurousness, and accomplishing a mission. There's nothing wrong with that. God made men to be protectors and providers.

The girls' words are relationship-oriented, focusing on nurturing, friendship, and making yourself lovely. Nothing wrong with that as long as the adornment is not merely outward (and we do understand outward is what these ads are talking about). God made women to be the keepers of the home – think lighthouse keeper or keeper of the garden – who would creatively nurture their families and be the helpers of their husbands. Yes, boys can (and should) nurture and girls can (and should) conquer, but that's not their main role.  Surprisingly, these ads are fairly accurate in describing what men and women are like.

Now, the toys themselves, well that's another story. Many, if not most of them advertised in the mass media are terribly problematic. Girl dolls that look like rebellious and immoral women. Boys encouraged to play the part of evil characters. We find it fascinating, though, that when advertisers want to motivate sales, they fall back on the created order.