Saturday, January 30, 2010

Sharing the Gospel With Kids

As parents of a 3 1/2-year-old and a 2-year-old, we are often seeking out new resources to help us share the gospel with our kids. Bible story books, children's Bibles, and Sunday School at church are great, but it's often difficult to just sit down and share with little ones all that Christ has accomplished on the cross for those who will put their trust in him.

While on an out-of-town trip, Rusty discovered a new series of books written for small children that address: the gospel, the trinity, the Bible, and missions (4 individual books, or you can buy the set). He brought the one on the gospel home for the girls, and we have LOVED it! At first we wondered if it was too "wordy" for their attention, even though it had great theology. But they really love listening to it. The target audience is technically 4-8 years old, I think, but any parent of a preschooler who likes to read Curious George, Berenstain Bears, etc... types of books will not find the reading level much different. Even our 2-year-old has requested it!

Perhaps most endearing to the kids is the fact that each book is "narrated" by a particular character with a name who shares the story with the reader. Our girls already ask for "Gracie" by name (the character from Big Thoughts for Little Thinkers: The Gospel). We just received the other three in the mail, and they already identify the other books by their characters as well.

The series is called "Big Thoughts for Little Thinkers" and can be ordered individually or in a set of four, or found in some local Christian bookstores. You can view sample pages at the following web address: http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Big-Thoughts-Little-Thinkers/dp/0892216174# If you're interested in ordering online, we found http://www.blogger.com/www.christianbook.com to have the cheapest rate when you buy the set of four books and use the cheapest shipping option. Though it says it can take 1-2 weeks, we received ours in just a few days.

It's been a wonderful resource for us, so we wanted to share it with you! Happy reading!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The New Year So Far






January has been filled with lots of activity for our family, so we thought we'd fill you in!

Rusty spent several days in Kansas City, MO, earlier this month interviewing with Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's PhD program and "scouting out the land" for our family. We anticipate hearing the results of the application process this coming week (the beginning of February). We are hopeful that this may be an open door for Rusty to continue his education and continue training for missions and ministry. Our prayer is that he will be able to pastor alongside completing his doctorate, serving the church in America while we are here.

The Lord has also blessed Rusty with more work in the new year, something we are very thankful for! He is now working at the Beech Mtn. Town Hall in the Tax Administration office (!) in addition to his duties at the town rec. center. This brings him to a 40-hr./week status which has been wonderful for our family. Thank you for your prayers for him to find work during this transition time.

The girls continue to stay busy with AWANA and other church activities, and Sophie is still taking gymnastics in Boone. We spend a lot of time in the rec. center these days with the cold weather and snow, providing an outlet to avoid cabin fever on the mountain! Our new tactic is to take the tricycle and scooter down with us and let them ride in the gym--the closest thing we can get to the park right now! We've also taken the girls to their first "build to grow" time at Lowe's where they get to build their own children's craft--with some help, of course! (See pictures.)

I (SJ) am continuing to "grow" and have just completed 24 weeks with Baby Moses en utero. For those of you who haven't heard, it's a boy (!), and we are eagerly awaiting his arrival this May. While it continues to be a challenge to take care of the girls and carry a baby, we're all healthy and doing fine.

That's about all the news I can think of for now. Hope this helps keep some of you up-to-date with what's going on in our lives. I'm attaching some pictures of the girls from the new year as well, so you can see how they're growing. You may also notice our new blog format, which is an attempt at "starting afresh" for the new year and trying to entice myself to blog more! We'll see if it works. :) Until next time...

-SJ for the family

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Birthday Girl






It's hard for us to believe, but Eleanor turned two this past week! Despite a morning power outage and many friends and family out of town, we still managed to have a fun celebration. The girls both delighted in mounds of pink icing and playing with friends. Hope you enjoy the pictures of our big girl(s)!