Resource Family Training #1504

Have you ever stood at the bottom of a really long staircase and thought "Wow! It's a long way up there!" And then slowly, one step at a time you began to climb and eventually you made it all the way to the top. Since November, we have worked towards the goal of becoming foster parents (also called resource parents). One step at a time, we jumped through all the hoops. Paperwork, home study, medical exams, finger printing, background checks, references. It seemed we would never actually make it.When resource family training class #1504 ended at about 6 p.m. yesterday evening, Jay and I made it all the way to the top of the stairs! We had fulfilled all the requirements to care for children in our home.

After 27 hours of training crammed into 3 long days, we finally reached the top of that long daunting set of stairs. Honestly, we had dreaded these classes. The prospect of sitting through that much class time did not appeal to me in the least. But, we prepared ourselves the best we could and headed to class. And, wouldn't you know it, God completely blessed my socks off!

Story after story proved to us that God is working in a mighty way among His church on behalf of the orphan and the oppressed. Of the 24 people who attended RFT #1504, I heard 16 give the glory to God for their decision to foster or adopt precious children in the system or who had answered that unexpected call to take a kinship placement.

I met a single woman who serves overseas each year who is planning to foster. I met a homeschool family with 3 girls who have radically changed the direction of an entire family because of their obedience to take in 2 boys. I met a young newly married couple, who led by the vision of their church and the leading of the husband are pursuing the care of foster children before having any children of their own. I met a couple whose children have gone onto college and now are planning to bring foster children into their empty nest. I met a couple who found out a young boy in their church was taken from his home and there was no kinship placement available for him. They called DHS and became his foster parents. The stories go on and on. They are humbling and amazing.

By 6 p.m. yesterday, while most of me was running out of that place as fast as my feet could take me, a part of me wanted to stay. I felt a strange connection to these people that were strangers to me on Thursday morning. It is amazing what a common vision and purpose can do. I am so excited to hear what God does in each one of these obedient families. God truly is raising up a remnant to meet the dire need for foster parents in Oklahoma.

Our Family is Growing

Yes, that's right. Our family of 6 is going to be growing very soon! But, it's not what you think. There is no little life growing inside of my uterus. But certainly a life or two have begun growing and enlarging my heart. We are going to become a foster family! 

We are all so excited at the prospect of caring for little ones who need a loving home for a little while or a long while. I have watched my dear friend, Angie, and her family for the last 13 months on this journey of fostering. I have seen the ups and downs. You know that saying about standing "on the shoulders of giants"? Well, Angie is my "giant." Because of her testimony I can see the way ahead. Her faith is gigantic. Her love and compassion are huge. And she is so real about it all. I know this is going to be hard because I have seen it in Angie's family. But, I have also seen that our God is faithful. He will not leave us alone.

Since I was young, I have wanted to foster or adopt a child. I think the first memory I have of this longing was from when I was about 15 years old. I worked at a convenient store and the sweetest little girl with big dark eyes and messy hair stole my heart every time she came in. She was always so dirty and the rumor was that she wasn't taken care of very well. I used to grab her up every time she came in and hug her and talk to her. A coworker even said to me one time, with a look of disgust on her face, "She probably has lice." I didn't care. That little girl needed to be held. I would get her candy and charge it to my account. I really wanted to take her home, wash her dirty body and hair, and take care of her.

As I've grown, these feelings make much more sense to me. There is a new clarity to them because of my walk with Christ. Who else, if not the Christian, can understand the worth of every single life? Dirty or not? Who else, if not the Christian, can fully comprehend our Savior's heart for those who can't defend themselves? The orphan and the widow? Who else, if not the Christian, has the unnatural qualities of compassion and selflessness that this kind of giving might take?

I went to college first majoring in child psychology and later changing to social work and eventually graduating with a degree in Sociology. All of this with plans of working with children in need in some way. I have been guilty of sometimes wondering if my education was a waste of time. I have no plans to join the workforce anytime soon. But, now I at least understand why my heart has leaned this way for so long.

For the past few months we have filled out a mountain of paperwork, exposed the financial details of our family, had medical checkups for all members of our family, found a few friends and family to give us references, been fingerprinted and had a complete home study done. The only thing we lack is our training class. We will attend these in 2 weeks. We plan to take in children who are not yet school age. We have made room in Stephen's room for one boy. We have made room in the girls room for one girl. Our bedroom has room for a baby 12 months or younger.

We are truly excited at what God has in store for our family. Please be in prayer for us!

True Worth

I was preparing lesson plans for the week and I opened up Stephen's language arts book. (For any other homeschooling weirdos out there who might care... we use Emma Serl's classic 'Intermediate Language Lessons')

Anyway, I was jotting down notes when I stopped to read the poem that would be his memory work for several days. It punched me in the gut. It said:

True worth is in being, not seeming;
In doing each day that goes by
Some little good; not in the dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing more royal as truth.
--Alice Carey

It was the first line that got me. "True worth is in being, not seeming" And it hit me that I have wasted much time being more concerned about the 'seeming' than the 'being'. I know in my mind and heart that there is a omniscient and omnipresent God who is FULLY aware of the entirity of my deeds. He knows my motives, my hidden desires, and my dreams.

Why then do I squander my minutes with worry of how I seem? Why do I consider the appearances of my parenting (or my service, or my speech, or my decisions) to those who don't even count? Why do I ponder the judgements of others who have no rights to my judgement? There is only One who has that right and it often seems as if I am more quick to try to please the 'others' than the 'One'.

I pray for grace and more and more of it. Daily grace from my Creator. God, help me to love what you love; despise what you despise. Help me to hate my hypocrisy. Help me to exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control in abundance to my children, husband, family, and friends. Help me to be full of these things when no other eyes will ever know, but Yours. Help me to give these things when it is difficult to give them. Please help me to care more about my 'being' than my 'seeming'.

Book Review: Why Gender Matters by Leonard Sax

A few months ago, I read a great book by a man named Leonard Sax called 'Why Gender Matters.' He is a psychologist and family physician and his book dramatically alters the nature vs. nurture debate. Reading this helped me to think through several things concerning the education of my own children and I think that this would be extremely helpful for public school teachers as well. However, it could cause some frustration for them because of their lack of control within the system. For example, he is a huge proponent of same gender education. There is a plethora of evidence in this book that both boys and girls fare much better when they are not in mixed gender classrooms. The benefits are not only educational but social and developmental as well. This is certainly not something a single teacher can change and provide for his/her students. Thus, the possibility of frustration.


The book begins with a detailed description of the differences in the brains of boys and girls. He explains how they process information completely differently, hear sounds differently and ultimately learn in different ways. For example, he describes how from birth girls hear better than boys. Thus, most boys speak louder than girls. He says a male teacher should lower his voice by about half when speaking to girls or the girls believe they are being yelled at. He says a female teacher should put all her boys in the front of the room and all the girls at the back (an unnatural placement if they are allowed to decide their own seating). Otherwise the boys are not hearing her feminine voice and are 'checking out'. He speaks much of the ADD/ADHD epedimic in our country and believes that the overmedication of children (especially boys) is due in large part to a misunderstaning in the differences between the genders.

He addresses risk taking, stress and aggression and how that relates to education. Males respond better to stress. In fact it often helps them increase their performance. The opposite is true for most females. Stress inhibits the performance of girls. As an example he cites how boys can learn well when oral quizzes are more like contests or when they are strictly timed. Girls do much better without those kinds of things. In response to a study supporting this assertion, Sax says:"Reports like these prove that there are innate differences in how females and males respond to stress. I still hear educators insist that if we just raised girls to play with trucks and boys to play with dolls, then most differences in how boys and girls learn would just go away...And if female laboratory animals learn differently than male laboratory animals do, isn't it reasonable to look for sex differences in how human children learn?"

I love it when secular research supports a Biblical worldview! This book does this on many different accounts. God's Word makes it clear that He created man and woman differently and that men and women have different purposes and roles. We were created differently and when we come together in marriage we become 'one' as we complete one another. The created differences in men and women make this possible. I have always thought gender-neutral parenting and education were ridiculous, and this work gives credence to that view.Sax also gives very specific examples showing how the brains of boys and girls work differently while learning math and literature. He shows how boys could learn about transcendental numbers (such as fie) and the Fibonacci series. The method for teaching this to girls is quite different. Boys, when doing math, use their hippocampus which has no connection to the cerebral cortex (which we use for language and understanding.) Thus, they can enjoy math for its own sake much sooner than girls typically can. Girls usually need a connection to the real world to understand the same kind of concepts because they process math in the cerebral cortex.

He also talks extensively about literature and gender differences. This section was especially appealing to me. I desperately want all of my children to love the written word. I think early experiences can shape forever the way that children view books. Sax seems to have this same opinion as he laments the failings in education for both boys and girls. First of all, he notes, boys and girls like to read different things. This should be obvious, but in public education the choices that girls prefer are also the choices that teachers often assign. Most girls prefer fiction; boys prefer nonfiction. Girls prefer to read about the experiences and emotions of the characters while boys prefer action-battles, adventures and explanations of how things work. Research shows that 80% of the books for young readers fall into the 'girls fiction' category.

The teaching of literature is also extremely important. He gave the example of the reading of the "Lord of the Flies." He notes that the most common question is something like "How would you feel if you were Piggy?" This works well for girls because they love to delve into the lives of characters. This type of role playing exercise is asking the student to use two distinct parts of their brain simultaneously: emotional information in the amygdala with language information in the cerebral cortex. This is not natural for most boys. Typically boys talk less when they experience intense emotions. An effective way to get boys to dig into "Lord of the Flies" is to have them construct a detailed map of the island as they read. It is harder than it sounds! The book must be read with great care to construct an accurate map and attention must be given to details such as the setting of the sun and shadows being cast in the palm trees. The boys who were given this assignment brought in their individual relief maps constructed of paper mache or cardboard and then had to hammer out any differences they found between the maps by consulting the text again. They were carefully deconstructing a text and searching out clues hidden hundreds of pages apart.

Sax also notes that using newspapers greatly enhances the learning in classrooms since boys prefer non fiction. However, he says, there is much great literature that boys can really enjoy but it is often not the kind that is assigned anymore. Boys prefer fiction with strong male characters who do unpredictable things. Books in which male characters are helpless or weak turn boys off to reading. Critics may claim that this type of thing reinforces gender stereotypes. Sax says:"...the most pernicious gender stereotype is the one that says boys don't like to read. Let's break down that stereotype first. Get every child excited about learning. Once kids have discovered for themselves that reading can be fun and exciting, then you can worry about broadening their taste in literature. Right now I am seeing many boys who have never had the experience, not even once, of reading a book that really excited them. They've never read a book that punched them in the gut. They've never cried while reading a book. They have no clue how powerful books can be."

Then he delivers one of my favorite lines:"The first priority of schools must be education. Social engineering comes second."

I whole heartedly agree with the first sentence and the second makes me shudder. No doubt social engineering is definitely still on the agenda.

I will end this now, but there is so much more he addresses including sex (which will absolutely blow your mind), drug use, peer pressure, bullying, discipline, parenting, etc. There are several places I disagree with him including his chapter on gay, lesbian and transgender teenagers. However, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. Parents, home educators, public educators, grandparents, etc. I am looking forward to finding his follow up books which specifically address the issues facing our boys ("Boys Adrift") and our girls ("Girls on the Edge")

Our Big News

On Friday morning we took the kids on a scavenger hunt to tell them some exciting news. They found the first clue lying on the table which led the whole family to their bikes. Attached to their bikes they found clue number 2 which led them to the chapel at USAO. Once there they all searched frantically for clue number 3. Cortney was the victor and was all ready to read the clue when I noticed it was the WRONG clue! Since I was the one responsible for hiding the clues I only had myself to blame. Jay wrote them out, put them in envelopes and wrote on the back where I was to hide them. He couldn't have made it any easier. Anyway, we will just continue on with the story...

Since Jay had all the clues memorized, he just told them the next one. It took us to the playground at 9th and Alabama; specifically it took us to the merry-go-round. Stephen found that one and it sent us back to our home and into the van. Once inside they discovered very detailed directions of where we were supposed to drive. So, they navigated the final leg of our journey and we ended up at Braum's to have ice cream at about 10:30 in the morning. That is some mighty fine parenting, isn't it?

Everyone ordered a treat. Stephen and Cortney got cappuccino chunky chocolate and Maggie got birthday cake. They thought this was the end of the hunt. Then Jay handed Stephen the final clue to read out loud. It said: "Three Evans kids are so much fun, but how much more fun to add another one. In about nine months we will see because Mommy is going to have a baby!"

Stephen started grinning about halfway through the note. Cortney was really thinking hard and at the end she got the biggest smile and said "You mean you are pregnant?" Maggie didn't have much response at Braum's. Once we got home, though, she said "'Are we having a for real live baby?"

We couldn't be more thrilled. We can't wait to meet our newest blessing. I love wondering what the baby's gender will be, what he or she will look like, what kind of personality will he or she have. How will the family dynamics change? Pregnancy and childbirth are life changing, humbling experiences. I am looking forward to the months to come. I pray that God uses them to continue to shape each member of our family. I praise God that He is creating a little one right now inside of me and that his handiwork will soon be evident to all. What an amazing thing!

Rejection on Valentine's Day

I made this dress for Maggie for Valentine's Day. I was pretty excited about it. I shopped for the shirt, material for the skirt, and the heart shaped buttons. Then I came home and after several issues, I finally completed the dress! Maggie was excited about it and LOVED the buttons.




Then Maggie woke up on Valentine's and decided she wanted to wear something else. And since I am not the kind of Mom to make a big deal out of something like that...I let her wear what she picked. But, geez, Maggie! Look at the love that went into that blanket stitch hem! For crying out, it was Valentine's day and it was a Valentine's dress!

To make it up to me, she posed for these pics. And I forgave her! ;-)

Great Giveaway!

www.reinventedkb.com is having a giveaway today for some art work from Fall Down Tree. This is my favorite piece. Go check it out!

Have you ever heard of 'The Vintage Pearl'? It is a woman's online shop who makes her own custom silver jewelry. It is very neat. This is my favorite piece...I think...I can't really decide! Anyway, one of my favorite blogs is having a giveaway today for 2 $50 gift certificates to the Vintage Pearl. Go check it out at http://www.centsationalgirl.com/