A Dessert Disciple or a Christ Disciple?

When Caleb finished his math curriculum for the year on Tuesday, I promised to make him a dessert to celebrate finishing. Caleb said, “Mommy, you’re the Dessert Woman.” Colin followed with, “Then I’m the Dessert Disciple!”

Trying to choke down beets.

He’s definitely not a beets disciple. For art this week, we practiced Chinese calligraphy to coincide with learning about ancient China in history. Afterwards I let the boys play around with their watercolor paints. Caleb made a rainbow. Ah, my traditional son. I asked Colin what he was painting? “Beetroot, in Chinese calligraphy.”

Beetroot in Chinese calligraphy.

Carson also didn’t enjoy his vegetables this week.

I’m hoping to make some Chinese cuisine this coming week if I can get the ingredients and time. We are also gearing up to host an African Pastors’ Conference, and I’m cooking a lot for that! Maybe the Chinese cuisine will go over a little better than beetroot?

Since finishing his level in Math U See, Caleb and I have been using Singapore Primary Math level 1A to review what he learned this year. The colorful textbook and different approach have been a great change of pace. We’ve played several games as well, including our best-est game ever for addition.

I began reading aloud a children’s version of Ben-Hur to coincide with our general studies in history on Rome and the birth of Christ (though we have been in a three-week unit study on ancient India and China). Today was the exciting chapter where Judah accidentally knocks the roof tile loose onto the Roman governor’s head and gets arrested. That story along with our Bible readings are really tying the times together for us and making history come alive.

For myself, I am currently reading a children’s book Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, A Biblical Home Education by Ruth Beechick (borrowed from a friend–it basically says you can teach everything yourself without a curriculum:)), Colossians, and hope to soon start Help for Women Under Stress.

Did you see the amazingly scary, hand-flappingly nerve-wracking spider we found on our ladder Monday?

Our water was on in spurts this week (versus last week), which is just fine. That is a situation we are prepared for. The municipal workers’ strike is not over yet, however. Thank you for your prayers and wished comforts. 🙂

Seth has had weekly Bible studies with the couple I asked prayer for some weeks back. We are encouraged. He is managing a lot of details for the African Pastors’ Conference coming up next Monday through Wednesday. We are also busy with our church: last night, we had a teen girl to eat with us. Her mother, a church member, is away in Johannesburg taking a college course, and the girl is home alone all the time.

Another teen girl in our church is struggling with friends and making moral decisions without her mother at home to help her. In these situations we feel like her parents as well as pastor and pastor’s wife. Thankfully, after a visit this week, she professed a desire to repent, instead of staying in a destructive relationship. So many of our youth are struggling with the daily costs of what seems like a lonely decision to follow Christ. Being a Christ-disciple is not as easy as being a dessert disciple!