The Cincinnati Convention Controversy!

Hello Everyone!

     We've spent a good deal of our time since the last post getting ready for, attending, and recovering from the GHC Convention down in Cincinnati!  Three days before we left, we caught wind of Ken Ham having been kicked out of the conference for "un-Christian like behavior"!  One of the speakers at the convention, Dr. Peter Enns, was going to be selling his new bible curriculum (published by Olive Branch Books) that instructs parents not to teach their children about sin and that the first Adam was merely a metaphorical representation of Israel.  Ken Ham knew what Dr. Enns was teaching and so posted a warning to attendees on his blog which we had seen and appreciated.  He also made a brief comment during an earlier convention that he has since posted on his blog.  For standing up and warning parents about Dr. Enns heretical views, the Great Homeschool Conventions LLC. board accused Mr. Ham of questioning Dr. Enns' salvation and being arrogant!  This sparked a great amount of outrage towards the convention organizers and hundreds of comments protesting this action were left on their Facebook page and sent to their inbox.  They ignored the emails and deleted most of the Facebook comments, even going so far as to unfriend some of the people who had complained.  At the same time Susan Wise Bauer and Dr. Jay Wile came out in defence of the convention and Dr. Enns.  Our first reaction was to cancel the trip, but that would only have punished the innocent vendors who had paid for their booths months in advance and had already shipped their goods to Cincinnati.  The convention would not give any refunds and we had already set up hotel reservations and to attend the Father- Son Campout at the Creation Museum that weekend.  Mommy and I spent a long time carefully looking over the vendors and speakers web sites to get a feel for where they stood and we made sure to avoid  any we were unsure about or who blatantly backed up Dr. Enns. 
    
      We arrived in Cincy safely the day before and got all set up to attend the next day.  When we got to the convention the next day it was amazing to see how many people were wearing "I support Ken Ham" or "I'm a Ham" badges along with Creation Museum and AIG hats, pins, and shirts in silent protest of the convention's decision.  Doug Phillips was also speaking there and made indirect references to Dr. Enns' heresy in all of his talks.  We actually ended up spending most of our time at the Creation Museum and got to meet and talk with Mr. Ham a couple of times!  The guys camped out at the museum Friday night and got to hear Buddy Davis tell them about his Alaskan adventure.  Mommy and I caught a showing of "The Runner from Ravenshead" in the Special Effects Theater (It's a very cute movie!), looked for new exhibits in the museum and shopped!!!  We then went back to the hotel and enjoyed the whole room to ourselves!  We picked up the guys the next morning, attended some workshops at the convention, did some last minute Exhibit Hall shopping and attended the Grand Finale with the Duggars.  We left that a little early to get ahead of the sea of people that would have been flooding from the near by parking garages. 

    

Us kids with Ken Ham!

Our guys were in the green tent in the middle

A new interactive Noah!

Yay! We can actually touch it!

Before we picked them up in the morning, the guys got a behind the scenes look at the

Petting Zoo!

A Zonkey!

Gomer the Camel

A Zorse!

A very packed auditorium of people waiting for the Duggars to appear onstage!

      We were able to attend one of Ken Ham's talks at the museum on Sunday before we left and enjoyed a nice, uneventful trip home!  I must say that Answers in Genesis bent over backwards for convention attendees that weekend!  All attendees who visited the museum got a MP3 disc of five of Ken Ham's talks, special discounts, curriculum demos, and a free subscription to Homeschool Enrichment magazine who had withdrawn from the convention.  Over all it was a very good vacation, but that was our first and last time attending a GHC convention. 

In Christ,
Tiffany

Bird in the woodburner this morning

There was a strange fluttering flapping noise coming from the woodburner this morning.  Lisa told me she thought it was a bird, I agreed.  So we stationed the kids strategically at the front and backdoors.  I then opened the doors, this started the most hillarious chain of events.  The bird comes flying out,  Lisa starts screaming, the bird started flying around the room I think it was screaming too.  The bird flew around the room a few times before making its way upstairs to the first floor where the kids had the doors ready.  It flew a few times around the first floor before finally making the great escape through the front door, and to it's great delight it was FREE!!!  We are now warming by the fire and starting devotions.  Hope you have a good morning.  Have a good day.
In Christ,
Tim

It's been a LONG TIME since I last wrote

It has been a very long time since my last post.  For everyone that is faithful to keep checking I am very sorry that I have not kept you up to date.  We found a wonderful Church last summer and have been extremely blessed to be part of the fellowship.  Now that the fall is over where we gathered wood for the winter, our wood supply is waining for the first time in many years, the pile is almost gone.  I turned over the soil in the garden last week when we had a beautiful and warm day, getting it ready for planting season.  The winter storms I hope are a thing of the past but we'll see.  Our clothes dryer is in need of repair, I ordered the parts and they will be arriving soon by fed ex.  Our kitchen stove has some issues, I ordered parts to fix it as well.  It seems like we've been pretty busy getting our house in order.  We finally got our kitchen ceiling finished, that has been a great blessing.  Many new friends from Church have used our Creation Museum guest passes to go and visit there.  We are looking forward to going again ourselves soon.  We have fought illnesses this past winter and have finally won I think.  We are busy trying to get everything organized so we can get the work on our house finished.  It has been an interesting fall and winter to say the least.  Work is going well, keeping plenty busy. I would like to start our own family business on our FREE time but what is that!!!   I'll keep praying for answers and our Lord will continue to keep guiding and directing.  Praise the Lord for His faithfulness.

In Christ, <><
Tim

Fishing a favorite hobby and maneuverability practice

I have enjoyed fishing ever since I was about knee high to a grass hopper.  I think the boys have inherited that gene.  They have all kinds of tackle and lures for just about everything you could imagine.  They have spent years collecting most of their treasures.  Every once in while we'll be able to take a short break to enjoy a couple of hours fishing.  Well, we did just that yesterday morning.  We headed out a little later than anticipated a little before 8:00 am ( we had talked about getting out before 7:00 ).  It was supposed to be a hot one in the low to mid nineties.  We went to my work where they have 3 large ponds with walking trails around them.  The ponds were well stocked when they were dug, they have Bass: both large and small mouth, Catfish: Blue and Channel, and Bluegill.  We had a great time while there.  We were there only about 1.5 hours, but caught 11 fish.  Each of us caught a larger fish and the rest were smaller.  The company policy has been changed to catch and release.  So we made sure to take pictures for everyone to see the catches of the day.

Fishers for fish and fishers of men,

The warm ups:

The Good sized ones:  Mine was a large mouth bass roughly at 16 inches ( Kaleb measured all of them )
TJ's was a Blue catfish roughly 17 inches, and Kaleb's was a small mouth bass roughly 14 inches.

We just got home from taking Tiffy out practicing for her license.  She has been driving for almost a year on her temps.  We had not taken her for maneuverability practice before tonight though. She flattened a few cones but very quickly got the hang of it.  She successfully did both right and left sides numerous times and was doing well when we decided to come home for the night.  We set up the course in Walmart's Parking lot in the way way back.  Next time we are going to bring some sidewalk chalk so we can mark were the cones go.  Much better than having to measure each time we go up there over the next week or so till she takes her test.


In Christ
Tim

Picking peaches

We have been watching our peach tree with great anticipation this year.  It has been loaded with peaches.  My parents came up for the weekend so we weren't able to pick them then.  We went out this morning and probably about a third of them were on the ground.  We picked all we could and ended up with about 12 gallons worth ( 2 five gallon buckets and a smaller bucket full).  We will be making peach butter soon, but for now we will process them tonight into sauce.
We visited a wonderful Church only about 45 minutes away, we attended there baptism service after the regular service also.  It is elder led and follows the New Testament model.  God is so good to answer our prayers.  As most of you know we have been looking for a good Church for a while now, I think we have found it.  Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to discover what God has in store for us.

In Christ <><
Tim

Segregation~ Coming this Fall!!!

Segregation from NCFIC on Vimeo.

Help! We can't stop singing this song!!!

The Road Trip Song from NCFIC on Vimeo.

The "Lynx" and Fort Meigs

Here are some pictures from the 1812 schooner replica we visited the other day!

The Boys in front of Ft. Meigs, the largest reconstructed walled fortification in North America and practically in our backyard!

In Christ,

For the Family,

Tiffany

Whew! It's been busy here!

    August already!  Where did this summer go?  Good thing we decided to give the garden a rest this year.   I am still going to can tomato sauce.  I'm going to cheat and (gasp) BUY tomatoes!  Actually this summer has been pretty productive.  While recovering from a boat load of surgeries we :
-ALL (including Kaleb 11) got certified in CPR, First-Aid and AED machines
-Attended and learned a lot from Reforming Church and Family conference.
-Picked and froze blueberries
    We also were blessed to be able to attend a conference in Camden, MI. and hear Tom Harmon and the Duggar family.  That led to a free Basic Life Principles seminar and hopefully a Financial Freedom seminar ( also by Bill Gothard) coming sometime soon.  You could say it has been a whole summer of learning and searching for the body of Christ!
    Currently we are purging the house of all the stuff we no longer need or want so we can have a yard sale in August.  There have been so many days in the 90's already that I am REALLY looking forward to fall.  Hopefully we will get in some camping, fishing, apple picking, canning and at last finish some remodeling!  Yup, things are starting to get back to normal around here!
    The 200 year anniversary of the War of 1812 is coming up 2012.  The kidos have been so excited about preparing something (perhaps a documentary of sorts) seeing as we live in the middle of where it all took place.  So I am excited to plan many short trips to visit historical places.  This last weekend a replica of a 1812 schooner was docked on the Maumee River.  I will ask Tiffany to add pictures.  "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Numbers 6:24-26


           Have A Great Day!
           Lisa <><

Baby Bird Update!!!

Our Baby Birds have flown away, leaving their empty nest alone in our crab apple tree.  I meant to post this much sooner; but here is a photographic timeline of the 11 days they were here:

Day 3

Day 6

Day 7

Day 10

And then...

Somebody left the nest!  And someone else is thinking about joining him...

Here is the baby who left first...

He's a gangly little guy!...

That was the last picture we were able to get of them for awhile.  It was funny to watch how, even though they had "left the nest" Mommy and Daddy Bird still watched over them and mentored them.  I finally was able to get this last good picture of them on Day 23:

 

And so, our little hatchlings are all grown up!  We hope that there will be another batch later this year or next year, but either way we had a lot of fun watching these guys grow up!

In Christ,

For the Family,

Tiffany