West End Update October 2016--They're Alive!

Just to give our readership some news on the situation for our brethren in Haiti. We have some congregations with a little over 200 members that were right in the path of Hurricane Matthew. Just listened to an audio clip report that everyone of those members are alive. This is tempered only by the fact that many lives have been lost and for many survivors---other than their lives---everything else is lost. In one congregation they have been gathering loose pieces of tin to give them a covering at night to keep off the dew and the rain. However there has been the typical Haitian response that God is good and they are thankful for their lives, despite the destruction. We need to continue to pray and keep tuned in how we can help them rebuild their communities and their lives. Just imagine a 50 mile wide desert across what was once green with trees and vegetation--the greenest part of Haiti. Still waiting on an official report as it gets easier to reach the interior and access the disaster further.

Haiti 2016 West End Update

There has been a little word of what is happening in Haiti. Considering it is Sunday -- some would like to share to their congregations soliciting for prayer for Haiti---I will post this from our brother M. J.'s letter. 

There are also dialogues going on about what is the best way to operate disaster relief for the hard to reach affected area, involving Haitian brethren versus sending in so many Americans. Also it is better to send money than flood the country with any more free food which lowers the value of (existing) Haitian grown produce. Better to have a dollar bill buy local than put locals out of business. Long range we need to help our brethren develop a workable partnership that respects and uses their efforts to reach their own people than just bulldoze our own American-centric version of relief effort upon them. I am talking long range as in extended relief effort, rebuilding, boys units, deciding who and how one gets helped, etc. For now we need to get water and food to people that have been without for far to long. Let's pray. Times like these are where the power of the Gospel is meant to shine out through compassion and prayer. We must go in to relieve the temporal distress, but also we are there to offer the balm of the Gospel to hearts in need. The power of prayer cannot be over empathized.

Letter Excerpt:
"The west end congregations are in much worse shape. I got a report from Todd last night. It's a lot like a 50 mile wide tornado ( which it was) went through the island there. The Bontemp brethren were found trying to fix a shelter for one of their brethren. All of there houses are damaged, from just roof damage to houses completely destroyed. There was no deaths there. So far it sounds like the Lord has spared all of our members lives. The brethren have not been able to reach Abricot yet which is right on the coast. It sounds like it's a little worse there but again no deaths of our members. It is an interesting miracle but our Church building was spared there and it housed close to 1500 displaced community people. This is hard to imagine as it is not that big of building! Todd and Greg are trying to get to Preville today. Haven't had much report from there. 

Relief Efforts (Same Letter) :
CDR,CSI, and the liaison brethren Are working hard together with the Haitian brethren to formulate a workable plan of help. The logistics and many other factors make this a complicated situation to help. I know there are many people sitting wondering why we are not doing anything but it's not that simple. Large organizations are in the same dilemma. The most acute need right now in those areas on the west is food. It looks like some money quietly placed in their hands might be the most necessary thing right now. The hunger is coming for areas that were less destroyed but it is not as acute right now as in the west end congregations.

God bless you all today."

Waiting for more News from Haiti

   
   

(map is from www.freeworldmaps.net)

      In the spotlight of the Media, the far west end of Haiti has a coastal city named Jeremie. Scattered in the vicinity of this town we have a handful of congregations. There are roughly 200 members in that immediate area. This portion of our church has been through hurricanes and tragedy before and deserves our attention in their present plight. Around 1993, there was a ferry accident that took the lives of 29 of our church people. This undoubtedly affected those congregations to this day. The ferry was carrying staff and youth going to a conference; a lot of leadership and future were tragically lost. Upwards of 1,700 lives also perished on that same ferry and affected many in the community at large. Today we hear about a great calamity striking the West End in the form of Hurricane Matthew 2016. We pray that God would uphold them in this new test..
      In the middle of the peninsula there are another 200 members in the hard to reach area of Terrre Rouge. That would also include Jacmel and Villa. These congregations take a little more effort to visit so they would have a tendency to a little more isolated from the mainstream flow of visitors and church life in the central part of the country around Port. The peninsula is a rugged mountain range that jets out towards Jamaica. Port-au-Prince is in the middle of the country over on the top side of the range. So transportation is a time consuming effort in good times, not to imagine now. You have to cross the range come down to the southern coast and travel around to reach Jeremie. It is about just as convenient to take a ferry between Port and Jeremie along the north end of the peninsula.
The West End is one of the greenest areas of Haiti; less populated and a little more isolated from the capital and the rest of Haiti. So in the coming months it may be a challenge to open back up this region. May we pray for those people, because we know they were greatly affected by this hurricane.  

Pray for Haiti- Hurricane Matthews 2016

Just a quick summary for those that follow the clinic. I have heard that the Oriani Clinic that we have reported on in the past is doing fine. They were concerned for some of their day patients that had to walk hours in the rain to reach their homes before flooding got worse. They made them make shift rain coats. They seem to have only suffered some light roof damage.
I have not heard about some of the far west end places in Haiti that got hit by the brunt of the storm. Villa received some damage and trees down. Some sort of distress communications were heard from Jacmel Congregation asking for more assistance, but nothing that we would post other than we need to pray for the situation in Haiti. CSI is a good outlet for our Church members to give direct assistance to those of our friends there as they are presently accessing the damage there. So we just request prayer and an interest to those harmed by the storm. May God help them.

Teachers Suggest CLE Bible Course for Devotions in Class

https://www.clp.org/store/by_subject/2

Is the link. I have not taught these personally though I think I have seen them used for Summer Bible School or Church Bible Study somewhere.

Science Kits as Advertised in Business Bulletin

We have decided to start our science projects here on this blog site until we see if there is enough interest to start another site. It became evident that there were quite a few resources online.

For Abeka Science Kits:
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/homeschool-supplies/curriculum-lab-kits/a-beka-kits

Another Christian Supplier kits:
http://www.logosscience.com/samplekit.html

Steve Sprangler:
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/

Note: We have seen Steve in action at Makers Faire San Mateo 2016. He writes books loaded with science experiments.
One of those books see:
https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Eggs-Flying-Potatoes-Unforgettable/dp/160832060X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1472074847&sr=8-2&keywords=steve+spangler







Science Kids:
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/












Science Buddies:
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/

Note: 1,150 projects can be found here!

Answers in Genesis:
https://answersingenesis.org/answers/

What I Do in my Spare Time: Laser Etching

Here are a few samples of some of the work I do on the side with my laser printer. I have not made too many craft projects for school yet, because of three reasons: Etsy.com, Pinterest and not enough feedback from those interested in needing material. People in general can find ideas and cheap enough alternatives on those sites. We are having a teacher meeting in CA in November or so and I will see if we can find more support or volunteers before we start a fresh website or move forward. However if you have ideas relating to school, this website or would like me to do some laser etching or design for you: contact me at jonluketws@gmail.com

Hymn done on Basswood

Reunion Magnet made out of Acrylic

                                                      Magnets made out of Alder Wood

Some Ideas About Teaching the Bible in School

 ….These words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart:

And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Duet. 6:6,7

                I am in charge of a church Bible study program and it seems we could put a little more enthusiasm into our Bible study effort. It is harder to study if you have not developed the proper tools needed. Where is a better place to start developing this tool box for Bible study than in school. I may write a longer article on this important subject, but today I am going to list a few ideas for your consideration. These are some projects I have done or hope to do this year:

1. Memorize some of the key passages of the Bible.
2. Have a quote competition where you say a Bible quote and they have to guess who said it
3. Parse or rewrite Bible verses in the students own words. Do it in small groups then read them out loud. Have them use a dictionary and thesaurus  
4. Read Bible stories out of an easier to read translation like the NIV. Look up interesting facts, archeology, or even cultural facts about the story.
5. Write modern stories loosely based on the structure of Bible stories. For instance, I hand each student three different Bible stories to choose from. If they have Joesph—they would write a story about a brother who was betrayed by his brothers and yet spared and helped them later in a time of need. This helps them to see the concept, pattern, and context of the Bible stories that can be relevant even to us today.
6. Sword drill- Pick a key word or topic and find a list of those verses in a concordance or topical Bible. Have the students look up verses that you dictate to them until they can guess which topic or keyword they have in common. I often make teams and keep points.
7. Learn books of the Bible
8. Have each student keep a notebook where you daily or weekly write down verses, quotes, or what you learned for devotions.  
9. Bible Pictionary- Have teams try to draw pictures to guess Bible characters or verses or stories
10. Diagram Bible Verses- Very important for more indepth Bible study. Diagram the verses you memorize. Look up block diagraming.
11. Get a Bible Trivia book
12. Have a student do a report on assigned books of the Bible. Thompson chain reference Bible has a lot of aids down this line.
13. Do reports on different characters of the Bible
14. Have a map quiz on the main geo features and towns of the Bible land. Have a two blank map test where they write in the past and present countries or cities of the region.
15. Have groups do a study on a verse and learn how to look up cross references
16. Have students do reports on Ancient Egyptian, Babylon, Alexander the Great and the Greeks, the Maccabees (See Josephus), Ancient Rome, the Fall of Jerusalem and create a timeline to help students make a connection with the Bible’s historical context

Writing Ideas for School

Institute for Excellence in Writing-  Andrew Pudewa 

       I have heard about this program being used by various teachers across our conference, but never really got serious about investigating it- personally. Lately an experienced teacher strongly advised me to look into it, because he could sense I would find it beneficial. He was right. I have yet to actually teach one of their courses, but I have really connected with what they have to say. A lot of things are not new, but they have done the research and put the muscle on things we talk about. Memorization, poetry, writing, public speaking, etc. Please do yourselves a favor and look them up for ideas. We need more writers and really just communicators in general. It will help you put some meat to those writing theories you had and tried to practice, but needed more confidence in.

http:  iew.com

Practical Writing Ideas I Have Tried in the Classroom:

        I have kind of winged my own writing composition program from day one.(Please do not judge me by my blogging standards!)  I like every student to have a Composition notebook that they can keep and look at all the stories they wrote during the year.  I use the language arts period on Tuesdays for assigning a one week writing assignment to do in their spare time. I provide deadline reminders the rest of the week. For example: 200 words are due Thursday, rough draft needs to be finished Friday, and finished product is due next Tuesday. We write stories, essays, and reports. I try to have my students focus more on outlines, story flow, and developing believable characters.

I also have divided up my class in two groups and have had report competitions. I give each student three topics to choose from. For example:

Bot Fly

Cuckoo Bird

Komondo Dragon

That way I can insure the class will have a wide assortment of unpredictable topics to choose from. They have one or two weeks to study and write a one-page report on their topic. They also have to write note cards for a class speech on their topic. They hand me their report and wait to present the class their topic. The opposite team listens and must come up with questions for the student after his oral report. I have pictures prepared on a projector. As they appear the students get up for their talk. Every relevant question the opposite team asks gets their team a point. Every answer given by the student gives him or her a point for his team. For the questions unanswered that student has until Monday to have “Comeback” answers to gain more points. It is a fun way for the students to write, talk, and learn about a variety of topics. From the Bermuda Triangle, the Pyramids of Giza to the poison arrow frogs of the Amazon we learn together.

We write stories and have sent them to other schools to be read and reviewed. They give us feedback on what they liked or think we need to change to make our individual stories more interesting. They in turn send us stories to critique. I think it helps students to learn how to receive and give helpful criticism to improve their writing. If you have other writing recommendations or ideas send me some at jonluketws@gmail.com

Science Crafts-(Article I wrote for Business Bulletin July 2016)

Zzziiiing! Whizzing past your head travels a rocket propelled by air reaching for the Cosmos. This is not quite Space x and it is also not quite your backyard……it is rather at school! There is nothing like a hands on physics demonstration to literally drive the point home. These science projects have the leverage to shift young minds onto the right track after reciting the terse textbook pages. Studying the Creation and its laws of motion should be anything but boring. Alas, too many teachers and students only wistfully look at the activities to do because the lack of time, will or materials to do the suggested projects.  Sometimes it is rightfully so. A single lady teacher taxing herself to cram in the extras can find it fatiguing to spend after school hours roaming Home Depot looking for suitable items for tomorrows science or craft projects.

                Snip. Snip. Snip. Scissors, paints, glue, and other materials like spaghetti can come together to make all sorts of crafts. It is very good training for children to be involved in the school crafts and workshop. It introduces them to tools, constructive criticism, following directions, and a satisfactory sense of working with your hands. Many a skeptical student has doubtfully gazed at the raw materials before having a strong sense of accomplishment when showing off the finished product. We talk about the three “R’s”, but one thing we sometimes we miss is making something out of nothing. I grew up in home where family members made about everything a person wore including my underwear. Whether it was cooking, sewing or making a toy—it was something I took for granted. I lived with a grandfather that worked through the Great Depression and saved many nick-nacks in storage for all sorts of projects and occasions. It was fascinating for a young boy to discover and manipulate these treasures into whatever need the imagination could envision.

                We call ourselves of German or probably more correctly Dutch background, but it seems to me that some of our handicrafts are slowly being neglected for the plain pursuit of money. I think a boy or girl should have a strong sense of accomplishment of working with their hands. That means satisfaction of taking a lot of nothing and making it into something. It makes them hungry for the next opportunity to try it out. Children are naturally curious and it does the world some wonders to put that tool to useful purpose. It also creates vision for future projects in adulthood. Now that more people are moving away from the farm we need to make sure our children find suitable industry to give them satisfaction in working with their hands. It seems like sports is filling some of this childish void, but we need to give our children something more sustaining.

                As a teacher in Central California I have come up with a partial solution for our schools to boost up their science and craft output. At least it could be a start. I would like to start a program to make small affordable science and craft kits targeting our schools. A few brethren attended a local Maker’s Faire and it increased our interest in making this happen. The Maker movement has made many components affordable to make such kits possible. With a laser cutter and 3D printer and eager hands we would like to construct personalized kits for teachers to construct in their classroom.  If it is a Christmas gift project or painting project—you can tell us what message or name you want laser cut into the wood. If you want your state’s profile for a project or a picture of your school burned into wood, we could do it. However, for now the plan is to provide kits on a website that you can browse and choose. Also we want to combine this with offering bulletin board decor kits. A couple sisters already do this and we want to combine our efforts onto one site.

                 I believe in handicrafts and workshops having a place in our schools. I went to a school in Canada that gave me introductions in welding, drafting, drawing, chemistry lab, tree grafting, carpentry, bee pollination to name some off the top of my head. We made everything from Amish bombs to studying the effects of aged alcohol on mice (the mouse died). If we got done with our studies we could head down to our chemistry lab and do experiments. The one condition was that we had to explain scientifically what we had set out to accomplish. Today I can see this had a certain effect on us as students. Workshop and hands on training for students is very valuable. It has helped me to be very versatile and try things I would not have tried if I had not been introduced at an earlier age.

                What I would like to see is how much interest is out there for this kind of venture. We want to build an inventory based on what our teachers want and need. We need teachers to send us craft and science ideas they want help with. If there are fathers and dads with the same vision that feel that they could help here—we will never turn down ideas or donation funds. Even though I have a family to provide for-- this is not a project I want to make a lot of profit off of. It is suppose to be a service.  For quite awhile I was thinking this sort of project would be beneficial for places like Haiti, Belize, etc. where I have visited schools personally. Now I see we also need for projects like this here in America, but who knows that door may open up in the future. Submit ideas or donations to:

Creative School Shopworks-2793 Bert Crane Road, Atwater CA 95301

Email- jonluketws@gmail.com

Science Post for Science Kits

Discovering God's World (Gr. 1)

Since I am a teacher I decided to also reach out with this blog to help promote enthused investment into our school children. One subject that goes hand and hand with a child's natural curiosity is science. However, if not taught hands on, many of its lessons are lost on a child and the subject can become loathsome to teacher and child. Here are some links to Abeka book that I found that could be helpful to homeschoolers and private schools that teach these courses. They are tailor made for the courses.  Get your school board to consider this one time purchase. You may want to shop around, but here are the two that I found:

Christianbooks.com:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/easy_find?Ntt=science+kits&N=0&Ntk=keywords&action=Search&Ne=0&event=ESRCG&nav_search=1&cms=1


Home Science Tools:

http://www.hometrainingtools.com/homeschool-supplies/curriculum-lab-kits/a-beka-kits?gclid=CjwKEAjwtqe8BRCs-9DdpMOilBoSJAAyqWz_rGIadfoyIggUEyqNtJqKQ5tfNlQM-DMIhz8YpSTQRBoC5Ivw_wcB


Order and Design (Gr.7)

Kingdom Power:

In my deepest, darkest moments, what really got me through was a prayer. Sometimes my prayer was 'Help me.' Sometimes a prayer was 'Thank you.' What I've discovered is that intimate connection and communication with my creator will always get me through because I know my support, my help, is just a prayer away.

-Iyanla Vanzant

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

-Martin Luther

Pray Without Ceasing....

Stream Live Mennonite Service- Pacific Time

This week they have Revival meetings every evening starting at 7:15 PST. 

Livingstonmennonite.com

Regular Services are Sunday Morning at 10:40 AM and 7pm

Catch the Experience.