Melissa | May 30, 2011
I’m a control freak. Combine that with a history of curriculum writing jobs and homeschooling and, well, I’m sure you can use your imagination.
What I love about the Classical Conversations Curriculum Guide is that is gives me a framework around which to build my week. For instance, the first week’s history memory sentence for 2011’s [...]
Melissa | May 29, 2011
We have harvested over 300 strawberries in under a week. Feel free to share your favorite strawberry recipes!
Cherry trees, coffee, three-in-one citrus tree, and chives.
Grapes galore!
This year’s tomato “cages.”
Cucumbers.
Snow Peas. Lovin’ the nylon netting this year.
Melissa | May 28, 2011
Every parent who has a child by international adoption should really find out what is going on in her child(ren)’s birth countr(ies) in terms of local orphan care.
If I had to put care of a child on a continuum, it would look something like this:
In an ideal world, children would be raised in a healthy [...]
Melissa | May 27, 2011
Road #1: Derek’s Calendar all started when Derek served for a couple years at MTW’s AIDS project in Addis Ababa. Between book club and our Global Outreach [GO] Team at church, we see a lot of Derek and he still has a lot of Ethiopia connections.
Road #2: The president of the non-profit with which we [...]
Melissa | May 25, 2011
We saw a post like this one at the beginning of the spring and loved it! We’re always trying to use our vertical space more efficiently.
We had initially thought we would do towers but then decided a long, narrow wall would take less time to build while still accomplishing its our original purpose…more potatoes in [...]
Melissa | May 21, 2011
I recently read a post where a mother tells the story of having had her older boys from China home 3 months when they had dinner with a Mandarin-speaking couple only to find out that the boys had no idea they were there to stay. She was heartbroken to realize that they had woken up [...]
Melissa | May 12, 2011
What is poverty? I often think it’s lack of material resources. I conjure up mental images of third, world, African countries.
It’s more than lack of material resources. Brian Fikkert, co-author of When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor… and Yourself, spoke last night at SUMMIT VII and said the most defining [...]
Melissa | May 12, 2011
As expected, our time at Summit VII has been empowering, encouraging, overwhelming, educational, and exhausting. We are at a large church in Louisville that is home to 25,000 people!
One main theme that keeps popping up in the sessions I am attending is “best practice” in international orphan care.
Thoughts:
We (westerners) do not have all the answers [...]
Melissa | May 12, 2011
“Minor, correctable special needs.”
Most of us would agree that most kids with cleft palate, small holes in the heart, club feet, and other minor, correctable special needs are really not “special needs” at all. Holt International offers a China program specifically for these children that allows families to bring home children home in less than [...]
Melissa | May 10, 2011
As I’m running around tying up loose ends before Patrick and I head to Summit VII, I can’t get last night and this morning out of my mind.
Last night Mia cried all the way home and probably cried herself to sleep. She wasn’t pouting or tantruming. She was grieving. You see, last night was our [...]
