natalie’s blog

My students and I had a great time this past week during our summer Piano Camps! One of our local music teachers associations is sponsoring a Music Olympics festival in a couple of weeks, so we spent a lot of our time at Piano Camp training and preparing for this event. It was a ton of fun! Here’s a video I put together last night to capture some of the memories from the week:

After hours of work, I am excited to announce that my amazing little sister, Naomi Anne, now has a home on the World Wide Web! You can visit her blog at www.NaomiAnne.com.

Naomi is one of the most disciplined, self-motivated people I know. She has a true heart for the Lord and loves spending time in His Word - reading, studying, memorizing and growing in her relationship with Jesus. I am confident that her blog will be an inspiration to many and I look forward to reading her posts! I know it would mean a lot to her if you would drop by and leave her a comment to encourage her in this endeavor.

Here is a helpful list posted today by the Kansas Republican Assembly of candidates they chose to prefer for the 2008 elections.

While the front-runners in the 2008 Presidential campaign do nothing to excite me, quite the opposite is true of Peter DeGraaf. The DeGraaf family have been friends of ours for years and I was thrilled when I learned that Mr. DeGraaf, after considerable thought and prayer, decided to run for the Kansas State House Seat for District 81. Former District 81 State Representative Ted Powers passed away unexpectedly last month and Mr. DeGraaf was voted in by his county’s precinct committeemen and committeewoman to fill the remainder of his term. Now he will run a tough race against three opponents in the August primary before advancing, Lord-willing, to the general election in November.

There is a great team of people already working on the campaign and the website I’ve been developing for him is up and running. I’ve still got some work to do on it, but feel free to stop by and check it out. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions for improvement. And, as the Lord brings it to mind, please pray for these upcoming elections. May God continue to raise up godly men to serve in positions of leadership throughout our nation!

Yes, it’s true. Naomi passed the test and can now drive legally with her learner’s permit. She is very excited…but this is how the rest of us feel about it…

Check it out…

This year of AIC was one of the most amazing ever! Despite my initial objections, God clearly directed us to go with a Western theme and it turned out to be a blast! I even have my own cowgirl hat now…

The group that made up our staff team this year:
Mark, Cori, Joel, myself, Seth, Kayla, Tiffany, Emma, Aaron, Lisa. We had a wonderful time working together and it’s neat to see how God used our strengths and skills to complement each other. Here we pose under the perfect entrance sign designed by Seth and Kayla!

The incredible bunch of teachers and assistant teachers that worked with the students throughout the weekend (click on it for a bigger image). I was so impressed with the vision and maturity of this dedicated group of young people:
(L-R) Row 1: Seth, Ariel, Abigail, Lydia, Lauren, Kayla, Mirriam, Julie, Leah, Kerri, Sarah, Rachel, Naomi, Susan, Corinn, Noelle, Leah, Michelle, Tori, Libby, Emma; Row 2: myself, Andrea, Abby, Amy, Bethany, Julia, Olivia, Anne, Lisa, Faith, Celeste, Riley, Mary, Riley, Hannah, Rachel, Katie, Joel, Lisa; Row 3: Cori, Tiffany, Titus, Jynae, Mason, Kayla, Ryan, Josiah, JJ, Tiffany, Prestyn, Jesse, Cale, Sol, Tyler, Cade, Isaac, Chad, Colin, Josh, Kody, Benjamin, Mark, Aaron.

Dr. Jay Wile, one of the keynote speakers for the TPA 2008 Convention, spoke Thursday evening to all the AIC workers. His session title was, The Bible: A Great Source of Modern Science, and was very interesting and informative.

Our doors opened Friday at 12:30 and shortly thereafter we were filled to capacity. About a week and a half before the registration deadline, our registration numbers were low - just a little over 100. I sent an e-mail out to our Prayer Warrior list, asking them to pray for more children. We were specifically praying and planning for 300, but trusted that the Lord would bring the ones He wanted to be there. At the end of the early registration deadline day, I received an e-mail letting me know that our count was now up to 265! By the time our doors opened on Friday we had over 300 and our final count was 329 - the most we’ve ever had! All praise to the Lord who so graciously answers the prayers of His people.

Apparently, the onslaught of children was too much for our Registration Supervisor…

The drama got off to a fabulous start, thanks in huge part to the drama director, Aaron, and the rest of his family who handled all the props and scene changes. All of our actors and actresses did an outstanding job and the children loved the drama!

All the actors and actresses gathered in prayer before each scene to dedicate it to the Lord.

My brother, Joey, enjoyed playing the part of Peter, and the role of Garrett-our key character-was providentially filled at after the last minute by Kyle. The “voice of God” narrated each day as we followed the journey of a group of settlers to the West where they began to build a new life for themselves. They faced numerous obstacles and set-backs, but learned many valuable lessons along the way and ultimately learned that every event - both the good and the bad - was orchestrated by God for a very specific purpose.

My sister, Naomi, also finally landed her big role as Peter’s sister, Jenny. This was her big scene with Nellie, who played the part of…Nellie.

Last year’s drama director, Laura, and props manager, Justin - now married to each other - joined us as Ethel and Wayne in the drama this year!

The mysterious Sylvester, played superbly by Luke, captured the childrens’ imagination from his very first appearance.

We couldn’t have asked for better cronies than Colby and Sol - and we didn’t even typecast these parts this year!

Having a lot of characters on the stage for each scene was a huge feat, but the actors and actresses handled each scene very well.

Rich E. Lands faces the reality that everything he has worked for his entire life has been suddenly destroyed. Our gifted actor, Bryce, masterfully portrayed this rich landowner and the transformation God brought about in his life.

The drama concluded with a stirring rendition of “The Solid Rock”, accompanied on the guitar by our talented drama director, Aaron.

The students got right to work completing the games and activities in their student workbooks, excellently designed by Tiffany to correspond with the theme this year.

Miss Lisa, Miss Abby and Miss Sarah line their team up for the next assembly.

Mr. Cade leads his team toward the assembly in a controlled, orderly manner - just like all the other teams…all weekend long…

AIC would not function without these two amazing young ladies. Seriously. Cori is the Materials Coordinator and she and Ariel stay one step ahead of everyone else all weekend long, making sure that all the teams have the supplies they need, tracking down extra supplies and taking care of so many little details that I’m sure I don’t even know about!

Nellie, one of the characters from the drama, reads a story to a couple of teams for one of the teaching sessions. The AIC students love getting to meet their “stage celebrities” in person!

Former AIC staff members are doing their job to keep AIC populated with children for years to come.

Mr. Joel and Miss Emma hold down the fort - Fort Wisdom, that is. They are available throughout the weekend to work with AIC students that will benefit from one-on-one attention. As an extra perk, students can crawl through the teepee or go for a ride on the saddle.

Kathy…

…and my Mom are the queens of snack time! They handled all of our food needs and kept us well-stocked with lots of goodies throughout the weekend.

Miss Libby, the official AIC Piano Virtuoso, accompanied our singing, ran the drama soundtracks and even pitched in to help teach on one of the teams. We couldn’t have done it without her!

Our traditional Saturday morning exercises were a hit and served as the perfect diversionary tactic for the strategic water gun attack executed by all the staff girls on all the unsuspecting staff guys.

We employed the assistance of several AIC students and teachers and the plan worked beautifully!

Miss Chandler joins Miss Jynae, Mr. Mark and me on stage to be a judge in our showdown. Mr. Mark is still recovering from the wounds he sustained in our previous competition as the students tried to blow him off the stage by reciting their memory verses as loudly as possible.

Miss Jynae and I pause for a quick photo with the Bradshaw kiddos and Mr. Prestyn.

The weekend concludes with a special presentation for all the parents of the songs and verses the students have learned and a short video capturing highlights from the weekend.

My favorite picture this year - a shot from behind the curtain on the back of the stage (click on it for a bigger image). What a privilege it is to get to know the many children, young people and parents who are a part of AIC. It is our constant hope and prayer that God would use this ministry to impart His truths to these children and to encourage families in their homeschool journey.

“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”

1 Corinthians 3:11-13

May we continue to labor, with all of His strength, to build our lives according to God’s design!

(A huge thanks to all those who captured the pictures that contributed to this post…Naomi, Kayla, Lisa, Cori.)

This is another tough one…I’ll post some hints if no one can guess it!

Hint #1: It’s in downtown Baltimore.

I’m betting that no one will get this one!

Alright, technically a person, not a landmark, but can you name this well-known politician we happened to meet up with at the World War II Memorial?

Yes, this really is a landmark, not just an obscure hill. It is very historically significant.