The Learned

 Question:  Very tight budget. How do I shop? Answer: When you shop, shop by dollar per kg.  Shop online and sort by “price per unit”. Buy the cheapest of everything that way but don’t forget to read ingredients. Canned food, for example, vary in percentage of contents. They’re not 100% of whatever you think you are getting. So add the percentage to your calculations. Sort fruits and veggies in that order as well, so you end up buying what’s in season and on sale.

 Question: I need a Christian Homeschooling curriculum. Answer: Do all three: 1. The Bible is the textbook. 2. Make a workbook of questions without answers. 3. Get them to write the curriculum.

 Question:  If money is the root of all evil, should I teach my kids that? We are not well to do but we live off one income. Shouldn’t we be teaching them to be good stewards? Answer: Money is not the root of all evil. But the love of money that is the root of all evil. 1 Tim 6:10.  Jesus Himself was a businessman in the carpentry industry. Why is he a business person? Because he was not employed. He was self-employed. He had his family business on his shoulder as the oldest Son when Joseph died. Do you think he was a terrible business person? I don’t think so. It is our responsibility to teach our kids to invest and prosper. It has always been God’s will for us to prosper. His desire is to give us a hope and a future. God did not ask us to be poor. He asked us to help the poor.

 Question: Am I to have faith or prepare? Isn’t it my responsibility to prepare as a parent? Answer: We have faith but we still need to prepare as part of our responsibility, but it is about the attitude. We are not preparing out of fear but out of responsibility. Also, when it comes to contradicting values or scriptures, it depends on the situation. Sometimes, God asks us to have faith, but sometimes He gives us a warning (I.e. to Joseph, to run from Herod with baby Jesus.) so it depends on your situation. And this is the same with a lot of God’s word. When you find it contradicting, you have to know which applies to your situation — you have to hear from God yourself. That’s why we do our devotion every morning. God will tell us how to prepare for the day, week, season, etc. He will give us a verse from the Bible so we know which situation we are in.

 Question: My 4.5 year old distrusts everything we say although we never lie to him. He argues every time we say anything, insisting that we are lying. Answer: That’s a very smart 4.5 year old. Sounds like he’s been lied to before, not by you but by someone else. And that he was hurt, and that caused him to distrust anyone. It sounds like he is scared and confused, and doesn’t know what to believe anymore because he’s trust has been betrayed.  Perhaps try telling him that some people do lie, but not mommy and daddy, and not this family, and see whether he can argue with that. Perhaps he will, and show you instances of the time when someone did lie to him. Then you know where it came from and deal with it. If nothing comes up, you can continue with statements that ‘Christians are not supposed to lie either’. And see if anything comes up then.

 Question:  6 year old weaning off melatonin. Takes 2 hours to sleep. Help.  Answer: My theory has always been early to rise, early to bed. Can you get him to wake up at 5 or 6am?  If the house is noisy, I usually play wave sounds to drown the noise. If you have a Google Home with you, that’s easily done. Other than that, any phone will do. You can either get a sound app or play it on YouTube. Also, just make sure he has had enough for dinner which means some healthy carbohydrates (not the bleached ones). Healthy carbs are like potatoes and brown rice. If your child is on a strict veggie and fruit diet, he might be too hungry to sleep. Another way is try praying or worshipping really long. After praying about an hour, he should be sleeping. If that still doesn’t work, then play some Jesus Image worship. They usually go on for 2 hours. If you can find one session that makes him sleep, make sure to remember which one it is! If not, just hold him to sleep every night fo...

 Emotional Expressions are really expressions of the heart and not the head. For example, the more we try to hold back a tear, the more gushes down. And the most genuine of smiles come without you even noticing until much later. Laughter are like tears, which burst the very moment you try to hold it in. And arrows that pierce the heart is what you get if you don’t express anything at all; while the underlying truth is that the world itself will fail to contain the entirety of what you really feel in your heart.

Question: Grandparents practicing favoritism towards kids and grandkids — to run away or get close anyway? What if one is a step-dad? Answer: Wow. That’s a lot to take in.  I don’t know if a step dad is considered a parent and therefore if the ‘honor your parents’ applies to him. Hmmm.. food for thought. My guess is that he is technically not, so I wouldn’t be so worried? That being said, I do think it is great if we can all be a happy family. At least for the honoring your mom part. And I guess honoring him is how you honor your mom?  It’s really sad to experience favoritism in your family and more sad to be the less favored. However, how your mom treats your younger siblings have many reasons. It’s always easy for parents to be mushy with the youngest but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you more. Different people express love to different people differently. That doesn’t measure love accurately at all. Love carefully hidden is worse than open rebuke. Proverbs 27:5 Persona...

Question: How to teach kids to read? Answer: Two common ways: Phonetics and Word Recognition. Just do both and you’ll be fine. YouTube ABC Phonetic songs for the Phonetic part. Teach him to write his name and pronounce it by alphabets. Then work on Word Recognition: start with easy words like articles, “a, an, the” then conjunctions etc.

 Question: I'd like to hear from those of you who keep the Jewish feasts. What denomination are you, what are your reasons, do you still celebrate the "regular" holidays? Also interested in any resources you might have on the topic. Answer: Yes, we celebrate both Jewish and mainstream, except Halloween. We are interdenominational, apostolic and prophetic. Also, we celebrate Passover and Resurrection Sunday instead of Easter. The reason is because God says so. Exodus 12:14, 17, 24. Leviticus 23:41 New Testament:  https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/gods-holy-day-plan-the-promise-of-hope-for-all-mankind/gods-festivals-in-the-new-testament And the reason why the Jewish feasts were removed was because of Constantine. He removed all the Jewish feasts because he blamed the Jews for murdering Jesus and wanted nothing to do with them. Today, we know that is so wrong. Jesus Himself is a Jew. I’m sorry it’s a wiki but it sums up everything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

 First off, Children Ministry is not a baby sitting service. It is a children’s church, and therefore do not need to be the same time as the service. I prefer my kids to be in the church with the congregation.  Having said that, younger children need to be nursed. And personally I prefer to nurse in a separate room myself. A lot of churches’ nurseries are still incompatible unless it is a mega church. But if you go to a mega church for the sake of their facilities and programs, you will feel very dry, and will feel like there is no point going to church either.   The teenagers could help out with the younger kids if you have a large family. A youth group is not the answer. If anything, can only make things worse. A lot of youth who go to a youth service at the same time as the main service never fit in again once they are too old for the youth group. And they drop out of church.  If I were you, I’ll put all my kids in the main hall throughout the service. That’s...

Question: My Catholic mother-in-law asked me to read Matthew 28:19-20 because she is concerned that my last 2 babies haven’t been baptized with Holy water. She made me question what happens if something should happen to my babies when they aren’t baptized 😔 Answer: Baptism is about leaving the old life behind. Romans 6:4 Babies don’t have a past, so there is no need for baptism yet. Secondly, real baptism means being fully immersed in water. John 3:23 (much water was needed). Matthew 3:16 (Jesus arose from the water.) Acts 8:38 (They went into the water). Not sprinkled. Babies are too young for that. And Jesus himself was 30 years old when he was baptized. And the Bible never mentioned baptizing babies.  Thirdly, baptism is about dedicating one’s life to God which means that a child must acknowledge this and willingly and consciously make such a decision. Watch Jesus Image baptisms, especially of children, to understand how this is done. Nevertheless if she still insists, feel fre...

  Question: As a Christian mom who is not doing “Santa” with her kids, how do you approach the topic with young children? Answer: The truth. Santa was a good guy many years ago who just wanted to give children presents, especially those who could not afford it. But after he passed away, instead of following his example to give unfortunate children presents like he did, children became obsessed with receiving presents from him instead, and plenty of folktale followed as if he lived in the North Pole with a bunch of elves, etc. so we must not get distracted with Santa during Christmas but remember that it is Jesus’ birthday, and don’t forget Santa’s example in giving presents to underprivileged children. Also, all the kids in my family give presents to each family member. So there’s a ton of presents every Christmas. Don’t need one from Santa. The best presents are from mommy and daddy or grandpa and grandma. Each family member including kids gives a gift to each family member. Becau...

Question: Can a Christian not go to church? Answer: Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together Hebrews 10:25 The cross is a picture of the horizontal and vertical relationship that we have: our vertical relationship is our relationship with God, the horizontal relationship is our relationship with one another. The church is a spiritual family. There is power when the generations come into alignment with each other. There is power in inter generational worship. Do not hold back your kids from the corporate worship and the presence of God and the power of God. If you are not experiencing the presence of God in the church you are in, I suggest you find one that has the presence of God. Where are you located?

I have always believed that parents are also mentors in the real world. That means, expose them to Daddy’s job. Use this opportunity to take them to his workplace and see firsthand how things are run. Take this opportunity to expose them to the area that he is involved in, that is his passion, and also other areas that touch on his skill and hobbies, whatever he is interested in, be it in fishing, fixing the car, etc. Dads love to be heroes, so let him bring them into his world.

Question: What are the toys that keep your toddler busy while you homeschool? My little guy is almost 3 and very disruptive! Answer:  My little girl loves DUPLO, cooking toys (she’s a girl), but she also loves watching those little balls roll down tubes on YouTube so I’m considering getting her one of those. And she loves playing with cups, containers, small books and blocks.

If this is you, then as a teacher, I would say, look out for signs of dislexia and always sound encouraging. But as a mom, I’d say, my daughter has the same issues, and I have to correct her, but I will not give in to believing that she is dyslexic. Just be extra patient with her.

Try Pinterest for cool games. I used to work for a math company called Math Monkey which teaches mental arithmetic using games. Turn everything into a game. Some games included are treasure hunts, fishing and basketball. They have like number cards with either answers or questions. They have to hunt for them or fish them out, etc. and how many right answers will result in how many times you get to throw the ball into the hoop. Every throw is one point and you can buy stationary with them.

Question: What is the role of biblical headship when you have unmarried adult daughters at home? What does it look like? Answer: A parent will always be a parent, no matter how old your kids are. Your spiritual responsibilities remain just as much as your natural responsibilities remain. At this stage, they should be mature enough to appreciate any advice from their parents, spiritual or not. And they should be going to you for advice. Just don’t shun them off due to age, if anything. My parents are also my spiritual parents. They raised me up both naturally and spiritually. And age doesn’t graduate anyone from having spiritual parents. Even if they are married, you still have Biblical responsibility to lead them. Because when they get married, you’re still their mom. Even after you pass away, you are still their mom. Nothing will ever change that. Question in response: Does the leading become more of a walking beside? Answer: Not really. Spiritual parents have spiritual authority. Thi...

Someone’s comment: Education requires experts. Let us leave it to the experts. Education has to respond to the global need for knowledge and skills. My answer: Since when was education created to respond to the global need for skills? They are human beings, not machines to produce a desired output. If the world has a need for skills, it is up to an individual to decide if they want to fulfill it. If they don’t have the best interests of the students at heart, they don’t deserve to write the curriculum. They’re using the students to fulfill the needs and desires of the politicians. — curriculum writer here.  How about the government control what is on our plate every meal according to the monetary and political benefits of the country rather than their health? Don’t follow every recipe given just because someone with a PhD in culinary wrote it. Who’s paying them to write what? Response to my answer: when was it created to not to? My answer: Education was first homeschooling before t...

 Cleaning up the house is not a chore; It is a luxury not everyone can afford the time for.

There was a young man who fell in love with a girl. “I’m going to make her my girlfriend,” he promised himself.  The next few days, weeks and months, he chased her. He followed her everywhere, wrote her letters and even composed songs which he sung to her on his guitar. He didn’t even know how to play it before that. Months turned to years. Finally, she caved in and agreed to accept his proposal. She was now his girlfriend! They made it official and posted it online for the world to see. She even wore a ring he had given her on her birthday to signify his commitment to her. But the very next day after being his girlfriend, he stopped all communication with her. After about a week, she contacted him and asked, “What happened? Don’t you love me anymore?” “Of course I do,” he said. That’s why having you as my girlfriend was all I ever wanted.” “Then why did you stop calling and texting me?” “Because I got what I wanted.” Don’t stop talking to God just because you think you’re a Christ...

Wife: I wonder if you love me... Husband: Love is patient; Love is kind; Love is long suffering. I did long suffering, so you can’t say I didn’t love you. Wife: ... True story.

1. I was shaped to fly. 2. I was made to be sent. 3. I am handmade.

 If you really want to help victims of domestic violence and single mothers,  begin with the fathers.

 I had a dream this morning. A nightmare. I dreamt that my whole life was coming to an end in terms of ministry, family and finance. I dreamt that I screwed up with my kids so badly that everything was literally falling apart - the whole house, and that it went viral so much so that everyone who ever meant anything to us in the ministry told us off, that I was unfit as a pastor, as a teacher and as a mother. And I screwed up so badly that even my parents’ ministry was jeapordized and they were denied their right as pastors because of me. Even they were lectured at the end of it by the nicest people in the ministries we knew of: the fathers of the people who were the closest to us, whom we respected the most. But then, when I woke up and felt terrible about it, and was trying to get over how real it all was, I heard God speak to me: Don’t ever apologize: 1. For something you did not do. 2. For who you are. 3. To the devil. 4. For doing the right thing. Every part in that dream, I di...

 Gender Awareness/Consciousness Gender Awareness comes about when a child is about 3 years of age. Before this, the child is knows what gender he or she is and can tell the difference but will not really be bothered until this age, when he starts to ask more questions and show curiosity, and making conclusions based on gender differences. He might also start to insist on his own gender and not wanting to relate with certain items that may not reflect his own gender. At this stage, it is very important for parents to provide Gender Assurances to the child because he will be looking for it. Our reaction is very important – how seriously we take a Gender Offence. Gender Offences Gender Offences are non-acceptable gender-crossing behaviour. For example, a boy is not allowed to go into the ladies' room. This is a serious Gender Offence and should be given a serious disapproval or it may result in Gender Confusion. Gender Confusion Gender Confusion happens when a child is uncertain, unde...