The summer of 2011 went by too fast for our family! As we begin another homeschool year, we rejoice in all the memories made during the summer months. While we thoroughly enjoyed taking the bookstore around to various homeschool conferences in the midwest while meeting new friends, we were still relieved when we could actually slow down and just enjoy being at home with our own family. Many of the hot days of summer were spent harvesting the garden, watching the children swim in their pool, and renewing our weary souls. As we have discovered over the years, traveling and managing a bookstore tends to take away from the extra time we used to have just studying God’s Word. We have been convicted that as a family, we need to spend more time in our personal devotions and less time doing things that don’t truly count for eternity. To help in this endeavor, we are now using “Who is God?” by Apologia Curriculum. This apologetic curriculum is perfect for our family devotional time around the breakfast table. As we read about the various characteristics of God, our children work in the accompanying notebooking journal or coloring book which emphasizes scripture memorization and putting various doctrines into practice. (This material has great strengthened our children’s Christian worldview, so we are now offering it, along with volumes 2 & 3, in our bookstore at www.godseternalmasterpiece.com.)

We also worked on serving one another with love and humility. It comes easier for some of our children; however, it was a struggle for others. As each child assisted another sibling in picking berries, cleaning their bedroom, hanging laundry on the line, etc, we saw stronger sibling unity and a great love for one another being established. Even our one year old joined in by helping to pick the blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries while the older children were doing it. Of course, many of the berries ended up in his mouth - but that’s OK! It was a great source of Vitamin C!

Summer wrapped up with our vacation to the Iowa Regular Baptist Camp for Family Camp. What a joy to be refreshed physically and spiritually there! We all enjoyed the zip line, archery, swimming, boating, and reviving friendships with believers of like faith. Yes, there were loads of laundry to wash and overgrown weeds to pull when we came back home, but that’s OK! The memories made as a family were worth the work afterwards!

Now we are looking forward to what this new school year will bring us. It appears that the Lord has some new challenges for us in the days ahead, but we’ll tackle those as they come. It is so encouraging to know that God has promised never to leave us or forsake us!

Let us know how your summer went and what God’s been doing in your family! We can then rejoice together in all the amazing ways God works!

Becky, God’s Eternal Masterpiece, Mason City Iowa