No Greater Joy Ministries » Silver Lining

The Well

Debi Pearl — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:07:12 +0000

I have very fond memories of my grandmother training me in the art of making biscuits. Teaching me seemed to make her happy. Each morning she would pull out the biscuit board drawer that was built into the cabinet. It was a board, like a table top, mounted like a drawer. It was always covered with flour. Once the board was extended she would mound two cups of flour on it. Then she would explain to me as she pushed a hole in the middle of the flour, “First make your well.” The well was just a hole in the middle of the pile of flour. To my young ears, calling the hole a “well” sounded so fine—mysterious-like. Into the well she dumped slightly warm lard, and then she added homemade buttermilk. With her thumb and index finger, working only in the well, she worked the lard and buttermilk, gradually incorporating the flour until it formed a soft dough. She rolled the dough with a rolling pin a few times, and then patted it down to about half an inch thick. With her biscuit cutter she pressed out about ten biscuits. She always had a big black skillet with butter in it warming in the oven. Each biscuit would quickly be turned in the warmed butter before she added the next one. While they baked in her hot oven, I played with the leftover dough, learning how to cut out biscuits. I can clearly remember standing there, almost eye-level with the countertop, working with the dough while drinking in the wonderful aroma of baking biscuits. My grandmother trained me to make biscuits. She trained me to laugh while making biscuits. My mischievous streak was developed in that kitchen as I conferred with my grandmother in how we could scare Papa when he came in for breakfast. Ask my staff—I am well trained in making biscuits and in the art of scaring distracted office workers. I am the queen of “BOO!” Oh, how dearly I loved my grandmother! As I look back, I know I must have left her floor covered with flour, yet she included me. I can’t remember a time I disobeyed my grandmother. I wanted to please her.

Her joy in helping was immeasurable; and more important, she was being trained to love working with her hands.

Today I sat at the kitchen table making guacamole out of 600 avocados. You read it correctly…600 avocados. A man in the church was able to buy a hundred boxes of avocados for a ridiculously low price. I bought ten boxes from him. My daughter Shoshanna and 3-year-old granddaughter Penelope dropped by while I was in the middle of my green venture. Penelope didn’t hesitate a minute. She was up in my lap, and where once there were two hands working, suddenly there were four. She imitated my every move. It slowed me down considerably, and green goo plopped on the floor a few times, but her joy in helping was immeasurable; and more important, she was being trained to love to work with her hands. It was Proverbs 31—Training Class 101. Many parents get so worked up over making their children be obedient in all things they forget that training doesn’t mean discipline; it means instructing the child in how to master the issues of life. Training is the art of imparting skill sets and worldviews. Training a child in the way he should go involves taking a child by the hand and allowing him to be a part of your productive life. If you cook a meal and don’t have your little girl standing beside you as you talk her through every step of the process, then you are NOT training her up to be a good cook. If you clean house, shop, sew, have a Bible study, or any number of productive activities and you don’t involve your children, then you are not TRAINING UP your children in the way they should go.

Training a child in the way he should go involves taking a child by the hand and allowing him to be a part of your productive life.

God stated it correctly when he said, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” When you train a child to enjoy cooking, she will always enjoy cooking. When you train up a child to work, he will always enjoy the accomplishment of a job well done. When you train up a child to notice what needs to be done, to be on time, to be respectful, to work as a team, to use time wisely, and to put his shoulder to the plow, he will always be responsible and productive. It is not a strange turn of events that one boy grows up to be lazy and another is a worker; that one woman is bitter and the other is full of joy; that one person is productive and the other expects others to pay his way; that one man is lustful and the other is self-disciplined; that one woman is emotionally crippled, and the other is wise and thoughtful. Train up—not spank up or fuss up or even instruct up—it is TRAIN UP. Train her how to make biscuits. It starts with a well and results in a life well lived. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

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Only One Life

Ben Sargent — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:01:39 +0000

Man, it’s quiet around here. Deafening actually. Mansquared, the baby of the family, left a week ago today for his first semester at a four-year college. He gained that moniker, Mansquared, from his big brother Firstborn because, well, he’s as strong as any two men multiplied. Firstborn’s a sizable fellow as well, just a tick under six-feet-five and an established military man. He finished his degree in political science and is now improving the world by making us all safer, having just completed his second deployment in a faraway land. Two mighty men, almost ten years apart, who have kept their virtue. Oh, and we also raised three virtuous daughters as well, who, thankfully, look like their mother. Our eldest daughter Punkin’ and her husband Mr. Perfect are busy raising two sons with a third grandbaby on the way. As singles they both served the Lord as missionaries, and did so again as a married couple. Our middle daughter Peaches is the family brainiac and an English fanatic (another trait she gained from her mother), who super-achieves in all she endeavors to accomplish, and who glorifies the Lord with her violin. And then there is Miss Gail. She is the family artist. Only God himself could give talent like she possesses from two parents who can’t draw a box if you spot them the first three sides. She can draw a picture that looks like a photograph, or a caricature of it, too, if she’s in the mood. All five children have honored the Lord in foreign missions as well as in the local assemblies where they have lived. And we couldn’t be more pleased. As my friend Donny has said many, many times, “We didn’t have ‘em to keep ‘em.” But man, it’s quiet around here. We sure didn’t have them to keep them. We just didn’t realize that 28 years was going to go by so quickly or that the quiet would be so incredibly loud. The boys aren’t playing their guitars, Peaches her violin, or Miss Gail the piano. Punkin isn’t directing traffic in the kitchen or challenging anyone to follow her on the next mission trip to…wherever. “The Lord will provide!” she would say, and sure enough, he would. No one is asking, “Daddy, what does it mean if your car…” There’s just quiet.

“The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.” 1 Corinthians 7:4

Too often this is where Mom and Dad look at one another and think to themselves, “Who on earth are you?” They raise kids until their tongues are hanging out from exhaustion and lose sight of each other. Even worse, they lose sight of their first ministry, which is to each other. 1 Corinthians 7:4 says, “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.” Serving one another and caring for one another can easily be lost if raising the kids becomes the priority in the home. Worshipping God and honoring him should be the priority. When that is done, then Mom and Dad have the opportunity to rally together to bring up the children in the “…nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Eighty percent of leadership is our personal example. We wanted our children to know we loved one another and that we were still in love. There was that and, well, we wanted to stay in love. We wanted to be like that couple we saw when we were traveling. We were young with all of our stair-step children. The couple was not young, but they held hands. And they matched colors. They looked at each other with their age spots through their watery eyes with utter adoration. As we approached them with our little herd they stopped, looked up at us, and the old man said, “You’re so rich!” I said, “So are you, to still be in love.” The old lady proudly proclaimed, smiling, “We still work at it,” and I could see that was true. So we worked at it—worked hard at times, and at others just enjoyed the fruits of our efforts. Our first night alone I said, “Well, we did it. We raised a family.” She put her head on my shoulder and said, “Dad, that was fast.” It was indeed. And now as the deafening quiet has set in (at least we can finally hear each other!) we look at one another with hearts broken from joy that we had such a wonderful privilege, but with equal joy that we got there together, in love. - Ben Sargent (life-long friend of the Pearls)

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The Flower House

Shalom (Pearl) Brand — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:01:03 +0000

When I was a little girl, my sister and I played house all day, every day. We would build our play pretend houses everywhere we went. I remember days when Dad would come from work and stop in shock at the mess Shoshanna and I had made in the sunroom. We would take every book, chair, cushion, cardboard, or blanket that Mom would let us use and build ourselves a fancy home. One time we found a pile of old flowers the graveyard keeper had tossed over the fence onto our farm. In great excitement, we took them to our yard and stuck them into the ground to create flower walls for our house. We thought it was so wonderful. We ran to find Dad and Mom so they could come and see our wonderful new house. With great pleasure and pride we showed it off. Like the fine parents they are, they smiled and sat at a makeshift table in our magnificent flower kitchen room and pretended to eat with us. I look back to my childhood and realize that when my parents saw the plastic flowers all over the front lawn they must have been thinking, “Oh, no! What a mess!” But as a child I never had a clue that our flower playhouse was anything but beautiful. Their smart little girls only filled their hearts with gladness. The first year of my marriage I lived in a magical world of making a real house become a special home. A pleasure and pride very akin to what I knew as a child daily filled my heart. When Dad and Mom came over to visit, I fed them real food at a real table, and it was so much fun. Last night my good husband brought home some short pieces of wood from his job. My two little girls found it, and right now, as I am writing this, both are outside gleefully making a new playhouse with the small pieces of wood and some fake flowers left over from a party. When they are finished making their playhouse, like my mother before me, I will go out and sit with them in their kitchen and pretend to eat dirt cake. And someday, when my daughters are married, with the same pride that they once fed me dirt cake they will feed me fine foods at their real table. They will, as I have done, reflect back to the glorious days of their childhood, remembering that Mama took time to play pretend with them. —Shalom (Pearl) Brand

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Functioning Community

Michael Pearl — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:40:02 +0000

No doubt about it: effectively training up children in this current society is the toughest job you’ll ever have.

Their growing up is inevitable, but growing into righteous, emotionally stable, productive human beings is a miracle that requires extraordinary sacrifice, commitment, and wisdom on the part of parents. There was a time when there were small, close-knit communities composed of extended family and friends, where the church and school reflected and enforced Christian values, where children just naturally grew up to be stable and well-trained. No more. Those times are gone forever. Every government agency, form of entertainment, electronic device, and educational entity is now designed to mold children into the image of hedonistic heathens with self-gratification as the chief end of life. Trying to shield your children from exposure to evil is like trying to sandbag your house against the rising flood waters of the Mississippi River. You have to teach your children to swim against the rising onslaught of pollution and not swallow any of the putrid water in the process, because the world will definitely seep in on your children. I have now lived long enough to have observed the entire process and can document the results of various proffered solutions to the problem of raising up righteous, overcoming children. One panicky approach that has failed miserably is retreat and isolation. It illustrates a dilemma: children must be raised in a functioning community, but community is generally depraved. If we retreat and throw up barriers to the world, our community may become so small as to cause the children to feel trapped and deprived, resulting in their longingly looking beyond the artificial walls to the exciting world beyond. They must feel that all of their needs will be met within their community—spouse, home, work, entertainment, worship, entrepreneurship, individual expression, education, etc. I have observed too many isolated families produce angry, resentful children that flee into the arms of the world at the first opportunity. One of the outstanding marks of the family that isolates itself and criticizes those on the outside is that the children fail to get married. They will have eight children, half of them over 25, with several still living at home. The girls, more than the boys, get bypassed for marriage. The guys are prone to take flight and satisfy their hormonal urges, but the girls just wait and wait and wait for that miracle to happen—but the prospective grooms are just not shopping at their little boutique. Even when the girls venture out into the light of day where guys will see them, they are often bypassed. I have asked the young men why they are not interested in such a lovely, disciplined, hardworking young lady, and they just shrug and try to put their thought into words, and then I realize again that they have no thoughts regarding the young lady, no opinion, no interest—she just isn’t there. She lacks personality, vivaciousness, charm, attractiveness. She reflects the small, dull world in which she was cloistered. She is a nun fresh from the convent. I have observed that it is not altogether the isolation that causes rebellion in the boys and discontent in the girls as much as the attitude of the parents. When children are raised in remote areas, like on a horse ranch in Montana, or the outback of Alaska, they are not as likely to jump ship and reject their families. They do not take their family’s isolation to be self-imposed, as if their parents are deliberately depriving them of their due. They are more likely to be needed as working members of the unit, sharing the struggles and the joys of the family business. When these isolated kids come out of the mountains or off the farm to the big city, they may be a little awkward and ill at ease at first, but they are never dull. They possess confidence and poise in their body language and interest and curiosity in their eyes. They are likely to excite the interest of the opposite sex because they have a depth to them that the deliberately isolated do not have. Even as they may leave the old life behind and seek broader opportunities in the larger world, they are more likely to cherish their upbringing and appreciate their parents. The attitude difference between deliberately cloistered children and incidentally isolated children is the attitude conveyed by the parents. In a fenced-in home where the parents are paranoid about the world beyond and always criticizing those on the outside as a means of keeping them from accepting other influences, children grow up with small souls, and when they discover that outsiders are not so bad, their parents try to build the fences even higher, warning them against opening up to the evil without. The children, already suspicious of the world, grow bitter at their parents and find themselves alone and lonely in a world that has passed them by, or they plunge into a social circle with no skills to survive and are consumed by forces they do not understand. Again, the dilemma: do I isolate my children from the evil without and face the possibility of them becoming dysfunctional in the world and unfulfilled in love, or do I allow them to freely socialize and risk their developing a hedonistic perspective? I appreciate the complexity of the problem you face. There is a way to victory, even in this present world. Foremost, before you give attention to training and guiding your children, give them what they most need—parents who love each other and enjoy life together. Most parents who cloister their children are themselves unhappy and fearful. If you are not in harmony with your spouse, you will create insecurity. I know young people who say they do not want to be married because their parents’ marriage was so painful and contentious, but they do want sex. Lady, read Created to Be His Help Meet and believe it this time. Put it into practice. Mister, stop trying to rule your wife like she is your slave and start loving “her as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Delight in your spouse and your spouse will delight in you, and your children will delight in being a part of the family. After making the family a fun love factory, adopt the world without as your project. When you live in fear and are in retreat, you have stopped trying to convert the world to Christ and have forfeited the opportunity to make a difference. In short, you are fearful and selfish—not good ground to raise children. Instead of retreating, start meeting the needs of others. Give your children meaning by doing things outside the home that are meaningful. Touch the lives of those in need. Share the gospel with the lost. Then you need to join yourself and your family to a fellowship of believers that share your goals and perspective. Build community. This takes on different forms to different families, and I cannot tell you exactly how this should occur in your unique circumstances. But you must have a circle of daily acquaintances with whom you can share your life. Know for a certainty, when Christians form an intimate circle, there will always be a family that pushes their way into your life that will bring the world and all its ugliness into the inner sanctum. You must be vigilant as a parent and be prepared to hurt someone’s feelings, if necessary. It is one thing to take your children without the camp to minister to the needy, but is quite another to allow sin into the camp where your guard is down. So many parents have ruled over the damnation of their children through their forgiving hearts with the excuse, “Well, shouldn’t we minister to them, as well?” Ministry takes place when you put on the whole armour to stand against the wiles of the devil. Never allow your children to play with kids that were not raised in the Spirit as are yours. Think of the darkness in other children as ten times as powerful as the light in yours, and you will stand a better chance of them not being exposed to pornographic images or talk. You must create community that is protected and sanctified while ministering to the world without. Two or three families does not make a community. Arrange your job, the location of your residence, your church life, the schooling of your children, and your social engagements so as to maximize righteous community for your children. If you send your children to public or Christian school, you have relinquished all control and allowed them to form community without you. Their schoolmates are their community and will be the determining factor in their development. You have placed their souls in the hands of other children. In our church, every family homeschools. If someone came into the church whose children go to or have gone to public schools or church schools, their younger children would never be allowed into the inner social circle with our kids. There would be zero fraternization, even on the church grounds after meetings. We have built community and will not allow it to be corrupted. The stakes are too high. But we readily reach out to others and receive every stripe of sinner who repents toward God and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Most parents don’t have the guts to form community and protect it. Before they will take a painful stand, they will sacrifice their children on the altar of social politeness. There is enough evil arising in the hearts of our own children; we do not need to accelerate the process by unguarded association with children that have been prematurely immersed in the Devil’s culture. Older kids—sixteen to seventeen years old—who have been to public school and have demonstrated true conversion and commitment to Christ may enjoy full acceptance by the other kids, for, by the time our young people get into their middle teens, most of them are quite capable of standing firm against temptation. More than ever, I encourage you to create community. Sacrifice everything, including your comfortable way of making a living, to create a wholesome context in which to raise your children. The greatest day of your life is the day you come home from a wedding with one fewer kid, knowing that you completed your task; you planted another godly family in this sin-cursed world. The greatest achievement in life is to “train up a child in the way he should go” so that “when he is old he will not depart from it.” Reread Jumping Ship. Give a copy to a friend in need. ☺

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Preparing to Be a Help Meet—NEW BOOK!

Debi Pearl — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:10:01 +0000

Nearly every wife will confess that the first year or two of married life was…how shall I say it…a frustrating learning experience. Most girls spend plenty of time planning for their wedding, but make no preparation for the weeks and years to follow. Many wives are provoked to bitterness during the first year and never get over it. All this could so easily be avoided with simple instruction. It was with good reason God said let the aged women teach the younger. Trial and error is not the best teacher when it comes to marriage. It is much less painful to learn beforehand what God has to say about your role as a help meet to that special man God will bring into your life. It is the older women who have experienced the joys of a good marriage whom God has appointed to pass along his instructions. That is what I have done in this new book Preparing to Be a Help Meet. Preparing to Be a Help Meet contains six sweet love stories written by wives sharing their experiences about how God taught them to be the help meets they are today. Three of the stories are from wives that have been married over 40 years. Three stories are by new brides who, before marriage, were trained to be the help meet God intended. All the love stories are beautiful, and will show you how wonderful it is to walk together in God’s light. In addition to the six personal testimonies, this book is full of short stories from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. Funny tales, ideas of how to gain a good man’s attention, and even a tragic testimony all teach important lessons. You will meet “Grabbers” and “Hidden Flowers”, and discover how to avoid being either. The chapter on “Antsy Babes” will remind you why patience is so important. You will be warned as you read stories of how texting, emailing and other forms of cyberspace have destroyed many budding relationships and even marriages. An important part of this book is instruction on preparing for your future by saving money, developing skills, gathering information on cooking, health, and many other topics. Girls will see how one wise young woman planned her wedding God’s way. Along the way the reader will learn what to pack in her Heavenly Hope Chest. A shy girl—Hidden Flower—who has never had a man interested in her, will learn how to become visible to godly men. Brassy girls—Grabbers—will be shown a mirror so they will see how good men view pushy females. Impatient girls—Antsy Babes—will learn patience. Girls will be instructed on how young men seek out a wife and what they are looking for in a possible mate. They will discover what turns young men away and what causes a young man to consider a girl. In the last chapter, several men speak up to say what they really appreciate in their wives. And, of course, several single, wife-hunting males speak out here and there to give their opinion of what I have written. On a more sober note, the age-old question, “How do I know if this man is the will of God for me?” will be answered through Scripture, wisdom, and example. As I was finishing the manuscript, three young women read and evaluated Preparing to Be a Help Meet. They all said the book was captivating and that they would be better daughters and wives for having read it. Several married women who read the rough manuscript said of this new book that any lady that enjoyed Created to Be His Help Meet will LOVE Preparing to Be a Help Meet and they will learn as much from it as they did from Created. As the author, I believe the girl or married woman who reads Preparing to Be a Help Meet will close the book knowing that God answers prayer, that He wants to bless her and that marriage God’s way is indeed glorious. At the back of the book, my daughter Shalom Pearl Brand put together an extensive Teacher’s Guide. Shalom and Kristen Leonard taught a girls’ Preparing to Be a Help Meet class last winter using the book’s draft as it was being written. Through the teaching of the Word the girls grew into righteous young women. Some of the girls said they just didn’t understand that God meant for them to start being a Proverbs 31 female NOW, training to be a help meet before becoming one. Shalom used the notes from her class to put together the Teacher’s Guide. It has ice breakers to get the girls laughing and talking, questions from the chapter they are studying, verses to look up to see what God requires, and challenges to obey God. Anyone with a heart to do so could use these step by step directions to teach a Help Meet class for singles or married ladies. Even a young man reading this book can come to better understand how girls think and how better to approach a girl for marriage. So if any of you young men are wondering how…read and see! Move over, Created…here comes Preparing to Be a Help Meet.

Update

Preparing to Be a Help Meet is available for purchase from our web store as a book, or on audio as an MP3 CD or digital download. You can also order the book from NGJ by calling our toll-free order line 1-866-292-9936 (M–F, 8 am–5 pm CST). In August 2010, we launched a new website where all of you married and unmarried women can discuss the book and ask questions. Visit the official Preparing to Be a Help Meet website and join in the conversation!

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The Chinese Waitress

Freida Lansing — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:15:07 +0000

About eight years ago, my husband, Ken, and I went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. Our Chinese waitress was trying very hard to do a good job, so Ken encouragingly said, “You are really on the ball.” She looked puzzled and said in broken English, “On...the...ball?” The more we tried to clear up the misunderstanding, the worse her confusion became. My heart went out to the young woman. She wanted so much to please us, yet the language barrier caused her to fear failure. Then I had an idea. I asked her if she would like to come to my house and learn to speak English. I wasn’t sure that she understood me, but she said yes, so I gave her my address and phone number. I really didn’t think that she would call, but she surprised me by calling the very next day. I could barely understand her, and I’m sure it was mutual, but we set a time for her to come for her first lesson. A missionary friend had told me about a simple Bible study guide that they used in China, so I found my copy and had it ready. She came every week, during which we read through one of the SOL Bible studies. I was amazed at how well she read. Of course, I took for granted that she was comprehending what the words meant. But one day she stunned me when she said, “Now tell me again; this Mo-ses, is this a group of something?” I sighed…“so much for homeschooling a Chinese girl,” I thought. We began again, but this time I explained any words out of the ordinary. I drew pictures, did charades, anything to help her visualize what the words and story meant. (If I had had the Good and Evil illustrated Bible storybook, this would have been so much easier). Angela (her chosen English name) was very intent; she really wanted to learn. We just read and read, and talked and talked. I never pushed the salvation issue, but kept on studying the Bible lesson book with her. After about 12 weeks, when we came to the invitation part of the lesson, she said that she wanted to receive Jesus. I was a little uneasy about doing it with her, because I wasn’t sure she understood, but she seemed very happy afterwards. After that, she came to church with us a few times, and we had her husband and friends over to eat. They in turn had us over to eat a wonderful Chinese meal. We took that occasion to give the gospel to the whole family. I also helped her with legal decisions and paper work, and nurtured her through the time that her 3-year-old son arrived from China, when his arm got caught in the escalator at the airport upon arriving and suffered major damage. I was her friend. She and her family moved away. We lost touch. Years passed. Then God, in his tender mercy, gave me back in full measure the bread I had cast upon the waters over eight years earlier. One afternoon the phone rang. Angela was on the other end calling from California, where she and her family now live. She was calling to thank me for leading her to Jesus. She said that she just wanted me to know how thankful she was for my spending 12 afternoons of my life teaching her to read, while at the same time teaching her about the Savior. How sweet that was to me after all those years to know God’s Word does not return void. We women sometimes wonder: Do I make a difference? Jesus said to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Here I was, just a retired homeschooling mom. How was I to obey that command? The answer was simple: Just do what I had been doing for years… teach someone to read. Eternity was changed because I was willing to try. I am so glad God found me faithful. From Debi Just a couple of months ago, I was sitting in my mother’s hospital room weary and sad when my cousin, Freida came to visit. My mom, Nanny, appeared to be in a deep coma-like sleep. Freida is the cousin who wrote, What is a Cold Dinner?, one of the chapters in my book, Created To Be His Help Meet. She has always been my strong kindred spirit. I began to tell her our desire to show our homeschooling audience how easy it was to share Jesus with people from different countries and languages by using the Good and Evil book. I saw brightness suddenly fill her eyes. Something wonderful had just captivated her spirit. I faltered. “What…what is it?” Her voice was brimming with delight. “Did I ever tell you about Angela?” And then she told me the story you just read. I have to say, glory filled my soul when she told me about Angela’s recent call of thanksgiving. I truly wanted to shout. Instead, I said to my friend and cousin, “This is exactly what we want the homeschooling families to know! They can make an eternal difference by just being willing to give a Good and Evil book to a waitress in a restaurant.” Nanny stirred in her bed, so I quietly got up and leaned over her. Her eyes were open and sparkled with pleasure as she said with an amazingly clear voice, “That made you proud, didn’t it, Debi?” The phrase “made you proud” was Nanny’s way of saying, “thrilled and satisfied your soul.” I glanced over at Freida. Her face reflected mine. We were both surprised at Nanny’s clarity of voice and understanding of spiritual things at such a dire time. I looked back down into the face of my dying mother, affirming to her my glad heart and, I am sure, God’s glad heart. “Yes, Nanny, that made me real proud.” I want you to know, dear homeschooling mom, you can make a difference in eternity. Without spending a dime, you can put up signs showing where Muslims can go on the web to read Good and Evil in Arabic alkhairwasharr.com. If you can afford to buy Good and Evil in Chinese, then you can give your Chinese waitress the whole story. The family will hungrily read anything in their own language and will very likely pass it around to others. Or you can take simple gospel tracts to your local park. You can show your children how to be a real light unto this world, not just a sweet example. You can make an eternal difference. As I sit here typing, I can hear Jeremiah’s loud, happy voice outside yelling, “Yes, I can!” I concur so heartily.

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Little Women

Zephyr Pearl — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:15:49 +0000

I remember, as a young girl, my mother doing everyday things for Daddy, because Daddy was special. When he came home from work as an airplane pilot, Mom would have the house clean, supper prepared, the table set, and each of us six kids eagerly anticipating Dad’s arrival. Mom would rush around like a giddy teenager in love, dabbing on a bit of Heaven Scent (Dad’s favorite perfume) as she scurried about. I remember so clearly her always preparing one of “Dad’s favorite” meals. I don’t know if that was her intent, but she was teaching us kids not just by words, but by actions, too. As I got older, I would leave little “goodbye notes” that I sneaked into Dad’s flightbag the night before he left on a trip. Sometimes, my sisters and I would slip downstairs at 4:30 am and make him a simple breakfast of eggs and toast. Dad would send us postcards from his different destinations, even though we didn’t receive them until days after he had returned home. There were times when we all went with him on a three-day flight to someplace far away and exciting. Everything Mom did centered around pleasing Dad and making him happy. Mom’s little gestures of love did much more than make a happy husband. She was making happy little wives and a happy home, as well. Today, I am now a wife and mother. I find myself doing these same things; and my daughters are following in my steps, learning from me, and perpetuating the tradition of love. Laura, our first child, now four-and-a-half years old, is constantly trying to buy this thing or that for her Daddy, because she knows “it is his favorite.” When we go to the local country store, she always gets two fireballs—one for her and one for Daddy. As I write this, we are in the last month of our three-month stay in Honduras. The kids and I take a daily trek into town early, because it gets hot here well before noon. By the time we get to town, the kids are hot and thirsty, so they occasionally get to pick out a box drink from the store’s cooler. Needless to say, they don’t have all the commodities here that we do in the States. Well, Laura picked out the Honduran version of a Starbucks frappuccino that looked as if it had been sitting there for a couple of years. As we paid for it, she eagerly opened the straw and started slurping it down. “Mmm, this is sooo good,” she said, as we walked home discussing iguanas, whale sharks, airplanes, and other various and random subjects. Then, out of the blue, she stopped sucking on her straw and stated, “I am going to save the rest for Daddy and surprise him when he gets back from diving, because frappuccino is Daddy’s favorite.” When we got home, Laura carefully hid her drink box in the fridge, so Daddy couldn’t find it, and then went to take her afternoon nap. While she was sleeping, I tested the drink to make sure it was palatable. I gagged and spit it into the sink, quickly guzzling some orange juice to kill the taste. When Nathan got home, I warned him of what was to come. Laura woke up soon after and hurried excitedly to get Daddy’s treat. While she was busy making sure his eyes were closed for the surprise, I rushed to pour him a generous serving of OJ. The look of happiness, pleasure, and joy on Laura’s face as she watched Nathan choke down the drink was priceless. My girl’s Daddy is her knight in shining armor, and that is how it should be. My mother’s example is bearing fruit.

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God’s Amazing Grace

TJ — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 11:20:25 +0000

"I am TJ S******...and for the last 10 years have been working toward translating the Scripture into the ******* language of Southeast Asia." TJ and his family are home on a short furlough, enjoying the fresh country air and their great American freedoms. He has been successful in getting a good portion of the Bible translated, and is looking forward to finishing it. His “sticky rice gang” has caught a vision for their country and are planning some great things in the near future – with God’s help. I am TJ S******, husband to Kham, father of Jedidiah and Tabitha, and for the last 10 years have been working toward translating the Scripture into the ******* language of Southeast Asia. I was NEVER a good little boy, and I was NOT from a Christian home. My family first met Michael Pearl about 16 years ago. I was then just an 18-year-old hillbilly freak with a long ponytail hanging down my back. My parents and I were dope heads living with my 3 younger siblings in an old broken-down school bus that we had jacked up on blocks. We grew a weedy garden which included marijuana. Two years earlier, my dad and mom started reading the Bible together on their long commute back and forth to work, and Dad figured he could get saved if he could just find a Jew that would tell him how to know God. I remember him calling Israel once looking for someone to talk to about God, but ended up talking to a nun who barely knew English and thought he was asking the price of eggs. We all laughed for days about that. Later, my dad was visiting an Amish minister, trying to convince him to start a commune, when Michael Pearl came into the house and joined the conversation. He turned the conversation almost immediately to Christ. A few weeks later, my dad and I met Mike at a home Bible study. It was a mixed lot of people from different beliefs, all trying to convert each other. They took turns preaching their points of view. When it came Mike’s turn, he just preached Jesus. It was that night back in the Spring of 1990 that I understood the Gospel for the first time and was joyfully born again. Dad was speechless, and had no idea what to say after hearing what GOD HIMSELF had done to save us. Later that week Mike, came down to our camp, and while sitting around the evening fire together, he began to teach us the book of Romans. He came several times every week for months. We still spent our days hunting, fishing, smoking dope, and talking about what we were learning from the Bible. My dad really wanted to know the Lord, but years of confusion and sin made it hard for him to understand. I was just a young man, so I sat back out of the way, but I listened and began to understand more fully God’s entire plan for mankind and His program of events from Beginning to End. Even when our pack of German shepherds attacked Mike one time, chewing him up pretty good, he still came to teach us the old, old story of Jesus. Before the year was out, my family had all come to understand what forgiveness of sin through the shed blood of Jesus meant to them personally. My younger brother, Bob (10 years old), and I worked all winter with Mike and his two boys cutting hickory sticks. Bob and I continued to spend a lot of time with the Pearl family. Teaching, Michael was always teaching, mostly the Bible, but also just life-type stuff. I remember us S****** kids getting into an argument with the Pearl kids about their saying they had never once seen their parents fight. I figured they were just lying to protect their folks, as I had done so many times. The idea of parents not fighting was so weird, we just didn’t believe them. To the Pearl kids, the idea of grownups fighting was weird. We were learning about life, about God, and we were in training to become men of God. The Pearls were intrigued with our family, because even in my parents’ lost state and amid all their drugs and fighting, they had raised four kids who loved, respected, and appreciated them. Mike was just beginning to put together ideas and concepts that would later be in his book, To Train Up a Child. He would often question us, trying to put into perspective how some saved parents could have children who hated their parents, yet other lost, hell-bound parents could raise emotionally stable, thankful children. I think most of the answer is to be found in the extreme amount of time Dad spent with us kids. We were HIS kids, and he was bound and determined to get his money’s worth of pleasure and enjoyment out of us, and, in fact, was a financial failure because of it. Dad gave us himself, his time, his mind, his life. It made the difference. To this day Dad still isn’t wealthy, but he does have the hearts of his 4 kids, all of which have the Kingdom of God for our inheritance. My dad has always loved Mike with a love much like David and Jonathan. When To Train Up a Child first hit the market, Debi Pearl didn’t have a clue as to how to keep up with the thousands of orders, so for months, maybe even years, my parents volunteered to crowd into their tiny office, type the names and addresses into the computer, package the books, and get them ready for shipment. Dad wanted to be a part of Mike’s ministry. He wanted to give back what had been given to him. When the house office could no longer hold the growing ministry, my dad argued Mike into letting him build a building beside the Pearl’s house using 4 or 5 neighboring rebellious young teenage boys to do the labor. Those boys became good young men that winter. But soon even that building was too small for the growing ministry. Mike still worked as a carpenter, rock layer, and hickory-stick cutter in order to make ends meet. Mike would never take money from anyone he was ministering to. When Christmas would come around, we would seize the opportunity to give him a big country ham. The novelty of us S****** (of Arabic ancestry a couple generations back) giving Mike Pearl (of Jewish descent) a chunk of ham on Christmas was just too funny for words. Life is rich. The Pearls also fostered handicapped children all through these years. I almost felt like my brother and I were some of their extras, we were there so much. God called me to missions about the time Michael began teaching Ecclesiastes, so off I went to Bible college and then on to linguistics training. The rest is history. The New Testament will soon be completed, and the translation of Genesis and Proverbs is finished. God willing, in just a short time, maybe 3 or 4 years, we will finish translating the whole Bible into the ******* language. Isn’t God great, that he would take 2 old hippies, give them a son who would come to know the Lord after spending all his young childhood smoking pot, then use that son to translate the Scripture for a people half-way around the world? It seems it would have been so much easier just to pick out a nice homeschooled kid that had a good education to do the job, but then again, God gets so much glory using the weak and the foolish things to confound the world. I must testify, I cannot remember the last time I was ever tempted to take drugs. In fact, the first time in several months I’ve even been reminded of that old life was when I sat down to type this testimony. That old man has been dead, buried, and gone for almost 16 years now. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. Jesus is a Great Big Wonderful God. ******* language: name of language and country withheld for safety of national workers involved. **** is a closed, Communist country currently engaged in severe persecution of Christians. TJ S******

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Eating Ants

Debi Pearl — Sat, 15 Jun 2002 11:05:13 +0000

Most parents are too uptight. At least half the joy of life is raising kids. So when Big Papa found that one of our Russian boys had returned the jar of honey to the cabinet without replacing the lid, and 4000 ants were floating in it face down... ...I knew we had some L&L (laughing and learning) on the way. When Kolya came to stay with us in April, the first thing I noticed was that he did not value money or possessions. He would leave his shoes outside for the dog to carry off. It never occurred to him that an open door wasted heat or cool air. He would put a single garment in the washer and dryer without any thought of the cost. Almost every action reflected his lack of responsibility. It was a challenge I could not resist. He had one great virtue. He loved to work, even better than fishing and swimming. We believe the workman is worthy of his hire, so when he did work other than the daily, routine, household chores, we paid him by the hour. Amazingly, he did not value his hard-earned money either. He would dump all his earnings into the first bubble-gum machine that came in sight. When I advised him not to spend his money unwisely, but to save it, he would look puzzled and say, “For what?” So I made it my special project to answer that question for him. Remember, children don’t learn anything when placed under stress—other than to avoid the person that burdens them. So as you teach, have a little fun and tie some strings of fellowship. When the occasion demanded, which was often, I would say, “Kolya, you will never be a rich man.” When he would turn his puzzled face to me, I would explain how many hours he would have to work to replace his $8.00 pair of shoes and what he could have bought if he had been more diligent. He had to spend his money to replace lost clothes, shoes, towels, etc. I explained that the washing machine costs money to run, and that he would have to do everybody’s laundry if he wasted water and electricity. On many occasions I cheerfully described the many things he could buy if his money was not used in paying for his folly. I explained to him that a man accumulates wealth by being frugal. I pointed out that a bicycle left in the driveway would leave him walking. Food left out to spoil would leave him with nothing to eat. If he would ever be rich, he would have to preserve what he had, or he would spend all his money replacing a few meager possessions. Koyla is a fast learner. When he saw that he had a hole in his pocket and that it was his money running out, he began to act more responsibly. He obviously enjoyed the extra attention he received when we reminded him of his folly. As his bank account (a special hiding place) grew, he began to comb through magazines that advertised guns, bicycles, knives, fishing gear, camping equipment, and even pickup trucks. We have not forgotten the jar of honey. It became part of his schooling. When Mike found the honey jar and the 4,000 sweet ants, he placed it on the table in front of Koyla and lightly said, “Well, it looks like somebody is going to be eating ants.” As Mike walked out the door, we all gathered around to peer into the jar of sweet ants. We talked about how ants are considered a delicacy by some people, and we toyed with the idea that Koyla would have to eat them. Kolya just gave us his oh-well grin and picked up the jar. He was seriously going to eat the ants! I thought “Why not? Other people eat them.” This was fast developing into one of those L&L occasions. Still not completely serious, we agreed on the rules, which included finishing the ants off before lunch, and that he could eat bread and milk with the honey and ants. We all scattered to do our chores. Later that morning we came back into the kitchen area and there was Kolya, standing over the honey jar, with that silly grin still in place, gagging down the ants. The girls and I laughed and gagged with him. But mostly we just looked on in admiration. Now, there was a man! When Big Papa came in later and heard the story, he was aghast, “You made him eat the ants?” Shoshanna and I were amused at Big Papa’s sensitivity (see article in last newsletter). “No, we did not MAKE him eat the ants.” The honey jar lids are so tight now that we have to get Big Papa to open them. All ants aside, the boys had a summer full of L&L, and so did I. Now, Kolya is not like a lot of other kids; he is totally cool. Some children (and adults like Big Papa) are squeamish, and they simply could not eat ants, and to suggest such might be cruel and unusual treatment. I am not suggesting that this become standard procedure for ants in the honey jar. I would never threaten a child into eating ants, but Kolya wanted to break bad habits, and I knew he was game for a boyish good time. To him this was L&L, and creating a memory he would never forget. If you try to teach kids in a boring and hostile environment, it will lead to failure. If your learning is accompanied with laughing, whether it be reading, writing, or breaking bad habits, then it will be something a child will always remember. So go share some L&L with your favorite little guy. But keep the lid on the honey. Debi Pearl

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Happy as a June Bug

Michael Pearl — Sun, 15 Dec 1996 12:05:48 +0000

Most of you live in cultures quite different from here in Middle Tennessee. One of the dear ladies in our church, widowed, 57 years old, lives alone, deep in the woods, on thirty-six acres. She just came to know the Lord this past summer through the witness of Tom Slayman, T. J.’s daddy. Her dwelling is an eight foot travel trailer, with no running water, electricity, or toilet facilities. I am not telling you this to make you feel sorry for her. She is as contented as a squirrel in a beech tree. She works here in the office some and buzzes around like a bug. Her name is June, so I call her June Bug. Just the other day she came rushing into the house holding up a torn piece of paper that read “Happy Birthday.” She insisted that I tell her who was responsible. Not me. She told how she returned home to find that sign attached to a new, double seater outhouse, complete with a freshly dug hole, standing not too far from her trailer. What a blessing! No more whistling winds on cold nights. Privacy, just in case a hunter should get lost and wander too deep into the woods. Have you counted your blessings lately? You don’t complain do you? June doesn’t. Now you may be wondering as I am what a widow would need with a two seater. “Could be prophetic,” I told her. She is not looking, but you never know with a vacant seat. Michael Pearl

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