My View of January

Ecclesiastes 1: 1- 12 

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.  “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there again. Blowing toward the south, then turning toward the north, the wind continues swirling along; And on its circular courses the wind returns.  All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.  All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.  Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new”? Already it has existed for ages which were before us.  There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still.

As I read this, I didn’t know whether to feel discouraged or to feel like my life is normal. I always find that January is the toughest month for our homeschool.  I feel like everything is futile! Yes, the “sun rises and the sun sets” and I’m still behind!  “All rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full.” Isn’t that a picture of not making progress in our curriculum? “All things are wearisome” is exactly how I’m feeling about now!

We've just finished the holidays.  The adrenaline rush is over.  Maybe the decorations are put away.  Or maybe not.  But January 4th is coming and I need to get back to schooling and my home is still looking like "old" festive. Some days, when it isn’t all put away, and I can see the cob webs creeping into the corners of the garland and my home reminds me of The Haunted Mansion decorated for Christmas. 

Another reason for feeling discouraged is that my student isn’t as far along in his curriculum as I had planned out last August, and semester reports are coming up.  And we definitely develop bad habits over Christmas break!  There is just something about having siblings home and having them START a movie at 10:30 PM! 

I turn further in Ecclesiastes, for my encouragement: 

Ecclesiastes 3: 1 - 8 There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—  A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.  A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.

Ah, there is a time for everything! A time to bond with family. A time to get extra PE credits playing golf with the brothers. A time to do Bible study in front of the fireplace, in our pajamas, with hot chocolate and left over whipped cream and sprinkles. A time to see the latest Hobbit movie.

In 30 years, I’d rather have my son remember the time he spent making memories with his brothers, rather than me being uptight about the school schedule! The month of January is just kind of that way. And sometimes, January is the time to teach our children to be grateful that there is a time for everything.  And we can be grateful God gave us seasons to celebrate what we can do differently to bring peace to our home.

Start teaching them a Foreign Language by teaching them SONGS!

Start with songs!  Not only does this help you with vocabulary, it also helps you with pronunciation!  I always wondered how those foreign singers could sing English songs even though they couldn’t speak English!  Now I know!  Just pick up a CD with Christian children’s songs, and start playing it!  I put the emphasis on “children’s” songs, because there are adult worship songs, too!

While we were in Mexico, during those formative high school years, I learned a lot of little kid songs in Spanish.  Most of you learned, “I’m in the Lord’s Army” in English. But because I didn’t go to Sunday School as a little girl, I learned those songs in Mexicali in Spanish first. 

I started when my babies were babies.  Since I didn’t know all of those Christian children’s songs in English, I sang them in Spanish.  As my children grew to be toddlers and I got a cassette tape of children’s worship songs, I finally learned the words in English.  And boy, was I surprised at what they did to the songs to make them rhyme!

When my children were in elementary school, because elementary school went so much faster than I had ever anticipated, I did one lesson of Spanish every other day.  It took maybe about 20 minutes.  But I made sure it was fun and I didn’t pour too much into them at one time.

This is how I kind of structured that time:

Songs

Phrases:  (Hello, goodbye, my name is, and if you’re ever in a church while on a service project in Mexico, you will hear “Dios le bendiga” - God bless you.)

Vocabulary

Bible Verses

But this post will be about songs.  I'll explain the other ideas in later posts.

Purchase CDS with children's songs in the language you want to teach. I purchased Bible songs and other popular children's songs.  If you have the same songs in English, they can definitely hear the correlation in the tune, and it will help them learn the vocabulary even more quickly!

Along with the Bible songs and the nursery rhyme songs, I actually received the WOW top 40 in Spanish.  My high schooler can currently sing many of those songs word for word in Spanish.  

In the "if I had to do it again" category, I would have purchased a CD with Mexican Folk Songs. This is like teaching them"Old MacDonald", but the songs that they sing in Mexico.

Some songs I just translated.  For instance, when I was teaching body parts in Spanish, I sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", but I easily translated it into Spanish because there are no other words, just body parts - Cabeza, Hombros, Rodillas, Dedos. And the better they got at it, the faster they would sing it!  

And did I mention that when they get older they can help lead worship time in an elderly home, in a children's VBS time, and in a church worship service?

Outreach by Teaching a Foreign Language

Why take a foreign language? Can't we survive in the modern world by only knowing English?  The older I've become, the clearer it is to me WHY a foreign language is so useful and why it is important to teach whatever you know to your student.  Let's start with  fulfilling the great commission as demonstrated in Matthew 28:19-20  “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.”

Start them young and hopefully I can record some of the practical ideas I have used as they have grown older. Or things you can use to help foreign language tutors that might be willing to help teach your students.  The suggestions I make, can be done in ANY language.  I’m just going to bring up Spanish, because that is the language I chose to teach my children, living in Southern California and 2 hours from the Mexican border and meaningful mission trips.

I have not only wanted to give my kids a heart for their neighbors, but to give them a heart for other people groups.  If that was the goal, then I needed to equip them to reach other people groups.

I actually became a Christian one October when I was 15 years old.  That Christmas, my church announced that they were going down to Mexicali during Spring break with Azusa Pacific University high school program and I decided to go.  Little did I know that that ONE week would change my life forever.  Not only for reaching people for Christ, but in how I dedicated myself to studying Spanish with a purpose in high school.  The frustrating part was that in high school they were teaching me vocabulary to go to Mexico on vacation, including concerts, where I needed to memorize a list of instruments.  Hello?  This wasn’t the Mexico I went to!  I needed to learn the vocabulary for “sin” and “pastor”, “king”, and “giant”.  

Yes, that is me in the middle of the group!  And yes, our sign says “El Bano or Burst”!  Here is a picture of our youth group in Mexico in 1978.  And another one my senior year in high school.

The hardest part about learning a foreign language isn’t the grammar or vocabulary.  The hardest part is getting over your own self-consciousness and being able to speak it!  After I had children, my goal became getting my children to speak and jump that hurdle of self-consciousness.

Let me emphasize a little bit more about how important that hurdle of self-consciousness is.  I received an email from one of my Spanish students, who went down to Mexico with her youth group over Easter break last Spring.  Emily, a sweet, redheaded 3rd year Spanish student went down on a build project. 

They built quite the house.  Her first couple of years in Spanish class she was a timid student, and then all of a sudden something clicked.  I think it was the fact that she knew she might be that much more useful if she was going down to Mexico!  This was in the email I received, “I really saw what a tool learning Spanish (and practicing!) was! And I'm not "just saying" that because you are my Spanish teacher ;-) I really saw how useful learning the language was, and how fun it was to reach out to people with it.  I don't think I told you this, but I was able to speak to a young man from the church there. Even though it was difficult trying to get Spanish to come out of my mouth, it was great to hear him speak about his family and what his life was like, and in turn tell him (in very broken Spanish haha) about my family and a bit of my testimony. What a blessing!

 To be honest, this past trip was wonderful academically because I saw my strengths and weaknesses in my Spanish. I could understand nearly everything that was said in Spanish, whether it was a local talking or one of my friends translating, but I had trouble getting it out. Plus, my vocab is super strong, I knew the word for "Shepherd" when no one else did (yay for being taught from a Christian curriculum!). I felt pretty smart lol. On the flipside, I really need to practice my verb conjugation!”

Over my next few blog posts, I'll talk about different things that we have done to get them over the hump of self-consciousness.  But not today. I've got to prepare for Spanish class tomorrow!