Grace Notes

Miscellaneous

Valuable Assistance!

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Top: Marie Briceland is printing envelopes; Chrissy Baskerville is processing orders.
Bottom: Nickie Biegler is designing a new Bright Lights brochure; my grandpa is labeling CDs.

We are leaving tomorrow for a “southern trip” to Texas, Mississippi and Florida (in that order). There is a lot to do because we need to prepare and pack materials for 3 conferences, put everything in order before we leave, and take care of a month’s worth of work here at home.

We are grateful for the help of Nickie and Chrissy, (who come over one day a week to help in the Bright Lights office) and the others who often join them.

My grandpa comes over faithfully four days a week and helps with whatever we need him to do. (He duplicates and labels CDs and DVDs, packages orders, helps us pack for our conferences and trips, etc.) He takes a load off our family by all he does. Since there has been an abundance of work recently, Grandpa has been getting here earlier in the mornings, and one day he got here at 4:30am!

Miscellaneous

Chinese Visitors

Ever since our family went to Hong Kong and China 16 years ago, we’ve always wanted to go back. Now we feel as if “China comes to us” –right into our home!

Last night was one of those “special occasions” as six Chinese computer engineers came to our house for dinner. They came to the States for a few weeks because they work for Rockwell International. We had a very nice evening together as we ate, talked, sang, took pictures, and gave them a tour of our house and “office house”. We gave them some books (Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends, and What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs ) and played our harps for them. They sang for us some popular and beautiful Chinese songs.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had Chinese computer engineers come to our home. Every few months we enjoy another delegation from China because we have a Chinese friend from Rockwell who lives in town and brings them over to our house.

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My dad is opening a gift of special Chinese Tea

Homeschool Conferences

Kansas City Homeschool Conference

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Setting up our booth

From set-up on Thursday to tear down Saturday night, our weekend at the Kansas City Homeschool conference was busy and eventful. We did 3 sessions, and felt that they were well-recieved. We arrived home today today.

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Here is our booth, finally set up! 🙂

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On Friday night, we were invited out to dinner by the Ward Family, who help host the conference in Kansas City. We enjoyed the fellowship and the good BBQ meal. Here’s the “kids” table.

Witnessing Stories

A Late Night Stop

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Our family was on our way home from MACHE, the Minnesota Homes School Convention a few nights ago. It was about 11 pm.

“What’s taking Dad so long? He’s been in there a half hour!” I heard Stephen say to my mom.
“He’s probably talking to someone,” I remarked and went back to sleep.
When Dad finally returned to the van, he told us what had happened.

As he entered the gas station, instead of finding a bored-looking employee behind the counter, he was surprised to be greeted warmly by a bright and cheery junior high boy who was buffing the floor. “I hope the restrooms were clean! How far do you have to go?”
Dad made a few friendly comments in return, and then left. After taking about 10 steps out the door it hit him, “I should have given that kid a dinosaur booklet!”

As Dad re-entered the store, the boy shut off his buffer.
“Here, I thought you might be interested in this. We’re trying to reeducate the country. We don’t think we came from monkeys,” Dad said. (That’s the “standard line” Dad uses when he gives these little Creation Science booklets away.)
“Monkeys?” the boy asked, looking confused.
“We believe the Bible supports Genesis,” my dad replied.
“Genesis? What’s Genesis?” he asked.
“It’s the first book of the Bible,” my dad explained.
“Oh! I should have known that.” the young man answered. “I was just confirmed yesterday. Catholic, I think.”

Shocked, my dad realized he needed to say more.

He continued, “Well, the world wants us to think that we just came from nowhere, but the Bible says that God created the world. People don’t want to admit this because they don’t want to deal with God. But the truth is that there is evidence in every area of science that is consistent with—and supports— Genesis. Did you know that there are sea shells in the rock strata of every high mountain including Mt. Everest?

Now the boy was shocked. I’m not sure if he was more surprised by hearing about sea shells on Mt. Everest or by the fact that he was getting a science lesson from a customer at 11 pm.
“So how could the shells possibly get there?” my dad asked him. “The Bible says that there was a worldwide flood. And the geologic evidence all over the world indicates that the geology of this planet was formed by a flood. In every area of science, the evidence is consistent with the Bible and not with evolution.”

The boy smiled with what seemed to be eager interest. “The real issue is God,” my dad said, realizing that what he really needed right now was the gospel, not a science lesson.
“Whether Catholic or Protestant, we both believe that God created man and that man has sinned. That’s the heart of the matter. God wants us to live forever in heaven but we can’t because we have sinned. And being good alone isn’t the answer because we could never be good enough. We would have to be perfect, and that’s impossible.”

The boy agreed.

“The solution is that God needs to forgive us. But to do that, somehow sin has to be taken care of. If God punished us for our sin it would destroy us, so He can’t do that.”

Again the young man smiled and nodded in agreement.

So my dad said, “The only one who can receive God’s punishment and not be destroyed is God Himself! That is what the cross is all about. God created man, then became man so He could die for us. It’s actually really simple.”

At this point, having given him the basics, my dad switched gears. “You need to read the Bible,” my dad told him. “It would be good to start by reading John. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. It’s at the beginning of the New Testament.)

The boy went over to the counter, got a blank receipt from the cash register, and wrote “J-O-N.” He looked up, “Ok, and you said that’s in the New Testiment?” He wrote “N-E-W T-E-S-T-A-M-E-N-T.”
My dad was thinking to himself, “Boy, he really is a beginner! He still needs a lot more information, but I can’t stay and talk. Anyway, he’s supposed to be working. So he said, “Read the book of John and pray. Ask God to give you the eternal life He is talking about there in John.”

In addition to his friendliness, the boy also seemed serious and mature. Perhaps, even though he knew so little about spiritual things, he did have some interest in knowing the one true God (since he said he had just been confirmed the day before.) Perhaps the Lord was now providing some information to bring his knowledge equal with his interest. When one responds to the light he has been given, God will give more light.

The boy asked my dad a few questions about himself. “No I didn’t teach school,” Dad replied, “But we do try to help families. And we teach about God and the Bible. The Bible is our wisdom. It’s God’s book.”

Not wanting to overload this boy with too much to think about all at once, my dad left, reminding him to read John and pray about what he read. Our family has been praying for him.

Homeschool Conferences

At MACHE (The MN Homeschool Conference)

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Here are Stephen and my mom working at our booth. The conference went very well. One thing I appreicate about homeschool moms is that they are very encouraging and easy to talk with! It’s a good thing, too, because after two days of explaining the same thing, I stop thinking straight!

Some answers we give over and over like, “The age range for Bright Lights is approx. 10-15” and “Yes, Sarah, Stephen and I actually do get along” (It’s not like really have a choice now, anyway 🙂 ) and “No, we don’t have material for boys (yet)” and “I know, Sarah doesn’t look 28, but she really is”.

Homeschool Conferences

Homeschool Conference in Minnesota

This weekend our family has a booth at the MACHE homeschool conference in Rochester, MN. Our day today has been long and tiring, but also very encouraging. Right now we are all in our hotel room making plans for tomorrow, deciding who has “first shift” working at the booth in the morning, and giving Sarah some more ideas for her up-coming session.

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Stephen set up a video editing operation in our hotel room and spent several hours today up in the room making a new “Knights, Maidens and Dragons” DVD. (That is, in all the time we weren’t calling him to fix our cash registers downstairs at the booth. 🙂 ) He had quite the set-up here in the hotel room and made great use of the extra time he had. Knights, Maidens and Dragons is a presentation Sarah and my dad do on courtship and purity.

Miscellaneous

Bible Quizzing Tournament

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After months of studying the book of Acts, the “big day” arrived! Last Saturday we drove into Chicago and enjoyed a long day of Bible Quizzing. The competition is very intense, causing hundreds of kids to really study God’s Word. (Many quizzers memorize it word for word.) It was a fun day and my team and I did better than we expected.

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My team is to my left in the picture: Lena, Laura and Edward

Three teams (12 quizzers) sit on pads in a half circle. The quizmaster begins asking a question and whoever jumps up from his pad first triggers a light on the quizmaster’s control box. That person then has 30 seconds to answer the question. After 20 questions are asked, the quiz is over and the quizzers go to another room for their next quiz.

Sarah and Stephen used to be in quizzing before they got too old, and my dad also was a bible quizzer when he was in high school. We’ve been so grateful for quizzing and for the Scripture it’s helped us to learn; we wouldn’t trade it for anything! The World Bible Quiz Association is a non-demoninational organization. www.wbqa.org

Homeschool Conferences

In Cincinnati and Indianapolis

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Sarah explaining about how to use the Bright Lights material.

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Rebekah May, Sarah, Stephen, Dad, Mom, Me, Nickie Biegler, Chrissy Baskerville, Rachel May

Saturday evening after the conference in Cincinnati, we packed up, drove back to Indianapolis. We picked up the 4 girls who had run our booth for us at the Indianapolis Home School conference, and ate supper downtown Indianapolis at the Spaghetti Factory. We had a good time relaxing and sharing stories.

We were surprised at the busy night-life that downtown Indianapolis had! It was about 10:30pm, and there were traffic jams, busy sidewalks, and people partying everywhere. Watching the people, it was obvious that they were searching. They aren’t satisfied. We overheard a song being played talking about “meaning in life”. People don’t have it, and they are looking for it.

Homeschool Conferences

Cincinnati and Indianapolis Home School Conferences


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Nickie Biegler, Stephen, and Dad

Spring is here! For my family, spring means lots of state Home School Conferences. This weekend our family made plans to go to two Home School conferences (Indianapolis and Cincinnati) at the same time by bringing a team of Bright Lights leaders, dropping them off in Indianapolis, and then heading to Cincinnati with just our family.

We had fun setting up our booth during a thunderstorm, especially because we were setting up in a tent.

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Stephen and Dad

Last night when the conference started, a lady came to our booth and gave Sarah an encouraging report. She said, “My kids and I heard you and your brother and sister speak about sibling relationships at a conference a couple years ago. We liked the way you used skits to demonstrate what you were teaching, so we decided to come up with a skit that our family could present together, which included the gospel. At first we just did it for just a very small group, but then the kid’s grandpa saw it and got excited about it. He invited them to do it for a larger group. One time, after we had done our skit for a group of about 300 people, a lady came and told me “I turned away from God and didn’t want anything to do with Christianity. But now—after seeing your kids—I’ve decided to come back to the Lord.” When families work together as a team, it makes a powerful impact for the Lord!

Radiant Purity Conferences/Strong in the Lord Conf.

First Radiant Purity Conference!

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Something very special happened last weekend… Our first-ever Radiant Purity Conference was held in Alexandria, Minnesota! It was for girls 12 and up, and included topics such as modesty, dangers with the dating system, how to handle crushes, learning to delight in the Lord as our Prince, being open with our parents, waiting on the Lord, and having a life purpose bigger than marriage. The conference also included 2 chalk-talks, skits, wedding video clips, singing, discussion groups, and mother’s sessions.

This conference was a dream-come-true for us and many others. It was so exciting to see it all happen and see God’s hand working! Personally, I was challenged, refreshed, and exhausted when it was over.

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We brought about a dozen older girls who are leaders in our Bright Lights group in Cedar Rapids. They led the discussion groups, ran registration, worked at the book table, acted in skits, shared testimonies, led the singing, and helped with set up and tear down. We’ve all learned a lot about how to work together as a team, how to run conferences as smoothly as possible, and how to rely on God’s power.

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Hearing practical testimonies and teaching from real girl’s lives was encouraging to everyone.

I think it’s exciting to share ways we saw the Lord’s hand at work. Here are a few examples:

    – Dan Macy, who hosted the conference, found a large facility in his area that he thought would be perfect for holding a conference. As he began to work with this church, he ran into complications and things just didn’t work out. He expressed to us how it seemed like a death of a vision. Mr. Macy realized that the only way this conference could happen is if someone who attended this church would be willing to host it. He began to pray. One day as he was explaining his idea of a Bright Lights conference to another homeschool father, this father replied, “Well, I go to that church and I’d be willing to help host it and work all the details out for you!” The church facility was beautiful and worked wonderfully.
    – The Lord’s timing was perfect. Since Sarah had just written Before You Meet Prince Charming last year, it was much easier to plan the material and content for this new conference, drawing from the book.
    – Sarah had been secretly praying for 400 attendees. We had 127 register at the door, bring attendance number to 405.
    – Stephen came up with a new nifty computer system for registration at this conference. He got it all set up and trained our registrars. About a half hour before the conference as everyone started coming, the computer system crashed. Let’s just say that is not what we wanted to happen, especially with lots of people registering at the door. But the Lord came through, the computers started working, and registration went smoothly.
    – Video clips, sound, lighting, special effects and PowerPoint all worked even though they got us worried at times!
    – My mom and a good friend Kay Baskerville were teaching the mother’s sessions. As they talked about what to speak on, they found that the Lord had placed the exact same thing on both of their hearts to share with the mothers.

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Laura Sisson, Grace Mally, and Elyssa Ertz in our “Old Fashioned Skit”

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Elyssa Ertz, Laura Sisson and Nickie Biegler in a skit Friday night