June's Best Books

June is over, and July is here! So, here are the best books I read last month- The Moving Feast by Allan Nation, and God Has A Wonderful Plan for Your Life: The Myth of the Modern Message by Ray Comfort.

The first I mentioned, The Moving Feast, is the story of how our culture in South Mississippi (where I live right now, and have for all my life) has been impacted over the centuries, predominantly by the American Indians, Scots, Irish, and Africans. It was very interesting, as over the years I've wondered why we eat and do certain things, like frying everything! :) Not a perfect book, yet very informative!

Ray Comfort's book, The Myth of the Modern Message was amazing! It caused me to reconsider much of my worldview and mindset, particularly where evangelism and Salvation are concerned. I would highly recommend it to everyone!! Easy to read (it was only 124 pages), it shared a little bit of similarity with Already Gone, Ken Ham's book, yet he used the statistics in a different way- to show that our evangelism is not only failing, its harmful! Even better, the book was FREE!!

Have a wonderful day, and God Bless!

Texas Faith and Freedom Tours Begin Today!!

Do You Love Children?

Jasmine Turner

Do you love children? Do you really love children?

Our culture is one that is unequivocally anti-children. American homes, have, for the most part, been stripped of all semblance of family, and turned into a meeting place for individuals who happen to be biologically related to one another.

James Turner, Rayah Pogue, and Jasmine Turner

Our culture hates biblical patriarchy. Our culture hates biblical womanhood and motherhood. Our culture hates courageous, visionary boyhood, and it hates sturdy, feminine daughterhood. But even more, it hates babies.

James Turner and Thomas Schepian

And I am firmly convinced that the reason our culture so viciously hates babies is 1) because children are distinctly called gifts from God in Holy Scripture, and 2) because we, as a culture, have rejected the biblical patterns God laid out for us in His Word.

Virginia Phillips

One of the greatest ways we can influence our culture is to whole-heartedly embrace God's roles for us as His people, especially us as daughters. For we are going to be the next generation's mothers.

Jerah Pogue

And embracing God's design for us as Christian daughters includes loving children!

Jerah and Rayah Pogue, Faith and Virginia Phillips, and other little girls at the
2010 Father and Daughter Retreat

God bless, and I hope to see you at the Baby Conference!

Happy Fourth from San Antonio!

Happy Fourth of July

from San Antonio, Texas!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day celebrating the mercies of our Heavenly Father, and the many sacrifices of our heroic forefathers!

I wanted to share with everyone something I saw today in a store along the riverwalk:

Hope to see ya'll at the Baby Conference this week!

A Reversal Baby Turns One

Yes, a reversal baby turns one- tomorrow!

Just over two years ago, some dear friends, Mark and Mary Herring, had a reversal, and one year ago tomorrow, their first reversal baby, Sarah Elizabeth, was born.

But that's not all! In May of this year, they found out that they're expecting once again, due in December 2010. 

 

The Lord is so good! May we all rejoice with the Herrings that He opened their eyes to His truth about the blessing of babies, and that He has so mercifully bestowed two more marvelous blessings upon them!

 

 

 

“Behold, children are a gift of the Lord,

The fruit of the womb is a reward.”

Psalm 127:3

 

“How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;

They will not be ashamed

When they speak with their enemies in the gate.”

Psalm 127:5

 

Happy Birthday, Sarah Elizabeth!

 

On True Patriotism

"True patriotism is not manifested in short, frenzied bursts of emotion. It is the tranquil, steady dedication of a lifetime."

- Adlai Stevenson

Liberty At Risk

See what Doug Phillips has to say about our liberties here!

Dr. Joseph Morecraft on Liberty in America

Listen to what Dr. Joe Morecraft has to say about our American liberties here!

The Blessing of Children

Truitt Hendeerson, Sarah Henderson, Sophie Henderson, Ethan Davis, Hannah Davis, Austin Davis, James Turner

“Behold, children are a gift of the Lord,

The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,

So are the children of one's youth.

How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them...”

 

Psalm 127:3-5

 

 

Isn't that wonderful? God calls children gifts, rewards, blessings, and arrows all in one passage! Yet in our culture, children are looked upon as none of these.

In fact, our culture has a totally different vernacular than the Word of God when it comes to children- they're often referred to as burdens, inconveniences, and pains.

This stems from a worldview that is diametrically opposed to Biblical Christianity and its command to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) Yet this mentality pervades even most evangelical churches!
 
Speaking of the way the world views debt and children, Doug Phillips says, “We apply for curses, and abort our blessings.”
 
 

Sarah and Blake Henderson

 

 

Millions of children all over the world are aborted every year. Just since Roe v. Wade in 1973, more than 50 million babies have been aborted in America alone. That averages at nearly one and a half million babies a year, and around four thousand babies killed every day.


Sickening isn't it?
 
 

Austin Davis, James Turner, Truitt Henderson, and Ethan Davis

 

 

And that number doesn't even take into account the countless “unknown” abortions caused by contraceptives, such as the Pill, which are abortifacient. Or the many children that are refused by parents who choose to “play god” and cut off their seed through tubals.


It seems that many have forgotten that babies are not fetuses- they're human beings! Precious children that the Lord Jesus created in His Own Image. Babies are not blobs. Babies are not kittens. Babies are humans, and sinful though they may be, they have eternal souls!
 
 

Rayah Pogue

 

 

So what can we do?

First, we can ask God to change our hearts. We must ask Him to help us stop looking at babies and children the world's way, and start looking at them the way He intended us to.
 
 

Sarah Elizabeth Herring

 

 

Second, we must begin to accept with open arms the wonderful blessings that the Lord sends to us, whether they come in the form of a pregnancy, reversal babies, or adopted children.
 
 

Rayah Pogue, Kourtney and Kaitlynn Thompson, and Jerah Pogue

 

 

And last of all, we should shout from the roof tops (or blog posts :p ) that children are a blessing, and praise God for the ones we have!
 

Why not come celebrate life at the

Baby Conference?

 

 

Children are a Blessing!

I would highly recommend Nathaniel Darnell's article on The Lost Appeal of the Pill at Persevero! to everyone, as it is very timely in its observations on the Pill.

And congratulations to David and Monica Brown on their great news- "Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth." (Psalm 127:4)

Hope to see ya'll at the Baby Conference!

Baby Conference Topics Announced

The lecture topics for the Baby Conference have been announced! With speakers ranging from Doug Phillips, Kevin Swanson, and Geoff Botkin to Jennie Chancey, Kim Coghlan, and more, the Baby Conference promises to be one of Vision Forum's best conferences! Some of the topics covered will be:

The Message & Mission of Christian Adoption

Naming Babies

The Glory of the Fruitful Womb

The Wonders of Embryology

Why We Must Be Ladies Against Feminism

The Hopeful Theology of Miscarriage 

Hope to see ya'll there!

May's Best Books

It is so hard to believe that June is almost over! It's also very exciting because that means that it is only ten days until we leave for the Baby Conference! :) 

I also just realized that I hadn't posted about the books I read in May! Since we did the Great Authors Webinar, I read many of the books that those authors wrote during the month. But overall, I think the two best books I read were Killer Angel: A Short Biography of Planned Parenthood’s Founder, Margaret Sanger by George Grant, and The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum by R.J. Rushdoony. Both of these books reflected a common theme that has been on my heart and mind these past few months as I've contemplated babies, birth, children, education, and life in general. (Perhaps this has been encouraged by my great anticipation of the Baby Conference, and also that my Mamma and I are attending a Doula Course in late July)


Not a book for young children, Killer Angel, while being very discreet, was shocking and nauseating. While I  knew that Margaret Sanger was a wicked woman, as I read the book I gained a chilling realization that she was even more despicable and vile than I realized. It is easy to see how she was one of the most dangerous people in history, falling in the ranks of Hitler.

The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum was a wonderful book, as well. It caused me to stop and consider some of my own ideas about education, and curriculum in particular. I would not recommend this book to the new home educator, simply because of Rushdoony's stance on home education. However, I would highly recommend it as a very useful tool, when read with caution, and most of all, a Biblical view of education, as according to Deuteronomy 6:7.

Something that was once again thrust before my view as I read these books, was that ideas have consequences, and also that culture is religion externalized.


The way we look at education impacts our view of curriculum, and our methods of teaching our children. In the same way, the way we look at babies and children impacts our view of family, church, and state.

Margaret Sanger's view of children (and, in some cases, entire people groups) as a burden, inconvenience, etc. gave us the Pill, abortion, and euthanasia. We must embrace a Biblical view of life, babies, children, and family if we will reform our culture! And for that reason, I would greatly encourage you to attend Vision Forum's major 2010 event- The Baby Conference: A Historic Summit on the Triumph of Life over the Culture of Death.

 I hope to see some of you there!

Why Read Elsie Dinsmore?

Why read the Elsie Dinsmore books??


Girls Discuss Martha Finley's Literary Classics: The Elsie Dinsmore Library from Douglas Phillips on Vimeo.

Meet my animals...

I thought ya'll might like to see all of my critters:

Angel, my Shih Tzu

Annie

Lindsay

Wallace

(like William Wallace)

Bruce

(like Robert the Bruce)

Joy, a Jersey

Elsie, a Jersey

(like Elsie Dinsmore)

Vision

(Elsie's calf)

Have a blessed day, everyone!

A Giveaway...

Hello, everyone!

I wanted to let ya'll know about a giveaway over at Raising Homemakers! They are giving away a set of three wonderful items that I have thoroughly enjoyed over the years- So Much More, Strength and Dignity for Daughters, and What our Father Taught us About Boys! So go register here before it ends!

Teddy Roosevelt on Education

"To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."

Quote from Teddy Roosevelt...

"It is better to be faithful than famous."

Patrick Cleburne on the War

"Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late... It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by  Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision... It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all that our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties."

- Major General Patrick Cleburne, January 1864, writing what would happen if the South lost the War Between the States

Remember those who fought for your freedom! Happy Memorial Day!

Rich Christiano's New Film

My family and I have enjoyed watching Rich Christiano's feature films, Timechanger, and Unidentified, and were excited when we heard he had made a new film! We recently bought and watched Rich Christiano's
 newest film, The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry. It was really good! I would encourage you all to see it- you'll be blessed!

A Great Quote from Teddy Roosevelt

" A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education."