Lots of Helpers

November 2020 Photos

December 8, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Esther is enjoying having goats again. This was awhile ago, not long after we got the nanny. They are now being moved over the hillside in the background, across the road from us.

Recovery: Simon and Mr. Diligence spent a few days playing Phase 10, before they both got fed up with sitting around healing. Then, they found other things to do, outside, of course, while still being as careful as possible with their knees. Simon went back to work yesterday, after two weeks off. His knee didn’t hurt when he came home last night, but his calf muscles and feet did. Mr. Diligence is still limping around.

On his 2nd or 3rd day of recuperating, Simon’s back was hurting, so he laid on the floor for most of the day. He was listening to audiobooks, and helped his baby sister listen, too.

She loves to have someone to cuddle up with!

After a week, I took Mr. Diligence to the doctor to have the dressing changed. I took this picture to show Esther how it was healing.

After several days of sitting, they couldn’t stand it any longer, and went out to do something useful. They scooped sawdust from the chicken coop into buckets, and the younger boys hauled it to the potato patch for mulch.

Ten baby turkeys hatched the day Mr. Diligence was in the hospital! I took this picture to email to Esther, who was with him.

Our young chickens started laying in mid-November. We’ve been inundated with eggs! The chickens are selling, though; there are only four of the young ones that aren’t spoken for yet.

Mr. Diligence took these pictures of the bridge construction just outside of town the day I took him in to get his stitches out. The bottom picture is our current bridge, the one that’s being replaced. It was built in the 1930s; the deck is wooden, with tarseal on top—although that is no longer being maintained, since the new bridge should be ready within a year.

Book Review—What You Said to Me

December 3, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 3 Comments

About the Book

Book: What You Said to Me
Author: Olivia Newport
Genre: Christian Fiction
Release Date: November 2020

Book 4 in the Tree of Life Series: A Father-Daughter Genealogy Team Link Faith Journeys on Family Trees

When 15-year-old Tisha Crowder gets caught shoplifting, attorney Nolan Duffy tries to protect her from consequences that could rattle her already troubled life. His daughter, Jillian, feels like she’s the one being punished instead—by having Tisha assigned to work with her on a backlog of genealogy files. Tisha doesn’t seem interested in taking the job seriously, and Jillian’s patience wears thin. Besides, everyone in Canyon Mines knows the Crowder family has experienced generations of brokenness. Then a sliver of hope turns up in long-ago words in plain sight, challenging shrouded assumptions about Tisha’s family. Now Jillian is the one who can walk with Tisha back to 1893 and uncover where everything went wrong in the first place—and save her from the past.

What You Said to Me is the fourth book in the Tree of Life series by Olivia Newport. You’ll want to return to the lovely Colorado mountain town of Canyon Mines again and again to explore and celebrate unforgettable family stories that will inspire you to connect with your own family histories and unique faith journeys.

My Thoughts:

I’ve been reading the Tree of Life series since the first one was published. I have enjoyed all of them, but they keep getting better and better. Each one features Jillian, a genealogist, who meets a troubled person and unravels their family tree to find out why they react the way they do to things that happen. In the first two books, it felt somewhat forced, but the third and fourth felt a lot more natural. I especially liked this fourth book, What You Said to Me.

Jillian is stunned when Nolan, her father, informs her that she needs a helper—and furthermore, the helper is arriving now. Yes, she knows that the dining table is buried under piles and piles of old folders that need to be organized for the project she’s been hired to do—but surely she can handle this without 15-year-old Tisha Crowder’s help? And Tisha’s attitude doesn’t make it any easier. What is behind the girl’s attitudes and actions, anyway?

The story flips back and forth between Jillian, Nolan and Tisha, in Canyon Mines, Colorado, in the present, and a family in 1893 Denver. I found myself caught up in both stories, eager to see how the two intersected. I also wanted to see if there was any way that Jillian could help Tisha out of the generations of bitterness, anger, and distrust that plagued her family and caused her problems. Nolan was sure she could—but how?

One thing I really like about this series is that there isn’t a lot of romance. There is a little, in the third book and also in this one, but it’s a very minor element. A few kisses were alluded to, but not much more. I also enjoy Nolan and his cooking and opera singing! He’s a very fun character. There is not a strong Christian message, but the story is very clean and reflects a Christian worldview. As I said to begin, I really enjoyed this book, and I’m looking forward to the next one. There are loose ends from books three and four that have not been tied up yet!

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and CelebrateLit, and these are my honest thoughts about it.

About the Author:

Olivia Newport’s novels twist through time to find where faith and passions meet. Her husband and twentysomething children provide welcome distraction from the people stomping through her head on their way into her books. She chases joy in stunning Colorado at the foot of Pikes Peak.

More From Olivia:

Careful Words

“You didn’t just say that.” Or, “I can’t believe you said that.”

Have you ever said that in retort to someone whose comment offended or wounded? I know I have. But what cuts me even more deeply is when I say to myself, “I can’t believe I just said that.”

The words of a parent at wit’s end, a spouse harboring hurt, a friend saddened by misunderstanding, an employee feeling undercut—they have all been my words. And they came out too fast to swallow back before they did their damage.

I hope I have also had the words of a parent who set aside busyness to listen, a spouse offering loving encouragement, a friend checking in with someone going through a tough patch, a coworker curious to see how I could help rather than compete. Those are the kinds of words I’ve never regretted, never had to repent of, never had to do rebuild from.

I certainly didn’t write What You Said to Me because I think I get it right all the time or even most of the time. Far from it! In our culture of rushing and achieving and—let’s face it, sometimes just getting through the demands of the day—sometimes our words are the last thing we are careful with. Yet they have the longest lasting consequence in our relationships and families—sometimes for generations. The dual-timeline story traces how words that injure became a pattern in one family line until one girl finally fought back to find healing for her future.

My challenge for myself, and all who read What You Said to Me, is to be the person who speaks healing words of hope so that “I can’t believe you said that” becomes “Thank you for saying that.”

If you have a particularly poignant experience of how another’s words impacted you, I’d love to hear from you.

Olivia Newport

To purchase your copy, click here.

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To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Miss Joy in November

November 30, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Miss Joy is as busy as ever! Almost everything she does is awfully cute. We love watching her running around investigating things—although the times when she’s getting tired and, as a result, gets into everything she shouldn’t have, are rather annoying. She’s learning to talk a little; she knows where the chocolate buttons are kept and when she thinks about them or sees that cupboard open she starts enthusiastically asking (with sign language) “Please!” Sometimes she even says “Chocolate!” She also knows how to say “Up,” and “Mom.”

I walked into the living room one day and found Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination laying down playing with their animals, and Miss Joy had just flopped down to play, too.

I found her on the couch last night, reading her book.

She loves to eat!

Books and babies—her two favorite things to play with!

She sees everyone else writing in school books, so she wants to, too. The problem is that sometimes it isn’t a schoolbook, but a library book…or the wall…or….

I don’t remember what she was laughing at here, but it must have been funny!

This Week

November 22, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 4 Comments

Some weeks are uneventful and everything happens as normal. Other weeks—we kind of wish we could hit a “redo” button.

Wednesday afternoon Esther, Elijah and Mr. Diligence went up the hill across the road to move the goats’ fence. An hour later, I went into the house for a minute to grab a couple of tools to transplant seedlings. I stopped for a moment to grab a drink before going back out, and the phone rang. It was Esther. She asked me to grab her car and come up the hill to pick Mr. Diligence up because he had cut his leg with a machete. I got up there, took one look at the size of the cut, and made the decision to take him in. It was much too big for us to patch, and right over the center of his knee. I expected to get stitches and bring him back home. However, the cut had gone all the way to the kneecap, and when they did an xray they saw air in the joint, which meant that there was a big risk of infection in the joint—not a good thing. There is no orthopedic surgeon over here, so he had to go to Christchurch. He spent the night in the Greymouth hospital, and then went to Christchurch in the morning in the ambulance that goes over every day. Esther followed him in her car.

He arrived in Christchurch around 2:00 in the afternoon, and waited until midnight to go into surgery to patch his knee up! Esther got this picture of his wound soon after arrival, while they were waiting to go to his ward to wait for surgery. The blessing in this injury is that he missed both tendons and all the major blood vessels around the knee cap.

Esther spent the night with a friend, and then came back to the hospital in the morning. This was the view from his window. The river in the third picture is the Avon.

They played Phase 10 a couple of times.

Mr. Diligence was able to come home Saturday afternoon. He was happy to be out of the hospital, although he has to take it easy for a few weeks. Here he is showing pictures to Mr. Sweetie and Little Miss.

Sunday afternoon: The next act? Soon after some of us came home from church, Elijah called, asking Esther to pick him and the younger boys up. She asked why. “Simon just dislocated his knee!” Gayle was on his way to the hospital with Simon. It turned out to be his kneecap, and it was easily replaced, but he’s wearing a brace for a couple of weeks, and supposed to take two weeks off work—when they are overwhelmed with vehicles to fix! He’s in a lot of pain tonight, though, so I think it’s wise to take time off. Ironically, it was the same knee that Mr. Diligence injured. And how did he do it? Jumping over a low fence that he has jumped over dozens, if not hundreds of times before.

This was when Simon had just gotten home and was on his way into the house. Can you imagine—two boys on crutches at the same time!

Once both boys were settled on the couches again (we now have a shortage of seating in our living room!) their brothers tried out the crutches.

Book Review—Bells of New Cheltenham

November 20, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

About the Book

Book: The Bells of New Cheltenham
Author: Chautona Havig
Genre: Christian fiction, Christmas romance
Release Date: October 15, 2020

Who knew that Christmas carols were love songs?

Justine Driscoll sure didn’t. Peace on earth? She’s heard of that. Holy and joyful? Something about that, too. But love songs sung by a bride about the birth of her bridegroom? That’s just weird stuff right there.

Weird or not, though, once Justine decides to enter a short story contest using a Christmas carol as the inspiration, she discovers love in the carols she investigates, in the story an ex-Army guy tells, and in the little tourist town of New Cheltenham.

“But what do the words mean?”

Ken Torsney is used to fighting for causes he believes in. He just never imagined he’d go from Army “warrior” to spiritual warrior in the span of one question from a stranger. Justine is like no girl he’s ever known— hungry for the gospel even as she rejects it.

He’s falling for her, and that’s bound to break his heart.

Love is in the air in New Cheltenham this Christmas. Again.

My Thoughts:

A couple of years ago, Chautona wrote The Ghosts of New Cheltenham, which involved Mitchell being required to tell a ghost story in order to get his inheritance. The Bells of New Cheltenham has a much nicer theme! I enjoyed reading it as it was written, and again after it was all done.

Mitchell entered the ghost story telling competition two years in a row; this year he can’t bring himself to enter. What can he do instead? He has a bright idea: Sponsor a different kind of contest! His idea is simple; the contestants are to write a short story based on a Christmas carol. He prints up flyers and posters and gets the word around town.

Justine wanders into town with all her possessions on her back. She listens to the carolers going around the streets singing one Christmas carol after another, and then sees the flyer about the short story contest. It catches her attention, even though she knows nothing about the Bible, Christmas, or Christianity. Ken, one of the carolers, notices her interest in the carols and offers to tell her the story behind the one she thinks sounded quite depressing. She wants to hear the whole story, even though she is trying to reject it. Ken, finding himself very attracted to her, knows he has to be careful not to fall in love with someone who isn’t a Christian—but he very much wants to spend time with her and answer all her questions about Jesus and the whole Christmas story! Meanwhile, she must win that contest—it would solve all her problems!

This is a great story with a unique premise. Chautona has carefully woven the entire story of why Jesus came to earth into this story, without being at all preachy. You must read this story about how Justine discovered love in everything around her. It’s delightful! Oh, and the scene in Chapter 8 where Ken talks about buying weed? It makes me laugh out loud every time I read it! (About four times now, since after I read it aloud to one son he wanted me to read it to the rest. I could hardly read, for laughing so hard.)

I received a free copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it.

About the Author:

Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More From Chautona:

3 Things That Make My Christmas Heart Sing

I didn’t have a ghost of a chance.

The message popped up in my messenger at exactly the moment I sat down. This is significant, because I get dozens of Facebook messages every day, and often, they get buried when a new one supersedes it. So, as you can see, it’s a near miracle that I ever saw the message at all.

The message offered me a spot in a collection of novellas—a Christmas collection. Yep. Not a ghost of a chance.

Still, I tried to be responsible, you know? After all, I had quite a few books due at the same time already. Bookers on the Rocks, The Last Gasp, my Christmas Lights Collection “noella,” and my CrossRoads Collection “noella.” And those didn’t include anything I wanted to write in spring or summer.

Then she added another layer of temptation. This collection had a theme. That theme? Christmas carol inspired romances.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love music, Christmas, and specifically, Christmas music?

The other authors in the set had already made their carol selections. She sent a list of those that had already been claimed. I read them with great trepidation. See, I already had two carols I’d want to use in the story for this collection that I hadn’t even agreed to participate in yet.

No one had chosen “The Holly and the Ivy” or “The Bells on Christmas Day.”

That ghost slowly transformed into the ghost of my resistance.

All that remained was for me to come up with a story idea. I mean, why join a collection if you can’t even decide what to do with it?

That’s when it happened.

There’s always this moment when the first idea germinates, sprouts, and pushes up through the fertile soil of my imagination. My favorite moment. And it hit me. What if the theme for the collection was my story idea? My character could enter a contest that requires a short story based on a Christmas carol.

And once I had that idea, the rest came in a whoosh! Mitchell, from The Ghosts of New Cheltenham could be sick to death of this annual ghost storytelling contest and decide to create his own contest. And then… well…

The Bells of New Cheltenham was born.

If you’ve not read The Ghosts of New Cheltenham, you’ll follow this “noella” just fine. It is meant to be a stand-alone. However, if you want a richer reading experience, I recommend reading The Ghosts of New Cheltenham, followed by the companion short story, “The Ghastly Therapist” first. Both are available through Kindle Unlimited. Additionally, if you send your receipt (or a screenshot of the final page of the eBook from Kindle Unlimited) for the Melodies of Christmas Love collection to chautona@chautona.com, I’ll send YOU the bonus short story—the one Justine Driscoll writes in this “noella.”

But I promised to tell you three things that make my heart sing at Christmas.

The way people are often just a little kinder and a little more giving and understanding.
The joy that seems to fill every part of life—family, friends, parties, presents, church services, reading, singing…
The music that plays everywhere—and often sings of a Savior’s love.

What makes your heart sing at Christmas?

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Product Review—CrossTimber

November 19, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in
exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I
compensated in any other way.

Sometimes a review is just plain fun! When I saw the request for reviewers for CrossTimber, I knew we would enjoy doing this one. We were offered the choice of either five personalized Name Cards or Name Bookmarks, or an 8×10 Plaque print, along with a set of Amazing Name Print Activity Sheets. It didn’t take me long to decide that the bookmarks would be perfect for us. Since we have five boys and three girls, it was easy to make the decision that each of the boys would get a bookmark.

I allowed each of the boys to choose the picture for their own bookmark. We spent a few hours, on a couple of different evenings, perusing all the different options and trying to decide which picture fit each boy best. There were so many different categories, and so many beautiful options within each category, that it was hard to make the decision—but it was great fun. The four major categories are Symbolic/Meaningful, People, Outdoors, and Creatures. We spent most of our time in the Outdoors section, although the Creatures section also appealed to my boys (Mr. Diligence debated about choosing the rooster!). Once the photo for the background was chosen, we had to decide about letting CrossTimber choose the Scripture verse to go with the meaning of the name, or choose our own. Only Simon decided to spend the extra dollar to choose his own verse; he wanted something that would be a reminder of what was happening in his life right now. The other option would have been either a quote from a president or famous author, or a character quality. We could also have added a ribbon or corner design, or gotten a matching name card, greeting card, coffee mug, or any of a few other gift items.

We were also given a set of AmazingName Print Activity Sheets. I had those done with Little Miss’s name on them. She loves the mazes and was delighted to get to color a name label to set up on her dresser. There are also coloring pictures, both for children and adults, word searches of various difficulty levels, and penmanship pages. These sets will appeal to many different ages! As with the other products from this company, they talk about the importance of names to God and the importance of the meaning of names. We were sent a printed copy of the set, on nice, thick, semiglossy paper. You can also choose to receive this set as a PDF, and then print pages as you wish, as your child grows up and can do more things.

It was very easy to order the bookmarks and activity set. The only difficulty was in narrowing down the choices and finding the perfect one! My sons are very happy with their bookmarks. They are pretty and seem fairly durable. Esther (who tends to be quite picky with graphics!), however, felt that they could have been better quality. She pointed out that the designs are not centered on the cards, and in her opinion, too many different fonts were used. For most people, these wouldn’t be an issue, but just something she noticed.

If you are wanting special, personalized gifts that encourage people and glorify God, have a look at CrossTimber’s offerings. I was impressed with the variety of products they offer! Having the meaning of your name in front of your eyes can be very encouraging. We were amused at the meanings attached to the names of a couple of our boys; we had never heard those meanings with their names before, but they sure fit their personalities! (Grandma, maybe you can figure out which ones I’m talking about!)

As always, check out what other families had to say about their experiences with CrossTimber by clicking the image below.

Videos–Cattle and Tractor

November 16, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Last Friday evening, the boys moved our heifer Pansy, her calf Iris, and our other heifer calf Bluebell, down to the bottom paddock. I had been milking Pansy, but her teats are so small my hands were not holding up to the job, so we put the calves on her for now. We tried to get her to feed our steer, too, but she hates him with a passion and if he’s around she won’t let the others near, either. It’s always amusing to watch calves being led on a rope for the first time–it’s a good thing Simon is so strong! He had quite a fight with Iris.

Simon moved his tractor and his vintage car to his house last weekend. In preparation, he moved them around the evening before, and Esther got a video clip of him driving the tractor. It runs well, but he was having trouble getting it stuck in 1st gear, and not going into reverse, when he was using it to move undriveable vehicles around at his place (he also acquired a Land Cruiser, which he’s storing in his old chicken coop at his house).

Product Review—Building Life Castles

November 10, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I was somewhat interested in 4th Grade—Building Life Castles from Positive Action Bible Curriculum when it was offered for review a few months ago. I’m happy with the Bible course we’ve been using, but I also enjoy trying out new things. So, I decided that I would work through this book with Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination, who are just finishing 5^th and 3^rd grades right now.

The first thing my boys did when we received these books was to study the cover picture. Would you believe, the thing they commented on first was that a cardboard box says, “This end up,” and the arrow points down! The student book is fairly attractive. It has full-color illustrations, and plenty of space to write answers to the questions. Each lesson has four parts—A, B, C and a section on “Building Your Life Castle.” In the first three parts, the student mainly looks up Scripture references and finds answers to the questions from the verse.

The teacher’s guide is a sturdy 3-ring binder with three dividers, for Teaching Material, Testing Material, and Answer Key. There are a couple of pages of teaching helps and lesson plans for each part of a lesson, and then pictures of each of the student pages with the answers written in. The Testing section contains a quiz for each lesson. Each of these quizzes has ten questions, which makes it very easy to figure a grade!

The first several lessons talk about Who Jesus is, and His coming to earth, including an overview of the land in which He lived. Then, several lessons talk about various aspects of His ministry. After that, there are several lessons about the Holy Spirit, and then quite a few about applying Biblical truths to our lives. These topics include trusting God, having compassion for others, the value of humility, forgiveness, and making wise choices. The last seven chapters talk about the Apostle Paul and his ministry.

There is a lot of good in this course. The topics taught are well-worth thinking about, and the questions are well done. However, we struggled to use it in our family, mainly because it is designed for a classroom and that made it a bit difficult to use in our homeschool setting. This is intended as a 4th-grade course. Mr. Sweetie had no problems finding the correct answers; Mr. Imagination did.As I said, they are finishing 5th and 3rd grades, so I would say the grade level is about right. I would guess that it would work well for a lot of families, but for ours it just wasn’t a very good fit. Don’t just take my word for it, though; click the image below to see what other families had to say about it. Oh, one last thing: I was given a code (REVIEW20) which will give free shipping for any customer in the US who is purchasing new curriculum.

Building Life Castles {Positive Action Bible Curriculum Reviews}

October 2020 Photos

November 9, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the last of the October photos! The first two are actually from the end of September; I’m not sure how I missed including them somewhere. They were taken the day before Mr. Sweetie’s birthday, when we had a cookout down at the river with friends. The boys took their boats down and had a lot of fun with them. Here is Mr. Sweetie in a boat Elijah built for Mr. Imagination, and then Simon and Mr. Diligence with a friend in Elijah’s other boat.

We got the smallest chicken egg I have ever seen! There it is between two normal eggs.

One day, I was able to grab quick pictures of all three of our working men! Here is Elijah, formerly known as Mr. Intellectual. Now that he has turned 17 I’ll use his real name. He was working on the new veranda in front of the workshop Simon works in.

This is Simon walking through the workshop.

This is the mill where Gayle works. He is in about the center of the photo, second from left or third from right. He was writing down what was in a bunk of wood he had just pushed out from under the roof. The boards come off the saw and out a chain through this open-air building. They are marked as to what size and grade they are, and the men who are “working the table” sort them out into bunks.

Mr. Diligence got some pictures of the bridge construction as we crossed the river one day. Here is one of the massive 52-ton beams being put in place.

This shows the inside of a pipe being dug out so they can drive a pile deep down under the river bed. The place we often picnic is beyond the crane in that green area.

I don’t know what kind of flowers these are, but I noticed them one evening when I was going to milk the cow. Very unique!

Product Review—Bible Unearthed

November 6, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have been enjoying Drive Thru History® Adventures for several years now. When the opportunity was given to use and review their new course, Bible Unearthed, we jumped at the chance. We were given early access to this brand-new course; it will be available to everyone before too long. We have been watching one of the videos each week, and reading the extra material that goes with it, too. Everyone is finding it quite interesting! I’m even wishing my husband would have time to watch these.

Bible Unearthed is a bit different from the other courses we’ve used from them. Most of Dave Stott’s films show him exploring a historical location and narrating what happened there at some time in the past, which is a great way to learn about history. This course, however, is mostly filmed in one room. Dave Stotts and Randall Niles are at a table with archaeologist Titus Kenndy, asking questions and learning about archaeology. At least, Randall is learning—Dave is clowning around! His funny antics help keep these videos from being lectures, and keep the children’s attention!

A few years ago Mr. Intellectual used some of their courses and I wrote a review about this company; we really liked them. This time, I’m having everyone who is home during the day watch the videos. That includes Mr. Diligence (15), Mr. Sweetie (11), Mr. Imagination (8), and Little Miss (5) all the time, and Esther and Mr. Intellectual at times, when they aren’t at work. The older ones are understanding and appreciating the information about archaeology and how it helps to support the Bible, and the younger ones really like the joking around that Dave Stotts does. We watch the video one day while we eat lunch; the next day, we read the article that is linked in the Digging Deeper section of the lesson during our history time. The day after that, we read the rest of the information in the lesson and answer the questions on the worksheet. Here is one of the “Digging Deeper” articles and a part of a worksheet.

The series of 12 episodes begins with a discussion of what archaeology is and what impact it has on our understanding of history. Then, we got to learn about how archaeological sites are discovered and what life is like for an archaeologist. Next week, we’ll get to learn about what’s being discovered today, and then some archaeological mysteries. That sounds fun! I did skip ahead a little and watched a couple of the later episodes when the older children were away but Simon was here; he enjoyed learning about top discoveries in Biblical archaeology and accidental discoveries. Some of the other titles look intriguing, too, like Trends in Archaeology and Weird Archaeology. I’m looking forward to getting to those!

The dashboard makes it very easy to use this course. After you watch one of the 15-minute videos, you are automatically moved on to the next episode, but if you come back later and want to read one of the articles or rewatch something, it is easy to move back and forth. I like that each lesson has a button to click when it is completed—that way I know where we’ve been and what we’re ready for!

This course is definitely worth going through. We tend to love history, and especially finding things that prove that the Bible is true, so this is perfect for us. As an example of something we heard yesterday in the episode we watched, an inscription was found in northern Israel that mentioned David. This helps to prove that David was a real person. Many little gems of information like that are scattered through the course.

Eighty-four families had the chance to use this course and review it—click on the image below to find their reviews and see what they thought of it!