Greetings

Greetings, from Genteel Grissom, where the wind sifts softly through the early morning trees.
I will reprint an earlier work, from the summer of 2012.

Dear Folks,

  David and I got into a heated game of chess this morning and he beat me.  I now owe him a year's supply of food, as per our gambit.  David likes to play chess, but is still learning how all the pieces move.  I think he knows the names of the pieces pretty well now.  

   Nathaniel and Ashley have a piano lesson this afternoon at 1:30 p.m.  

   Nathaniel was up late last night pacing about the house, something he does when he is thinking.  He needs the peace and quiet of a home where all is still and everybody else is asleep, to do his thinking.  He was thinking about conversations he had had online, on YouTube, where people debated evolution and the existence of God.  Nathaniel has "suddenly" become interested in that, and so I told him I would get him the text of the Greg Bahnsen/Gordon Stein debate at University of California at Irvine, 1985, where he convincingly demonstrated the impossibility of any logical coherence to the atheist's position, and he wants to learn all of the best Christian apologetics in response to atheists.  We may listen to "The God Debate II: Harris versus Craige," this week or next, together.  It was recommended by a fellow seminarian.  

    I don't study these things, preferring to work inside a church, as I did in South Korea. However, I will try to listen to some of these with Nathaniel, and maybe it will be good for me.  I used some basic apologetics in the mission work I did in Sweden in the summer of 1993.  I also intend to go back to Sweden for more mission work of the same sort.  However, I still expect to do mostly pure evangelism, teaching juggling, Bible classes, preaching, and teaching some English, for those who want to bone up on their English skills, as it were, per se. 

  Christopher has been playing chess with me a lot these past few weeks. We sit outside on the back patio, using a glass table with big umbrella that I got at Lowe's Foods for half-price, 250 marked down to 125, including six chairs.  The table seems a tad cheap (quality), but the chairs are great, lightweight, and with an apparently durable fabric that resists mildew and rot.  Christopher also enjoys throwing baseball with me, using two mitts that we got from The Sharing Shop.  He throws left handed and catches with his right, though he is not inherently a southpaw.  David is.  Christopher merely has become rather dependent on his left hand, from having a healing right arm break for over a year.  He will have surgery on the 10th of August to take out the metal stays running down the inside of his radius and ulnar.  

  Ashley has been jumping rope a lot lately.  I do mean "a lot."  She does it in the mornings and in the late evenings, running forwards while jumping, up the carport and back down around the road by our home. She goes on a route about 30 meters or so, and just goes back and forth.  I am not sure what she is doing, but I just let her go, don't say anything about it being kind of weird.  She has a weird daddy so I can't say anything, other than perhaps the apple does not fall far from the tree.  

   Ashley also has recently taken an interest in singing.  She is listening to "Jesus Loves Me" on YouTube right now, and was into "Tenderly and Softly, Jesus is Calling," and "Tears in Heaven," maybe Eric Clapton.  I will introduce her to "Wonderful Tonight," which I think a better song than "Tears in Heaven," at least for playing guitar and singing along with yourself.  She just said, "Ah.  I'm not a good high singer.  I'm better at low."

  Jordan has been in an unusually sour mood lately, cutting me off when he speaks . . . very unlike him.  I believe he resents the fact that he is not being home schooled, something he looked forward to for all of last year.  He badly wants to spend more time with me, particularly in our mutual pursuit of academics.  (We are greatly blessed to have enough funding, and education on the part of my wife to support us, during these next couple of decades or so).
    Jordan flat out does not like school, though he is doing a lot of homework, very assiduously.  He did not intend to go to anymore school, preferring home schooling, but I told him to go three weeks this summer so he would have a better idea of what he was turning down.  This is middle school; whereas, last year was all elementary school for him.  He seems to be handling the emotional stress OK, but does not see so much value in the academic content.  

   He likes band, wants to play flute, and that may be enough to keep him in for a year or two.  His work ethic is such that he will do well in any situation.  

   He has much greater potential for sheer excellence in academics (could get into Carnegie Mellon for computer engineering and robotics if but he would start home schooling right now, while subjection to the silliness and dullard teaching methods of our public school would seem to finally put anything like that completely out of reach).  Jordan seems very interested in computer programming right now, having learned some HTML and Python online, through You Tube Tutorials.  He catches on quickly, it seems, and he likes it a lot.  

   There are plenty of home schooled students in my seminary, and every one of them, to a man, is adept at communication, socializing.  It is the social effects which drove us out of Heritage Middle School last year, the seemingly insurmountable detrimental effects upon Ashley and Nathaniel.     

  My wife has much stress regarding her practicum in student teaching course.  She feels she is not able to speak English well enough to teach it.  I don't see a problem.  I tell her I am a native peaker and I speak-a the good grammar mistakes all the time.  

  Eye have been super happy lately, enjoying being a father and spending time with my burgeoning brood.  I have been talking more about adoption lately, with church members and other Christians in the community who have done it successfully.  Apparently it is much less expensive if you go through the foster care system, according to the wife of an old Testament professor here, a woman whom I met yesterday at the pool for David's swim lessons. However, there is a typical two-year period of uncertainty as to whether you can end up adopting the child whom you have loved and cared for.  I don't mind that uncertainty.  I imagine the social welfare system that handles adoption would eliminate me for consideration merely for my age (above 50) and my absence of income.  I don't mind, and wholly trust the Holy Spirit will put another child in my life if God sees a need for that sort of thing.  

  

Love, Nathaniel