How you can Support Many Mission Fields at Once

 One of the top reasons missionaries leave their foreign fields is because of the educational needs of their children.  For some homeschooling is illegal, for some the host country does not have the adequate resources to support a homeschooling effort,  and for some there are not any options available for their children to receive an adequate education.       

The Black Forest Academy (BFA), in the south west corner of Germany, has been meeting the needs of missionary families and their high school aged children for the past 50+ years.  BFA is a school run by full time missionary- teachers, administration, and staff, who raise their own support in order to keep the cost affordable for missionaries on fields in over 50 countries.

    As we look back over the years of our life and ministry, we can clearly see how God has been preparing us for this specific work all along.  We have always seen education as a means of sharing the Gospel of Jesus and discipling students to grow in the Lord. So, we are thrilled with the thought that we are not only supporting those already in scattered fields around the world, but the students we will be reaching will likely be a driving force of the next generation of foreign missionaries. What an  incredible opportunity! We are humbled to go, and thrilled to be used by God to be a support to many missionaries and their children through the discipleship/educational field that we are so passionate about!

  The sending organization that we are serving with is TeachBeyond. This is the same organization that began BFA over 50 years ago, and we are excited about their vision to build the Kingdom by placing missionaries in education positions around the world.

Become a part of our team to reach MKs

   Is this vision to support global missions by supporting the education of Missionary Kids (MKs) something you are passionate about?  We are seeking a like-minded support team to help us meet this  great need through prayer and finances. 

Our Needs

   Teach Beyond has assigned to our family of seven, a budget of  $8,300/month and a start up (or relocation cost) of approximately $25,000.  This is a big need, but it is of small matter to the One in which we place our trust. 

We have already seen Him provide through His church 92% of our relocation costs.  That is over $23,000 since the beginning of the summer.  Only He can receive praise for this kind of generosity, and we are humbled to be a part of the lives of His faithful and generous children.  Praise GOD!  

We have also received pledge commitments of 11% toward our monthly needs.  One way of completing the monthly support is through the following scenario:   

5 giving $500 a month

5 giving $250 a month

15 giving $100 a month

34 giving $50 a month

54 giving $25 a month

Would you prayerfully consider being one who will partner with us financially to invest in this ministry of supporting Missionary Families around the world?   

We’re grateful for the chance to share this great opportunity with you!

- Ryan and Cathlyn Zwemke

Visit our giving page through our sending organization, Teach Beyond:
https://give.teachbeyond.org/support/zwemkes/ 

Short video to introduce Black Forest Academy

                   

A Boy? Calling the House? For WHO?

  What a fabulous fall day!  It was a perfect time of family fun at the local corn maze, and we were all laughing and reliving the experience as we walked in the door.  I put down my purse and pushed the button on the answering machine.  It was a message for our 13 yr old girl, and it was a BOY... a man-cub, something we don't see much of in our little cottage full of women.  He was so polite and articulate, and wanted to wish the 13 yr old good-luck on her All-State chorus auditions the next day.  How thoughtful, how sweet! So why were the first feelings running through my body alert and caution?  My daughter seemed untouched, and she moved into her room to return the phone call.  I talked with her about it later and she told me that he was just one of her friends.  She wasn't interested in him in THAT way.

  Hmmm...I'd be a fool not to see the obvious changes that have taken place in this girl's body and mind over the past 10 months.  She is a lovely young lady now, with very little of the child clinging to the edges of her being.  She is dressing differently, and actually arranges her hair with thoughtfulness and flare.  I even saw a young man look her up and down as we left a movie theater just a few months back...I haven't felt like hitting a person many times in my life, but I do think that young man was lucky to go home without a black eye.

  So we knew this was coming all these years, I mean we have 5 daughters.  And we have been talking with them about marriage and relationships with men for a long time now, but all of it seemed academic  somehow.  Now we were having to decide how those ideas and principles would work out practically in our family.

  We noticed that this boy was emailing regularly with our daughter, and then this past week, I saw him sitting in her group of girlfriends at a local homeschool group meeting, looking all starry-eyed as she spoke.  On our way home the 13 yr old said the boy wanted her to call him later that day.  I was feeling a little uneasy about it all.  I was torn.  We had always encouraged the girls to be friendly with boys and girls, and not to be afraid of interacting with boys. Wasn't that all she was doing?  There was a difference this time.  We had not encouraged the girls to make intimate close friendships with boys, and all this calling and emailing would lead to the sharing of personal thoughts and feelings and that could lead to a new kind of intimacy in a friendship that wasn't  so free and easy as before.

  When my husband heard about the phone call the 13 yr old was supposed to make that evening, he put an end to it.  "We're not going to be calling boys."  Although I supported him 100%, I felt torn for the girl who had given her word to call her friend, even if he was a boy.  I went to her room and had the "talk".  (She was allowed to email him and tell him that she couldn't talk today, so that, at least allowed her to keep her word.)

  Then, we had to talk about how she was entering an age where boys and girls have a hard time being "just" friends.  Sure, there were lots of fun boys to joke with and hang out in groups with, but once it started to turn into a one-on-one situation, over and over again, it inevitably would end up with one of the two parties having feelings for the other, whether the feelings were returned or not.  She agreed, and trusted that I spoke with experience, and then she reassured me that she didn't have any of those feelings for this boy.  That's when I had to tell her that this boy might have feelings for her, and that his actions indicated this was so, even if he didn't realize those feelings fully for himself yet.  And that our "no calling or spending time alone with boys" policy at this age was as much to protect the boy's heart as it was to protect hers.  She seemed to understand this, and took it with such grace and love.

Although she is paving the way and causing Ryan and I to put our thoughts and ideas into actions and rules, she is handling it all with such grace and kindness.  We are thankful and blessed to have such a wonderful first-born to set an example for her sisters.

We are still on this journey, and we tread lightly into this new territory.  At present, for those who are curious, when the time comes for our daughters to be ready for marriage, she will tell the interested young man to come talk with her father, who will then get to know him and decide if he will be able to spend time with our family and try to win our daughter's heart.  We do not feel that dating is necessary or essential to finding a good mate.  Our experience, and those of others we have known, has shown that more is learned of a person when you see how they treat the people they are not romantically interested in, the needy person, the family members, the annoying little sister or brother, etc.  So that is our present course of action, and we are willing to change it if God leads us in a new direction.

Tattling, Destructor of Sibling Relationships and the Seeds of Pride in the Heart

   Someone has broken a rule, and you didn't see it, but a pair of little eyes did.  She comes to tell you how her sister has broken the rule, and the desire to deliver swift justice is clouded by a dirty feeling that something doesn't ring true with the scenario. You talk with the offending child to find that indeed she did break the rules, and as the punishment is dealt out, her sickening sideways glance to the tattling sister makes your heart hurt.  The sibling's relationship has been dealt a hard, treacherous blow.  You feel the injustice and suddenly realize how to make things right.  You deal out punishment to the tattler as well, for seeking to get her sister in trouble, and for acting with authority where she had none.
   Here is the unspoken truth that we've all known since our childhood: tattling is different from telling.  Telling is motivated from a desire to keep another from hurting themselves or others. Tattling comes from the secret seeds of pride in the heart, that desires another's demise in order to make oneself look better.  If you allow tattling among your children, then you are sowing the seeds of disunity between siblings and allowing the weeds of pride to grow strong in the heart of the tattler.  This is the reason that we hold to a strict policy of tattlers receiving punishment along with the offending sibling. (There have been times when the tattler's punishment was worse than the offending child's, especially if the tattler has a bad habit of tattling. Sometimes we have even said, that since we didn't see the offense, we won't punish the offending sibling, while still punishing the tattler. In those times, we also warn the offending sibling that we will discipline them if we do catch them in the act.  We are big believers that things done in secret will be brought to light, it's just a matter of time.)
  There have been occasional times that we have asked an older sibling to come along side us in the training of a younger child, by giving them the authority to tell us if the younger sibling is doing the behavior we are trying to train out of her.  Then, that older child has been given our authority to help us in training a difficult to see trait, or behavior.  For example, we might ask the older sibling that shares the room with the toddler who has just moved out of her crib, to tell us if the toddler got out of bed without permission.  These times are usually for a short season, and give us a chance to train our older children in the arts of child training for their future lives as well.  (We teach them the graces of not lording over the younger child, but taking on the desire to see her succeed by gently helping her along.)
  We do allow telling, in that a child may tell us when they think a sister is doing or about to do something that would cause her harm, like jumping from too high a height, etc.  But as discussed before, this is a very different thing from tattling.  There is a disgust in all stages of life for the one that goes to the authority to defame a peer.  Very few societies have tolerance for such betrayal, and I have seen many sibling relationships greatly damaged by parents who allow it.  In response to many who have asked us how to build unity and lessen fighting among siblings, I would encourage the intolerance of tattling, by dealing out swift punishment for the tattler.
  It not only affects the sibling unity, but it corrodes the heart of the tattler, as well. She begins to believe that she is better than her sisters, and the seeds of pride grow.  All too easily she becomes more interested in finding the faults in others, instead of busily working to rid herself of her own. After careful practice, she will easily miss the plank in her own eye, while diligently seeking to point out the speck in her sister's. And as she grows, she will resemble the busybody that so many of us know in our lives.
  The heart of the child is a garden, and the wise parent will diligently tend it.
 

Dear Friends

  There are people in your life who change you.  People whose opinion you value more greatly than others, and whose company revives your spirit like only a few can do.  One such person was the maid of honor in our wedding.  We became friends when we roomed together after college.  This friend walked some amazing days with me, and always pointed me back to the Lord in the decisions I was making and in the relationships I was building.  She had front row seats as God brought Ryan and I together, and she became like a sister to me. 
  The Lord has arranged that my friend and I should serve Him on different continents for the last 11 years.  We keep in touch through Skype, emails, and the ever wonderful Facebook, but there is nothing like having her in our home.  Just recently, she and her family came to stay with us for a week; something that only happens once every few years. I know it is difficult for her family to share this time with our family, and I am grateful for their generosity. ( I know I would have a hard time sharing my daughter with another family if I only got to see her once every few years.)
  There is something about journeying through life together with her.  Our husbands have a grand time as well, and it makes for many moments of hysterical laughter, and who doesn't need that? The ease with which we pick up never ceases to amaze me.  You know you have a special friend when you can see them once every couple of years and it seems as though we just got together last week. 
  I remember during my public school days that a teacher once told me that to have even one such friend in your life is to be truly rich.  I feel blessed to have a handful of such friends, and though most would not define our family as wealthy, in this area we feel particularly blessed.  Seldom do you have people stay in your home for a week and you feel more refreshed than before they came.  I hope that Ryan and I can be that kind of friends to the people in our lives...to leave them refreshed after having spent time with us.
  I would like to encourage you to build and foster this kind of relationship with people who will tell you the truth, and love you where you are at.  Their value is far above the riches of the world.  Parenting can be draining and demanding, but to have such friends in your life will help you carry the load more gracefully.  And who doesn't need a healthy dose of grace in their life?

Purpose Driven

  Things were feeling a little sluggish around here recently.  After we finished homeschool, there was a mad dash to all the various screens in the house.  Computers, Itouches, Wii, t.v., every form of glowing light was being used to the utmost.  I began to sense a disintegration of family life, but everything they were doing was educational in one way or another, so I kept telling myself that it wasn't a complete wash.  Besides, it was probably the only time in the day when three to five people weren't calling for my attention at the same time, so maybe I was a little guilty in allowing it so that I could get some things done uninterrupted.  (Uninterrupted?  Did I just consciously verbalize that I was viewing my children as an interruption to MY day and MY plans?  Hmmm, perhaps there is more than one blog post message hidden here.)
  One afternoon last week, as I walked through the house during the "screen bonanza", I couldn't believe how many toys and games were sitting unused in our little home.  I tried to remember the last creative play time the girls had worked together to build some fantasy world or game.  A few weeks at least, or perhaps a month...it was hard to tell, but it was enough time to call a family conference.
  Five bodies on the couch stared up at their pacing mother as I tried to articulate a new plan, and communicate the nearby danger of our family becoming high functioning roommates who don't really build community together.  "All this time that we spend in front of screens is self directed, and isolating.  It takes away our chance to do something as a team.  We need projects! We need to work together toward a common goal.  You can also be pouring some time into skills that you can use later in life.  I like to see you cooking in the kitchen, making dolls clothes, knitting, working on fitness goals...SOMETHING!"  So they brainstormed, and I think there was some true excitement involved as well.  It was also an interesting look in to the passions and interests of our girls that I might not have noticed before then.
  Well, God has a way of providing the very thing we need most when we ask Him for wisdom and guidance.  Not even two days past that conversation did the girls find a turtle in the back yard.  Pleading eyes told me that they wanted to keep him. I'm not one to punish wild things by making them captives of little hands, but this turtle was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  "Yes, you can keep it.  But, you must look up all about turtles. I want to know what kind of turtle this is, what it eats, what it needs in a terrarium, what gender it is, how long it lives...everything you can find."  Oh, they were busy learning and reporting and the poor turtle was prodded and examined, but I am happy to say that she has survived, and now sits in a tank in the playroom.
  Then the next project/purpose presented itself.  We were invited to help a nearby family raise the money they needed to adopt a young girl from the Ukraine. Yuliya's story struck home with our girls.  Here was a girl of 15 who had one month left in the system before she would be turned out on the streets.  Without family or friends, Yuliya would likely end up like a majority of orphans in the Ukraine...crime or prostitution.  When our girls heard this they began brainstorming ways to raise money. Two of the girls decided they wanted to make and sell cookies. They came to me with a recipe and asked if I would purchase the ingredients needed to make them.  We got right to work and made 54 iced sugar cookies and sent them to school with Ryan.  His students were so excited, they wanted more, so I went back to the store and got more ingredients. This time the girls worked into the night to make 72 more cookies.  The students responded with even more excitement. (One pair of brothers brought in $33 for one cookie!)  Ryan's classes began talking about making posters around the school and getting a club to sponsor in helping bring Yulyia home.  It was thrilling for the girls to get the text today that all the cookies had sold before the last class of he day!
  It has been a joy to work together to help others, and that creativity is spilling into other areas...board games have come out everyday, some of which I forgot we owned.  There was a rousing game of Blind Man's Bluff  tonight before bed.  And the girls have taken to filming their own movie of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"...that will be a project loaded with family memories for years to come, and full of laughter for all of us now, too.  It's amazing what a little purpose can do for a life, a family, and a community!

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

  Our four year old has become consumed with Mother Goose Rhymes recently.  She loves the melodious sounds of the words and the ridiculous stories they tell. Often after a few minutes of reading we are both in a fit of giggles about some silly picture or rhyme in her book.  But, I always hold a secret smile whenever we read the one about what little girls are made of.  We have quite a few "little girls" and most of the time they are full of everything nice, but occasionally they fall prey to a feminine pitfall that many never grow out of.  It seems that many little girls struggle with emotional manipulation, hissy fits, or as I like to call it "being a slave to her emotions".
  Little girls are generally cute, and there is a special elation that comes from seeing them react excitedly to a new situation or gift, but it is equally repelling to see one scowl and pout and stomp her feet, or even scream when things don't go her way.  I have seen parents laugh at the little terror knowing that her size is all that keeps her from being a real threat to anyone, other than an annoyance.  I have even seen parents jump and try to fix whatever the problem may be in order to make their princess smile again. (Which only encourages her to try that tactic again next time.) But little girls who don't learn to be masters of their emotions while they are young, grow up to be wives who emotionally manipulate and throw fits to get their way. 
  Some of our girls have been more outward about this issue than the others, but whether they use silence or noise to get what they want, we have talked with them all about being the masters of their emotions or face the alternative...being slaves to them.  When our little darlings would throw a fit, we would quickly discipline the situation, and then have them practice the proper way to communicate their frustration.  It's important to recognize emotions but learning to properly communicate them is crucial to healthy relationships.
   What we practice is what we become.  Let a little girl practice emotional manipulation, and she will be an expert in the art by the time she reaches puberty.  Guide her to master her feelings and do the right thing, regardless of how she feels, and she will be more likely to grow into a self-disciplined adult.  Help her to practice communicating her feelings in a reasonable fashion and you will be giving her building blocks to use in healthy relationships and a happy marriage down the road. 
   Truth be told, we are the examples our children watch the most in learning how to react and handle our emotions.  That hits a bit too close to home for me at times.  I pray that God will help me to be the kind of mother who is gracious in hardship, kind when provoked, quick to forgive and quiet of heart. 

God Doesn't Save "Good" People

  Somewhere on the path of my life, I grew up with the ever-so-popular idea that good people go to Heaven, and bad people go to Hell.  You can imagine my shock around the age of seventeen when I encountered scriptures in the Bible that read:  (Rom 3:10)  "As it is written: "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NO, NOT ONE;" and  (Rom 3:23)..." for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,".  Just hold on!  You mean that no one is "good" in the sight of God?   Everyone is bad?  Even people who dedicate their whole lives to serving others, like Mother Theresa?   But surely their goodness outweighs their bad-ness, right?  I don't know about you, but I had a little "moral scales" in my head, and up until really understanding the above scriptures, I had simply assumed that God, like me, (and well, almost everyone I could think of), was just weighing all our actions. And if we tipped over to the good side when we died, we got the golden ticket into the everlasting cool place.
   Apparently, that is not how God set things up, at least according to the Bible.  I had to be honest with myself.  I fit into the "no, not one" and "all have sinned" category.  In fact, I was all too aware of my shortcomings, my faults, my blatant disregard for the commandments of God.  I could feel myself slipping down a steep incline, and I began to feel the panic of one who cannot save herself.  I began to read the Bible in search of answers, in search of hope.
  As you read the Gospels, you cannot help but examine Jesus' behavior with the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the scum of society, and contrast it with how He interacts with the religious leaders, and those who had a high, respected standing in the community.  With the sinners, He is gentle as He teaches them about salvation and repentance, but with the religious leaders He is harsh, calling them to examine themselves more closely.  What is it that Jesus is seeing in the two groups?  What is it that He values most?  It is not how high they were born, or their education, or even religious knowledge.  He didn't see one group as good and the other as bad, for as we have seen above, He knows that they are all "bad", all sinners.  No, after careful examination, the difference between the two groups is a repentant/broken heart, and a self-righteous prideful heart.  
  As parents, we know that our young child has broken our command, yet what makes it worse is when she tries to cover it up and act innocent, when you both know she is guilty.  You cannot begin to train her until she admits her own need for correction.  When she acknowledges you as parent, as authority.
  It is the same between us and God.  Psa 34:18 says. "The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit."  Ah, here we find the beginnings of hope for all of us in the "no, not one" category.  God said that even the breaking of one of  His commandments, no matter how small must be paid for in blood, more specifically with death.  Rom 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  So the penalty must be paid.  And if we are all guilty, then we all have a debt owed.
  Then the beauty of the whole thing comes to life.  What if someone, completely righteous....well, but no...no one is righteous....except for God Himself!  What if God Himself, came to Earth as man, lived a sinless life, and then willingly laid down His life as the penalty for my (our) sin?  Then the eternal life mentioned in Romans 6:23 above, would truly be a gift from God, not something I could earn with my "moral scales" idea.  He would, in effect, be offering me His righteousness as a gift to cover over and justify my own sins. 
  But wouldn't I have to admit I was wrong, to get to the place of accepting this gift?  I mean, only those who realize they are sick, seek a cure, right?  Those who think they are already such good people, might secretly think they are impressing God with all their goodness, much like the religious leaders of long ago.  God, like the parent of the unruly child donning an innocent face, wants the heart, and not some outward facade of holiness.
  So I had to reach the place of brokenness and need before I would seek the hope handed me through the gift of Jesus. He was gentle in leading me to this place of hope, and He showed me how to accept the gift: Rom 10:9  ..."that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
  I would like to encourage you to stop viewing people as good or bad, and to see us all as sinners in need of redemption.  Those who have found redemption are simply like the beggar hoping to show other beggars where the food is located.
I know I have breached the politics and religion faux pas of topical conversation, but how could I love you and not share the Truth.