‘Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus

By Ken | Published: September 4, 2011

I usually don’t use this blog for happenings in my personal family, but since prayers for my dear wife seem to have gone viral, I needed a place to point people who were interested in the story, and this was as good a place as any…

On Friday, my precious wife and daughter were on their way out of town for a long-awaited Mother/Daughter getaway that Hope and I had planned for Carol (my wife).  They got a bit of a late start and were supposed to head off to Winston-Salem about 2.5 hours away.  I prayed that the Lord would watch over them as they were away from us, as I sometimes remember to do.

For some reason, they decided to stop to do some shopping in Cary and all of a sudden Carol found herself in great pain in her abdominal area.  (As you will see, this was the first answer to my prayer for their protection).  Hope called and we were not sure if it was something as simple as gas or a potential emergency situation, only two years after Hope had to have her appendix out after similar “unexplained” pain.  They decided to stop at a friends house and let Carol lay down a little to see if it subsided and they could continue on to Winston-Salem.  We sent out a quick prayer request to our church loop for Carol and wisdom as to whether or not she should continue to Winston Salem.  Over the next few hours, there were phone calls back and forth and eventually it was decided that Carol should go to a nearby “Urgent Care” place, and I was on stand by as to whether I should meet her at an emergency room.

The UrgentCare place noticed her having slightly low blood pressure, determined that there wasn’t signs of an appendix problem, gave her an IV as she seemed dehydrated and thought it might be some sort of cyst.  As she continued to deteriorate and it was getting late on a Friday, they determined she should go to the Emergency Room to get a scan and figure out how serious it was.  (Second answer to prayer). I sent a follow up email before leaving saying she had gotten worse and I was going to meet her at the ER.  As I scrambled to grab myself some personal care items and a change of clothes in case I needed to stay overnight, my son reminded me that I didn’t need to get anything for my wife… she was already packed for the weekend, so I got out of there pretty fast.  (Third answer to prayer).

By this time, Carol could not get up without feeling nauseous and light headed.  They wheeled her out of the urgent care to the car, and Hope got her to the ER pretty quickly where they also put her in a wheel chair.  Unlike the usual wait in the ER if it is not clear that you are dying, they got to her pretty quickly, just after I arrived there.  They asked her the usual intake questions, asked if she was usually that pale, and whether her blood pressure had been this low at the Urgent Care place (72/46).  Dr. Bob DiLorenzo, our dear friend who is an ER doctor was on vacation across the country in Yosemite where he shouldn’t have had a signal.  He just happened to be in a spot where he was checking his email, and called while we were checking in.  (More answers to prayer).  He said that it was probably internal bleeding of some sort and that it was good we were in the ER.  I sent a quick email out that it may be internal bleeding, and the prayer request started going viral.  Carol, by this point was in pain, shivering, and couldn’t move without feeling like she was going to throw up or faint.  (I’ll leave some of the more personal details out here).

It wasn’t too long until a doctor was officially brought in, they started pumping her full of IV and arranging a CT Scan.  Though the staff was staying calm, they made it clear that this was a serious situation.  The doc said he expected to see a lot of blood internally and hopefully see where it was coming from, and that we should be thinking about who we wanted to do the surgery.  Though Dr. Bob was in a remote spot, we managed to get a signal long enough to get his recommendations which corresponded to the two men we already knew and trusted:

  • Dr. Eric Dubberman who was the one who found and removed Hope’s mystery problem two years earlier if it was a non-gynecological problem, and
  • Dr. Greg Brannon who is a bold Christian ob-gyn who loves life and had helped deliver Joshua six years ago if it was a gynecological problem – we knew that he wouldn’t do anything to Carol to stop her reproductive system that wasn’t necessary.

But would either of them be available for emergency surgery on Labor Day weekend?  We clearly had no time to spare.

The CT Scan showed “blood up to her liver” and the source was inconclusive, though one suspect was the right ovary.  As Carol was wheeled back from the CT Scan room, the ER doc got on the phone and found that Dr. Brannon was available as was Dr. Dubberman.  Within about a minute we heard Dr. Brannon’s unmistakable gregarious voice saying, “See, what did I tell you.  Less than 90 seconds.”  He came into the room, made fun at Carol for not coming to see him for more than five years and doing something extreme like this to get to see him again.  He checked her out and got on the phone to Dr. Dubberman, who quickly agreed to meet him in the operating room and be there since it was unclear where the source of the bleeding was and that this wasn’t something to mess around with.  Dr. Brannon explained that there was no time for a laparoscopic procedure, and that they were going to have to cut her open and move skillfully and quickly, saving whatever they could, but having to do whatever they needed to do to stop the bleeding.

While this was happening, Carol and I spoke very little other than a few words of encouragement that God was in control and had sent the best people we could ask for to help her, and reminders of our love for one another.  We prayed briefly together, but little did we know how many prayers were storming the gates of heaven.  I was calm and at peace, though very much aware that if they didn’t get to her soon, couldn’t find and fix the source of the problem, or there were any complications, this might be my last time on earth that I would see my wife alive as it was clear that her vital signs were close to the edge and more blood loss could push her over it.  When I asked how long I should expect her to be in surgery, I was told, “Best case, about an hour.  Otherwise, as long as it takes.”

I got to the waiting room, and now the hard part came for me.  While I was with Carol, I could concentrate on reassuring her.  Now, I had nothing to do but wait and pray.  I wasn’t even sure how to pray.  I was somewhat numb from the events of the day.  I didn’t know what to ask the Lord other than I wanted my wife to live, but “not my will but Yours”.  I was reassured by all of the coincidences that He had already lined up… Carol could have easily been halfway to Winston Salem when this hit her and nowhere close to anyone we knew, deciding to tough it out.  She could have gotten to the ER later and been behind other people who looked worse than Carol.  We could have had the least experienced and ungodly doctors in the county covering for all the “senior docs” taking a long weekend off.  Bob could have been at a part of Yosemite joyfully ignorant of what was happening back home while he enjoyed God’s wonderful creation.  Many people who we love and love us could have been away from their computer when the emails and FaceBook posts started… but they were not.

As I pulled out my iPad to send an update out, I was overwhelmed by the pouring out of prayers from all over the country… I’ll come back to this later.

In less than an hour, Dr. Brannon came out and he said that there was a large rupture in her right ovary like he had never seen before.  In fact, he had only seen anything like it once before, 25 years earlier in a 20-year-old girl.  Evidently, ovarian cysts rupture all the time and sometimes cause some bleeding that gets flushed through the system and out through the paths that are there.  Carol, believing she is going through the early stages of menopause, hadn’t had a period for about 4 months.  Evidently, she had a large growing cyst during that time and when it ruptured, it basically exploded and blew right through the back side of her ovary. Though she now has one less ovary, it appears that this was the clear source of the problem and, as I am writing this she is well into recovery.  The biggest concern at the end of the surgery was her blood level as she lost so much blood.

The prayers of the saints are being answered as Carol’s recovery is going as well as can be expected and better.  The difference between where she was 12 hours ago in the recovery process to now is quite amazing.  They added 4 pints of blood to her slowly through about 10 AM this morning.  They’ve since taken several blood samples, and all the numbers are going rapidly in the right direction.  Her latest blood tests are showing that she is continuing to go in the right direction even though she has been off of transfusions or IVs since before noon.  She is now on oral pain medication.  She just had a really good two hours of walking, urinating on her own, and having full conversations.  She isn’t taking in much food (clear only right now) but she is keeping down everything she has taken in.  All of these things are what they are looking for before they let her out of here.  The last two hours (and the 24+ before that) have wiped her out and she is back to sleep, but otherwise doing great.  We expect that she’ll be moving slow for a few weeks, but otherwise will be perfectly fine.  (If you are still out there reading this, don’t stop praying.  The recovery period isn’t over).

I’m praying they will let her out of here tomorrow, but if she has to stay until Monday as they originally expected we really have no business complaining.  It was so good to see her having a normal conversation with color in her cheeks… just 24 hours ago I was wondering if those cheeks would ever have color in them again.

Carol and I were both sharing with each other a few hours ago that when we were in the midst of the crisis, we both had peace and didn’t really know how to pray besides the simple prayer “God, your will be done, but please fix it.”  Though we were both aware that it could have been our last night together on this earth, we could only encourage each other and say this simple prayer.  While we were coming up short on how to pray, we know that there were literally thousands – perhaps tens of thousands – from around the country praying as we could not.  Prayers for Carol were going viral.  I didn’t have time to pray in the waiting room while I was reading notes from folks who told me they were praying… I received emails from people all over the country I didn’t even know.  I was copied on other people’s facebook comments.  I was receiving phone calls from people I had only met once or twice.  In fact, I almost missed the news from the doctor when he came out to the waiting room because someone called to pray with me.  Just before they called, the folks in the waiting room with me (waiting for someone to finish a routine day surgery) recognized what was happening as I could barely put my phone down and, when I had just a moment between calls, they came over and prayed with me before they left.  Just afterward, Tony Hernandez showed up with a Grilled Stuff Burrito and we caught up on each other’s lives while I had to wait to see Carol.  Since then, I have been notified today about many more church and ministry prayer loops we were on in North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and who knows where else.

In the morning, during a moment she seemed to be awake, I read the Bible to her and I just happened to have it bookmarked at Romans 8.  By the time I got to this passage:

“26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (NASB)

Carol was already asleep.

How faithful our Lord is.  When we don’t know how to pray as we should, He just takes over.  Praise the Lord!  Hallelujah!  All glory and honor to His name!

As if that was not enough, we have been offered more meals and service than we can handle.

As I told one dear sister, “There are meals supplied already for the next 4 days. There is a churchwide campout tomorrow night that the children are looking forward to. Carol’s sister and mother are going to be down on Monday to help and, quite honestly, I have no idea what else we could possibly ask for (unless you want to pay off our mortgage?). Our cup overflows, and the children are going to get lazy on me if anyone gives them any more.”

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
and to take Him at his word;
just to rest upon His promise,
and to know, “Thus saith the Lord.”

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust him more!

Once again the Lord has proven Himself faithful and done exceedingly abundantly beyond all we ask or think.

Pray for those who don’t trust in Him.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through something like this without Him… Praise the Lord, by His amazing and abundant grace, I will never have to know.  Lord, pour your grace upon them as you have on me and my family!

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CocoaConf, InKLEINations, and the Mission Field

By Ken | Published: August 26, 2011

So, I’ve been a bit busy lately.  OK.  Way too busy.  My last post was months ago.  I had planned on getting away for two months at the beginning of August after a really important deadline for one client at the end of June and another really important deadline for a different client at the end of July.  As plans were talked about, getting away meant driving about 2000 miles in 10 days to make stops in New Jersey (to see my parents, sisters, their families, and more), Pennsylvania (to see Carol’s mom, sister, her family, and more) and an important trip for a pending business venture in Ohio.

As this trip was being talked about, I heard about CocoaConf being offered in Dublin, OH.  I heard about it from Solomon Klein, the son of my friend Dave Klein.  It sounded like it would be a good conference, but I wasn’t sure if I wouldn’t be better off just taking the time to work on the iPad app I’m behind where I’d like to be on.  As the time to make the final decision approached, I learned more about the fact that the whole conference was being put on by Dave Klein’s family, whom I had never met.  (The Klein family describes themselves as “Your average family of 15, seeking to know and follow the Lord Jesus Christ“)  We talked a bit, prayed a bit, and I became more convinced that I should go to this thing.

What an incredible conference!  Although I’ve been to conferences run by families before, they were usually in church circles.  I’ve run local workshops where my family helped out, but never at this scale.  And, I’ve been to a lot of software conferences before, but never such a combination of intimacy and quality.  The speakers were top notch.  The program was meaty.  The schedule was not too rushed, not too slow, but just right.  And this was their first such conference!

The Kleins drive a big blue bus and have decided that, in addition to the consulting business Dave and three of his oldest sons are doing, they are going to make a go of putting these conferences on all around the country, perhaps 6-12 per year.  I’m thrilled to be talking to them about RoleModel Software sponsoring an upcoming Raleigh conference and housing the Klein family before and after the conference.  Not only will I enjoy the fellowship, but we’ve got a lot of things we can learn from each other and do together in software.  And I’ve got a few projects around the house that could use another 30 hands or so to knock out!

The software industry, like any place the Lord has you, is a mission field.  Your family is where discipleship begins.  Put the two together.

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Biblical Roles in Our Culture: Time to Man Up!

By Ken | Published: April 26, 2011

The feminists are right about one thing… Men are the problem.

Between attending the recent Family Economics conference, the Bible Study I’m currently doing with another dozen men (using What He Must Be as an outline for the passages we are studying), and an ongoing experience watching the ravages of sin and the scary tactics and philosophy of Wake County’s Child Protection Services (and I’m sure it is not unique to Wake County) when a man who rejects his responsibility to marry a young lady he impregnated turns on her and falsely accuses her.  I’ve been reminded of how important it is for men to embrace their roles in all aspects of life, and what happens to our culture when they don’t.

First, the Family Economics conference pointed out many things.  The word “economics” itself literally means “household law”.  The Scriptures clearly teach that men are to rule their households well.  (And, for the record, tyranny is not a form of ruling well).  But one of the points made was how the rejection of God’s Word, starting with the household, has led to so much decay of our american culture that is seemingly irreversible.  We think economics is all about what the government is going to do to make sure everyone has enough money.  The problem is, the households are broken.  (And the government gets its power from the governed… broken households lead to a broken government).

Over 40% of children in the US are born out of wedlock and the numbers get worse as they get older.  More than 70% of children don’t live in a nuclear family.  As disturbing as those statistics are, the rate of growth of both of those numbers in the past 50 years is even more disturbing.  And, out of the 20-30% of the children that are left, how many sons are being taught to embrace their role by their fathers?  How many daughters are being left to find their way and hope to find a decent husband and father for their children, with no training into what to look for?  And even if they’ve been trained well, how many real men do they have to choose from?

But then there is the story of the Exodus, and the many stories of Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings…, the history of Rome, England … the many examples of how terrible culture can get at the hands of negligent fathers and tyrants whom they allow to run over people and the repeated story of how men cry out to the Lord and He answers.

Next week, we will be studying how a man is called to be “Prophet and Priest” in his home.  We are not talking about a man standing on a street corner yelling “repent” (though that’s always a good message whether you like to hear it or not) or making ritualistic sacrifices.  We’re just calling men to what God has always called them to do.  Read God’s Word, live God’s Word, speak God’s Word, and lead his family as God has called him (sacrificially).

For those of you who believe a woman’s primary focus should be based from the home (Titus 2) as an excellent wife (Proverbs 31:10-31) who is industrious (not sitting at home watching soap operas – and doing a gazillion things that bless her husband, children, grandchildren, and society – more on that in another post), I agree.  But, if men don’t step up to their biblical roles, what’s a girl to do?

For those feminists who like to point out that God chose Deborah to judge Israel, read the story again.  The fact that Deborah judged Israel was a condemnation on the men.  And what did she call Israel to do?  ”Men, man up and realize who your God is!”.  She didn’t call the women to get up and overthrow the oppressors. She called the men.  And the “great leader of men”, Barak, said, “I’ll only go if you go with me”.  The judgment on his cowardice was that the glory of defeating the enemy would go to a woman.  And afterwards, the introduction to the victory song of Deborah and Barak, started out “That the leaders led in Israel, That the people volunteered, Bless the LORD!”.  It’s talking about the 10,000 men who stepped it up!  And afterward, Deborah did not continue to judge Israel.

Men, cry out to the Lord, and then do your job at home, and don’t stop doing it anywhere else you go. Men, if you don’t know your job, God has already answered your cry.  You can find a bunch of Scripture to ponder here.

I’ve heard many men say, “but no one has ever taught me”.  Stop complaining and take your role!  Think about what you are doing that is keeping you from reading God’s Word, teaching God’s Word (could be as simple as reading it to your wife and children and asking the deep question to yourself and them, “What does this mean, and how should it change the way we live?”), and living God’s Word.  Stop doing the less important things (if you have time to read the sports page, you have time to read the Bible), and do what you are supposed to do.

Just do it.  If you don’t know where to start, use the words of Julie Andrews.  ”Let’s start at the very beginning; a very good place to start”.  Tonight at dinner or before everyone goes to bed, open your Bible to Genesis 1:1 and start reading.  If you don’t ever come back and read my blog again, but you read the Word to your family every night, my reward will be great and yours will be greater.

Toward the end of his lengthy instruction to the men of Israel (yes, the women and children were there, but he was primarily talking to the men throughout – read it before you object), Moses points out:

“Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today, which you shall command your sons to observe carefully, even all the words of this law. For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life” (Deut 35:46-47 NASB).

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Letting Our Light Shine Before Men

By Ken | Published: February 13, 2011

Some folks ask me what this “integrated life” stuff has to do with the gospel. Sometimes, I am accused of being “legalistic” or “pharisaical”. Well, I certainly won’t say that I don’t have my legalistic or pharisaical moments, but I do understand the gospel, and it compels me to lead, or attempt to lead, an integrated life, with love for the Lord holding it all together.

This morning I was reading Matthew 5:13-20… by the way, all Scripture quotations below are taken from the New American Standard Bible®,
 Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,
1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation 
Used by permission. (http://www.Lockman.org)

13You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
17 Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
19 Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. Ultimately, he fulfilled the law by paying the penalty for our sins. Whether I, or anyone else, leads an integrated life doesn’t really matter when it comes to our final destination.

But, you know, he could have just said that and left out all the rest. Nowhere in his time on earth did he ever say that we should ignore God’s design. He told us to make disciples – those that follow. We can’t follow our leader and ignore His design. That would be hypocritical. That’s what he had against the pharisees, not that they “followed the law”, but that they added to the law and had no compassion and mercy… that’s not following God. If you look at what Jesus pointed out, he didn’t say, to be righteous you must become antinomians (those who think that law no longer applies to them). Jesus actually pointed out that righteousness exceeds following the letter of the law (like the Pharisees did) to the spirit of the law. (Read the rest of Matthew 5 through chapter 7)

So, this week in the bible study I’m leading, we are discussing our responsibilities to our daughters (or future daughters). One of the passages we are studying is Numbers 30. Now those who are egalitarian or antinomian will say that these are archaic, antiquated, chauvinistic rules loved by those men who love to oppress women and not very Christian. Although they may be loved by men who love to oppress woman, leaving it at that would miss the spirit of the law. In fact, I think Jesus Christ would disapprove of those who follow the letter of Numbers 30 who miss the spirit of the law and call them hypocrites like he called the pharisees. Jesus tells us not to be like those who love lording over others. But that is not what Numbers 30 is about. It is about the responsibility to protect our daughters and wives.

Let’s look at this a little deeper. Numbers 30:3-5 states:

3″Also if a woman makes a vow to the LORD, and binds herself by an obligation in her father’s house in her youth,
4and her father hears her vow and her obligation by which she has bound herself, and her father says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand and every obligation by which she has bound herself shall stand.
5″But if her father should forbid her on the day he hears of it, none of her vows or her obligations by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the LORD will forgive her because her father had forbidden her.

Authority and responsibility go together. But, if we lift authority over responsibility, we usually get into trouble.

For example, say my daughter tells someone whose car has just broken down that they can borrow our family’s car. I can pull out the authority given me and tell my daughter how rash she was, how she shouldn’t have said anything to anyone about borrowing our car before asking me first, and tell the broken down person that my daughter spoke out of turn and I did not give her the authority to offer our car. Sorry, you have to find another ride.

Same situation, but I pull out the responsibility given me and begin to inquire who the person is who broke down. If I find out that it was someone in a stolen car who was wanted by the police, I can use my authority to release my daughter from her rash vow and keep her from being an accomplice to a crime. I’ve protected my daughter as a responsible father should.

Granted, the example I gave was a bit forced, but I think it clearly illustrates the point that God gives the authority of the father not to lord it over her, but to protect her.

My daughter gets that. She loves living here and she loves that her daddy believes Numbers 30 applies to her life. She’d rather be protected here than unprotected on her own.

I remember hearing many years ago, a retiring judge in Texas who said, “in all my years on the bench, I’ve never had a woman who was loved by her father standing before me in a position of trouble”.

Know God’s law. Learn and follow the spirit of it. Responsibility should come with authority, but authority should never trump it. Jesus was given all authority and he took the responsibility for our sins.

Praise the Lord!

Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven.

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Child Labor Laws Need to Be Rewritten

By Ken | Published: February 12, 2011

I was reading a blog post recently about my profession and I was both pleased that someone said it, while being bothered that it has to be said.

To many MPs and teachers, using an Excel spreadsheet or knocking up an HTML page is “computer programming”. The educational focus is very much on using software, rather than making software. But we still call it “computing”, which is as misguided as suggesting someone who can take an aspirin understands “medicine”.

The blog post (by a fellow from the UK) was entitled “Software Craftmanship – We Need to Raise Our Game” and the point it made about how pathetic – and divorced from reality – education is in the realms of software may even be understated. I wonder what it’s like in other industries. Yet, we insist that the most important thing for a child or young person is “education”. And when THEY say “education” they don’t seem to be able to divorce this education from sitting in a classroom with a bunch of people their own age supposedly learning the same lessons that someone decided everyone needs to know.

But there are a lot of other ways to get an education. Many of them are much better, especially as part of an integrated life that puts responsibility and value in a real world context. People learned the 3 Rs (reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic) in all sorts of ways before it was institutionalized and learned many other valuable skills, too.

I recently was reading about child labor laws in this country and the more I find out about them, the harder it is to not become irate.

I’ve tried, and continually try, to teach my children to be producers, not just consumers. I attempt to do the same with any young person I have any influence over, unapologetically. Saturday is not a day to watch cartoons. It’s a day to work with those that are older than them and produce something of value. (And parts of every other day but Sunday should be, too).

Another thing I’ve taught them to do is to honor the aged and they’ve learned to talk to and listen especially to the World War II generation while we still have a few of them left. It is interesting to find out how many of the Greatest Generation worked when they were children or very young adults. But then, it happened… The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

There are all kinds of problems with the government regulation of employment, but let me just focus on one part. The protection against “oppressive child labor”. We have a Department of Labor to protect us from this great evil. And, of course, they have our best interests in mind. I know, because they tell me so:

The Department of Labor is the sole federal agency that monitors child labor and enforces child labor laws. The most sweeping federal law that restricts the employment and abuse of child workers is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Child labor provisions under FLSA are designed to protect the educational opportunities of youth and prohibit their employment in jobs that are detrimental to their health and safety. FLSA restricts the hours that youth under 16 years of age can work and lists hazardous occupations too dangerous for young workers to perform.

It is this department of our federal government that has decided that working in theatre is OK for anyone of any age, but 12 year olds who know how to program (and want to learn more) can’t be paid for their services, even for two hours per week. Is that because it would be “detrimental to their health and safety” or because we need to protect “the educational opportunities of youth”. If they are 14, they need to get a work permit to do so.

Exactly what does this work permit give them? The people who work in this government office use antiquated software to license young people who want to learn how to write non-antiquated software to do so… but only certain numbers of hours at certain times of the day. I’m sure it would be detrimental to their health and safety (unlike the environment of Hollywood) because they need to go to schools who don’t know the first thing about software, so they can be prepared to go to colleges and pay lots of money (taking out loans, if necessary) for a few hours a week with professors that have never done any “programming in the wild”. I know I’m not the only one who sees a problem with this. And it is not just the software development field in which young, capable people are blocked out.

I understand that there were times in our history where some children were basically employed as slaves and kept from being able to read and write and something had to be done about it. Now, they are slaves to governments who insist that they follow the rules of government school systems. (We know we can homeschool, but the labor laws discuss school hours, etc. as if the only thing a young person should be doing is sitting in a classroom).

We know the track record of our public school systems. Though there are many good people who work there, they need a lot of help to teach a lot of relevant and valuable skills (30 people at a time) that just about no one in their system has. They can’t hire the help they need if it could come from someone who isn’t at least 16. See the article at HSLDA’s site that illustrates how ridiculous this is.

In his 2011 state of the union address, Mr. Obama said:

To reduce barriers to growth and investment, I’ve ordered a review of government regulations. When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them. But I will not hesitate to create or enforce commonsense safeguards to protect the American people. That’s what we’ve done in this country for more than a century. It’s why our food is safe to eat, our water is safe to drink, and our air is safe to breathe. It’s why we have speed limits and child labor laws.

Mr. Obama, do you realize that many of our jobs are going overseas to people who will work for less than our minimum wage? In the meantime, I know a LOT of bright young 12-15 year olds who not only do very well with the three Rs, but also program, interpret sign language, cook, clean, run spreadsheets, do excellent graphic design, etc. and would LOVE to work, but aren’t allowed to. We must “protect our children’s educational opportunities” while american businesses go overseas to get cheaper labor. Our government is enlightened and not only believes the myth of adolescence, but institutionalizes it. We have young people who have never been allowed to participate in significant projects until they get out of college at age 22-25. Many of these same young people think they should get paid a lot of money because they have a degree that says they are smart, and wonder why it is so hard to find a job.

Most people running businesses know why these people can’t find a job. They’ve never learned to work and businesses don’t want to pay high rates for the opportunity to train someone who has an inflated view of their worth. When the World War II generation was growing up, there were a lot of opportunities for industrious twelve-year-olds to earn some pocket change. By the time someone was 22, they already had ten years of some type of work experience.

Fear breeds stupidity. 1n 1946, some people were afraid that if we didn’t have these laws we’d have a bunch of young people being taken advantage of by greedy capitalists, and able-bodied men not being able to find a job to support their families because child labor was cheaper. Sixty-five years later, are the children much safer in our inner-city schools and neighborhoods? Would all able-bodied men (and women) lose their jobs to twelve-year-olds? No, they are losing many of their jobs to 22-year-olds who live overseas. And, if a twelve-year-old can do a job better than a twenty-five-year-old, why should I be forced to hire the twenty-five-year-old? If the education really makes the difference, I’d be stupid to hire the uneducated twelve year old and wouldn’t last long in the competitive business field.

Call me crazy, but I think people should be compensated for the value provided, and people and the marketplace should be the ones determining the value of a particular situation or institution. If I think the value I get from paying to learn some set of things at a particular institution is greater in the long run than working a job, I should gladly seek it out. But why should the government be pushing me in that direction?

My daughter, Hope, is almost 19 years old and is a very talented musician. She has 16 piano students at various levels of proficiency and has been teaching regularly for almost 5 years (after observing other teachers in addition to her own). Hope is active in the Cary-Apex Piano Teachers Association… she became their youngest member last year. She also is an accompanist in various settings, is an assistant with a local musical theatre group, and has several other productive interests (occasional composing, writing a series of books, gardening and other homemaking activities, teaching her younger brothers various subjects, occasionally helping me on various projects, serving others in various capacities, and more). She has taken private piano lessons for something like thirteen years and is currently taking some from a college professor. She’s taken college level music theory classes via correspondence.

She made a decision recently that, although she has been offered scholarships, she is not going to pursue a four-year degree though she will continue to learn and increase her skills. She just doesn’t think it is worth it to give up four years of her life (and her current livelihood) so that she can get a little more intense instruction and a piece of paper that suggests she can pick her livelihood back up in four years after sacrificing everything else she pours herself into.

Please don’t tell the Federal Department of Labor. They weren’t living with us to stop the oppression of her childhood and make sure her educational opportunities were protected.

I realize that Hope has had opportunities that others could never dream of getting. Some children don’t have parents that fulfill their responsibility to train up their children well or have limited means even if they wanted to. The theory is that this is why we need these laws… so these children get the education they need to succeed. NEWSFLASH: the oppressive laws that protect them from oppressive labor does not make them do well in school and be ready for success when they get through the system… and they really aren’t helping anyone else out, either.

I’m not suggesting that we should be looking to hire out our six-year-olds to put in 50-60 hour work weeks picking up scrap material at a local factory, but exactly why can’t a twelve-year-old have a part-time job in an office?

The world knows that children become young men and women around the age of twelve. Look at the prices at a buffet, or the instructions on a bottle of medicine. The Bible teaches that if a man doesn’t work, we shouldn’t let him eat. If we took it seriously, we’d either have a bunch of starving teenagers, or we wouldn’t put up with this nonsense.

What can you do?

  1. Train up the young people around you in valuable skills and teach them to serve at every opportunity, volunteering if they have to, or agreeing to work for food (but tell them not to stand at a busy intesection with a sign).
  2. Join me in asking your state and federal representatives to realize that the current antiquated child labor laws need to be revisited and write up the new bill.
  3. Talk about this with other people you know and get them to agree that twelve-year-olds should be allowed to work for anyone that would like to hire them, with the agreement of their parents.

Once we get the literate twelve-year-olds working again, it will be easier to train our ten-year-olds in the value of learning and serving and leading an integrated life.

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Family Economics Conference, March 11-12 in Raleigh

By Ken | Published: February 9, 2011

I’ve been thinking about posting something about this for a while, but realized today that the conference is getting closer and I haven’t posted anything about it yet.

Here’s the deal. The family is the fundamental economic unit, period. Someone with a Ph.D. may argue differently and footnote a lot of the writings of man. They are wrong. I have one big footnote to back up my argument, Genesis 1:1-Revelation 22:21. Eternity begins with a wedding feast for an exclamation point.

There’s a conference to help people realize the practical realities of this and it is coming to Raleigh next month. I’m not sure how much time I’m going to have to write about it, but the web site does a great job, so I’ll just point you there: http://www.conference2011.com.

If I don’t write about it more soon, I’m guessing I’ll write about it more after the conference.

I will say that we are blessed to host our dear friends, the Harding family, who live a family integrated life in Virginia. Matthew wrote (and is writing) a neat series of books called The Peleg Chronicles that you can find at http://www.matthewchristianharding.com/ as well as other information about his family.

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Farriers and an Integrated Life

By Ken | Published: February 7, 2011

I just came back from the International Hoof Care Summit in Cincinnati where we were rolling out our latest enhancements to the Farriers United offerings. The founder of Farriers United, Jeff Denson couldn’t bring his wife as she just had a baby last Friday, so I took my daughter Hope with me to help in the booth at the exhibition. She did a great job of helping out in all sorts of ways and it was great to have her take a more active role in business side of what I do. We both enjoyed hanging out with farriers (the folks that shoe horses) and the more I learn about this group, the more I love them.

I’m thrilled that our services were so well received as the farriers, and others who work with the farriers, realized how they can help them save time and make money. These are a hard working group of people that know a lot more than the uninformed would give them credit for. It’s not just a matter of wacking some metal shoes on a horse’s hooves… or avoiding getting kicked! The horse’s hooves and legs are a key part of the horse, and an indicator of the overall health of a horse, and these folks know a LOT about how to keep horses healthy and at their peak. These folks work hard, make a good living (once established), and can live an integrated life a lot better than many professions allow.

I had the honor and privilege of meeting Chris Gregory and his son Cody. They both took off their hats as they were introduced to my daughter, Hope. Their politeness and down to earth nature were very refreshing. Their humility was impressive. especially as I learned more about them.

Cody started working with horses when he was 4. When he was in 5th grade, the family’s move out of a school district prompted them to start homeschooling Cody and his sister. I heard Cody say that homeschooling was the best thing that ever happened to him. At 19 years of age, he has more accomplishments than most farriers. At 15, Cody passed the American Farrier’s Association Certified Journeyman Farrier, shattering the previous record for the youngest to reach that mark by 4 years. He gets it honest.

Cody’s dad, Chris, earned the title of Fellow of the Worshipful Company of Farriers (FWCF) at the age of 30. The Worshipful Company of Farriers, (WCF) is a group founded in London in 1356 and regarded by many as stewards of horseshoeing’s highest standards. Only 35 farriers currently hold this distinction of Fellow, four of those Americans.

You can find a bit more about Chris and Cody and the rest of the family at the staff page of the Farrier School the family started in 1995 – Chris’ wife, Kelly, is also a farrier – Heartland Horseshoeing School. (Cody jokingly informed me that his sister is “the black sheep of the family” because she focuses on rodeo). The school turns out 45 farriers a year and is known, according to Jeff Denson, as the premiere school for farriers in the country.

Though the Gregory family is certainly unique, I was also impressed with how many husband and wife teams were at the Hoof Summit. We signed up a number of husband/wife farrier teams for our Farriers United services. Sometimes the husband was the one who typed in their registration at the computer, sometimes the wife. Often the wives were the ones who “did the books”, but not always. Although a major part of farrier technology is still that of a blacksmith, the mobile farrier trucks and a lot of other great products are connecting the old-time craft with the modern times we live in as is our growing suite of services for Farriers United and some other software technology such as ONTRACK. These folks are not left in the dark ages, but have the benefit of a lot of great heritage to draw from.

I’ve heard the average age of farriers in the US is 55. There is a bigger demand than supply. I’ve also heard that it is not uncommon for an established farrier to have a six-figure income. The family economics are there. There is a lot of opportunity in the industry. There are great schools that teach the craft (a lot cheaper than a four-year education) and it is not just for people with weak minds and strong backs… though a strong back is definitely a plus.

If you want to live a family-integrated life and don’t mind getting your hands dirty, consider farriery.

For anyone interested, the American Farrier Association’s Convention is in Lexington, KY, March 1-4.

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The Myth of Adolescence

By Ken | Published: December 31, 2010

About ten years ago, I had the privilege of seeing David Black speak about the “The Myth of Adolescence” at the North Carolinians for Home Education conference. It wasn’t the first time that I had been challenged about the modern concept that there was something between childhood and adulthood. According to God’s design, there are children and there are adults. I was already apprenticing young men, but was challenged as to why I should wait until young men were 18 or so to begin the apprenticeship process.

In fact, if adulthood starts at puberty, why shouldn’t they start working/apprenticing around the same time? Well, for one, they haven’t been trained for it. That wasn’t always the case. John Quincy Adams was an ambassador to Russia at age 15. Marquis de Lafayette was commanding ships when he was 14 and was already a seasoned military man. What’s missing in the preparation of our young people today?

I made the leap that training in important skills needed to start earlier than adulthood. So, when my son Caleb was six or so, I started looking for ways to train him in useful skills and some other men I was associated with started a “Knights of Christ’s Table” club where men and their sons would get together to train up their sons in a variety of character qualities and skills. We did a variety of unusual things, but eventually several of us decided to put together a group of young men to form a FIRST Lego League team. We not only taught them some programming and research skills, but also how to work as a team, agile project management, and a lot of biblical principles.

Fast forward a few years, and some of the Lego League boys are now young men. My son, Caleb, is 14 and has picked up some graphic design skills over the past few years and is apprenticing as a web designer in our studio. Zachary, also 14, has been apprenticing as a programmer. And we recently added Bruce Ricketts as an apprentice…

In addition to the Lego League training, Bruce has had some programming training from one of our apprentices (Austin Taylor), and then an apprentice (Steve Iannopollo) of an apprentice (Adam Williams). So, recently when a potential client came to us with an idea for an iPhone app, we decided to see if Bruce could do the majority of the work with some oversight from Steve and some graphic help from Caleb. It turned out great.

Somehow, the local News & Observer picked up on what Bruce has been doing.

We’ve got another project for a client starting up that is going to have apprentices of 14 years of age working on it with supervision of more experienced developers. They’ve still got a lot more to learn, and are only putting around twelve hours a week into the project while they are still learning a lot of things, both academically and practically, but they are young men and are capable of doing more than the world thinks they should be. Each one started preparing for this while they were still children and had parents who encouraged them. They look at this as part of their maturing as young men… and they jump around on the trampoline at lunch time like you would expect young men with a lot of energy to do.

Are these amazing young men? Well, I think they are all very special, but I also realize that they are normal and a testimony to what happens when people recognize that God designed us to go from childhood to adulthood with a vision for how to help them make the transition.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. (1 Cor 13:11 – NASB)

Man has created the concept of adolescence. God designed boys to become young men and girls to become young women. Man’s wisdom has determined that children should get 12, 16, or more years of education in classrooms and campuses surrounded by peers. God’s wisdom says

You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. (Deut 6:7 – NASB)

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Eph 6:4 – NASB)

The sound doctrine of the Lord has led me to attempt to live an integrated life which includes older men teaching younger men and older women teaching younger women as pointed out in Titus 2. The world has come up with their system that segregates younger people from older people, putting fools (of the same age) with fools in an environment where God is kept out of the equation. An integrated life was the norm 150 years ago in this country… young people learned how to work by their parents’ sides while they were young. They were trained in the Scriptures. Once they got established, they generally got married and stayed married. No, it wasn’t perfect. There were still sinners. Not everyone built their life on God’s words. But, society was built on the basic foundations laid out in God’s Word.

In the last 150 years, God’s Word has been pushed out. How has the world’s plan worked out?

When the Apostle Paul was spreading the gospel, planting churches, and attempting to fulfill the great commission, making disciples of all nations, he was going into a world built on man’s ideas. He said,

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5 – NASB)

Time to do it again.

The myth of adolescence is a lofty speculation of man raised up against the knowledge of God. As for me and my house, we are going to raise young men and young women in the fear and admonition of the Lord. No adolescents allowed.

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Have I Achieved an Integrated Life?

By Ken | Published: September 15, 2010

It’s been way too busy to add blog posts, but I’ve been wanting to share this story that makes me feel that perhaps I’ve achieved some form of “integrated life” where work, family, education, entertainment, and spiritual all came together.

Our office is located at the bottom of the building we also live in. When the in-law-suite isn’t used by Carol’s mom (who lives here six months of the year) we’ve sought to use it to bless others in our lives. Graham and Sarah Langdon (Graham is a designer who works with us) have been living there since they were married in June and Graham has been working with me on an exciting project. Stephen Keel had the idea of a Kiosk Evangelist (note: although full of good information, this site was not designed by us… http://www.kioskevangelism.com/) and we’ve decided to invest in this project in many ways. My son Caleb and apprentice Zach helped unload the prototype hardware as Graham & I and others worked on the software and interface. Stephen visited and found out the power supply was 220V only and found a place in Raleigh that could help him change that. So, we helped him load the kiosk hardware prototype in his van.

A couple of hours later, we received a call from Stephen. “I got it fixed and I’ll be back with the Kiosk and the chicken.” While we were loading up the van, Joshua (our “chicken boy”) was letting out our chickens so they could free range. As Stephen was pulling in to the engineering group in Raleigh, he looked and saw a chicken beside him in the van.

So, the personal chicken of my youngest son took a ride in the van of our Christian client who my older son and apprentice helped load while we learned about some key issues of kiosk design and worked on software for him, and we were all greatly entertained.

Just another day in the integrated life.

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To Permit or not to Permit?

By Ken | Published: July 2, 2010

For my 25th wedding anniversary, Carol and I were blessed with the opportunity to visit the Finger Lakes region of New York and learned that all roads (at least those between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes) lead to Ovid, a village of roughly 600 where the Holden Coal family business resides.

Mark Holden is a wonderful brother in the Lord married to a wonderful wife and the two of them have many wonderful children and a growing number of wonderful grandchildren. They bought an old coal business several years ago from a retiring gentleman who had acquired several buildings and lots of stuff. They’ve turned it into a profitable business with a continuous, slow but sure, makeover from the inside out. The functionality of serving the community with the resources God has given them has been their priority, rather than the all-too-current trend of making everything look easily accessible, while outsourcing customer service overseas to people who don’t know that when you need a hotel in Rochester, NY because your departing flight has been cancelled, you really don’t want a hotel in Rochester, MN that has a free shuttle to its medical clinics… but I digress. Instead of having customers waiting in line for custom coal orders (everything used to be a custom order), the Holdens have streamlined the operation, packaging coal into 50 pound bags ready for pick up or delivery and making custom coal orders of any size a quick one-two man job. (I wished I would have taken pictures or video, but you can find out more in an upcoming video series from Franklin Springs Family Media, another great family run business).

His oldest two sons, Jeremy (business mgmt, renovations, trucking and more) and Micah (vehicle maintenance and bag coal… moves 70 to 80 thousand bags of coal per year) work full-time. Everyone else in the family pitches in as needed. With virtually no notice, Isaiah (14) and Nathaniel (9) demonstrated how quickly they can turn an empty bag into a packaged 50 lb bag of coal.

I got a tour of the majority of the mostly-attached facilities that took up a small portion of the village block:

  • A small office where customers can enter and make transactions;
  • A small workshop where things get fixed… including my sandals that had an issue while on vacation;
  • The storage facility where large trucks deliver coal;
  • The “processing” building where the coal bags are packaged and stored;
  • The large sheds for the trucks;
  • The house (in which the Holdens no longer live due to complications of the tax code that makes living in it “income” rather than resourcefulness… they hope to rent it out soon);

But one of the largest and most versatile buildings, “The Grange” (do a google search on “History Grange” to learn about how buildings were bought and used for agriculture in the past), though put to some use, is significantly underutilized. Why?

Well, Mark thought it would be a great idea to have the local church assembly meetings in this large building on one floor. After all, the building was originally used to house a Baptist church more than a hundred years earlier. Now that it had 3 floors (due to renovations in the intervening years), one of the floors – the main floor accessible from the main street, remarkably named Main Street – would be more than adequate for the small assembly meetings (40-70 people on average).

So, Mark respectfully asked the local inspector, “what would I need to do to the building so I can have assembly meetings here?”. Building a ramp (for all the handicapped people who aren’t currently part of the assembly) and getting running water into the building for a bathroom facility were the main things he was told. These seemed reasonable to Mark, so he got an engineer to sign off on his ramp plan (because it couldn’t possibly be proven to be sufficient otherwise), bought the wood and scheduled a bunch of guys from the church to come by for a day to build the ramp.

In the midst of the construction of the ramp, another inspector showed up and asked to see the plans. He didn’t quite see how it was going to work “according to code” since the entrance door was 40 inches wide rather than 36 inches wide the code called for. The engineering plans were irrelevant to him. (Why the inspector didn’t realize that a wider door would actually make it MORE accessible rather than making people fly off the ramp and be hurdled into the street into oncoming traffic when the extra 4 inches of door was opened, I’m not sure). He told Mark and all the men who arranged their day to volunteer their service to “stop work” until he could investigate further. And then he said the fateful words, “well, while I’m here, just let me look around a little”.

You can probably guess what happened next. He came back with all kinds of other requirements to upgrade the building that basically shot Mark’s plans out of the water. Ovid is a quaint, somewhat depressed little village, whose Main Street is not that impressive. There are a variety of buildings on Main Street whose market value is extremely low and are not in active use because updating the buildings to meet the inspector’s approval would be prohibitively expensive. Otherwise, they could have many uses. Stuff that prevents good stewardship happens in the cities and towns. It also happens in the rural settings.

In an article written by Joel Salatin titled, “Everything I want to do is Illegal” he lists more of these issues that stop families trying to do good with the resources they have. But, I don’t want this to just be a rant.

There are families that are moving forward like the Holdens who recently expanded into a Water Conditioning and a Dumpster business. The Dumpster business is more active in the summer when the coal business is slower and slower in the winter when construction is slower and the coal business is “heating up”. It has allowed them to not only keep their family members busy and thriving, but also allows them to keep employees all year long rather than having to hire and train new people every season. Joel Salatin, toward the end of his article points out,

Those of us who would aspire to opt out — both consumers and producers — must pray for enough cleverness to circumvent the system until the system cannot sustain itself. Cycles happen. Because things are this way today does not mean they will be this way next year. Hurrah for that.

In looking back, Mark pointed out that he could have just made a better opening from “the house” that was attached to “The Grange” and had people enter his home for a “home meeting” that happened to meet in the large room in the back of the home (which happened to be part of “the Grange”). But now, that the building has been “flagged” with red tape, Mark has a half-finished ramp (which is probably more of a safety concern than a finished one would be) and a large storage room that is being “watched” for any suspicious activity.

As you begin to think about how to have a more family-integrated life and come up with wonderful ideas of how to be good stewards of what you’ve been given, I would encourage you to ask the question, “Is there a way to do this which will serve a good purpose for our family and others that does not need to be ‘permitted’ by those who don’t seem to permit good stewardship”.

I’ll write about some of the ideas I’ve come up with or heard of in the (hopefully not too distant) future. I need to think hard about how I write about some of them, because there are those people out there who may decide they need to close some of the loop holes. Hopefully they’re not “inspecting” this blog too closely.

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