AdAgrA 2022: Sharing the Blessings

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

True Education

Melissa Clayton

Intentional Education

All right, I guess we'll start with a word of prayer and then I'll start my presentation.

Dear God, thank you for this day and for another day of life and for opportunities to learn more about you and more about how to serve you better.

Please be with us as we are in this class.

Give me the right words to say and help me to say things clearly.

Just grab a piece of paper off that back table as you come in.

Alright, so today we're talking about intentional education.

And I was just telling 1 of my friends I could not have asked for a better lead-in to this presentation than the talk we just had.

He said, I wrote it down because it was perfect, he said success in life demands a definite aim.

And that's a lot of what we're going to be talking about today.

I live on a very small garlic farm in northern Michigan with my husband and my 2 boys.

I have a bachelor's degree in education from Southern Adventist University, and I taught for several years in both multi-grades, so 1 to 4, and in 5 to 8, and then I taught high school English and sciences, so biology and earth science.

And I just started homeschooling, sort of, my five-year-old.

So to get started, I wanted to start with the definition of intentional.

Intentional, according to Google, the Google dictionary, is done on purpose and deliberate.

And I think that this is something that is important to us because as we're homeschooling our children as stay-at-home moms or work-from-home moms or dads, when we're home with our kids it's very easy to lose our days because things just are chaotic.

We have 5000000 things to do on the farm, we have 5000000 things to do in the house, and before you know it the day is gone and you may feel like you've accomplished nothing.

And so being intentional helps us to take control of our days again and actually feel like we're accomplishing something.

And I do think that being intentional is the success to being successful as a homeschooling parent.

So I wanted to start with a little bit, I'm sorry I'm right in the way, I wanted to start with a little bit of a worship thought and some journaling sort of which is why I had you guys grab those pieces of paper.

Looking at Proverbs chapter 24 verses 3 and 4, it says, Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established.

By knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

And I think that this is a good verse to apply to our homes, but also to change a little bit and apply it to our children.

Through wisdom a man or woman is built, and by understanding it is established.

And who doesn't want their children to be filled with precious and pleasant riches?

So what we're going to do on those pieces of paper I asked you to grab, I hope everyone has pens or pencils, is I want you to take, we're just going to take a couple of minutes, and I want you to write down What are the things that you want your children to be filled with and what are the expectations here?

I have a list for you What are the characteristics?

What qualities do I want to fill the rooms of my home with?

What do I want my family culture to look like?

What rituals, habits, what things do we do in our family that makes us special and unique?

What are my priorities for educating my child and what kind of people do I want my children to be?

We're just going to give you about 5 minutes.

I'm looking for just write down as much detailed responses as you can, because the more specific you are, the more it helps you in creating a direction for your home.

Alright, go ahead and finish the thought that you're working on.

I know I didn't give you much time for this.

I think that this is a great activity exercise to do later when you're home, when you have time to think, to prayerfully answer these questions, but I did want you to kind of already have some wheels spinning so that as we continue through the presentation, you're getting some ideas.

There's a website, it's called thelittlesandme.com, and she actually has a yearly, I'm sorry, a homeschool planning sheet that I found super helpful.

She talks about, She just lays out boxes for a lot of the things that we talked about here.

What are our holiday traditions, if we have some.

What are weekly and monthly anchors that we have.

And I'll talk more about that in a little bit.

What are things that our family loves to do as a family?

It goes into our homeschool culture, why we homeschool, at the end of our homeschooling journey, what do we want our children to remember, what are our life-giving anchors, the things, new life-giving anchors, things that we would like to establish to help keep our children Focused and grounded and us focused and grounded What is our homeschool culture?

What do we want it to look like what do we want it to feel like?

And then it goes into last year, if it's not your first year homeschooling, just reflection.

Moving forward, what do we look forward to this year?

What are some things that we'd like to do?

At the end of the year, What do we want to be able to say about that year?

I do have a slide of resources, and if you had the handouts, the resources are in the handouts as well.

But this is just a great planning tool for the beginning of your year, or wherever you are, to help you really focus in on what things are important to your family because yeah we'll take questions at the end because when you know the things that are important to you it makes harder hard decisions a lot easier.

Let's see okay so I want to just go through kind of a framework to help you in planning.

To help you as you're planning your year.

And we're going to talk about, it's really a 4 step process and I did it in a circle because this isn't a thing that is 1 and done.

This is something that is constantly moving and changing because life is constantly moving and changing, right?

Somebody goes to college or there's a new baby or somebody had to go get a job or you know, life changes so your plans have to change and they need to be flexible.

But when you, but that's why this exercise with our core goals and values is important because those are the things that we don't want to change.

So we're going to talk about prioritizing, because that should happen first.

And that's kind of what we did with this exercise.

We started to think about what are our priorities.

And then we're going to talk about planning.

This is, we'll talk about that, but it's setting up things to help keep you on track.

Even though you move around side to side, it keeps you from falling off a cliff.

And we're not really going to talk about these much because that's kind of, you do what you planned and you make adjustments as necessary.

So, and I just think that this is important, like when you're building a house, you have an architect and they draw up a blueprint.

You can change your plans, but you don't build a house with no plans.

Or pilots, they have a flight plan and they have to adjust course throughout the trip but they don't not have a plan because they need to get to their destination and you need a plan to get there.

So, another thing that I just want to add is I know that sometimes I've experienced frustration because I make all these great plans and then nothing happens.

Or 2 days later everything is disrupted by you name it.

But I think that this still holds a lot of value and is still an important thing to do because every time you set goals and you work towards those goals, even if you don't completely reach those goals, you're improving and you're making steps towards achieving that goal.

And so if you need a new plan, that's fine, but you still have your goal and every step you take towards that goal, you're getting better.

All right, so first thing is prioritizing.

This is where you need to decide what works for your family And this is different for everybody we all have different lives You were I'm talking here about schedules and activities.

I'm talking about keeping your home in order You know the dishes and the laundry that never end.

We're going to talk just a tiny bit about homeschooling methods and about curriculums and standards.

Okay, so first 1, home management, organization, and time.

I feel like this is a huge 1 for us that stay at home with our kids.

I feel like the woman in this picture a lot.

Dwayne Lemon

Agriculture & Medical Ministry

This is a class that I'm really passionate about.

I mean, passionate to the point that I actually already have gone into some training.

Over this last year, my wife and I found a wonderful school that we were both trained as master certified health coaches and in October, we're looking to take our boards so that we can become board certified health and wellness coaches.

You know, I have a mother who died from cancer.

I have a father who died from complications with diabetes and hypertension.

You know, in 2 months I'll be 50 years old.

And I was told that, you know, based on the statistics that I'm supposed to more than likely get 1 of these diseases, especially in the black community, which thank God thus far has not been the case.

And, you know, I'm just very grateful that we are part of a movement serving a God who cares about the total person.

You know, it's like I've been Pentecostal and I have been Baptist and I've been Muslim.

And in all of these religious walks in my life, I have never seen any religious expression that looks at the whole person.

And the more that I look at the ministry and life of Jesus, I always see this thought, you know, that we may be made whole.

And so from this, it is just been a privilege that, you know, over 20 plus years ago, I got training in medical missionary work and I've had the privilege of working with many of our institutes almost all of our major institutes in the United States of America some of them across the sea and you know it's been a real privilege to work with these organizations and to endorse medical missionary work and be an advocate for it.

We are really past the days of just preaching.

It was never, ever God's plan for us to just go around preaching all the time and teaching all the time but God gave us a ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing.

That is actually the name of our ministry.

You know, while I am a pastor at a at a small little church out there in Sacramento, you know, I'm also still the director of PTH Ministries, a Bible-based ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing.

And it's something that I'm just very grateful to share with you all.

So I'm going to have a word of prayer, And we're going to jump into the word because we have a lot to cover.

And my hope and prayer is that we're going to see even more activity forwarding medical missionary work than what we're presently seeing.

So let's go ahead and let's have a word of prayer and let's get ourselves started.

Our loving father, We are very grateful for the opportunity for all of us to be together at this time to study your wonderful words of life.

And we know that you have much to share with us, Lord, so please give us ears to hear what your spirit wants to say to us, your church.

We hear the term medical missionary work a lot and I think that to some degree or another it needs a some type of explanation when we talk about what is a medical missionary and its work what you know What is a medical missionary and then what is its work?

If we are looking at it from the standpoint of the secular interpretation of medical missionary work, here's what they would tell us.

What they would say, it's a healthcare professional.

It would say it's a health care professional, physician, nurse, EMT, dentist, pre-med student, or more, who would go on missionary trips with durations lasting from 1 week to 1 year or more worldwide.

That would be the secular explanation of what a medical missionary is.

Now, the problem with this is that is not what the Bible teaches.

So let's grab our Bibles and let's go to the book of Luke chapter 9.

I want us to go to Luke 9 and we're just going to let the Bible speak.

And I want us to watch what the Bible says.

In Luke the ninth chapter let's go ahead and consider what the text says.

Now I've realized that like Israel of old 1 of the problems that God's people are going to run into in the last days is we're not going to believe the word.

That was Israel's problem That's why they didn't enter into Canaan, right?

They did not enter in because of unbelief.

In like manner, we unfortunately are running into this problem today, even amongst God's professed people.

And so it is that, let's look at the plain language of Luke 9, and then I'm just gonna ask you, do you believe this?

In Luke 9, starting at verse 1, if you're there, please say amen.

In Luke 9 and verse 1, it says, then he called his how many?

Don't lose that number, because the 70 did not come yet.

So this constitutes all of his disciples.

This is all of them because first was the 12 then came the 70 and then it got bigger and bigger but here it is it's just a 12 but that constituted all of his disciples.

Then he called his 12 disciples together and he gave them something what did he give them he gave them power and authority over how many all devils and to cure diseases are you following that then it says in verse 2 and he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to do what else?

Now that Luke 9 statement parallels with Matthew chapter 10.

Now Matthew is going to say something that's very bold and It kind of again can challenge even the believer in Matthew the 10th chapter.

We're now going to consider verse 1 In Matthew chapter 10 in verse 1, let's now see what the Bible says here.

It says, And when he had called unto him his 12 disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal how much?

All manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Did he have any more disciples at this time?

Of all these disciples that he gave power to, how many of them were healthcare professionals?

Not all of them because he gave them the power.

But the truth of the matter is, none of the disciples were health care professionals, as the term is normally used.

None of them were known, trained, practiced medicine in any shape form or size.

But yet the Bible is making it very clear God gave them power and they had enough power to cure, not treat, cure all diseases and there's a lot of God's people that do not believe and will not accept what these verses are saying And this is 1 of the problems that we're having in such a time as this in Earth's history.

God wants to make it clear that he is the great physician and he has enough power to endow to the heart that is willing the ability to know how to overcome sickness and disease.

I am privileged to be a board member as well as an instructor for an organization called MEET Ministry.

It stands for Missionary Education evangelism training.

It's been in existence for well over 30 years.

And there are individuals who have come to meet ministry that were literally legally blind and today they see.

There were individuals who came there with AIDS and are completely cured.

There are individuals who have gone there with stage 4 cancers of many kind, including the wicked, horrible pancreatic cancer.

And here they are 15 years later, still alive, healthy, and no cancer.

I am also privileged to be an instructor for another organization called Eden Valley.

Eden Valley is 1 of our most popular institutes, especially for cancer patients.

And when individuals come to Eden Valley with all sorts of cancers, they leave and by the grace of God, they have been cured, they have been healed.

And in many respects, the practitioners that are helping the individuals are anointed and are servants of God, but they may not indeed be a medical professional.

David Vixie

Plowing with Mules

I am happily married to my wife of what, 45 years, something like that.

Started in Oregon, and then moved to Hawaii, and then into California, which is hard for an Oregonian, you know.

And here in this audience are some people that I know and have just chatted with.

And this young woman right here, I want to honor her in front of all you guys.

She was in my class maybe 2 years ago, eighth grade.

She was in the class that started the first, that built the first covered wagon that we used, and some of the work that I do.

And it says no signal, I'm hoping that will change.

I've been doing, I've taught grades for third grade up through college, but most of my life I've been doing seventh and eighth grade, junior high.

And yeah, I'm kind of surprised that my hair is not turned gray, but I think it's because I teach Okay.

This is everything in this book we can do about math and linguistics.

This is everything in this book about math and linguistics.

Alright, well it is going to get harder if this stuff doesn't work.

What you're seeing here is the introduction to a video that's been produced by Little Light Studios of wagon train projects that I do.

This is at my school projects that I've been doing with the kids.

This video is actually available on the internet.

Well, you know what, maybe I should just show you my...

If this thing isn't going to work, I don't want to keep showing you that over and over and over.

All right, so are you having, Shall I speak up with a teacher type voice?

So the presentation that you're in here, I don't think you're going to go away.

I doubt you're going to go away from this presentation and say, I'm going to go buy some mules, or I'm going to go buy some draft horses.

And if you came in here and said, well, I see, I'm going to learn how to plant and how to do that.

Basically, you've come here to hear some stories about how I went to there and to some of these other things from really not doing much at all.

This is a picture of the school that I work at and have worked for now the last 35 years in Paradise, California.

There was an old church here and that was my classroom.

Yes, We burned it down because it was condemned, so we burned it down for practice.

But I had a stage, a huge stage, and I had a 90-foot sloping floor.

It was an old church, and that was my room.

And then all these trees, and that was on the side of a mountain.

And over time, we burned this church down and then started PG&E and PID and the local construction areas started bringing in dirt and loading it up.

And eventually, that got flattened out to this.

And You can see it looks pretty nice there, but then stuff started to grow.

You can see plants starting to grow into that.

At that time period, the gardening that I did was gardening that I'd do at my home with my family.

I'd bring students out to my place and do some gardening.

And 1 year, a student said to me, during that time period, we should plant a garden here at school.

When I said, oh, look who's here, that's Tommy's wife.

Of course, why wouldn't I remember a name like that, right?

So that's Tommy Meyer's wife, Felicia, the light studios who helped produce that whole thing.

But I call that idealism, the idea that you're thinking about what could be.

Am I doing something to make that happen?

Idealists strive to make things that are possible become things that are actually happening.

George Bernard Shaw, I dream things that never were and I say, well, why not?

When I was in 7th grade, I decided to be a teacher and I had a lot of ideas of what I would want to do different than my teacher was.

So as a teacher, I pay attention to the ideas of my seventh and eighth graders, because they have ideas.

And I went, if my teacher would have listened to me, I would have enjoyed that.

Well, the next year, all of these trees that were growing up, I took my students out and I said, let's clean this up.

And they said, well, we don't care if it looks like that.

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Series

True Education

Plowing with Mules

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Intentional Education

42m

Agriculture & Medical Ministry

51m

Plowing with Mules

50m

Acquainting Agriculture High School: Grow to Know Him

1h 2m

Communion with God in Nature

1h 1m

Institutional Farmer Panel

58m

Sound Doctrine