June 2011

Hello Friends!

Speaking Opportunity

We have just returned from speaking at a major homeschool convention in Illinois. We had the opportunity to speak 8 times over three days about various topics like relationships, ministering with your family, evangelism and outreach, and American's Christian History. We are blessed to be living in an age when current technologies allowed us to take our family with us via various video recordings we made of them before we left. Through video they all were able to share their thoughts on different session topics. And we also videoed Dan doing a scripture memory passage for each session, which people seemed to enjoy very much. We had much positive feedback on our sessions, which was encouraging!

Here is what some attendees said, paraphrased, not direct quotes:

Thank you so much for your perspectives on Christian history! I bet you could have talked for four more hours, and I would have enjoyed listening! - ICHE Board Member after "Francis Scott Key" talk.

My husband really appreciated your views on "Courtship." Up until now he was not a fan of the idea, but your session helped him see that courtship is not a fairytale or a formula, but a unique story and path the Lord can make clear to a young adult and their family, without any pressure to conform to doing things a certain way. That really made him more open to the whole thing for our children. Thank you! - a homeschool mom after "Courtship: Our Families' Story" talk.

Your ideas on evangelism and writing your own gospel flier really stimulated my thinking to write my own flier, and also to get some evangelism training myself! Thank you so much!' - a single homeschool mom after "Ministry Ideas and Opportunities" talk.

Wow, thank you so much! Your ministry is a real niche that needs to be addressed; that being helping families who move primarily in a more sheltered Christian culture step out into the secular culture and sow gospel seeds where ever they go. - a homeschool Dad/pastor after "Blessing Our Children: Building Faith That Lasts" talk.

Outreaches Locally

We continue to enjoy taking families with us on various outreach opportunities here locally; each time is unique and special, and the families who join us enjoy having the opportunity to speak to others about things that have eternal significance. Praise God that here in America we still have 'free speech' and are able to speak about the Lord freely. Of the many events we have had in the last few months, we thought we would include just one picture and some comments from the two families that accompanied us on that particular outreach.

Wow, this such a fun opportunity, thank you so much! - a young man who handed out hundreds of gospel fliers.

This is faith stretching for me, but I am enjoying just watching! - a Mother who went with Sarah and just observed and prayed while Sarah did a number of spiritual interest surveys. (Sarah is a thinker herself and really enjoys hearing what others think; she finds it interesting and fascinating to just listen and write down their perspectives, and I think people like to talk to her.)

Summer Plans for All, Including Daniel!

While summers for our family mean more opportunities to share the gospel at various outreaches, they also allow more time for other opportunities for personal growth.

Sarah - This summer Sarah will be attending a summer music institute held at Princeton University, New Jersey, where she is excited to be able to work in detail on some technical aspects of her piano playing. She has wanted to do this for several years and this year it has finally worked out for her. She also will continue to work on chamber selections with a violinist and violist, including some Bach, Schumann, and Ravel. I am hoping she will have time for us to have our friends who do recording work, record a few of things she has worked on this past year, a beautiful solo piece called The Lark (Glinka), a Chopin Etude and Ballade, and a few other things. Her latest outdoor interest as an offshoot of hiking, is rock climbing. That girl! I don't get it, it doesn't sound fun to me at all! But she enjoys the challenge, and loves being outside. So I expect she will be doing that as much as she is able to this summer.

Aaron - Aaron is looking forward to having a chance to take some time out of his busy life to attend some fine art classes, one 3-day workshop here locally, and another week long retreat in New York.

Daniel - For the first time, this summer July also holds a special opportunity for our Daniel. He is so excited to be able to attend a special week long mentoring program with Bernie, which is primarily training related to producing radio dramas. This is also in New York where Aaron will getting some fine art training. In an earlier letter I told you about Daniel's 'radio drama' style adventure stories that we planned to work on this past fall. We got that started, but after many weeks of working on them, doing some synopsis, and trying to make sense of the story line, we realized that his stories probably were best left as is, a fun memory of his childhood. Since he is capable of writing better stories now, we decided it would work better to start from scratch. The training and inspiration he will receive in this mentoring program he is hoping will be a boost towards his goals. He is really excited about being in the theater/drama track at this program! www.lamplighterguild.com

Could You Pray For...?

We look forward to seeing how the Lord might use this in Daniel's life, as well as in our family's ministry! We would appreciate your prayers as we seek to work with Daniel to uncover what the Lord might have for him as a special young adult.

We hope you are all enjoying busy and fun summers, may the Lord bless each of you as you put Him first in all you do!

God bless you!

~ Linda for the Bealls

P.S.: Hope you don't mind indulging 'Grandmomma,' but as usual I wanted to include a few pictures of the granddaughters! They are each so precious to us!!