I don't know the answer to every financial question and I don't want to feel this way. But I can tell you that they live MUCH MUCH better...light years better...than the people they minister to and they live better than my teachers do. And that is fine but when I think about people back in the U.S., many of whom have lost their jobs and who could never afford a prestigious private school education for their own kids, sending money to missionaries who live in luxury...it bothers me. There is a family here who wanted to do missions here so they came on their own dime...no missions organization. I was in the room when they were talking to another missionary family who was recommending that they join THEIR mission organization (and I am not naming any names because I don't want to upset anyone). His reasons were "you should join XYZ mission organization! They pay for everything! You get a nice house, a nice car, they pay for your kid's school. It's great!" It just sounded like being a missionary was a "great gig", you know? I don't like this feeling I have about it. It's yucky.

OK, please read my entire post before you skewer me.... Working at this school in Malaysia has given me the opportunity to meet and work with several missionary families. Most of them are here with certain mission organizations supported by the giving from people in their home churches...people like many of you. But there is something bugging me and it's been bugging me and I just have to ask or I am going to burst. But first, some background... My school is a christian school and we do offer 50% discounts on tuition to missionary families. However, we are NOT a missionary school like other missionary schools I know. The teachers get salaries (they aren't much but they do not have to raise their own funds). This is not some small school out in the bush somewhere. This is a prestigious international school with excellent academics, sports, arts, etc. We have an excellent reputation and our students go on to all the big name colleges. And it is expensive. It costs about $10,000 (USD) per year to send your kid here ($5,000 if you are a missionary family). So now back to my issue... about half of our student body comes from missionary families. These families are here working to spread the gospel. I get it and I appreciate it. BUT these families are living in big 2500 sq ft homes, driving brand new cars and sending their kids to an expensive private school. Why does that bother me? It is NOT because I think missionaries should live in a hut and eat grass. But I remember my grandma, living in the back woods of Alabama, barely getting by on social security, and her bony little fingers making pies to sell to raise money for missions. And I remember the little country church I attended in NC with about 70 members who were struggling to make ends meet and watching them give their last 5 dollars to the special missions offering we did each month. And I see the small church I go to here, full of locals...christians...who give money to missions every month and who would LOVE to be able to send their child to a christian school but the tuition is 3 times what they make in a year. And I am troubled. So we have people who have come to Malaysia to share the gospel with the Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims here and their standard of living is FAR superior to that of the people back home sending them money. I know people in my church in NC who could never dream of affording an education like this for their kids but they are paying for it for their missionaries. Heck, if my kids didn't come here for free I couldn't afford it either! We also have about 20% of our students who are boarding students whose parents are missionaries in an area where there are no schooling options for their kids so the mission organization pays to send them here. But that is an entirely different topic (I just can't see how sending your kids off to another country to be raised is something that would please God but maybe that is a spin-off thread). Please help me understand or help me get a better attitude about this because it is really bothering me. I know there are many missionaries out there in rough areas and having a hard time but I can tell you that there are hundreds and hundreds of missionaries in Malaysia and they are NOT having a hard time. They live in beautiful homes, drive new cars and give their kids a pricey private education on the backs of less fortunate people supporting them and it just upsets me. Can someone explain it or give me an attitude adjustment? :confused:

me me me! My kids love this...it is cheap, easy and delicious. 2 large onions...cut them in quarters, place them in the bottom of your crock pot. In a bowl combine one bottle of your favorite honey bbq sauce and 1 can of cranberry sauce (the kind with the whole berries, not the jelly). Put the pork in the crockpot, pour the sauce over it, let it cook on low all day dinnertime- pull the pork roast out of the crockpot, shred it with a fork, stir up the sauce in the crock pot, pour it over the shredded pork, serve it on warm buns. YUMMY :D

I dress fashionably. No midriffs or bikinis or short-shorts. No snake-skin mini-skirts. :D I don't try to accentuate and draw attention to my figure but I don't try to hide it in a potato sack either. I love being a woman and I love a woman's curves and so does my dh. I dress in a way that pleases HIM. :D

Tattoo on my back. Ears, navel and nose pierced. :D

1. The check-out lady asks why my ds was not in school. I reply "we homeschool." She says, "Why would you do THAT?" and I reply, "Why DON'T you?" 2. During the first year of homeschooling my FIL asked my dh how it was going and dh replied that it was going very well and said "Heather really loves it." To which my FIL replied, "Of course she does. It means she doesn't have to WORK."

Oh gosh, it was FAR easier for me! Adoption is a BREEZE compared to pregnancy. At least it has been for our family. I mean, sure there is paperwork and it's expensive but really...both times I walked into an airport (for the first one) and a hospital (for the second one), they handed me a baby, I went home. Piece of cake. Of course we still have to RAISE them regardless of birth vs. adoption. But that is a different topic. :D

I was pregnant ONCE. That was enough for me. Hence the two adopted children after my one and only birth child. There was not ONE SINGLE MOMENT during my entire pregnancy, delivery and recovery when I wasn't horribly ill, in the hospital, on bedrest, you name it. NEVER AGAIN. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

Inlight of your topic I thought you might find this interesting: Is Differentiation Undermining Effective Curriculum and Instruction? In this trenchant Education Week commentary article, author/consultant Mike Schmoker takes on one of the current shibboleths of American education – differentiation. He says that several years ago he asked a differentiation guru for evidence that differentiation is effective, and after numerous requests, she conceded there was no solid research or school data backing it up. Schmoker says this is why differentiation isn’t on any research-based lists of effective educational practices or interventions. What exactly is differentiation? Schmoker says it’s based on the belief that students learn best when they are grouped by ability, personal interests, or “learning styles.” Eminent researchers (Bryan Goodwin of McREL, John Hattie of New Zealand, and Daniel Willingham of the University of Virginia) and hundreds of studies have shown that this premise is fundamentally wrong, says Schmoker. Differentiation has become one of the most widely adopted instructional orthodoxies of our time based “largely on enthusiasm and a certain superficial logic.” As Schmoker has visited classrooms around the country, he has seen differentiation causing problems for teachers. “In every case,” he says, “it seemed to complicate teachers’ work, requiring them to procure and assemble multiple sets of materials. I saw frustrated teachers trying to provide materials that matched each student’s or group’s presumed ability level, interest, preferred ‘modality,’ and learning style. The attempt often devolved into a frantically assembled collection of worksheets, coloring exercises, and specious ‘kinesthetic’ activities… With so many groups to teach, instructors found it almost impossible to provide sustained, properly executed lessons for every child or group…” Most disturbingly, Schmoker has seen differentiation insidiously reducing expectations for some students. “In English, ‘creative’ students made things or drew pictures,” he says. “‘Analytic’ students got to read and write.” So what does Schmoker propose? “Three simple things matter more than all else if we want better schools,” he says: • A coherent, content-rich, guaranteed curriculum, so that the subject matter and intellectual skills that are taught in each classroom “don’t depend on which teacher a student happens to get.” • Students reading, discussing, arguing, and writing about what they read every day, across the curriculum. “We aren’t even close to that now,” says Schmoker. • Well-taught lessons, which include a clear, curriculum-based objective, a quick diagnostic assessment, and several cycles of instruction, guided practice, checks for understanding, and ongoing adjustments to instruction. “Solid research demonstrates that students learn as much as four times as quickly from such lessons,” says Schmoker. These three basics are what we should be focusing on in classrooms, he concludes. “They should… be education’s near-exclusive focus, our highest priority for at least a period of years – or until they are satisfactorily and routinely implemented. Then we can innovate – judiciously – starting with pilots and sensible monitoring before we expand promiscuously on the basis of superficial appeal.” “When Pedagogic Fads Trump Priorities” by Mike Schmoker in Education Week, Sept. 29, 2010 (Vol. 30, #5, p. 22-23), http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/09/29/05schmoker.h30.html

I love any of Sandra Lee's Semi Home-made books!

Finaly finished "Fall of Giants" and I loved it! This week I am working in the new book by Mark Driscoll called "Doctrine".

Well we are actually neighbors so you are not far off and all the weather craziness that happens in Indonesia...earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc... always affect us too. Luckily, it isn't usually in a life-threatening way.

Oh so GWG has diagramming? That is one thing EG doesn't have (although it does parse out the sentences in another way). Interesting.....

I am FINE. Thank you for thinking of me. The weather has been a little wonky lately but other than that no problems. It IS affecting us in a more emotional way though in that many of the boarding students here have parents that do mission work in Indonesia and we have friends there as well. But everyone is safe here.

We love http://www.readinga-z.com

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these two programs. I have used EG and I have not used GWG but I am intrigued by it. Is one program better than the other?

I struggle with this too. It reminds me of TV news reports I saw during the 2008 election and reporters were asking inner-city Detroit residents who they were voting for and why and several of them ACTUALLY said "I'm voting for Obama cuz he gonna pay my car note!" I was like WHAT?????? And they also said it was the first time they had ever voted. THAT is the kind of thing that scares me when it comes to voting. I actually felt sorry for Obama (but just for a second...lol) because I imagined him sitting watching that news report going "I never said I was going to pay anyone's car loan! What are these people talking about?" :lol:

Yes this is what they meant. I'm sorry...I should have been more clear. It's not that they thought you should have a college degree or a certain IQ to vote...just that you should be "educated" about the candidates, issues, bills, etc. before you vote on them. They especially were shocked by the option of voting a straight party ticket. They couldn't believe that we would walk into the voting booth and just vote "democrat" or "republican" for EVERYTHING instead of voting for each individual candidate separately. It was interesting to see it through the eyes of non-Americans.

So in preparation for election day, our high school kids have been studying American politics (we have students from 28 different countries), researching candidates, debating them, predicting outcomes for the various races, etc. Today, they all gathered to watch CNN as the polls closed to record the results and discuss the outcome of the election on both America and other countries. I sat in on their discussion and two questions came up that I thought were pretty thought-provoking: 1. There were lots of TV commercials and FB posts, etc. flying around about "get out and vote". Their question was, with all the pressure to get out and vote, shouldn't we consider America's freedom to vote also a freedom to NOT vote? Should we really vilify people for not voting if America is truly a free country? 2. If a large number of people who DO vote are woefully uneducated when it comes to politics, the candidates, the issues, etc., is democracy really the best way to handle choosing leaders for a country? I thought they were pretty interesting questions for a group of mostly non-American students. What says the hive?

I am 40 and I have a 10 month old...but we adopted. Are you looking for answers regarding how old is too old for pregnancy or just to take on a new baby in general? At 40, I am definitely done after this one. :D

It is technically a fruit. It is the most foul thing I have ever smelled. It is so bad that airports in SE Asia have NO DURIAN signs. I think it will be the only food available in hell. :D

I hate to sound like one of those people who tries to top everyone but I think I can honestly say I saw the MOST disturbing costumes this year. A man and a woman dressed as Jackie O. and JFK... AFTER the assassination...you can fill in your own details but yeah...wow...I can't even think of a word to describe that kind of poor taste.

I'm one of those mean people who don't think teenagers should be trick or treating. It is for children. I stopped after age 12. So did my ds. So I don't pass out candy to teenagers at all. But like I said, I am mean like that. :D

I will try just about anything (except "survival" things like bugs and maggots and things like you see on "man vs. wild")...the only thing I refuse to even try is DURIAN. I can't get past the smell long enough to try it.

I am so very sorry.