I’m going to be posting soon about Speech & Debate soon, the country’s only nationally recognized home-school extracurricular activity. The activity–espoused by the National Christian Forensics and Communication Association–brings out the best in young people. The ministry of which I lead, Training Minds Ministry, hosts debate camps in the summer to train young people in the skill of speaking and debating.

I am jumping the gun a little (I am planning to post about this more in a couple of weeks), but I just received an email from a home-school debate family in Minnesota. They put their creativity to work and created a video using Chris Rice’s What a Heart Is Beating For. You will be amazed at their ingenuity. They blend humor in with truth, giving great value to Luke 6:38. Great job, Froemmings, for a grand 4-minute video!

I have been asked several times on what health insurance we carry. This is a good question, so I posted an FAQ on this very topic…Click here to read.

Visit the Samaritan Ministies website for information on this exciting network of Christians taking care of one another. We highly recommend Samaritan Ministries!

Health insurance costs are at an all-time high, and being self-employed is definitely a challenge for us in this regard. Being employed full-time for years, we took health insurance for granted. After becoming self-employed, our views since then have changed considerably.

We now are happy members of an innovative gathering of Christian folks at Samaritan Ministries. The concept, I believe, returns to the fundamental idea of what insurance used to be, a group of people paying premiums for two purposes:

• to insure themselves from large medical expenses
• to assist others from large medical expenses

Most health insurance options aren’t that way anymore. Folks on health insurance often see their insurance as “free medical care,” and such views are quite common. Unfortunately, when this common view is carried out, it exhausts the entire system and costs go up for everyone. When so many are trying to get the most out of their insurance, premiums sky rocket. This isn’t stellar economics; it makes perfect sense that this happens.

Samaritan is different. When we have a medical expense, we pay cash for it. This often results in 40-50% off the sticker price of medical care (interesting…another problem with the health care industry…bloated prices). We then submit the claim to Samaritan, and we receive checks from others who have joined the cooperative.

We, in turn, regularly give to people on our list. We are required to send one big check every month. We are also sent a prayer list for published needs in a monthly newsletter. We sometimes send checks to people in need based on the published needs. We have also received checks from people who have read of our medical needs. This builds the sense of community among everyone involved.

We love this community. Some cynics have doubted whether such a system could work, that eventually the system would be taken advantage. We suppose some abuse does penetrate the system, but we have yet to witness it. God has been faithful in the development of this network. The folks at Samaritan do a great job monitoring the network and weeding out those who are attempting to soak its resources. It is all very good.

Sure, we have to pay cash for our medical expenses rather than paying a co-payment, but we have found this to be a most liberating method of fulfilling our medical needs. Visit www.samaritanministries.org/works for more information on the nuts-and-bolts of how it works. And mention the Jeubs referred you!

We sure are enjoying our new MacBook. Why didn’t I leave the PC world years ago? I am now an avid Mac user, and the following video is proof of it. After spending the entire day filming the kids with my compact camera with video options, I spent perhaps two hours with Lydia creating this movie. Show me a PC program that can do that! I love iVideo. Enjoy the show!

I sort of knew this was coming. The growing interest in large families is starting to create concerns by people who have, for quite some time, viewed people as expenditures to the environment.

John Guillebaud, an academic professor at University College London, claims that families should limit their family size by one child. As The Australian says in a recent article “Children ‘bad for planet‘”, “Having large families should be frowned upon as an environment misdemeanour.” Professor Guillebaud is co-chairman of the Optimum Population Trust, a “Green Planet” organization in the UK. He makes quite a profound statement: “The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.”

Okay, let me think about this rationally. We have 13 children. What should I do with the 13th? To be fair, Prof. Guillebaud is merely talking to those who are “planning” their family size. I guess that doesn’t include me. However, our 14th is on his/her way. What would he recommend we do? Hmmm, let me think hard here…right now I plan to have 14, but now I should now have only 13? I’ve got it: I’ll “plan” to have 15 so that I meet Prof. Guillebaud’s calculations. Does this work on Guillebaud’s calculator?

The OPT’s calculator is quite something. Guillebaud claims that having “one less child” would cut carbon dioxide output by “the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.” (Notice the subtle put down on America…”return” flights back to America.) Come to think of it, when did carbon dioxide become poisonous? For someone who believes in a “bright green planet,” I wonder if he knows that plants consume carbon dioxide like we consume oxygen. I think I learned that in 3rd grade science class. By promoting the limitation of one child, Guillebaud will essentially choke off the breath of vegetation at the equivalence of (oh my gosh!) 620 return flights a year between New York and London!

Our book Love in the House opens with two chapters dealing specifically with the topic of “fear.” Statements from population experts like Guillebaud (he’s Professor of Family Planning, meaning he promotes freedom to abort as many children as possible) are attempts to work up a hysteria of fear. The claim that removing one child per couple would miraculously help the planet is quite ridiculous. Guillebaud references the UN’s Climate Report of 2007 that claims the world’s population will increase 2.5 billion by 2050. (I’m sure the United Nations strikes as much fear in you as it does in Iran’s leaders, but I digress.) What does this figure mean?

To some, particularly the green planet types, this means there will be more pollution and more hunger. I don’t want these either, but increased population doesn’t reduce any of these. I’d argue that decreased population will increase pollution and hunger. I know, quite profound, but at least not ridiculous. Our book takes a logical walk through the idea that human population increase is actually a good thing for the world. Don’t worry, we don’t resort to scare tactics that try to shock you into hypersexual behaviors. The OPT, in contrast, is hosting Live Earth together with Kanye West, Fergie and Madonna at Al Gore’s anti-global warming concerts (talk about hypersexual behaviors). Here is what we are saying in a nutshell: people are assets, not liabilities. People contribute more to the environment and to society than take from it. Guillebaud and his ilk see human beings as pillagers of the land; we see human beings as good stewards who help it prosper.

America is a good example. I’ve been hearing about overpopulation since I was in grade school. Despite the increased population of this country, our GNP (which is large enough to feed the world) is higher than it ever has been. Naturally, we aren’t able to distribute it to all corners of the world that need it (there aren’t enough people to do so), but we are very capable of doing it if we had the human resources.

“Human resources” is based on the premise that humans are a resources, and we believe they are. Guillebaud hasn’t scared me into thinking that my children and their generation (future tax-paying physicists, doctors, missionaries, politicians, and better professors) will be a hindrance to the planet. Rest assured, Wendy and I are teaching our kids to be good stewards of the earth. Hopefully, they will avoid flights between London and New York.