Showing posts with label wild. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wild. Show all posts
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Growing Up Wild
Growing Up Wild
Meet the Wilds! Mom, Dad, and 3 Wild brothers. The Wilds are an amazing family serving as missionaries in the remote tribal jungle of Indonesia.
We received Volume 1 and 4 of the Growing Up Wild dvds. Each included 3 15-minute episodes as well as an activity guide for teachers.
Volume 1 included the following episodes:
1. Home Sweet Hut - Get an insiders peek at the Wild Family Hut.
2. Supply Trip - Living in the jungle means flying in supplies.
3. Sun & Water - Learn with the Wilds about how sun and water power their home and help them to live in the jungle a little more comfortably.
Volume 4 includes the following episodes:
1. Amazing World Around Us - Amazing episode about the wildlife in the jungles of Papua.
2. Adventures in Culture - Learn along with the Wild brothers about the tribal culture...including nose piercing! (My kids loved this episode!)
3. Tribal Calling (See why the Wilds and other missionary families feel called to tribal missions.)
These dvds are a part of a 5 dvd series filmed by the Wild Family. It took them 3 years to film and produce these films that they consider "a tool to influence an army of future missionaries that would take the Gospel to the remaining unreached people groups of the world."
Our entire family have truly enjoyed each episode of the Growing Up Wild dvds. It has been particularly timely for us as we have been studying missionaries this year as part of our read-aloud studies. Its been wonderful for our kids to get a glimpse into the lives of current day missionaries and to learn how this Christians are sharing the gospel "to the ends of the earth"!
As well as watching the episodes, we also enjoyed doing the follow up activities suggested on the teachers guide which are a part of the DVD-Rom. Some activities were as simple as watching a creation video that the Wild brothers enjoy.
One activity included making a Venn Diagram to show the similarities and differences between the Wild hut and our own house. Our kids liked comparing our house to the Wilds hut, but that experience was quickly topped when they had the opportunity to make their own hut...
It is far more crude then the Wild hut, but such a fun project!
The Growing Up Wild dvd series would make a great addition to your homeschool studies and would also be perfect for a Sunday School Class series. The quality of the filming is excellent and the episodes are educational and inspiring.
You can purchase each Growing Up Wild dvd for $18.99 and you can read more reviews at the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.
Available link for download
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Gifts from the Wild
Gifts from the Wild
Summer 2013 Edible Charlotte Magazine
It was a cool morning when I rolled up to a gentleman named David’s house. I was the photographer on assignment along with a writer named Jodi. We shook hands and began walking, and David, with his grey hair and kind eyes, began to explain foraging and what he eats for breakfast every day- everything from his yard. He plucked up some weeds and took a bite of the top telling me it tastes like mustard, then a violet flower that we both began to munch on, the head of dandelion- sprinkling the yellow in the air as we ate. He grabbed a bushel of more “weeds”, “this one is used for colds,” “this one can be made into a nice tea with some honey from our bees.” I had seen all of these plants before, growing in my yard, and had no idea most of them were edible, and many of them could be used for vitamins, cures etc… All you would have to do is not spray any pesticides and you can eat them.
The scientific nerd in me wanted to stop what I was doing and devote my time to learning these plants, taking nature walks and making dandelion salads for the rest of my life. As I walked with this man explaining this foreign world, that I literally have walked over my entire existence, my eyes were opening and my heart was kind of coming alive. It was strange, but I couldn’t help but feel excited, like I was a pioneer discovering new land- learning the history of the Native Americans and the leaves they used to cure stomach aches, or the plants that are popular in some African American cultures eaten as greens… Apparently, people began cooking with herbs because their fragrance would mask meat beginning to turn, but really fresh food doesnt need much extra. This made me wonder in our culture of cheap food, if we even know what real food tastes like. Everything is smothered in sauces and artificial flavors, and topped with cheese so it’s tolerable. But after tasting wild asparagus, snapped off the stalk in the ground, crunching while walking, it was the sweetest vegetable Ive ever eaten..
But my favorite part was when David showed me behind a fence, an area he let grow completely wild… it was filled with familiar and new plants. He showed me several variants of mint, blossoms and tea leaves and said something to me like, “Mother Earth if full of gifts growing wild, it’s like the earth is trying to give us a gift and we just don’t know it.” so we cut down and spray with poison And suddenly, standing in this wild tangled growth of green, surrounded by plants used to heal, leaves that salve and flower buds that give Vitamin C all bursting out of the earth with their hands out saying, “take me, I’m free, I’ll heal you, I’m good for you.” For a moment, I felt like I was supposed to be growing wild, unannounced, bearing gifts of color and healing.
The small pleasures of earth still bloom, unplanted, uncontrolled, gifting us. All along the annoyances of weeds were actually gifts; I just had to see again.
And in my revelation, standing with a bushel of weeds: chives & blackberry blossoms, a handful of eggs fresh from under the hen, and honey in a cup... that I was going to take home to use in a recipe for the shoot... I whispered to myself, I want to be wild.
Available link for download
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