Archive | March 2006

The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

Mar18

The urchins and I finished this read aloud book a few weeks ago, but I was waiting for one of them to write something about it. No luck. Then, I wrote a review, posted it, and my server went down and lost it. You’ll have to make do with my warmed-over observations.

First of all, Karate Kid, Brown Bear Daughter, and Betsy-Bee were enthralled with this story. Organizer Daughter (age 14) overheard us reading The Penderwicks, and she took it and read it to herself while we were doing other things. Every day I had to read at least two chapters because we all wanted to see what would happen to Penderwick sisters and their friend, Jeffrey. How would they get out of this scrape? And what would happen to Jeffrey? It was an excellent read aloud book.

The book did produce some “deja vu” moments. See if any of this description rings a bell. Four sisters live in a small cottage with one parent, next door to a grand mansion where a lonely boy, an only child, who loves to play the piano, lives and watches them from his upstairs window. The boy wants to become a musician, but his rich grandfather had other plans for the boy, and the boy is expected to follow his grandfather’s wishes. The four Penderwick girls become friends with the boy, Jeffrey, and the five of them have all sorts of adventures together. The eldest Penderwick sister, Rosalind, age 12, is just starting to become interested in boys. Another sister, Jane, age 10, is a writer and a daydreamer, and Skye, age 11, is a tomboy who says things without thinking first, sometimes getting the sisters into lots of trouble. Oh, and Batty, the youngest who is only four years old, is so shy that she hardly speaks to people outside the family.

Does any of this sound familiar? To any who are fans of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, it certainly does. However, this story, while it obviously echoes that of the March sisters, doesn’t feel annoyingly derivative or copied. It was just fun picking out the echoes. There are certainly enough new elements here in terms of plot and characters to keep the reader turning the pages and reading to see what will happen next. Some of the more exciting events in the book include an encounter with a bull, a fire in the cottage kitchen, and a soccer practice gone mad that collides with a Very Important Garden Competition to produce havoc.

The Penderwicks will join some of my other favorite fictional families such as the Melendy family (The Saturdays and Four Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright), the Fossil sisters (Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield), the Moffats by Eleanor Estes, the Austins (Madeleine L’Engle) and All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor. And of, course, I can’t forget the March sisters. Four children seems to be the preferred number in most of these books, although three is OK and five is also acceptable. Often, the families have two girls and two boys or alternately all girls. Parents are available but not heard until needed. Most significantly, the children in all these families share an adventurous spirit and loving family relationships, making these books a joyous romp seen through the eyes of children who are a lot like my eight urchins. One of my urchins won’t read fantasy or historical fiction or science fiction or anything else except stories about “real life children who are like me.” The Penderwicks is a great sample of this kind of a book, and since it takes place during the summer holidays (subtitle: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy), it would be perfect to read or listen to in the car during summer vacation.

Book-Spotting #7

Mar18

Carmon on the historical novels of G.A. Henty. I mentioned Henty here a couple of weeks ago, and someone asked some questions to which I didn’t really have answers. Carmon has the scoop.

Kathryn Judson discusses Pooh and the Philosophers by John Tyerman Wiliams (with Ernest Shepard illustrations, of course). I like the idea of this book: “In Which It Is Shown That All of Western Philosophy Is Merely a Preamble to Winnie-the-Pooh.”

Vera Ivanova and Anthony Esolen (Mere Comments) on the (Christian) orthodoxy of Charles Dickens. Did I ever tell you that I really like Dickens?

iMonk names names—of the authors that he’s read and enjoyed. And he dares anyone to evaluate the state or the content of his faith by the eclectic nature of his reading material.

Stefanie at So Many Books wrote a post about all the books she’s reading at one time.
Dancer Daughter rather sheepishly confessed to me today that she’s reading eight, yes e-i-g-h-t, books right now. She says she just can’t limit herself to one book at a time. Should I take her in for bibliotherapy? She’s reading Vanity Fair, Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, and three books by Madeleine L’Engle: The Irrational Season, Certain Women, and The Small Rain.
I’m only reading two books right now. How many books do you have going at once? Can anyone beat Dancer Daughter’s eight?

Celebrating the Irish

Mar17

Reading Matters’ Top Ten Irish Novels in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

Unfortunately, the only one of Kimbofo’s ten picks that I’ve read is Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and i never thought of that one as an Irish novel. For that matter, did you know that Jonathan Swift was Irish? Gulliver’s Travels does make my Best 100 Fiction books List, but it may be the only “Irish” novel on the that list.

So, I can’t give you a list of ten, but here are a few books I’d suggest if you’re in the mood for something having to do with The Emerald Isle on this fine St. Patrick’s Day:

1. Patrick: Son of Ireland by Stephen R. Lawhead. I thought I had reviewed this book on the blog , but I can’t really find anything other than a mention. Suffice it to say that I have enjoyed all of Lawhead’s books including this one about St. Patrick. Lawhead is a little more into the Celtic Christianity thing than I am, but I really like his books. And they give me food for thought–about the history of Christianity, the meaning of community, and way of discipleship.

2. Pegeen by Hilda van Stockum. This one I just reviewed and am now reading aloud with a couple of the urchins. It gives me a chance to use my (very poor) irish brogue.

3. How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. This nonfiction selection also caused me to think about community and the preservation of culture. Good popular history.

Music: I’d suggest Enya or I like this CD, Revival in Belfast.

Or of course, there’s our best beloved Celtic Thunder.

Movies: The Quiet Man with John Wayne or Dancing at Lughnasa with Meryl Streep.

Does anyone else have any other Irish-related reading, listening, or viewing suggestions? And have any of you read this book, The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West . . .Again by George G. Hunter III? I found it while browsing Amazon for this post, and it sounds like something I might like to read. Comments?

Last and least, here are a couple of short posts to get you in the Celtic/Irish mood:
St. Patrick’s Breastplate, or the Lorica
A few Irish blessings for St. Patrick’s Day.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Mar17

Another thrift store find, I picked up a paperback copy of this 1994 novel for 66 cents because I had heard of it, and it sounded interesting. On the front and back of the novel other adjectives are used to describe the story: “compelling,” “heart-stopping,” “haunting,” and “luminous,” are a few. I think I’ll stick with “interesting,” even though it’s not nearly so descriptive.

Snow Falling on Cedars is the story of a Japanese American fisherman, Kabuo Miyamoto, who is accused of the murder of another fisherman, Carl Heine. The plot reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird, a courtroom drama in which local prejudices and racist stereotypes play a big part. Most of the action of the book takes place in 1954, about ten years after World War 2. However, each of the characters revisits the war years in flashbacks that illuminate the motivations of the people involved in the trial. Miyamoto is married to Hatsue, a Japanese American woman who grew up on San Piedro Island with him and also with the other major character in the novel, Ishmael Chambers. Chambers, as the editor and publisher of the island’s only newspaper, is writing about the trial, and he is also involved with the Miyamoto family in another way: he was Hatsue’s secret boyfriend during their high school years, before the war.

Well, thought Ishmael, bending over his typewriter, his fingertips poised just above the keys; the palpitations of Kabuo Miyamoto’s heart were unknowable finally. And Hatsue’s heart wasn’t knowable either, not was Carl Heine’s. The heart of any other, because it had a will, would remain forever mysterious.
Ishmael gave himself to the writing of it, and as he did so he understood this, too: that accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.”

These are the final words of this murder mystery that attempts to transcend the genre and make some kind of commentary on the Meaning of Life. P.D. James does a better job. Harper Lee did a better job. First of all, there’s no mystery in Snow Falling on Cedars. It’s obvious from the beginning of the novel who didn’t kill Carl Heine, and the only mystery exists in figuring out the details of how Heine did die and trying to second-guess the author’s intentions in regard to the man who is accused of Heine’s murder.

Secondly, the novel tries to do too much. Is it a commentary on race relations and the injustice of sending Japanese nationals to Manzanar during World War 2? Or is it a courtroom drama about justice and injustice in the American system of law? Or is it a story about war and how it changes men? Or maybe it’s a novel about first love and the impermanence of innocence and the tendency of the world to disillusion and take away our youthful ideals. Or it could be an existentialist novel in disguise: we make ourselves real by the decisions we make. All of that stuff is in there, but I’m not sure any of it is developed as it could have been. Characters and themes keep getting in the way of each other instead of complementing and completing one another. Completion, resolution, or even character growth are not terms that I would use in connection with this novel, although the trial itself does come to an end.

I hesitate to question the literary quality of Guterson’s award-winning novel, but I must say that I found it disappointing. The novel raised many questions. Can human beings form any deep. lasting, or meaningful relationships? Does “accident rule every corner of the universe”? Or is the human heart free to make decisions and to remain unpredictable? Is the author trying to say that people of Japanese descent and people of Caucasian descent can never understand one another? (A seemingly near-racist conclusion.) Or is it that we are all unknowable? Is the American justice flawed or does justice triumph in the end? Do the people in this novel learn anything, or do they just act on impulse and a desire for self-gratification?

Guterson is quoted in his Random House bio: “Fiction writers shouldn’t dictate to people what their morality should be. Yet not enough writers are presenting moral questions for reflection, which I think is a very important obligation.” I think he’s got plenty of questions ,reflection in abundance, but isn’t the place to get any answers or even find out which questions are the most important and need answers. The characters in the novel are just drifting through life in reaction to whatever “weather conditions” come along. When individuals in the novel did make a definite decision about something, I never understood why they made the decisions they did.

I recommend Snow Falling on Cedars with reservations. It may grow on me. I know I’m still thinking about it a week after I finished reading it. However, by next year this time, I may have forgotten all about Guterson’s novel. I’m just not sure it goes deep enough to stick.

By the way has anyone seen the movie based on this book, and if so, what did you think of it?

Picture Book Preschool, Explained (I Hope)

Mar16

I received two requests for information today on my book, Picture Book Preschool. One person wanted more information about the books included in my “kit”. And the other person asked how Picture Book Preschool compares to other preschool curricula that use picture books such as Five in a Row and Science Through Children’s Literature.

First of all, the kit of 52 used picture books plus the curriculum book is not currently available. I ran out of picture books, and I am waiting on a new supply. When I get a new supply of used picture books, I will make the package deal available at the Picture Book Preschool webpage.

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. You can purchase a downloadable version (pdf file) of Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early at Biblioguides.

The book mainly consists of these lists, one for each week of the year. You should be able to find most of the picture books listed in Picture Book Preschool at your local library. If you can only find five out of the seven or six out of the seven for a given week, that should be enough to keep you busy. I have collected many of the picture books listed in Picture Book Preschool for my own children by browsing used bookstores. So when I read these books to Z-baby, I read some that we own and some that I get from the library.

As far as comparisons go, I am familiar with the curriculum Five in a Row, and I like it very much. In Five in a Row you are encouraged to read one picture book, such as Lentil by Robert McCloskey, for five days in a row. (Children generally love to read favorite picture books over and over again.) For each day of the week this curriculum gives lesson plans related to the books of the week covering science, mathematics, history and geography, and language arts. Five in a Row is a fully developed curriculum with loads of activities to keep your homeschooled preschooler or kindergartner busy and happy.

The Science Through Children’s Literature books that I found using google looked as if they were geared toward elementary and middle school aged children and also looked very much as if they were written for school teachers. I am working on a follow-up book to Picture Book Preschool, called Picture Book Science that will be formatted in much the same way as the first book: a list of science books on certain theme to read each week with your child, ages 4-8, and maybe one simple experiment or demonstration to do together.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for my preschooler, I am homeschooling six older children. I don’t have time to do all the activities in Five in a Row, and I like the variety of picture books we read with Picture Book Preschool. Picture Book Preschool introduces your child to the best of children’s picture books, and it takes only a few minutes each day to read the book for that day, talk about it, and see where it leads you. Maybe you’ll pretend to run away from home with Frances or stack caps like the peddler in Caps for Sale or make up a poem of your own after reading The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. I suggest a few activities in Picture Book Preschool, but it’s left up to you and your child how far you want to go with each book and with the theme for each week.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born March 17th

Mar16

Kate Greenaway, b. 1846. In the US we award the Caldecott Medal to the best illustrator of a children’s picture book each year. In Britain, they give the Greenaway Medal “for distinguished illustration in a book for children.” Many of the illustrators who have won the Greenaway Medal are unfamiliar to me, but I do know something of the work of Lauren Child, Helen Oxenbury, Alan Lee (Rosemary Sutcliff’s Black Ships Before Troy), Janet Ahlberg (Jolly Postman books), Jan Pienkowski, Pat Hutchins, Gail Haley, John Burningham, Pauline Baynes (illustrator of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books), Brian Wildsmith, and the first medal winner in 1956 Edward Ardizzone (Tim All Alone). Kate Greenaway, the illustrator for whom the medal is named, died in 1901.

Frank Gilbreth, Jr., b. 1911, co-author with his sister Ernestine Gilbreth Carey of the childhood memoir Cheaper By the Dozen and its sequel Belles on Their Toes. Brown Bear Daughter is reading these books for fun. They’re nothing like the Steve Martin movie, by the way, except for the fact that the Gilbreth family did have twelve children. All homeschoolers should read these books, especially Cheaper by the Dozen, because they have a lot to teach about education in general and about family life. The Gilbreth family didn’t homeschool; in fact, Frank Gilbreth, Sr., the dad, pushed his children through public schools, encouraging them to skip grades and graduate early. However, in another sense, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth were schooling their children constantly, teaching them everything from languages to typing to Morse code to swimming using a number of ingenious methods—some of which worked better than others. Bribery and the Tom-Sawyer-whitewashing-the-fence method were particularly effective.

Brown Bear Daughter warns that Cheaper By the Dozen has some bad language, and if you’re reading it to younger kids you should skip the bad words. She liked it because it was about real people and the family was interesting. She would like to live in a family like the Gilbreths, but she would want her daddy to go to church. She says it would be cool if her mom and dad were famous like the Gilbreths—not just a famous blogger, like her mom, but really famous.

To This Great Stage of Fools

Mar15

One US president was born on this date in 1767. Another was born on March 16, 1751. Yet another was born March 18, 1837. Con you guess the name of any one of the three or the names of all three?

No prizes, just the satisfaction of knowing how presidentially astute you are.

Pegeen by Hilda Van Stockum

Mar15

I was thrift-store shopping the other day, and I went into a dark, rather depressing junk store. Proceeds from the store went to support some charity. The books were in the back corner, in no discernible order, shelved on homemade shelves made of two by fours. I looked over the assortment of paperback bestsellers of days gone by and old college textbooks, and I found one book that looked as if it might be worth looking into: an old library copy of Pegeen by Hilda Van Stockum. The only reason I paid 25 cents for this book was that I had heard of the author; she had a book listed in my Sonlight curriculum, albeit one I hadn’t read.

Pegeen, published in 1941, was definitely worth the money and the time I invested in it. This children’s book tells the story of an Irish orphan girl, Pegeen, who loses her only guardian and the only family member she knows, her grandmother. She goes to live with friends while the village priest searches for her uncle who has emigrated to America. The O’Sullivan family of Bantry Bay take care of Pegeen in the meantime—even though Pegeen is a very naughty little girl. She likes the family she lives with, and they are good to her. However, Pegeen is a spirited young lady who manages to get herself into all sorts of trouble just by being herself. In fact, Pegeen is something of a wild thing who makes up stories and dances like a gypsy and gains the affection of the entire O’Sullivan family in spite of her irresponsible ways.

Hilda Van Stockum was an artist before she became a writer, and her illustrations for this book are beautiful, pen and ink drawings that give a lovely picture of Irish country life in first part of the twentieth century. Mrs. Van Stockum’s descriptions are beautiful, too; for instance, these are the opening lines of the book:

A late sunbeam struck the little whitewashed cabin that lay snuggled against the mountainside, and picked out the red flash of a girl’s petticoat. She was sitting on the doorstep, her chin cupped in both hands, wide eyes raised to the smoldering sky. Blue shadows stole up around her, hiding the shining playthings of the day; a sound of lamenting and weeping came from the cottage, where candles burned around a still, white figure.

I was so impressed with this story of a little girl who is not perfect at all, a family that has its tensions and problems, yet with faith in the Lord and patience with each other, they all come through the problems and manage to show real love for each other. The book isn’t didactic; rather the events in book demonstrate the meaning of mercy and patience and perseverance and joy. The themes and the stories that make up this little book are probably much too “precious’ for modern day sensibilities, but since my younger children, at least, haven’t been inducted into the cynicism and pride of our age, I plan to read Pegeen to my little Betsy-Bee and maybe to Z-baby.

Pegeen should be a classic family story ranked alongside All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor and Little Pear by Frances Lattimore. Hilda Van Stockum wrote at least two other books about the O’Sullivan family of Bantry Bay: Francie on the Run, which takes place before Pegeen and The Cottage at Bantry Bay, which I think is the third book in the series. I plan to find these and read them as soon as I can. It’s my loss, and now my gain, that I had never heard of these books until I came across my worn copy of Pegeen in the thrift store. You never know what treasures you might find in unlikely places.

Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres

Mar14

I can’t reproduce my original non-review. My server went down and apparently lost all my posts from last week. However, I am still concerned about the allegations that Ms. Scheeres makes in her book, Jesus Land: A Memoir.

I didn’t want to believe the story that Ms. Scheeres tells. Stereotypes and caricatures abound in her memoir. All the Christians, and most everybody else in rural Indiana where Julia Scheeres grew up, are hypocrites, child abusers, racists or simpletons. About half of her book is about her life growing up in a Calvinist Christian home with parents who were negligent and emotionally abusive when they weren’t being physically abusive. Ms. Scheeres has three older siblings who seem to have escaped the abuse she chronicles, and she has two adopted brothers who, according to the author, bore the brunt of the physical abuse that took place in the home. (I know I keep qualifying my statements, but I can’t help it. I do not know whether to believe the story that Ms. Scheeres tells or not.) The two boys, who are black, are repeatedly beaten by their doctor father, and one time David, the brother Julia loves and is close to, has his arm broken when Dad hits him with a 2×4. Her other brother, Jerome, is abused also and becomes an abuser in respones, sexually molesting his younger sister, Julia. As the situation at home gets worse, David is sent to a Christian school for troubled teenagers, Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic. Julia becomes the focus of her parents’ abusive behavior, and she rebels, sleeping with her boyfriend, running away from home, and finally getting arrested for being out after curfew. Of course, none of the trouble she finds herself in is her fault. At seventeen years of age, she tells the court that she would prefer to join her brother David at the Christian school in the Dominican Republic rather than go home or declare herself an “emancipated adult.”

The school, a sort of Christian reform school, is filled with more racism, abuse, and spiritual hypocrisy. One of the junior staffers is a college-aged girl who is obsessed with abortion. She spouts anti-abortion platitudes constantly even when unborn babies and abortions are clearly not the issue at hand. The male staffers are all racists, male chauvinists, and abusers. Teenaged students at Escuela Caribe are punched, slammed against walls, and forced to participate in midnight calisthenics, all in the name of Jesus and in the hope of teaching them to respect authority and love the Lord.

The most disturbing abuse that Ms. Scheeres documents in her book is spiritual abuse. Counselors and house parents force teens to mouth words of repentance and faith in Christ in order to earn points toward release from the school. Even though the James Frey debacle has placed a pall of suspicion over the memoir genre, and even though I have grown up immersed in evangelical, fundamentalist, and Calvinist Christian culture and have never witnessed anything like the kind of abuse that Ms. Scheeres tells about in her book, I am forced to believe that New Horizons Youth Ministries may have been guilty of a serious betrayal of the trust placed in its program by parents and their children.

Then again, maybe not. See the post below, reposted from a few days ago because of my server issues. I emailed New Horizons Youth Ministries after reading Jesusland because I was disturbed by the story that Ms. Scheeres tells in her book. The email below is the response I received.

I continue to hope that someone with more financial and journalistic resources than I have will investigate Escuela Caribe and New Horizons Youth Ministries. If Julia Scheeres is telling the truth, young people and families who are already vulnerable and hurting are being further abused in the name of Christ. Such a travesty is unacceptable. If, on the other hand, Ms. Scheeres is lying in order to make a buck or get revenge against her parents or for some other reason, New Horizons Youth Ministries deserves to be exonerated.

New Horizons Youth Ministries, the ministry that runs Escuela Caribe and two other schools in Indiana and in Canada.
The Truth about New Horizons Youth Ministries, a website that posts the stories of former New Horizons students, many of whom say that they also were abused and mistreated at Escuela Caribe or one of New Horizons’ other schools.
Julia Scheeres’ blog.
International Survivors Action Committee, a volunteer group that is dedicated to monitoring reports of abuse at youth treatment facilities.

Response to Jesus Land

Mar14

This email, which I am posting in its entirety because I think it’s only fair to hear both sides of a story, is in response to my email asking some questions about the allegations in Julia Scheeres’ book, Jesus Land:

Dear Sherry,

I have been forwarded your email and will take the time to respond at length
to your concerns if you do not mind. I think this email will be the body of
a response that we will need to make in light of this injurious book written
by Ms. Scheeres.

I have been with New Horizons since 1981 but had left to attend seminary
during the year she was a student. I did return in 1987 to take over as
director and was the director there for the past 18 years ending this past
summer. I have not read this book but will cover some issues that have come
up due to this. Please note I will not be negative toward any former student
as we love the kids God has sent our way over the past thirty-five years. I
am also married to a former student who I met when she returned to work as a
staff member in 1982.

I would begin by informing you that we require all prospective parents to
call four parents of students that have been in the program over the previous
two years, they are given all names any who are happy or upset with us.
Also, our board is made up of parents of former students, former staff and
former students who oversee our work.

Please understand we work with the more difficult to manage youth, not Sunday
school kids, the kids that get kicked out of school, kicked out of other
programs and even kicked out of church. We take the more difficult to manage
kids in the DR and the more manageable here in Indiana.

I would like to answer your questions, yes Julia and Dave were students at
Escuela Caribe. No, a student was not impregnated by the preacher, he did
get emotionally involved with a girl, was kicked out, and she being 18 got
together with him post program, they married and then divorced. It was a bad
year and I was called to return there due to these issues and became the
director.

We have had cases of typhoid, but it is usually para-typhoid but no this is
not commom there and I have had three girls born and raised there and in my
20+ years there, never had typhoid.

No we are not a cult, do not use psychological control, not a boot camp, not
emotional control, we confront issues and deal with reality. What she writes
about is more than twenty years ago. This is not us now. Yes in the past we
had more strong armed tactics, took crisis to the end, did not give up till
we had submission. I personally took the tactic that I would take the heat
of the teens wanting no staff to be abused or struck and would take a kid
down as needed.

What we have done is we have training in TCI or Therapeutic Crisis
Intervention for all our staff that have to deal with student crises. This
is a two man take down procedure that was developed at Cornell University but
is secular and I have developed an in house training as well.

Let me point out something if I can. In the past few months, we have had a
student hold a knife to his throat and hold a house hostage, a student who
double punched a summer staff who stood up to disrepect toward a woman, a
girl who had to be restrained till 2 am and then had to be sent to jail to
settle her down. This is our life and some of the kids we work with,
oppositional defiant, conduct disorder and borderline personality disorder
type kids. Many of our youth are not ones who have crises, do well, settle
their issues and go home, the latter two groups create pain.

We are a therapeutic residential care facility and are licensed in the State
of Indiana and we seek to abide by those guidelines in the DR. We have
licensed therapists and counselors alongside our staff. Do note that our
culture is moving toward a no touch policy with youth and since 1997 when we
really began to back off in crisis my staff in the DR have been assaulted,
kicked, spit upon and attacked, before that no staff member was ever struck
when I was director. Here in Indiana we have police in the grade schools and
we see a five year old being handcuffed and taken from a school in Florida.
Yes, our culture has changed.

We love our kids, we invest our lives in helping youth and families in
crisis, it is a thankless job but we are called to do it. I will say that
Ms. Scheeres visited our school under false pretenses, then returned to her
blog and maliciously lied about a couple at our school. I do not believe her
stories or renditions. Yes there have been things that have gone wrong,
staff that have crossed lines, but things have been dealt with and handled
with families. In Indiana we call the sheriff when a student gets out of
control. I could not do that in the DR and had to be the end of the crisis.
I am good at what I do and committed to youth.

There are many people on our campus all through the year, college groups,
church groups, we have day students attending school at Escuela Caribe,
missionary kids and others, church groups from northern Indiana have been
coming to our school for 14 years each January and stay for three weeks on
our campus and work alongside our kids and even eat in the houses. Many
parents and former students are rallying to our suppport during this time as
well.

The negative website was shut down by the man who launched it. It was going
the wrong direction and in his words was being used to sell her book. The
content was stolen and put back up in another site. This did not settle well
with the small group of negative students and they turned on him as well.
Their blog is declared for hatred and revenge, any former student who is
positive is kicked off thus they started their own blog at NewHorizonsStaff-
Students@yahoo.groups.com. The four or five negative former students have
gone there to give their input as well. We have current staff on there as
well as two current mothers of students.

I am going to ask a former student as well as some others to connect with you
if they would like. We will be putting together a group to deal with this
stuff as we do need to address this as a ministry.

Thanks for your concern. I know this all looks bad and we are not perfect,
but have made so many changes that this coming up now is really old hat but
hurting real time. Many former students call me now and it has been great to
reconnect and hear of their lives. I had a former student in my home this
past weekend, had been abandoned on a church’s steps in Chicago, severe abuse
and thanks to his time with us, over three years he has been married to the
same woman for 14 years. He and I remodeled my bathroom while we revisted
the past, he was the most abused by life boy I had dealt with, ran away 4-5
times down there as well. He is disabled, not completely normal, but calls
us family.

Blessings to you and please feel free to contact us.

Sincerely,

Charles P. Redwine, D.Min.
COO New Horizons

I am sorry that your comments have been lost (apparently) by my server. I still think this school should be investigated in light of the serious allegations that Ms. Scheeres makes in her book. I’m sure Mr. Redwine and those who work at Escuela Caribe and New Horizons Youth Ministries would welcome such an investigation by responsible journalists. WORLD Magazine? Christianity Today?

I will try to re-post my initial reaction to Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres later today.