Vol 1 #1                                                              November/December 2014


A spirit of anger is hanging in the air. Wars are raging- inside and outside. From alleged police brutality to classroom bullying to road rage, anger is among us. No one is exempt because anger is an emotion God built into our DNA. The challenge is how to control it. David said, "Be angry, but don't sin" (Psa. 4:4). The first example of uncontrolled anger is in a second generation man- Cain (Gen. 4:5-8). We notice several things in this account: God warned Cain that "sin (anger) was at his "door". God gave him an alternate course and told him to "rule over it." God saw, He counseled and He warned. He does the same for all of us today.
In Psalms 4:4-5, David recognizes the inevitable, but he quickly gives us God's answer to anger management, four steps that are very simple, extremely difficult, and 100% effective. See how you stack up. (Want help in memorizing this scripture? See: "Learning the Word for Life", Book 2, Page 89).

1. Be quiet. When your button gets pushed, shut up. Perhaps James was correct, "no man can tame the tongue" (1), but we must try. When offended, fighting back seems like the right thing to do; keeping our mouth shut is unthinkable. Yet, those people who can keep their cool, are the ones we admire most. At the very moment of offense, life and death are in our hands, (rather in our mouth, see Prov. 18:21), sin is at our door, how are we going to deal with it?
2. Lay down and meditate in your heart. "Lay down" could mean go to another room. When offended, a wise man will say, "could I get back to you on this?" Go away, get by your self and pray. Meditate. On what? God's word. Try these: "The anger of man does not work the righteousness of God" (2). "Don't let the sun go down on your wrath or give place to the Devil" (3). Sometimes just meditating on the anger incident will help us see the foolishness of being upset.
3. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness. This could mean, remember your only righteousness or "right-ness" comes from Jesus' sacrifice. Or it could mean, burn up your idea of your "rightness". Your rightness is probably not that important. What is important is relationship. Your anger could damage or destroy that. If your anger involves the actions of another person against you, it can turn to unforgiveness. That's dangerous (4). Burn it up.
4. Put your trust in the Lord. This could be the most difficult of the 4 directions. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding" said Solomon (5). That means letting go, loving the other person and trusting God that He will do what is right, for you and for them. There is no fooling God of course. Trusting God is easy to say, it sounds good. But God knows our hearts. He will settle for nothing less than total trust in Him to take care of the situation. Fact is- releasing the whole thing feels good. God is such a good Father. He takes care of the whole mess if we let Him. (Ref: 1-Jas. 4:8, 2-Jas. 1:20, 3-Eph. 4:26-27, 4-Mt.6:15, 5- Prov. 3:5-6)

K-3 NEW TESTAMENT

The final drawings have been completed! For a "test lab" sample, we chose the book of  Luke because Dr. Luke provides the best Christmas story. As you can see, drawings involve a lot of fun crafts as well as coloring. The text has also been completed but it still has several steps to pass through before it is ready for assembly. We have felt God's good hand on us as this work progressed. That tells us two things: YOU have been interceding for us, and GOD wants this material distributed to His children around the world. The K-3 Old Testament has already been shipped to Africa and India. We are so grateful for your faithful intercession.

PEACE

Peace on earth begins with peace in your heart. In  stark contrast to the photo at the top, is this scene of Bethlehem 2000 years ago. The November/December newsletter always takes us off guard. We're not ready for Christmas. On the other hand, we are ALWAYS ready to thank God for His gift to this troubled world.
Merry Christmas!
  -- Dan
 & Juanene
TESTIMONY FROM THE FIELD

"I was concerned that The Picture Smart Bible might be too young for my highschool son, who is very studious and smart.  However, I began the program with all 5 of my children, just to see.  My children are 14, 13, 10, 9, and 8.  Not only do I feel this program has been applicable for all of my children, but for me as well.  On top of that, when we complete a book of the Bible, each child individually sits down with their dad and explains the entire book to him.  My oldest son actually typed out notes to go over with his dad.  His page may not be as colorful or "fun", but it is precise and outlined and he often helps read the scriptures as we go along.  After we complete our picture page, we spend one final day doing all of the discussion questions and working on the memory verse.  The idea of going through the entire Bible in this manner, and having 66 picture outlines of the entire Bible, is phenomenal.  I pray many Christian families will take advantage of this Picture Smart Bible program of excellence.  It is the highlight to our homeschool mornings and will never come back void! Again, thank you for your time and especially for your creation of a wonderful, life-changing program." ~ Kendra

TEACHER TRAINING &
AGE MODIFICATION
Training in India
A few weeks ago, another church asked us to teach The Picture Smart Bible to their Children's Ministry staff. Our format: After Dan has presented a lesson (or two) to the staff members, the group is divided into subgroups. A sample lesson (illustration and text) is divided into the same number as subgroups. Each subgroup has 20 minutes to study the lesson and select a presenter(s). The sample lesson Student Sheet is projected on a white board and each subgroup in turn comes to the whiteboard. In team teaching, one staff member draws while the other shares their section of the lesson. It is fun and it works.

When training preschool through 4th grade (which we did), additional training sessions were scheduled to present age modifications. Please email us if you want additional information or if you would like to schedule a presentation/training session in your church or homeschool coop.

Starting with this issue, some of you will receive a new look to the newsletter. Our mailing list has jumped to over 500 names which exceeded the capability of our office computers. To solve the problem, we have contracted with an outside firm to do the mailing, however the newsletter had to conform to their format. We still have the same purpose: updates, praise for God's favor, and a strong appeal for prayer. We can't move without the Holy Spirit.
Translation Update: Spanish. Our good friend and pastor Eddy has completed the text for TPSB Old Testament! He is now working on the OT Master Drawings. We have had ongoing requests for TPSB in Spanish. A couple of prayer needs concerning this: Please pray for Eddy- his time, his physical stamina and his equipment. And please ask God to reveal our part in getting this translation distributed to all Spanish speaking countries.
Thanks!

Learn and internalize God's Word by listening, drawing and coloring.