Author Archives: Paul Cates

The Importance of Time With Our Children  

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FCM spending time with children

A young girl has passed away and is in Heaven.  She has asked to return to earth for one day – her 12th birthday.  Her wish is granted.  Imagine you are standing with her during her visit.

She stands in the middle of those she loves — her mother stands in one corner, her father in another corner, her brother in a third corner, and her teacher in the fourth corner.

She goes to her mother and is beaming. She asks her mother to spend time with her.  Her mother replies, “Can’t you see I am busy? I am busy with the preparations for your birthday party. Please leave me alone or there won’t be any birthday cake for your party.”

She then goes to her father.  “Will you spend some time with me?” she asks.  Her father replies, “Can’t you see how busy I am?  I have bills to sort and much to do.  There will be no money for your party if you don’t leave me alone.”

The little girl then looks to her teacher.  “Will you spend some time with my on my birthday?” she asks.  But the teacher says, “I have many students.  I have a 1 p.m. class that I must prepare for.  I don’t have time to spend with you.”

The little girl is crushed.  She goes to her brother.  She feels that he will at least have time for her.  But he has many friends and baseball to play.  He tells her, “If you don’t leave me alone, I won’t come to your party.”

She goes to her mother once more.  And, again her mom is too busy to bother with her.  She is now is heartsick and crushed.

It is her biggest day and everyone is too busy preparing for it to spend any time with her.  Her last words are, “please take me away from this place. Everyone is preparing for the future but no one sees my needs of today.  Please take me away.”   She then goes back to Heaven.

My prayer is that our children not ever say what she did.  May we in education and with our families remember to make time for and with our children.  May we this year and in the decade that lies ahead do things differently than the people in this story.

May we realize and meet the needs that are asked of us.  This is a real challenge but together with God directing the family, we can achieve His original desire.

What do you struggle with in your home school? Take our 3-minute survey >>

Staying True In A Changing Culture

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As we are moving on with the summer, I cannot help but reflect on how much society and culture has changed since I began teaching over 50 years ago.

When I was called to the ministry of preaching and teaching, God was still a part of the educational system.  Prayer was still in public schools.  People said prayers and thanked God for the food on their tables.  Life was sacred.

Today, God is removed from public education. Truth is non-existent and “truth” is what is acceptable to you as an individual.  Today, abortion is not murder.  Marriage is not sacred.  The family has been redefined.

That is the reason for Faith Christian Ministries and Faith Christian Academy to have a support system to teach and reaffirm the unchangeable morals, values, and principles of Holy Scripture.  God has not changed.

We have changed because many of us have been sitting in the boiling pot like the frog and have slowly died to God, the Triune God, and the Holy Spirit.  We are following more and more the ways of modern culture instead of being warriors and martyrs for God and His kingdom.

We are in a spiritual war if we are believers.  Unfortunately, we may be unaware of it.  We are accepting of untruths contrary to “Thus sayeth the Lord.”

Faith Christian Ministries wants to partner with you in helping you to re-establish and confirm the long-held Biblical principles since the Garden of Eden.

Feel free to contact us.

photo credit: Stairway to Heaven via photopin (license)

Lucas’ Successful Development (One Of Our Students)

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We received a great message from the parent of one of our stellar students. We got permission to share here.

Hi Dr. Cates and Kirk and Patti,
I know you expressed interest at Lucas’ last testing date in May to hear some of Lucas’ piano playing.  I have sent these videos for you to enjoy.
We hope you had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  And thankyou for all of your help.  It was quite stressful for Lucas and us trying to complete everything for college applications, we appreciate your patience:)  Lucas will be flying to Texas and Wisconsin in a few weeks to audition for colleges.  He is still waiting to hear from several others that he applied to.  Please keep him in your prayers.
God Bless,
Marilyn Myers

 

Educating the Autistic Child – Case Study

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If you are wondering if the insurmountable challenges associated with autism can be overcome through education, please see this video of Ethan Bailey.  The video is a little choppy in places but that was beyond our control.  Much of what you see Ethan doing in this video they said he would never do.  If you’re the parent of an autistic child, be encouraged…

Help one of our students win a contest

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We just received this from one of our parents…

Dear Friends and Family,

As many of you know, our kids have had a blast participating on a LEGO Robotics team through the FIRST LEGO League over the past three years.

This year, the theme was BODY FORWARD and we were challenged to research a bio medical topic. We chose to research the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), a deadly disease that impacts over 195 million people world-wide and will eventually kill more people than AIDS. HCV attacks the liver- the clearing house for toxins in your body- and has no known cure, nor a vaccine. HCV is a silent epidemic that left untreated, scars and shuts down the liver. The current reactive treatments for HCV involve an expensive 24-28 week drug routine with difficult side-effects. iBrick proposed a new solution- a preventative treatment– to fight HCV, using a transdermal monoclonal antibody patch.

Here’s the really exciting part!  We currently have a provisional patent for our patch with the The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Also, we submitted our patch idea in a LEGO Robotics contest sponsored by The X Prize Foundation, a leading nonprofit organization sponsoring competitions to inspire scientific discovery. The winner of

the contest receives $20,000 towards advancing their patent and attend an awards ceremony in Washington, DC.

OK…here’s where you come in. People can vote on the submitted patents and we would love it if you would vote for our team!

Here’s what you do:

Go to link:

http://fllinnovationaward.firstlegoleague.org/

  • Click on “search” on bottom left side
  • Search for team-  “ibrick” (see the kids picture)
  • Click and vote for ibrick

You can actually vote daily if you like.

The contest, though not contingent solely on the actual hits, will tabulate the total number. Every vote counts.

The contest ends March 4. Feel free to pass on the link on to others to cast their votes too.

Thanks so much!

Team iBrick

Eli, Sam, and Jesse Parham and John, Josh and Caleb Pottebaum

For more on team ibrick, check out our website at : www.ibricknews.com

Student Receives Congressional Award Gold Medal

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I was delighted to receive this update from the parents of one of our students.  (Shared with permission.)

Dear Dr. Cates,

Don’t know if you want updates like this, but…

Here is a picture of Matthew receiving the Congressional Award Gold Medal from Congressman Duncan in his Knoxville office last Monday. To earn this award Matthew greatly surpassed the required 800 hours of activities in Personal Fitness, Personal Development, and Volunteering, along with a 4 night camping trip that he helped plan…all over a 3 year span. These were activities that Matthew was doing anyway as part of our homeschool program, but it sure is nice to have an outside agency validate his hard work.

Yesterday we mailed in the paperwork for Stephen’s work on the first two certificate levels of the Congressional Award. He’s on track to earn the gold medal as well in the next 1-2 years. Andrew will be old enough to start his work on the award in the fall.

We sure appreciate your support and encouragement in helping our homeschool program be successful.

Blessings,

Kathy Waldrep

One of Our Students Wins Finals of the State First LEGO League

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We received this good news from the parents of one of our students this week:

Dr. Cates,

We wanted you to know that Team iBrick, our LEGO  Robotics team (consisting of John, Josh and Caleb Pottebaum, and Eli, Sam and Jesse Parham), won the Finals of the State First LEGO League competition December 5,  and advanced to the International competition. The International competition is in St. Louis (we went to Internationals in Taiwan last year where we won Best Research) on April 27, 2011 at the Edward Jones Dome. They anticipate over 40,000 people to participate/attend. We are prepared to take our research to another level for the competition.

The best part of the long day, was something that happened in the last hour of competition. Part of the LEGO Robotics project is research and the other part is robotic programing. Each team gets three chances to accumulate the most points they can on the robot mission field. Teams keep one score out of three attempts. Due to unequal pairings of teams, iBrick got to run the robot an extra time, but was not allowed to get the points for the 4th time. Rather than making a showy exhibition, iBrick gave up some of their points to a rookie team, by foregoing a mission. The judges were amazed at the notion that kids could put the needs of others ahead of their own.

We were satisfied with the day knowing the boys made an impression with the judges far more lasting than winning a trophy. To top it off, they won the Champion’s Award. It was the second year we have won our division of the Missouri State Finals and advanced to the International competition.  I do not know if that has ever been done before.

We thought you would be excited to know.

Thanks so much,

Michelle Pottebaum

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