Category Archives: Testimonials

FCA Student Westin W. in Robotics Competition

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Several years ago, professionals in science, technology, engineering and mathematics noticed that there was a decline of students interested, studying and graduating in these technical fields. So they formed and organized BEST (Boosting Engineering Science and Technology).

Each year, BEST issues a challenge in September to the participating teams of junior high and high school students to imagine, design, build, program, promote and sell a robot that will be able to perform that tasks in the challenge. Each team receives a set of building materials and robotic components issued by the organization. Rules and specific regulations must be followed in order to qualify the robot to participate on the contest day only 8 weeks in the future.

Teams that participate are public schools, private, church schools and homeschooled kids. Each team is responsible for what has been mentioned plus documenting the process and compiling a pro fessional engineering notebook also. On competition day, professionals in these fields judge, critique and give feedback on every aspect of the challenge including teamwork and good sportsmanship. It is intense yet fun abounds!

Westin’s team River Valley Homeschool Robotics, is a newly formed group; which by the grace of God came in 2nd in our hub competition. Not 1 robotic glitch- everything went so well. Praise a God! We then advanced to Regionals. With some of the biggest and most experienced teams as our competition, his team did really well and came in 9th.

The students all worked hard — learning how to use tools, cutting materials, assembling, programming etc. All was done by students, with parents and a couple of engineers guiding and teaching. This has been such a wonderful opportunity for the students to be exposed to these career fields, these nurturing mentors, other instructors, adults and students. What an opportunity to blossom!

Westin W. is a student of Faith Christian Academy, a ministry of Faith Christian Ministries. Please contact us at 828-435-0670.

20-Year Relationship With FCM

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Dr. Paul Cates and Faith Christian Ministries (FCM) have been a part of our homeschool journey for almost 20 years.  Our relationship started when FCM tested our oldest child in elementary school to determine if some academic struggles were from our curriculum being too challenging or too easy resulting in disinterest.  Those unexpected results completely altered our homeschool trajectory for our large family.  

From that point forward instead of automatically handing each child the next grade level of curriculum, we focused on keeping them challenged without being frustrated.  Our goal became mastery of material instead of merely completing all of the grade level textbooks.  If they did not master the material using the planned curriculum, we added new resources; however, if the concepts were mastered, we moved forward to skip busy work.  At some point our students have all repeated or skipped ahead by topic, subject, or grade level.  The annual testing gave us more confidence to customize their education as needed to assure complete understanding and to maximize their learning time.  

This customized approach allowed our students the time and freedom to explore their interests and continue to move forward in their academics, while also overcoming learning issues and asynchronous development.  The curriculum for each student has varied, but all of our homeschool graduates earned a significant number of hours of college credit before graduating high school, were admitted to many top colleges, received generous college scholarships, and are happily employed in their chosen professions.  

I believe our children would have blended in fine with their peers using a traditional academic approach, but partnering with Dr. Cates and FCM helped our children develop as individuals – discover and reach their full potential, cultivate their love of learning, and be prepared to thrive among their peers in college and the workplace.

— Jane D. — who has worked with Dr. Cates and FCM for almost 20 years

Grace Watson Testimonial

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Grace Watson, a 2013 Faith Christian Ministries graduate, said the following about her experience with us.
“I began working with Dr. Cates between 2nd and 3rd grade when we discovered that I had a vision-processing issue. I was homeschooled all the way through high school, using his curriculum guidance after being tested annually.  With Dr. Cates’ encouragement, I started taking classes at community college beginning my sophomore year of high school.

“I graduated May 16, 2013 from The Metropolitan Community College of Kansas City with an Associate of Arts degree and graduated on May 18, 2013 with a high school diploma.  I continued my education at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, earning my Bachelor of Business Administration in Music Business on December 16, 2016. I am currently working full-time at Capitol Christian Music Group in Nashville, TN.” 

Please call us at 828-435-0670 for find out more.

Delightful Testimonial

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I recently received this email testimonial from a parent who wishes to remain anonymous on the web but gave permission to share this.  Upon reading this, I am reminded why we must continue to share our perspective on education.  Don’t give up hope, frustrated parent, in the face of challenges educating your child.  Given the right tools and understanding, obstacles can be overcome.  I hope this encourages you as it did me.

We are so thankful that fourteen years ago Dr. Cates and Faith Christian Ministries challenged us to allow our children to reach their academic potential on their own timetable.  Through regular testing and academic oversight, we have had the freedom and motivation to customize our schooling to maximize the progress of our students.  By raising the academic bar to keep each child challenged and not frustrated, our high school and college students now desire to learn because of intellectual interest instead of only for course credit.  With this approach they have moved well outside of the traditional learning “box.”

Our older students have moved seamlessly from homeschool classes taught at home, to AP courses online and dual enrollment courses at the local college, to challenging 4-year colleges.  I credit their success partially to Dr. Cates’ philosophy of teaching to mastery and moving forward on their personal timetable.

Through regular testing and counseling, we were able to identify strong and weak aspects of our homeschool curriculum and evaluate areas of individual academic struggles and mastery.  Early on we were pleased to see our children’s learning needs met in such an effective way; however, at the time we did not appreciate how successful this homeschool approach would be.

We were surprised to see a child who struggled to learn from a textbook in elementary school later thrive in dual enrollment college classes early in high school.

When one of our children greatly struggled with math in 7th grade, we did not expect him to graduate high school with more than 40 hours of college credit (mainly in math and science) and attend a top ranked engineering school on full scholarship.

We never considered that a child who did not learn to read until he was in 3rd grade would fall in love with Greek, Latin, and Ancient Literature three years later and delve into online high school courses early to pursue those interests.

When we sent a 16-year-old son to a very intense summer program at an Ivy League college, we were a bit apprehensive about how his academic foundation would measure up.  We never expected him to win two major academic and speaking awards competing against students from top boarding and prep schools.  He is now thriving at a different Top 10 university with very well paid summer internships.

We never expected that allowing our students to choose college lectures from The Great Courses for fun would lead to some of them as young as 7th grade successfully taking free online classes through Stanford University just because they found the material interesting.

Without Dr. Cates’ testing and encouragement to adequately challenge our students, we would have turned out “cookie cutter” graduates waiting for someone to lead them instead of intellectually curious students who actively pursue knowledge and opportunities.  How wonderful to be able to take full advantage of the freedom we have as home educators to customize our children’s education and maximize the gifts and abilities the Lord has given each child.

Caleb Green Testimonial

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Dr. Cates,

In the photo on the mountain tops Caleb is far left, back row wearing hat and sunglasses – far left as one looks at the picture. This is a picture of where Caleb is at in Wyoming – Jackson Hole Bible College.

On Friday Oct. 1, the class sets off on a northwest trip.   They will be traveling to Yellowstone, Loake Missoula, the Channeled Scab Lands, and Mt. St. Helen’s.

Next spring once the ski slopes have closed the class will set off for the Grand Canyon taking in the Arches, Moab, Natural Bridges, Zion and other national parks and monuments.

The photo of firewood is Caleb and Joseph operating our super splitter complete with log crane – saves on the back.

–  Brett Green

Thanks to you, I’m now in a top-ten graduate school

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Dr. Cates,

This is Gerald Dyson, son of Lillian and Stuart Dyson. I’ve been meaning to write for a while now and I just wanted to let you know that I am now, thanks to you, in graduate school working on an MA in Medieval History at the University of York (in the UK), currently ranked in the top 100 in the world.  Additionally, their Medieval History program is one of the top ten in the world.

I will finish my master’s thesis and the program in September and from there I will be heading home for a while and then starting my doctorate, hopefully at Notre Dame or the University of Oxford.

I just wanted to write and let you know that if it hadn’t been for you and your program, I sincerely doubt that I would be in my current position. I hope you are well and you have my gratitude.

Best regards,

Gerald Dyson

A Poem for the World by Jodi Sylvest

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My name is Jodi Sylvest and I am in remission from Ewing Sarcoma Bone Cancer and I still have problems with my leg. Because of that I fall a lot, and the other night I fell outside and my cousin picked me up and carried me in. The rest of my cousins came in with him. They stayed for a few minutes and then said good-bye. It made me feel wonderful that they did that for me, so I wrote a poem about them and here it is.

My Angels

Most people think angels have wings,
and gowns, halos and things.
But my angels don’t have either one.
Some of them even bathe in the sun.

My angels where jackets shirts and jeans,
and fix their in really nice things.
My angels use the phone and drive cars,
and the best thing is, they’re not very far.

My angels laugh and my angels play,
I see my angels almost every day.
They hold me close when I’m feeling hurt
, when I fall they pick me up out of the dirt.

My angels have names like David and Brian,
Holly and Brittany, I’m not lien.’ Josh and Joe,
Believe Me it’s so.

My angels are my everything and even more,
and the best thing is, they’re right next door.

A wonderful note from Cathy A Haeffner

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Dear Dr. Cates,

During my prayer time this A.M. I was thanking God for the different blessings in my life and you came to mind. I felt the urging to write you and tell you how much of a blessing you have been to me and my family. I don’t know if you were in need of extra encouragement today or I just needed to express my gratefulness to you. Only God knows that, but you have been an answer to my prayers when it comes to my insecurities about teaching Sean. I only have a high school education and not a very good one at that. My teaching Sean is totally done with God’s power and a deep love for my son. You may feel that you haven’t helped much because Sean probably doesn’t stand out in your mind and needing much help compared to most of the children you see. But to me, the test results were like a report card from God that I am in His will and doing OK with His help through you.

I pray that He will continue to give you good health and the strength to continue your grueling schedule for several more years. I am sure you have helped many families and brought peace to many moms. I also pray the Lord will bless you with a long and restful retirement when the time comes. Thanks again for your help with our home school journey.

God bless,
Cathy Haeffner