Live Fire with Chuck Holton

There are lots of reasons we choose to homeschool. Mostly it’s because we want to help our children avoid the lowest common denominator teaching practice that is (necessarily) the norm in public schools.

In the news this week was this article in Newsweek called “The trouble with boys.” It details how boys are falling behind in every area of public schooling.

An interesting comment, which sums up my feelings on the issue from the Washington Post’s parenting newsletter. *snerk*

Current public learning systems — with their unholy emphasis on raising test scores at the expense of recess and academic flexibility — makes girl behavior the gold standard, says “Raising Cain” author Michael G.Thompson. “Boys are treated like defective girls.”

Regardless of how academically intelligent my children end up, my greatest hope is that I can raise committed disciples for Christ, who will have a much greater impact on the world than I could have alone. I think this is especially a challenge when it comes to my boys – they have great potential to do good – and without proper guidance – harm. Oh, that I can raise Godly men! If I can do that, I will be a success.

And seeing the kind of boys that the world turns out – I know my job as a father is even more important.

One of the best books I’ve read on this subject is “Future Men” by Douglas Wilson

There’s an interesting discussion along these lines over on Homesteading Today. Join in.

Okay, I’m planning this expedition in March, see, and I’m going to be living out of a backpack for about a week. In trying to find a way to lighten the load, I realized that it’d be cheaper, if more work, to drop ten pounds off my fat body rather than invest in edible gear (yes, it’s real)….maybe.

Sooo…here’s what I’m going to do. In addition to my daily regimen of walking the hill, I’m going to cut out all liquids except water.

I do it every year, and usually lose ten pounds. But usually not this early, because in the winter I like my coffee.

I wrote about this in Bulletproof - discipline exercises build not only physical and mental toughness, they make you more alert and, hopefully for me in this case, lighter.

By the way, don’t miss these pictures I took last week during the coal mine shoot – the story will air on CBN sometime in the first week of February, but you can preview the pictures now.

On another note – here’s an interesting-looking book. A liberal with good things to say about America. Well, I’ll be…

I heard this story from my friend Jim Kirkland when I was speaking at his church in January. In light of the Sago mine tragedy, I thought it was a wonderful story that ended quite the opposite from the tragedy in Upshur Cty, West Virginia. Jim tells the story.

My dad died when I was only 3. I never knew a father. My oldest brother Bill was 10 years older than me and he was the closest thing I had to a father figure. He was always there for me. He was my hero. I have a picture from when I was a baby. I was propped up against a wall, leaning forward, ready to take my first steps, anticipation and fear on my face. In the lower left hand corner of the picture are a set of hands reaching for me to catch me if I fell. They belong to my brother Bill.

Jim Kirkland

William E. Kirkland (Bill) earned 2 Bronze Stars, 1 Silver Star, 1 Meritorious Service Medal, and several other citations and awards. He lives in Oxford Michigan near his brother Jim Kirkland. They serve together to lead Men’s Ministry at Christ the King Church as “Soldiers of the Cross.”

Used with permission.

Cory and I went to see the movie last night. A very good portrayal of the truth of the story of a band of brothers who would stop at nothing to show God’s grace.

Some great lines: “Daddy, if they attack you, will you shoot them, you know, protect yourself?”

“I can’t do that, tiger. They aren’t ready for heaven yet. But we are.”

I’m virtually positive that many people will see the movie and have no idea WHY the missionaries went in to the Waodani. They’ll easily miss the point of the story. But I don’t fault the movie or the production company for that. You could have them explain the four spiritual laws and hold an altar call at the end of the movie and many people still wouldn’t see it. The Bible says so.

But the movie is a great lesson on the power of forgiveness and grace. It’s also challenging to me personally. Would I have gone in there? Would I have taken my children?

A favorite quote of mine from Jim Elliot is this: “God, I pray thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn up for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.”

Amen. Me too.

And now a quote from my book Bulletproof, about James Elliot:

“If Jim Elliot had lived and ministered till he was one hundred, he could not have had a greater impact for the kingdom of Christ. This spirit warrior understood that risk has much less to do with the external hazards in life than with his standing in the kingdom of the Most High God.”

Let’s get to work.

I entered a West Virginia Coal mine yesterday and got a tiny taste of what it is like to be stranded underground. My deepest condolences to the families of the two miners who perished in logan county.

My brother-in-law, Cory, just returned from his third combat tour in Iraq, and had a pass this weekend, so he drove all night to come see us. He arrived just as I was leaving to go tour a working coal mine with my friend Mike Campbell. So even though he was tired from the drive, Cory decided to come along.

A light rain was coming down when we arrived at the mine, near Ghent, WV. After waiting around for about an hour, Mike hooked us up with overalls, belts, mine lights and helmets, and gave us a quick course of instruction on how to use the noxious gas detectors and miner self rescue breather apparatus. Then we signed a few papers and hiked up the hill to the mine entrance.

Mike pulled his low-rider golf cart up and we hopped on. It wasn’t long before I realized how many misconceptions I’d had about underground mining. First, the mine is low – about four feet on average. It’s not profitable to cut out rock that isn’t coal, so the mine height is dictated by the size of the coal seam.

Next misconception: I had wondered why the SAGO miners didn’t simply walk out, if their miner self rescue breathers contained an hours worth of air. After all, they were only two miles in. Anyone can walk two miles in an hour, even in dense smoke, right?

Wrong. You don’t walk in these mines. You either ride a mantrip or duck-walk, or bear-crawl. Try doing that for two miles. Yow.

On a lighter note, Mike told us that a bear had entered their mine last year. We joked that everyone just thought it was one of the miners who hadn’t had his coffee yet.

Next misconception: I had no idea how dirty it is under there. We essentially did nothing but ride the cart for a couple of hours, and we came out black with mine dust. Amazing. I also figured that black lung was a thing of the past. Surely we’ve made advances that keep the miners from breathing so much dust, right?

Well, yes and no. It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be, when the miners had to use explosives to “shoot” the coal, but black lung is still an issue. Mike suffers from it a little, after working at the mine for more than 20 years.

We traveled approximately three miles underground, passing belt heads like the one that caught fire in the Logan county mine. We also saw the mining equipment – highly specialized machines that do the work of hundreds of pick-and-shovel miners of yesteryear, but which I would imagine consume enormous amounts of electricity. (judging from their size.) Most of the machines look like something out of the movie “Total recall.” And we saw a seal similar to the one that blew at the Sago mine. It’s essentially a block wall, cemented in place to form an airtight barrier between the in-use section of the mine and a part that is no longer being used. The “mega block” used to form the wall is about eight inches thick, and solid.

We also saw some gigantic fans used to provide much-needed ventilation in the mines.

After an hour or so underground, we reached the mine face – where the actual coal is being extracted at this time. Since it was Saturday, crews were there doing maintenance on the machinery and such, but no actual mining was being done. I can imagine it is incredibly loud and dirty when it is.

On the return trip, Murphy struck. Since we had three people on Mike’s low-rider electric mine car, the charge failed more quickly than expected. We noticed the car was moving more and more slowly, and eventually on an uphill incline, it stopped altogether. We were stuck.

It was still more than a mile to the mine entrance, and our car was out of juice.

It wasn’t life threatening, or even dangerous. All we had to do was move the mine car a few feet to a nearby power station (they are set up at intervals throughout the mine) and plug it in, then wait thirty minutes until we had enough charge to get out. But in that short time, I realized that my wife would have expected me home by now. She had no idea why I wasn’t there yet, and I had no way of contacting her. I felt a new sadness for the families of the miners who perished underground.

A short time later, we rolled back into the grey overcast of a West Virginia Winter day. Men were outside working on the conveyor that moves the coal through the mine. The air smelled wonderful.

Mike said, “you know, I’ve chosen this as my profession. And long ago I had to make peace with the risk of it. Every time I enter the mine, I know it’s possible that I won’t come back, but I’ve learned to trust God for the outcome. And that’s what enables me to keep showing up for work every day.”

I wonder how these guys can spend the majority of their lives in the black-on-black world under the earth and not go crazy, but I guess in the grand scheme of eternity, whether you pass eight years on this earth or eighty, it will all be like a single breath. We all will die, and how or when isn’t near as important as where we stand before the Most High God at that moment. And any hardship or pain we’ve endured here on the bridge between heaven and hell will only make that greatest adventure that much sweeter, if we’ve put our trust in Him.

Be ready.

News this morning from Mellville, WV – two more miners missing in a mine fire in Logan county. I visited a mine yesterday near Ghent, WV to set up a tour of their operations next week. Amazing how low some of these mines are – one I saw was less than four feet high, and the miners traveled underground in these low-slung electric cars. Mason and Nathan promptly decided they needed one.

Our prayers go out for the families of the two trapped miners. May they be rescued safely in short order, and spared the agony of the Sago disaster.

On a lighter note, West Virginia is full of odd places. The mother of them all, though, is this burg we drove through yesterday, where we saw a sign for this church – which I’m convinced has franchises all over the country. I’ve spoken in several of them.

We are praying today for the safe release of Jill Carroll, Christian Science Monitor reporter being held in Iraq by cowardly thugs. I’m always astounded by the sheer indecency of these people who claim to adhere to a religion of peace.

This story also bears an eerie resemblance to my upcoming book, Task Force Valor – Allah’s fire.

From a conversation on overpopulation on Homesteading Today, someone pointed out this article by John Stossel debunking ten of the fears most prevalent in our society today. Not surprisingly, the Bible has some poignant things to say on some of the same topics:

MYTH #10 — We Have Less Free Time
MYTH #9 — Money Can Buy Happiness
MYTH #8 — Republicans Shrink the Government
MYTH #7 — The World Is Getting Too Crowded
MYTH #6 — Chemicals Are Killing Us
MYTH # 5 — Guns Are Always Bad for Us
MYTH # 4 — We’re Drowning in Garbage
MYTH # 3 — We Are Destroying Our Forests
MYTH # 2 — Getting Cold Can Give You a Cold
MYTH # 1 — Life Is Getting Worse

I think the bottom line of this article is contained in Stossel’s answer to Myth #9. “Purposeful work is what makes people happy. And finding religion. And family.”

Well, as if things couldn’t get any wierder in hollywood, now the big fad is frontin’ a grill. Gives new meaning to a “million dollar smile.”

Sheesh.

Anyway, CBN’s website now has a nifty new tool that allows you to search for the video of an individual story. So instead of having to watch the whole show to see yours truly get tazered or otherwise mangled for the benefit of the kingdom, you can now watch just that segment or feature. Now if they would just get RSS up and running!

On Friday evening, I had the opportunity to speak to the men at Christ the King Church in Oxford, Michigan. They have made a real priority of building their men’s ministry and preparing their guys for battle spiritually.

They had more show up than originally expected, including a gaggle of leather-clad bikers who were there promoting Hogs In Ministry - a motorcycle outreach ministry. For some reason, I find that funny. Cool, but funny. Some of my buddies from His 2 Overcome Ministries drove over to heckle me during the speech. Good to see you guys.

The banquet went well, and the most interesting person I met that night was a woman named Kim Bogart – She and her husband Tim have twelve children – six of their own and six adopted, from three countries, three of which have downs syndrome. What a lady! Though they could be called Natalists, they aren’t adopting for political reasons - they just love children! Congratulations Kim and Tim! I don’t know if a dozen is any cheaper, but it’s got to be satisfying knowing you’ve touched so many young lives.

Thanks to my new friend Jim Kirkland for a great place to stay, and for coordinating the event.

On another note, on the plane I read a couple of really good books – One is Jim’s Path – by Dr. James D. Fritz. Jim is the dean of Men at Appalachian Bible College here in Beckley. He also goes to my church. Jim is a quadriplegic, the result of a car crash more than 20 years ago. His story is an encouraging one of God’s grace through suffering.

I also read Courage that Changed the World – by Rick Joyner, an interesting history of the Knights of St. John. And I started Bob Cornuke’s new book, Relic Quest. I interviewed Bob once, and he’s quite the adventurer.

Finally, I spent four hours in the detroit airport on the way home. It’s really modern and cool. Especially this wacky 1/4 mile tunnel between concourses. The walls exude eerie colored light, and funky new-age music plays as you ride the moving sidewalk. It’s really neat, in a Jetsons kinda way. Watch a video of it here. (2 meg)