Feeling trapped or sapped? Why not travel by map? Here’s a homeschool idea you might enjoy.

I’ve been getting that familiar feeling of wanderlust. Take Two has been sitting for almost a year now, tethered to a mooring in the Florida Keys. We’ve used the time to visit family, catch up with old friends, build the cruising kitty back up, get our big kids more independent (driving, working, going to college classes, and planning for the future). While I recognize that this is what we came back from traveling to do, I miss the change of scenery and sense of adventure. With COVID-19, I haven’t even been able to satisfy the itch by taking road trips (the Keys were closed and I wasn’t sure if I could get past the road block to get back in.)

So I’m combating that stuck-in-a-rut feeling by upping my homeschool game. If we can’t travel for real, why not travel in our imaginations? I’ve had these two books on the shelf since I was a public school teacher, and haven’t used them since the older kids were in elementary school. So I asked Rachel what she thought of “a trip around the world,” and she was game.

We had just finished a Life of Fred math book, the last Adventures In Phonics spelling list, a chemistry curriculum, and world history up to the American Revolution. It felt like time for a break. So we looked at the world map, picked 12 countries, and set a course for a summer’s worth of geography-based learning. We invited a friend to “come along,” made up two notebooks full of maps, flags, and language lessons, created a global passport, and collected our first “stamp” on June 1.

We have already “traveled” to Brazil and Kenya. While there’s been some push-back about the required journal entries, I’ve heard no complaints about coloring pages, virtual tours, or new recipes. The documentaries/movies we’ve found have been wonderful windows into places we’ve never visited in person.  I’m pleased to see the connections we’re already making between countries we chose at random, like the comparison between big cats (jaguars of the Amazon vs. leopards of the savannah), or the Portuguese exploration of both the East African and South American coasts.

Last weekend, we made a Brazilian chicken pie, Empadão de Frango, and the traditional bite-size chocolate desserts, Brigadeiros, and enjoyed both while watching the 2016 film directed by Jeff and Michael Zimbalist, Pelé: the Birth of a Legend. (Spoiler alert: Pelé himself makes a cameo appearance!)

Many recipes from around the world can be found online (I especially like those from the “Global Table Adventure” blog by Sasha Martin, author of Life from Scratch: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Forgiveness) and in a cookbook from my shelf, Around the World in 450 Recipes by Sarah Ainley.

We break down our “travel” week like this:

• Monday: Watch introductory video (like Paul Barbato’s Geography Now or Expoza Travel on YouTube) while eating “airplane snacks.” Stamp passport. Color flag. Label map.
• Tuesday: Begin Duolingo language lessons/notebook language activities. Take a virtual tour of landmark(s). Color a page from Around the World in 50 Pages, illustratedby Hasby Mubarok. Write five facts about the country in travel journal.

• Wednesday: Language lesson on Duolingo. Watch a natural history video (by BBC or National Geographic). Choose an animal to write about in travel journal.
• Thursday: Language lesson on Duolingo. Watch a video on history of the country. Choose a person from that country and do a short biography.

• Friday: Read a folktale, listen to music, or do an art project or craft.  
• Weekend: Dinner and a movie! Find a family-friendly movie made in or about your country and cook a meal using authentic recipes.

So far, the geography studies have given fresh life to our homeschool, and by virtue of family movie night and international cuisine, the whole family is along for the ride.

On a boat, silicone is often used as a sealant, adhesive, or lubricant, to waterproof a kitchen sink, bed a hatch, or grease an O-ring, respectively. But food-grade silicone is great in the galley, too.

Having a galley on a boat instead of a kitchen in a house means finding ways to simplify and maximize storage space. I love to bake, but don’t have room for all the specialized equipment I used to own. For example, I replaced bulky muffin tins with silicone baking cups, which take up very little space when nested.

I also have a silicone bundt pan, purchased by my friend Jennifer on S/V Cerca Trova. We were trading it back and forth all winter in a bundt-cake bake-off; it was a win-win arrangement (or should I say, gain-gain?) where she baked a cake, took two pieces and gave us the rest, then lent me the pan so I could bake a cake and give away two pieces. It does a great job, and stores small.

I also have silicone baking sheets in two sizes, which makes cookie-baking a snap. I also use them to bake rolls, biscuits, scones, pita bread, and Stromboli. They’re a good replacement for parchment paper, which often has plastic or chemical components.

In the freezer, I use washable/reusable silicone storage bags, which replace plastic gallon zipper bags. They are sturdy and stand up better than plastic.

Our silicone-topped OXO spill-proof ice cube trays, which have lasted for years, provide us with ice for frozen drinks.

And when we have extra, we can pour smoothie into our silicone popsicle makers for a frozen treat. These were a gift-that-keeps-on-giving from my friend Annie on S/V Sea Trek.

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” —Jonathan Swift

I don’t know what Gail Gordon saw or felt when she first stood on the property that is now Casa Agua Azul, a home for abused and abandoned children on the shores of Lake Izabal in Guatemala, but it must have been powerful. I don’t know how, short of many miraculous coincidences, she’s been able to share her vision with the right people at the right time to make what was once a wisp of an idea into a solid place where children run laughing through the garden. And I don’t know how God will continue to sustain it and provide for the house parents and staff, and the seventeen children in their care, but I know that He will.

I know how I felt, the first time I met Gail four years ago at a Wednesday morning Bible study I attend when our boat is moored in the Florida Keys: intrigued. She was asking for prayer about plans for a property she had purchased, and about the endless difficulties of getting it cleared, cleaned up, rebuilt, funded, licensed, staffed, and operational as a children’s home. I took note but had no way of knowing how important that little piece of information would be to me, or how God can multiply one small act of faithfulness. When we found ourselves sailing into the Rio Dulce for hurricane season in 2018, I thought we were coming to Guatemala get our boat painted. I guess I forgot that God’s plans are always bigger than our own.

In October of 2018, as I walked through the gates of Casa Agua Azul, I was incredulous. I had seen photos from when friends of ours, fellow sailors Eric and Annie, had gone to Guatemala to help clear the land—back when it was abandoned and being used as the village pigsty. The place I saw was a hive of efficient and cheerful activity: a large clean building had been renovated and was ready for its first inhabitants, women were preparing lunch in the kitchen, and a team of missionaries was building private quarters for the house parents, Jerry and Griselda. People were moving rocks, working on pathways, and creating beautiful green-spaces under the mango trees.

I remember the people I met that day, the prayers for Jerry an Griselda, and the conversations about vision. I myself had a vision that day. While looking at the house, I saw many beautiful murals and scriptures that had been painted on the walls by volunteers. An empty wall on the second floor beckoned—and I imagined what I would paint if ever given the chance. I don’t know why I even had that audacious thought—that I would paint a mural! I had never painted art on a wall before, but I got a picture in my mind of what it would look like completed.

In September of 2019, I flew back to Guatemala to visit a friend who was having a baby. I spent a day at Casa Agua Azul, playing with the kids and visiting with people who, a year before, had been strangers to me, and were now like family. I barely recognized the property as I stood on the porch of Jerry and Griselda’s finished house: there was a playground, a covered visitors’ pavilion, a boat slip (dug in part by the hands of my own boys), a lovely garden with pebble pathways. There were now a dozen children there—laughing, playing, arguing, running around, doing all the things normal children do.

I spent the day helping in the kitchen, reading stories to children, racing matchbox cars on the floor, and singing songs in Spanish and English, sharing my ukulele with small, eager musicians. During the ten months we had lived in Guatemala, our connection to this place had grown from mild interest to full-blown engagement. Our boys had been volunteering every weekend doing physical jobs around the property, digging in the muddy pit that would someday be a boat slip, hauling rocks, doing odd jobs—whatever was needed. A fellow boat-kid, Deon, often went with them, and several of my friends from the marina had come to visit, to see what it was we were so excited about.

We became friends with Jerry and Griselda, sharing meals at the house and on our boat. We celebrated the arrival of the first children at the home, Sofia and Otto, and watched Otto grow from a small and sickly baby to a healthy and happy toddler. After sharing my mural idea with Gail on one of our visits, I spent a month of Sundays with my nose to the wall, dabbing paint, and meditating on the scripture that is now written there: “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news” (Isaiah 52:7).

In a country with desperate poverty, a history of genocide, child trafficking, and rampant abuse and neglect, a safe place for children is good news indeed. And I got to witness it happening in real time. When our boat motored slowly out of the river in April of 2019, we felt as if we had left a little piece of ourselves behind. Being a part of Casa Agua Azul changed us from estranjeros into familia and made us feel at home in Guatemala.

When I visited in September, I found a treasure on the third floor: a simple wooden cross hanging in a window with an inscription that reads: “You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, Oh God our Savior. You are the hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas” (Psalm 65:5 NLT). It was a token left by Eric and Annie, and they couldn’t have known when they wrote on those scraps of wood how God would answer their prayers, or how He would give hope to these children, but they were a part of something bigger than themselves.

This is what it means to have vision: to get a glimpse of what could be and act in faith so that what is imagined can become real.

It has been one of the greatest privileges in the traveling life of our family to be a part of Casa Agua Azul. On our journey, we have seen such heartbreaking poverty: the ravages of systemic inequality, greed, human selfishness, war, ignorance, and environmental damage. We sometimes feel powerless in the face of the forces that shape our world and that push so many to the edge of survival. When we can, we help in small ways, but it is in partnering with ministries like Bluewater Surrender that we see the power of good multiplied. It is one thing to give financially, and entirely another to participate personally, to put our hands to work, and to engage with our hearts. Both are needed.

Since Gail first shared her vision for that property on the lake, many have come alongside her to support the growth and maintenance of Casa Agua Azul. I’m writing this with the hopes that you too will want to participate and to help meet the needs of 17 at-risk children. Normally, there is a large fundraiser this time of year that helps sustain the children’s home—and though they can’t hold the event, the needs haven’t changed; if anything, they have grown. But the work being done in Guatemala is crucial for breaking the cycle of poverty and abuse for the kids that call Casa Agua Azul home. Investing in children by placing them in a family setting where they can experience unconditional love offers the potential for real change. I know that what gets donated to Bluewater Surrender goes directly to caring for the children at Casa Agua Azul. I have witnessed the transformation firsthand, and I have seen how the vision is carried forward: one step at a time, with prayer and hard work, and partnership.

Vision means seeing where God is already at work, joining that work, and becoming the answer to our own prayers.

Will you join our family in supporting Blue Water Surrender and the Casa Agua Azul? Whether you make a one-time gift or offer monthly support, you’ll be a part of something bigger than yourself.

For more information or to donate directly, go to https://www.bluewatersurrender.org/

Book recommendations:

• In Pursuit of Orphan Excellence by Philip Darke
• When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert
• Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers: Prayer for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
• Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan

Part of being self-sufficient means going to the doctor very seldom. We have learned over the years how to treat common ailments ourselves. With doctors tied up at the moment treating very ill patients with COVID-19, it’s a good time to learn how to support your body’s immune system using plant-based remedies. (Note: this is not medical advice nor am I a medical professional. I recommend only food-grade supplements which we have found to be beneficial. If you are sick, call a doctor.)

On our boat, we carry both prescription medications (for emergencies) and natural remedies (for run-of-the-mill illnesses). Over the last 12 years, we have used far more supplements/herbs than medicines. In fact, except to prevent infection from a monkey scratch, no one has been on antibiotics at all since we bought the boat. Whether by luck or lifestyle, no one on our boat takes ANY prescription medications. Here are some of our holistic healing hacks:

For assisting fevers (not fighting them) we drink a tea made of equal parts peppermint, yarrow, elder flower, and elder berry. We want to make sure the body does its job of burning off bad bugs, so we also cover up and sweat our way to wellness.

For cold symptoms, a tea made from fresh or dried ginger root and honey seems to reduce severity and duration of symptoms. I just bought some licorice root to add for coughs.

The Beeyoutiful Company produces supplements like “Ultra Immune” which we take preventatively when something’s going around. Our other favorite products are the Supermom, Superdad, and Superkid multivitamins, the Berrywell elder berry syrup, the Tummy Tuneup probiotic, the Bone Ami mineral supplement, the Gentle-C vitamins, Cranberry Power Cleanse, Yeast Assassin, and Miracle Salve for cuts and scrapes.

Tummy troubles are treated with pro-biotics and activated charcoal, but truthfully, we don’t have many problems.

I use a wide range of essential oils to treat all sorts of ailments, from burns (lavender) to stuffy noses (eucalyptus) to skin rashes (tea tree) to oregano (infections of all kinds). Some of the oils must be diluted to be used, and some are for external use only. I dilute oregano oil in warm olive oil and add crushed garlic. After straining it, it can be used externally, rubbed around the ears and throat to fight earaches and swollen glands/sore throat. Bonus: you walk around smelling like an Italian restaurant!

“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”  –Morpheus, The Matrix (Lana Wachowski)

Do you feel some days like the character Cypher in The Matrix, wishing everything could go back to normal? “Why, oh why didn’t I take the blue pill?” What wouldn’t you give to put everything back the way it was in January, at the start of 2020, when you were full of optimism and plans for the new year?

Careful…that’s a loaded question. Maybe “normal” wasn’t working as well as we thought. The suddenly-clear skies over big cities seem to agree. What is revealed by a few weeks of shut-downs is that our society, our government, our financial system, our families, our very health—these things are a lot more fragile than we like to think. They may even be built on illusions.

But unplugging everyone simultaneously is dangerous, too. Unless you were already free-thinking, self-sufficient, and counter-cultural, simply removing the construct isn’t going to make you so. In fact, it’s more likely to put you into shock. Sending children home from school if there is an abuser in the family puts them more at risk. Removing income from an impoverished family places them in an even more precarious place. Isolating addicts and mentally ill people makes them more desperate. We may be saving thousands from immediate death by pandemic at the cost of millions from slow death by pandemic response. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t obey orders put in place to protect the vulnerable or to limit spread of the disease, but we should do so carefully, considering the collateral damage. We must lay aside our rights as a free people for the good of many, but only temporarily. The founders of the American Democratic experiment feared loss of liberty more than loss of life. Do we?

I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist (unless you consider the cosmic force of evil conspiring against good). But while we’re in the middle of this pandemic, I am asking some questions: Who is in control? Who is telling the truth, and who is not? Who decides what happens next? Where is the flow of money and power? What will happen to our democratic republic if this goes on indefinitely? Looking forward to the “after” of this pandemic, I’m not feeling very optimistic. (This was supposed to be a pep talk, but I’m a little short on pep at the moment. Bear with me.)

Since this is a health crisis, I’m probably going out on a limb by stating that I do not believe that more “healthcare” is equivalent to more “health.” We have been confusing these terms for a long time, and unless we change the paradigm, we will continue to make decisions as a species that erode our future wellness and that of our planet. If we are looking for a quick fix—a shiny new medicine, a vaccine that will make all this bad go away, then we will get what we have been getting from the Pill Pushers: dependence on costly medications that treat symptoms instead of processes that promote wholeness in our bodies and minds. (And don’t forget the side effects…)

I have long been a proponent of slow food, fresh air and sunshine, exercise, quality rest, holistic remedies, good relationships, and spiritual well-being. These things require lifestyle change and sacrifice, but they result in improved overall health. I am not discounting the need for medical care or life-saving drugs; even healthy people get sick sometimes. I am not shunning expert advice about how to be well. I am not saying that those who care for patients every day are not heroic and life-saving (they are!). And I am not ignoring the needs of the most vulnerable people in our society: the poor whose choices are limited by their station (one could argue that I live well because they live in poverty—who grows my food? Who converts raw materials into my fuel? Who makes my clothes?)

I am only saying that at the top levels, the healthcare system as it exists now is based on power and money, and not compassion for the ill. No one benefits from dead people, and no one benefits from well people who don’t need a doctor. What the system needs to remain in place is a large population of people who are a little bit sick all the time. And to sustain itself, it preys on fear and ignorance. And don’t forget laziness, because, honestly, even if we know what’s best for us, it really is easier to take a pill than eat right and exercise, and natural remedies require a lot of time and diligence.

As we wait, and as we slowly crawl toward recovery, let us not forget the lessons we are learning. Ask hard questions, think deep thoughts, search out the Truth. You may find that the world as you knew it was “pulled over your eyes to blind you” (Morpheus again) and even though it’s harder to go forward with that knowledge, it’s better than selling out to go back to a false sense of security.

Rachel caught a Cassiopeia in a net Saturday morning and put it in a bucket. She named it “Bob” and asked if we could keep it (not forever, just for a week). I told her it wouldn’t be happy in the bucket long-term, but that she could keep it for a few hours. To identify it, we looked it up in our beautiful reference book, Caribbean Reef Life: A Field Guide for Divers by Mickey Charteris and also read a few articles on the internet. We see these Upside Down Jellyfish all the time where we are in Florida, but today, we learned some surprising facts about them:

They photosynthesize and they eat. Like their fellow invertebrates, the corals, they have symbiotic algae (Zooxanthellae) that provide a food source and color. They also have many small mouths on their “arms” and ingest zooplankton…I guess that makes them omnivores!

They reproduce sexually and asexually. The adult males release sperm into the water that fertilizes ova produced by females. The larvae float in the sea until they find a place to land, where they become polyps, which reproduce asexually by budding. The adult phase is a medusa, which can sometimes be seen swimming, bell upwards, but…

They usually live upside-down, tentacles upward in warm shallow water. They make look like plants or underwater flower bouquets (the mangrove variety looks like it has seagrass growing out of it), but don’t be deceived, they are animals. They live in shallow water so that the sunlight can reach their zooxanthellae symbiotes. They come in a surprising variety of shapes and colors.

They sleep! A 2017 study discovered that even though these simple invertebrate life forms do not have brains or neurons, they have a nocturnal sleep phase. It has the researchers at Cal Tech scratching their heads.

They produce poisonous mucous that makes you itch! We discovered this firsthand, unfortunately. A recent study finally explained why swimming near upside down jellyfish can cause an itchy rash. They release a slimy substance that contains stinging nematocysts.

Even the simplest creatures on earth are surprisingly complex. The more I learn, the more I realize I know virtually nothing.

For more information on Cassiopeia:

https://www.livescience.com/upside-down-jellyfish-make-venomous-mucus-bombs.html

https://animals.howstuffworks.com/marine-life/do-jellyfish-sleep-brain.htm

This is a follow-up post for those who took me at my word and are interested in the nuts-and-bolts of creative homeschooling. These are real activities that I did with my 8-year-old daughter Rachel in the last few weeks. They could be altered for younger or older students, or for different areas of study. I tried to include something for every subject. They would be perfect for a unit study—all activities centered around the same topic.

For what it’s worth, I got my certificate in early childhood education from Middlebury College (class of 1997) and taught kindergarten in Dekalb County Schools (Atlanta) before I started homeschooling in 2004. While teaching in a public school helped me a lot with curriculum planning and purchasing materials, it was surprisingly poor preparation for teaching my own children at home. It’s the hardest and most rewarding job I’ve ever had. Shoot me an email if you have any questions.

Science/Writing: Acid Base Indicator/Reaction and Lab Write Up

We used red cabbage juice (which I made in my blender) as an acid base indicator to test different household substances in separate test tubes/jars: lemon juice, baking soda, dish soap, and vinegar. We observed the color change as we added each substance and determined which were acids and which bases. We then mixed the solution containing vinegar (pink) and baking soda (blue) and watched the fizzy reaction turn the liquid back to a neutral (purple). It was dramatic, and fun.

Then came the not-as-fun part: writing up the lab report. I wrote six headings (based on the scientific method) on a piece of paper and I sat with Rachel as she worked through each section. In addition to scientific inquiry, this activity offers writing skills practice in the areas of grammar, punctuation, penmanship, spelling, and vocabulary. Sometimes getting her to finish the write-up is like pulling teeth, but it’s a required part of every fun experiment we do. Here are the six headings of the lab write-up:

1. Question
2. Hypothesis
3. Materials
4. Procedure
5. Observations
6. Conclusion

Reading: Illustrated Classics (Charlotte Mason method and coloring pages)

Rachel recently made the leap to reading chapter books independently. She likes these condensed versions of classic literature, and asked me if I could copy some of the illustrations for her to color. The Charlotte Mason method has your child retell the story (either aloud or written)…so why not have the conversations about the book over coloring?

Spelling: Flashcard Memory Game

We took Rachel’s word list—22 words from Adventures in Phonics List 22 and turned them into a matching game. We wrote the words on 22 cards, illustrated them on 22 more cards, then put the words in two grids. She had to find the correct word for each picture. Other ways to use the game: put the cards in alphabetical order, match the homonyms using pictures or words only, make sentences using as many words per sentence as you can, and spell each word aloud when shown a picture.

Math: Skip Bo Math Facts

This is a fun card game (cousin to UNO), but we’re not playing by the rules! Rachel is working on her multiplication facts to 12, and this is a fast, fun way to do it. The wild cards (Skip Bo) have a value of 0, but every other card is taken at face value. We shuffle the big deck, split it into two piles, and I flip the cards two at a time. She calls out the product of the two factors. If she doesn’t know, or takes too long, I keep the cards to review later. If she gets the answer correct, she keeps the cards. Could be used for adding if your kid isn’t ready to multiply, or even for simplifying fractions if they’ve moved beyond multiplication.

History/Geography: Map Labeling

We’ve been reading about the Age of Discovery in A Child’s History of the World, so in addition to adding a card to our illustrated deck of world history, we marked the voyages of Columbus on a map, color-coded by year. If your kid loves maps, it’s a great way to learn history. This year, we also learned about the Iditarod sled race and labeled a map of Alaska, showing the race route.

 Art: Beer Box Butterflies and Beer Box Monsters

This is an activity invented by Rachel herself! She turned the inserts in Jay’s Heineken beer cases into butterflies for today’s art project, but in the past, she’s used the inserts to make monsters. They had names and she made food so we could feed them. Pretty much any cardboard in our home is fair game for repurposing. All kids need to be creative are some art supplies and a little boredom.

How was last night different from all other nights? It was the first time in a long time that Jewish families all over the world could not gather with relatives and friends for the annual celebration of Passover. To all my Jewish friends, despite the disruption to normal life, I say “shalom, and chag Pesach sameach!”

On our boat, we are often just the seven of us at the table for Passover—we are a bit of an oddity as a Christian family celebrating the Jewish holiday instead of observing Easter. Our problem with “Christian” holidays like Easter, Christmas, and Halloween is that they are a conglomeration of pagan practices—basically, a small Jewish sect from the first century rolled like a snowball down the hill of history, collecting gods and traditions from every culture it passed through. But at its heart, Christianity is the offshoot of one of the world’s oldest religions.

While the word Easter originates with Eostre, a pagan goddess connected with the spring solstice and the season of fertility, Passover is a Biblical holiday fraught with meaning, symbolism, and fulfilled prophecy. Why shouldn’t those who claim as their Messiah (mashiach) a Jewish carpenter embrace a holiday he celebrated? As a student of the Bible, my curiosity has always drawn me toward the Jewish roots of Christianity; after all, the first students of the Rabbi Yeshua (Jesus) continued to hold sacred Jewish law and practice, while adding “grace” to their understanding of “redemption” and claiming that the promises of the prophets had been fulfilled. I argue that you can’t understand the gospel of a Jewish tax-collector (Mattityahu/Matthew) or the letters of a Pharisee convert (Sha’ul/Paul) in the New Testament without attempting to grasp the history and culture of the Old Testament (the Tanach: the Law/Torah, the prophets, and the writings).

My personal connection to Passover started when I was a kid. I have always had Jewish friends and been exposed to their traditions and holy days (and did I mention the food? Who doesn’t love latkes?). I even felt solidarity with Jewish classmates required to go to religious services every Saturday—I was raised Seventh-Day Adventist. Though I no longer identify with that denomination, keeping the Sabbath (Shabbat) sunset Friday to sunset Saturday has become pivotal to my weekly routine (God said, “take a 24-hour vacation once a week” and I said, “OK, sounds great!”). I even have Jewish ancestors on my mother’s side (the Stearman family), though I’m not sure it counts for much.

I had celebrated Passover with Jewish friends, but it wasn’t until I attended a Messianic Seder at Congregation Beth Adonai in Atlanta (with Rabbi Scott Sekulow presiding) that I began to understand the significance of the holiday in relation to Holy Week. While I was working as a water aerobics instructor at the Jewish Community Center in Atlanta, I came across a children’s Seder in the library and decided to teach my young children the significance of the holiday. I combined a simplified service for families with the messianic service, and voilà—the goyim began to celebrate Passover!

These are the main elements of Passover, and how they relate to Christianity:

Slavery: The twelve tribes of Israel were once slaves in Egypt, but God promised to free them and bring the people back to the land he had promised them (Exodus 6:6-8). Humans have a natural tendency towards sin (an archery term that means “to miss the mark”) or the breaking of God’s laws, a moral code for human behavior. He gave the Ten Commandments to Moshe (Moses) as basic guidelines for loving God and loving one’s neighbor—but without divine help, we humans are hopelessly inept at keeping them. God’s promise in prophetic writings to send a savior—Yeshua—extends the hope of freedom to everyone, not just the descendants of Israelite slaves. “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin…if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (Gospel of John 8:34-36).

Miracles: This part requires some willing suspension of disbelief (a.k.a. faith). The story of the Exodus is recounted during the meal, the way God commissioned Moses from a burning bush, the way He sent ten plagues to convince Pharaoh to give up his cheap labor force, the way He brought the Israelites out of Egypt and to the shore of the Red Sea, and the way He saved them from Pharaoh’s army (after he regretted freeing his cheap labor force and went after them). The ministry of Yeshua is reliant on miracles as well: on his healings, his control over the elements, his ability to reverse death: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Gospel of Matthew 11:5).

Sacrifice: The Passover lamb forms the centerpiece of the meal (or, in our case this year, the Passover chicken…). At the time of the exodus each household slaughtered a lamb and marked their doorway with its blood, as a sign of faith so that the Angel of Death (the tenth plague) would “pass over” their home. In every house without this mark, the first-born died (chiefly among the Egyptians, thus prompting them to let the people go). In Christian observance, Yeshua himself is the Passover lamb, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Gospel of John 1:29). His sacrifice is the once-and-for-all payment for the collective mistakes of humanity, his blood spilled so that God’s wrath at our wrong-doing would “pass over” us. This is how the most degenerate among us can find redemption and relationship with God (though not necessarily release from legal and relational consequences). This “blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Gospel of Matthew 26:28) is symbolized during the meal as wine.

Deliverance: On Passover, we eat unleavened bread to commemorate the Israelites coming out of Egypt in such haste that they didn’t have time to let their dough rise. It is eaten with bitter herbs and a sweet mixture of apples and honey to symbolize the bitterness of slavery sweetened by the hope of redemption. In Messianic traditions it is said that the matzo, the traditional flatbread eaten during the meal, is bruised, striped, and pierced, like Yeshua at his death: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). This is the bread that was broken at the last Passover which Yeshua shared with his disciples, a symbol of his sacrifice now celebrated as the rite of communion: “this is my body broken for you” (Gospel of Luke 22:19, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 11:24). There are three matzos on the plate; a Christian interpretation is that they symbolize the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with the middle matzo broken—part of it hidden away, and brought back at the end of the meal. It is the “afikomen,” Greek for “that which is to come,” reminiscent of the way that Yeshua was broken, resurrected, and returned to the Father, where he awaits the “end of the age”(Gospel of Matthew 24) to come back and usher in a kingdom of peace without end.

The first night of Passover is an evening of story-telling, laughter (the Seder requires the drinking of four glasses of wine…), delicious food, and good news (something we could really use at the moment). Paul sums up a gospel truth hidden in the Passover in a letter to the Romans, “For it makes no difference whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, since all have sinned and come short of earning God’s praise. By God’s grace, without earning it, all are granted the status of being considered righteous before him, through the act redeeming us from our enslavement to sin that was accomplished by the Messiah Yeshua.” (The Complete Jewish Bible, Romans 3:22-24).

Resources:

For the kids, Dreamworks’ Prince of Egypt is a succinct retelling of the Exodus story.

For more about the history of Easter: https://theconversation.com/why-easter-is-called-easter-and-other-little-known-facts-about-the-holiday-75025

For more about a Messianic celebration of Passover:: https://www.jewishvoice.org/read/blog/how-celebrate-passover-messianic-jew

For more about how archeology supports a historical exodus from Egypt: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/exodus-fact-or-fiction/

We bought Take Two in Fort Lauderdale twelve years ago this week. We had gone to look at her in December of 2007. These are photos from the time of purchase compared to now…we made our floating house a home! I’m feeling incredibly grateful for twelve years of memories, for the way living on a boat has changed us, and for our family of adventurous kids.

Note: I’ve written about this before, but prompted by friends who are participating in Plastic Free February, I’m making some practical suggestions for reducing our use of plastic, especially the single-use variety.

Living on the ocean, we see firsthand the accumulation of plastic waste. Shorelines on windward sides of islands can be completely buried under a confetti of plastic bottles, toys, fishing gear, shoes, forks, packaging and other waste. We have always tried to do our part, but it is hard to live without compromise. So often, our choices are limited by what’s available, by our budget, and by the time and energy we possess to do things the old-fashioned way.

For example, when the kids were younger, I used to bake everything my family consumed from scratch, from wheat berries that I ground myself. They came in five-gallon pails that were re-purposed after they were empty. So we had bread without plastic packaging. But right now we’re on a demanding school-work-activity schedule with four teenagers and an 8-year-old on the boat, which is moored in the Florida Keys. I am unable to keep up with the consumption—teenage boys eat a lot and I am not home long enough between drop-offs and pick-ups to prepare everything from scratch. So store-bought bread in a plastic bag has replaced home-made bread. We used to be in a veggie co-op in the Tampa Bay area, where we got a box of produce each week. But now we live on an island where the choices are limited. Even though I bring my washable mesh bags to the store to buy produce, a lot of our food—even the organic varieties—is packed in plastic.

I taught my children never to walk by a piece of trash, but to pick it up and dispose of it properly, as part of a bigger philosophy: leave the world better than you found it. But what can we do when it accumulates faster than we can clean it up? How can we prevent its ending up in the environment in the first place?

We must be savvy about our storage and waste because we live on a boat, but a lot of our tips and tricks could be tried anywhere! Here are some ideas that we have implemented:

• We drink tea or fresh juices made in a washable pitcher instead of buying soft drinks. We never use straws. We carry our own water in stainless steel bottles. We vote with our dollars and send the message to bottlers that we are not interested in their products.
• We purchase a single, natural, multi-purpose cleaning product in a gallon-size container (ECO-Orange is a good one) and dilute it in our own re-usable spray bottles. I have even experimented with making my own laundry soap. Cleaners are often made mostly of water and use a lot of packaging, in addition to being toxic.
• We carry cloth bags to the store and use washable mesh bags for produce (Purifyou).
• We store food in washable silicone bags instead of single-use plastic bags (Rezip and Sungwoo).

• All our babies wore cloth diapers. Because I was a stay-at-home-mom, I had the time and energy to wash and hang them. I’ve used the Bummis and the Indisposables brands.
• We don’t use disposable razors.
• We wear sun-protective clothing instead of buying sunscreen.
• We don’t shop at dollar stores. Almost everything in there will end up in a landfill.
• We store food in washable glass jars (which can be vacuum-sealed with the Foodsaver jar attachment) and Pyrex Snap-ware containers.

• We use washable shop towels instead of paper towels as much as possible. That saves paper use as well as plastic packaging.
• We buy bulk when it’s available. I buy eggs in biodegradable packaging instead of in plastic.
• We take our own dishes and cutlery to picnics and potlucks.

• When our kids were little, they played with wooden blocks, trains, and dolls with magnetic clothes instead of plastic toys. We try to use things made from natural materials/renewable resources as much as possible.
• We make as much of our food from scratch as we can. Convenience foods=plastic packaging.
• As much as possible, we try to collect verbs instead of nouns—spending money to make memories instead of buying stuff.