Appearance
Bachelor Girl (Little House the Rose Years)
I have looked everywhere for this series of books to complete my collection, and Amazon.com was the only place I could locate them. Thankfully I not only found them, but they were well priced and in excellent condition. My package arrived within a week, which is excellent for the slow postal service we have. I wish everything I was looking for was available on here...it would be the one-place-shop spot for me :)
The last flight of the Lady Jeannette
Uon publishing this book, I visited the village of Tincourt-Boucly to give them six copies for village use and one one leather bound, archiveable, copy for the village archives.This was on Memorial Day, 1998. While searching in the field where the bomber crashed, with the owner's permission, I was asked by the owner to visit his house. While there, he and his wife gave me the only identifiable, large pieces of the crashed bomber I had seen.After a month and half, I was able to prove they came from a B-24 and not a B-17. Though all U.S. records, stated no B-24 had crashed in France on the 9/10th of November, 1944.It took another month to prove all U.S. records wrong and based upon K.I.A. records, I was able to prove it was a B-24 that crashed at Tincourt-Boucly and not a B-17.First, I had to prove myself wrong and than I proved myself right. Everything in the first book is right, it just involves two different aircraft, thanks to to an 8th U.S.A.A.F. cover up of a Secret Bomber.All people who has purchased "Book One" of the two combined books to be, will have the opportunity to upgade to the new book when it is finished.In May, 2000, we found final and undeniable proof of the real crashsite of the B-17. It is written about in the first book, but was overlooked in 1994, due to a local author telling us of a crash date two weeks later. This, we later found was to protect a book he was writing for distribution in France.After a year, we are still waiting for the United States Mememorial Affairs-Washinton to follow U.S. Law and Regulations and conduct a full Search and Recover Mission at the actual crash site.This site was proven by the finding of the missing Identity Tag of 1st Lt. Donald J. Gott, the Pilot of the Lady Jeannette.What does all this prove? That U.S. aircraft records and our Missing In ACtion and Killed In Action reports can be wrong.Please visit, ... org and ... to keep up to date on this evolving research.
The last flight of the Lady Jeannette
The Last Flight of the Lady Jeannette is outstandly researched by Mr Cole. The Book resolves around a legend of a grave located in Cartigny, France with a stone cross headstone that reads 'American Aviator-Unknown-23 November 1944'(in French)Normaly all American remains of WWII are buried in a Americain Cemetery overseas or sent home at next of kin request. Mr Cole based the book kinda like a autobiography during his research. He is a WWI enthusiest who stubbled apon this grave in Cartingy, France and became determand to find out whose remains are in this grave. His research leads him to many people and to many places in the United States and France. He finds a secret that has been kept for 50 years which involves two Medal of Honor winners. The grave holds the remains of four Airmen of the B-17 Bomber 'The Lady Jeannette' Today Mr Cole had placed a Monument at the grave identifing these 4 men who died for their country in a horrible way and at the crash site. These four men also have offical graves in the states and at an American Cemetery in France which gives the book a good twist of reading. The book is almost set up like a mystery which does keep you interested even while he goes thru his routine of visiting WWI places and giving a book tour of the WWI battlefield areas. This could get boring if you are not a history buff or a military history buff at that. The book is good reading for both WWII and WWI buffs.
Tryin' Hard to Mellow Out
This book is a real find: warm, witty and wise, it has something for everyone. The author shares his insights into life in Middle America and beyond, giving us cause both for thought and for laughter. Done as a series of essays on issues major and minor, you can stop anywhere (reluctantly), and pick it up again to start off fresh on a new subject. I think most people will enjoy Mellowing Out with John Arnold and recommend it as an all-purpose gift. Why keep a good thing to yourself?
Educating Congregations: The Future of Christian Education
Charles R. Foster, Educating Congregations: The future of Christian Education, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994. 160 pages. ISBN 0-687-00245-1Reviewed by Ted WithamEducating Congregations is a hopeful voice for a Church that could easily lose its way in the "pluralistic and technological global village". (p. 11) It begins by acknowledging that the cup which used to hold the future of the Church is cracked. Foster argues that church education needs to be corporate, because it is only in community that we can nurture Christian faith, identity and vocation. He advocates an "incarnate" style of education.I found helpful Professor Foster's analysis of contemporary flaws in Christian education.1. We do seem to have lost our corporate memory, and are increasingly paralysed in our attempts to make connections with the next generation. We share too tiny a story of background with young people for them to explore with us.2. Our Bible teaching does seem irrelevant, in the sense that many people have been part of our churches and their educational programmes for decades and yet they have not had their real questions answered.3. Our Christian education goals do seem to have been subverted for therapeutic or even marketing purposes. The most severe implication of this is that Christian education has come to mean providing "programmes" for the children and a narrow group of adult "learners", rather than fostering the growth of all the congregation in the love and knowledge of God.4. It does appear that the Church continues to be held in "cultural captivity", subtly endorsing conventional secular values or political correctness, unable to make a Gospel critique of the culture.5. And in the past few years, we do seem to have seen the church's educational strategy collapse. Times have changed: computers and television have brought about systemic changes in our lives; in al denominations, the central support of congregations for Christian formation has been drastically curtailed, and market for! ces drive curriculum choices and changes.Into this challenging scenario, Charles Foster brings hope. Education, he says, consists in preparation for events, engagement in them, and critical reflection on them. He discerns different kinds of events in a congregation's life suitable for this "event-full" education. He names them paradigmatic (those that pattern the basis of our common life), seasonal, and occasional.Foster makes an attractive case that if a congregation attends seriously to the normal events in its life, it will be engaged in effective education of its members. It may well choose to continue to use existing programmes and processes, like EFM or set Sunday School syllabuses, but not as an end in themselves.Foster cites a church in which the members prepare for the seasons by extensive study of pertinent biblical texts and the traditions. This exhaustive process lasts months. This strategy can help a congregation build community, make meaning, and nurture its hope for its future.As I read this reader-friendly book, my hope was nurtured too. The US context translates only too readily into our own, and both the analysis presented and the strategies suggested are easy to appreciate and follow.My fear is that the title, Educating Congregations will put people off a resource that will have broad value in supporting the whole ministry of a congregation. This is one of a series of recent books which put education back into its proper rle, as an enabler of the total life of a congregation.
Educating Congregations: The Future of Christian Education
We used Charles Fosters' book in our Christian education class at my seminary. At the heart of this book is an extended project of congregational analysis, designed to be done by an individual or by a group to assess the way things are currently done in one's congregation or educational setting, and calling upon the reader to reflect on how things should be based upon real, factual observations of the situation.Foster looks at education in congregations on both a theoretical and a practical format. His first chapter looks the flaws he has identified in church education - lack of known history (corporate memory), irrelevance of teaching from the Bible (echoes of Barthian critiques here), a shift (Foster's word is 'subversion') from educational goals to pastoral/psychological/therapeutic models, an enshrinement of the status quo, and the lack of cohesive, comprehensive strategy in education.In the American religious history, a transition has taken place whereby it was once true that the majority of congregation members would know the Bible and something of their denominational/communal history from sources outside the church (family, school, etc.), but that this is no longer true. Foster looks at ways to build greater participation and community in the educational offerings of the church, which must mean more than one hour per week on Sunday mornings. Building relationships, making meaning from shared stories and texts, and looking past the malaise and despair that takes hold of some congregations (as they become embattled and reactive to events outside the church in the world, and sometimes to events inside the church.Educating Congregations is a book that should be read by everyone in the congregation, not just the pastor or the Sunday school coordinator. One of the Foster's primary issues, running through the whole text in different ways, is that the education of the congregation is the responsibility of the entire congregation, and each member has a role in this. Education is not something simply 'done' to the members of the congregation, but rather education should be active engagement between all the people, all bringing their gifts as individuals to fit into a comprehensive vision of community.It is a tall order, but one that is achievable. Foster's text is very accessible and interesting, complete with academic grounding and full of personal stories and examples that make the principles come alive for the reader.