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Jungle Pilot : The Story of Nate Saint (Sunday Reading)

January 12, 2020 by Lynn 4 Comments

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Sunday Reading is a new feature that we are doing for 2020. We hope that it is a feature that you enjoy!

It is no secret that our family loves to read. We read all kinds of books including Christian biographies and theological type books. We shared a little bit about this when we shared about reading outside the box.

Grace does not read your typical college girl type of books, and I don’t read a lot of modern fiction like many people I know do. We read mainly nonfiction, and we love to encourage others to read nonfiction.

We often share the nonfiction history books that we read, but we want to also share some of the other books we read including some of the Christian books and biographies. Books by authors like C.S Lewis, Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther, and more.

In the past, we have not shared a lot of Christian, theology, or political type books because we didn’t want to deal with the nasty comments that those type of books tend to get, but since they are a big part of what we read, Grace and I decided to start sharing some of them on Sundays.

You don’t have to agree with everything you read. The goal with reading is to help you grow, learn, and think. We know not everyone has a desire to read books like Christian biographies or books by C.S. Lewis, Bonhoeffer, or Martin Luther, but we are hoping you don’t mind a few books like that added to the mix of books we already share.

We also hope that it will inspire you to add a few Christian books or biographies to your 2020 reading.

We will always put Sunday reading in the title of the post, so if you don’t want to see what Christian books we are reading, feel free to skip it. For those of you that love Christian books as much as we do, we hope that you find a few books to add to your reading pile.

For this week’s Sunday Reading we are featuring one of our family’s favorite Christian biographies.

I have been reading Christian biographies since I was a teenager. Some of my all time favorite books are biographies. I have always found it encouraging to read about the lives and struggles of others. We can learn so much from learning how others deal with the trials of this life.

Jungle Pilot: The Story of Nate Saint

Jungle Pilot: The Story of Nate Saint Martyred Missionary to Equador is one of the best missionary biographies that I have read.

Years ago, when I was a teenager, I read quite a few books on Jim and Elisabeth Elliot. I read and loved Shadow of the Almighty, Through the Gates of Splendor, and several other books about their lives. But I didn’t read much about Nate Saint until more recently.

Nate Saint was a missionary pilot, who with his four friends, including Jim Elliot, was killed in Ecuador by the Auca tribe and became a martyr. This story happened over sixty years ago, but it is an adventure missionary story that grips the reader even today.

This is a story of abandoning your life for the work of Christ. It is an inspirational story that you won’t forget. If you have read about Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, but do not know a lot about Nate Saint I highly recommend Jungle Pilot.

This book is also a great book for teens to read. I had all three of my kids read it during high school and it ended up being one of their favorite Christian biographies that they read during high school.

Backlist Book Picks

January 10, 2020 by Lynn 2 Comments

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Backlist book picks are back!

We took a few weeks off from sharing backlist books, but we are exciting to be featuring them again every Friday.

Social media and book websites are full of popular new releases. The books that are popular right now. The ones that everyone seems to be reading.

This is especially true when it comes to fiction. You see the latest most popular fiction books everywhere on social media and books websites.

We understand why that is the case. Publishers and authors want to get the word out about their books.

The reality is that many great books are released each week, but there are so many older books that are also worth reading. Books that were released last year, five years ago, or even ten or more years ago.

Great books are often called great books because they have stood the test of time. They are the books we recommend now and will still be recommending five years from now. They are books that get attention because they are well written books, not just because they are the hot new books that everyone is reading.

Every Friday we feature a couple of our favorite backlist books. Today we are featuring two memoirs that I loved.

Hillbilly Elegy

The author is a former marine and Yale Law School graduate. This book shares a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a look at the struggles of America’s white working class. Hillbilly Elegy was one of my favorite books of 2016. It is a tough subject, but I think an important one that many people don’t want to talk about. It is real life stuff that is not easy to read at all. But this book is the reality of life for many people. This book takes place in the Appalachian mountain area of the country. Some of what this book deals with is unique to that area, but much of it is reality all over America. I think many families will be able to relate in some way to this story.

Walk to Beautiful

Walk to Beautiful is the real life story of country music star Jimmy Wayne. It is amazing that Jimmy survived his childhood and teen years. But he didn’t just survive it he overcame it and now helps children, especially teenagers in foster care. This is a good, but tough read. Like Hillbilly Elegy it shares part of America that most people do not want to admit exists. We often look over seas, at third world countries, and see pain, suffering, poverty, and abuse, but we over look it in our own neighborhoods and cities. It is not that we can’t see it, it is often that we choose not to. The reality is that most of us, me included, don’t take the time to see what goes on around us. This book forces you to see it. It leaves a view in your mind that is hard to forget

Book Dates with Kids

January 7, 2020 by Lynn 6 Comments

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Do you struggle to find quality fun things to do with your teens and college aged kids? Have you ever tried doing book dates with your kids? It may sound a little strange, but they are so much fun!

Several years ago my kids started taking me out to eat for my birthday. They always struggled to come up with gift ideas for me.

My birthday is also in December which means that is comes during a month that is often short on money and time.

Birthday lunches or dinners solved this problem. Each of my kids takes me out to eat. We then spend a few hours shopping or doing something else fun together.

We usually do lunch since it is cheaper than dinner. They let me pick where we eat. I try to pick something that is not very expensive. Usually we end up going to Chick-Fil-A, Chipotle, or something similar.

It is often hard to get quality one on one time with teens and college kids. My kids taking me out to lunch is one of the best gifts they can give me. Not only are they paying for lunch they are spending time with me. That allows for good conversation and discussions about life and issues that they may be struggling with.

This year I decided to add book dates to our birthday lunch dates. At first my kids weren’t sure what to think but in the end they all ended up loving it.

What is a book date?

For us it meant going to a bookstore and picking out each other a book. We went into the bookstore and went our separate ways. I picked out a book for the kid I was with and they picked out a book for me. There were really no rules except to pick out a book that we thought the other one would enjoy.

Because our family loves books and we can’t keep up with what each of us has read or owns we showed each other the books before we paid for them. This way we didn’t end up buying a book that the person had read or had already bought.

My son found this the most challenging, but in the end he enjoyed it. I told him it was good practice for buying gifts for a girlfriend or wife someday. 🙂

My son ended up picking out a book for me that I probably never would have picked for myself, but I think it is a book that I will really enjoy.

That is part of the fun of this challenge though. It helps push you outside your normal reading choices. It also shows you how much you know about each other’s reading tastes.

My son got me I Choose Peace: Raw Stories of Real People Finding Contentment and Happiness. He knows I like biographies and memoirs and that I always have at least one Christian book going.

This book is a collection of stories of famous people whose lives where changed when they placed God first. I think it will be an interesting read.

I couldn’t decide on what book to get my son. I found two books that I thought would be good leadership, hard work, life skills type of books so I ended up getting both of them for him.

I got him Make Your Bed and Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations both by Admiral William McRaven. Even if he does not read these now I think that they will be books that he will enjoy at some point over the next few years.

Grace loves books and loves buying books for gifts, so she enjoyed the book date the most. It will be something that we definitely do again. I think it would be fun to do for her birthday later this year.

The main problem I had picking out a book for Grace was that I can’t keep up with all the books that she has read. I could have easily found her a book that she would enjoy, but I did not want to buy a book that she had already read.

For Grace I ended up picking out Remembering Ella: A 1912 Murder and Mystery in the Arkansas Ozarks.

Grace enjoys true crime books and since we live in eastern Oklahoma we are familiar with the Ozarks. I thought she would enjoy this regional true crime book. I was also sure that it was a book that she hadn’t read.

For me Grace choose Tulsa 1921. It is a book about the Tulsa Race Riots.

There is not a lot written on the Tulsa Race Riots. In fact, most people outside of Oklahoma probably don’t know exactly what the Tulsa Race Riots are. I have lived in Oklahoma for over twenty years and I do not know a lot about them.

I read Dreamland Burning last year, which is a fictional YA book about the Tulsa Race Riots. After reading that book I mentioned that I wanted to know more about the Tulsa Race Riots, so when Grace saw Tulsa 1921 she know that I would enjoy it.

My oldest daughter is extremely structured and likes to plan stuff out. I did not tell her ahead of time what we were doing, so she wasn’t sure what to think because she wanted to put some thought into what book to buy.

My goal for this was for it to be spontaneous and fun. I didn’t want them to put a ton of thought into it. It wanted it to be spontaneous. In the end she really enjoyed it and was glad we did it.

She found a book for me that she thought I would love a couple minutes after we walked into the store. Which I think helped her enjoy it because she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to just quickly find a book.

The book she got me was A Bookshop In Berlin. It is about a Jewish bookseller during WWII. It looks like a great book and I can’t wait to read it. It is a newer release that I had never heard of.

For her I got The Way of the Reaper: My Greatest Untold Missions and the Art of Being a Sniper.

Both my daughters love reading nonfiction history and military type books. They are not the typical type of books that college girls enjoy, but they both love to read them.

Grace loves all kinds of history, but she especially enjoys WWI and WWII. My oldest daughter though prefers more modern history. She loves to read about events that have happened in the last twenty or thirty years.

For her I knew she would enjoy more of modern nonfiction history or military story. It turns out that it was a book that she had on her Amazon wish list, so I think I did a good job picking a book that she would enjoy. I am pretty sure it is a book that my husband and son will also read and enjoy.

And the fact that we all picked out nonfiction books for each other is a pretty good look at our family’s reading life. We do read fiction, but given a choice we almost always pick the nonfiction reads.

How do you do a book date?

Really there were no rules for doing book dates with your kids. The goal is to spend time together and have some fun.

The books we picked for each are books that will create memories. They may end up becoming a favorite books, but even if they don’t we created a memory that will last for years.

I am pretty sure book dates will be a new tradition for my birthday dates with my kids. They might even be a new tradition for their birthdays.

And in case you are curious I paid for the books not my kids. I had a couple of giftcards so we went to Barnes and Noble. Books at Barnes and Noble are not usually cheap, so I didn’t want the kids to have spend that much on a gift for me on top of lunch.

The same idea could be done at an Independent or used bookstore. A used bookstore would be a lot of fun and would be an inexpensive way to spend time together. Well, inexpensive if you just buy one book each.

If you have teens, college aged kids, or even tweens that love to read I encourage you to give this a try. They might find it really fun to pick out a book for you and you for them!

Favorite Books 2019 (Grace)

January 4, 2020 by Grace Leave a Comment

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I had a decent reading year in 2019. I enjoyed so many books. I read a total of 87, which means that my mom out read me this year. But I will blame it on college as that seems to be what has hampered my reading the past two years.

This year though was not just about great books. I was able to find amazing authors that I am now reading every book of theirs that I can.

Yet, I told myself that I could only have one of each author on my favorite books list. I also made sure to include one fiction book. I only read eleven fiction in 2019, so it was easy to pick a favorite fiction. It was tough to narrow it down to nine favorite nonfiction books.

I love to read and hope you will find one or two of these books so they can make your top reads of 2020

Here are my top 10 for 2019.

Starship Troopers was recommended to me by a friend. I was excited once I researched about it, so my mom bought it for me so that I could read it. Yes, it was a little slow at the beginning. But once I got into the story and main character I couldn’t put it down. There was so much truth and depth to it. I can see why this is a controversial book, but I don’t mind controversy in books. On top of that, the sci-fi and the depth of character made me want more pages in the book. If you are looking for a great sci-fi read, this might be for you.

Beyond the Call had been on my shelf for a while. But this year, I picked it up and am so glad I did. It was such an unusual story from World War II. It also showed me what post World War II was like and how brave men helped save soldiers lives.

Psalms by Bonhoeffer was one of the books by Bonhoeffer that I read this year. I am currently very interested in this man. His writing is so different. I do not always agree with him, but I really enjoy his writing. I loved his book Cost of Discipleship and almost put it on the list, but I decided I liked his Psalms book a little better. And I figured less people know about his Psalms book, so this gave me an opportunity to share about it. It really shows the depth of the Psalms. If you are wanting to study this book of the Bible, you would probably find this short book helpful.

The Man from the Train is kind of like the book 1421 as it is all about what probably happened not with what we fully know. I loved The Man from the Train in the way you struggle to say you love a war book because it is tragic. Yet you can say it was good because it was such a well written story. This book also showed a lot about law enforcement of the early days. The research that had to go into this book had to be time consuming. I think if you love true crime that is better than fiction, you should check this out. Warning though it is gory.

Indestructible is another World War II book that I loved. Pappy Gunn was an amazing man, and what his family went through is harsh. It is happy story in the end though. Unlike others, which often end with family members and lots of friends dead, this is about a family who is separated through the struggles of war but at the end are able to meet again. It is a big book but was a page turner for me.

How to Read a Book is something I think every reader should read. It is a very structured and maybe even boarders on a little wanting, but I learned a lot. It teaches you how to become a better reader. I liked half of the book better than the other half because there are somethings I will never do as a reader, like read a book five times. But I learned a lot, which is what I love to do when reading.

Devotion by Adam Makos was so good. I am now huge fan of Adam Makos and even got to meet him when he came to Oklahoma for a book event. I love his writing. He makes history flow so well. Most of his books make me feel like I am right there with the people. I wanted to put Spearhead and A Higher Call on my list, but I was not going to put multiply books by the same author on the list. So I put Devotion because it is a unique story (not that all of his stories aren’t), has great characters, a touching ending, on the Korean War, and so on. If you have read some of Makos and liked them, this one will be for you too.

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis is probably the most thought provoking book of his that I have read. I didn’t agree with everything. But I understood a lot of his thoughts and where he was coming from. He wrote it through pain and suffering. So if you have gone through a tough time, then you will understand some of C.S. Lewis’s thoughts. It helped me see that others have dealt with some of the similar thoughts and made it through it.

The Polar Bear Expedition is another book of hidden history that many people don’t know about. I had no clue from my history lessons that the US and other countries had invaded Russia in 1918. It was also well written, which is part of why I loved the story. I learned a lot and it made me appreciate what the men in the Polar Bear Expedition went through.

Christian Fellowship: The Church Members Guide was another book recommended to me by a friend. After reading it, I told him that I believe every church member should read it. It was not that I agreed with everything in the book. I didn’t. I had issues with it, but it made me relook at church. At the time I was reading it, I was struggling with certain things about church life, and this book reminded me of the importance of what biblical church and church membership is all about.

Favorite Books 2019 (Lynn)

January 3, 2020 by Lynn 4 Comments

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Can you believe that it is 2020?

2019 was a good reading year for me. I did not really have a reading goal besides finishing my books for every state challenge.

In the past I have set a goal to read one hundred books, but I have found that when I do that I focus on quantity rather than quality. So for 2019 I did not set a goal for how many books I wanted to read. My goal was just to read.

I really did not pay attention to my book count for the year until I was thinking about my favorite books for 2019 and decided to add up how many books I had read.

I was quite surprised to find that I had read exactly one hundred books.

Most years I read way more nonfiction than fiction, but 2019 ended up being pretty even on the amount of fiction vs nonfiction. Forty five books were fiction and the rest were nonfiction.

Today I am sharing ten of my favorite books from 2019. I really had trouble narrowing it down. I read so many great books this year. I feel like 2019 was a good reading year simply by the quality of books that I read.

I read books the challenged me and pushed me outside my comfort zone. I also read a few fiction books that made my list of all time favorite fiction books.