Education

Earlier this year I spoke with the Utah State School Board about the the sexual abuse prevention teaching that will start for K – 6th grade students in Utah in fall 2016.  The kind woman I spoke with told me that the focus of the program was to educate people about grooming. As a previous foster parent of many abused youth I understood the importance of teaching about grooming and how to beware of it. 

Now that we are seeing a bill come forward in the state of Utah that is promoting Comprehensive Sexuality Education I seeing grooming in a new light. 

This is what grooming looked like for the majority of my sexually abused foster children: First, someone gets the child alone or with a group of friends, away from their parents. Second, the older person or adult teaches them something new about either the adult body or the child’s body. They taught them new words and new sensations. Next, the child engaged in sexual behaviors and experiences. Finally, the child feels ready to engage in sexual intercourse. 

This is what grooming looks like for an abuser. 

Now, let’s examine what the school teachers would be doing if they chose to teach the SEICUS healthy sexuality guidelines through the Comprehensive Sexuality Education program. 

First, they would get the children away from their parents during the school day. Second, they teach the children new words and new things about their bodies, including new sensations and feelings. Next, they tell the children it is normal to engage in sexual experiences and behaviors. Finally, after a few years they expect the child is having sexual intercourse and offer information about abortion and contraceptive services to decrease responsibility and diminish cause and effect. 

It sounds to me like the Utah State School Board ought to say no to Comprehensive Sexuality Education because it would be grooming children for sexual behaviors and experiences. I agree, people need to understand grooming!  Law makers, school teachers and even the school board needs to understand what certain curriculums will groom the minds of children to do. 

Here is the table of contents and some examples from the SEICUS guidellines that would be taught to children in Utah if the Comprehensive Sexuality Education bill passes and if SEICUS guidelines are offered to adults as resources. 

Guidelines for Comprehensive

Sexuality Education: Key Concepts

and Topics (page 18 of the guidelines) 

 

Key Concept 1: Human Development

 

Topic 1: Reproductive and Sexual Anatomy

and Physiology

Topic 2: Puberty

Topic 3: Reproduction

Topic 4: Body Image

Topic 5: Sexual Orientation

Topic 6: Gender Identity

 

Key Concept 2: Relationships

 

Topic 1: Families

Topic 2: Friendship

Topic 3: Love

Topic 4: Romantic Relationships and Dating

Topic 5: Marriage and Lifetime

Commitments

Topic 6: Raising Children

 

Key Concept 3: Personal Skills

 

Topic 1: Values

Topic 2: Decision-making

Topic 3: Communication

Topic 4: Assertiveness

Topic 5: Negotiation

Topic 6: Looking for Help

 

Key Concept 4: Sexual Behavior

 

Topic 1: Sexuality Throughout Life

Topic 2: Masturbation

Topic 3: Shared Sexual Behavior

Topic 4: Sexual Abstinence

Topic 5: Human Sexual Response

Topic 6: Sexual Fantasy

Topic 7: Sexual Dysfunction

 

Key Concept 5: Sexual Health

 

Topic 1: Reproductive Health

Topic 2: Contraception

Topic 3: Pregnancy and Prenatal Care

Topic 4: Abortion

Topic 5: Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Topic 6: HIV and AIDS

Topic 7: Sexual Abuse, Assault, Violence,

and Harassment

 

Key Concept 6: Society and Culture

 

Topic 1: Sexuality and Society

Topic 2: Gender Roles

Topic 3: Sexuality and the Law

Topic 4: Sexuality and Religion

Topic 5: Diversity

Topic 6: Sexuality and the Media

Topic 7: Sexuality and the Arts 

 

Some Quotes From The Guidelines (due to space only a few have been selected) Please read the full document here.   https://www.siecus.org/_data/global/images/guidelines.pdf 

 

Age 5 – 8

 

Both boys and girls have body parts that feel good when touched. 

Touching and rubbing one’s own genitals to feel good is called masturbation.

Some boys and girls masturbate and others do not.

• Each body part has a correct name and a specific function.

• A person’s genitals, reproductive organs, and genes determine whether the person is male or female.

• A boy/man has nipples, a penis, a scrotum, and testicles.

• A girl/woman has breasts, nipples, a vulva, a clitoris, a vagina, a uterus, and ovaries. 

Vaginal intercourse – when a penis is placed inside a vagina – is the most common way for a sperm and egg to join. 

Dating is when two people who are romantically attracted to each other spend their free time together.

People often kiss, hug, touch, and engage in other sexual behaviors with one another to show caring and to feel good.

Couples have varied ways to share sexual pleasure with each other.

• Being sexual with another person usually involves more than sexual intercourse.

 

 

Age 9 – 12

During puberty, many people begin to develop sexual and romantic feelings.

Contraception can prevent fertilization and/or pregnancy. 

Both teenagers and adults may have romantic relationships.

• Masturbation is often the first way a person experiences sexual pleasure.

• Many boys and girls begin to masturbate for sexual pleasure during puberty.

• Some boys and girls never masturbate.

• Masturbation does not cause physical or mental harm.

• Some families, religions, and cultures believe that masturbation is wrong. (what is going to be taught here?) 

 

 

Age 12 – 15 

Some sexual and reproductive organs provide pleasure. 

The size and shape of sexual organs does not affect a person’s ability to reproduce or experience sexual pleasure. 

Friendships sometimes evolve into romantic relationships.

Values should be freely chosen after the alternatives and their consequences are evaluated. 

Being assertive in sexual situations may be especially difficult. 

• All people, regardless of biological sex, gender, age, ability, and culture, are sexual beings.

• Sexuality is experienced in a variety of ways at different stages and points in people’s lives.

Sexual feelings, fantasies, and desires occur throughout life.

• Masturbation, either alone or with a partner, is one way people can enjoy and express their sexuality

without risking pregnancy or an STD/HIV.

Many negative myths exist about masturbation

• Some sexual behaviors shared by partners include kissing; touching; talking; caressing; massaging; and oral, vaginal, or anal intercourse.

Many pleasurable sexual behaviors do not put an individual at risk for an unintended pregnancy or STDs/HIV.

• Both men and women can give and receive sexual pleasure.

 

Age 15 – 18

Individuals may want to use a mirror to look closely at their external organs so they can note any changes that may indicate health problems.

Reproductive functioning is different from sexual functioning. 

Some love relationships involve sexual intimacy while others do not. 

Dating can be a way to learn about other people, about romantic and sexual feelings and expressions, and about what it is like to be in an intimate relationship.

Deciding not to be a parent may be difficult because of societal and cultural pressures to have and raise children.

A person may accept his/her family’s values and not always agree with all of them. 

People who feel strongly about their values often share and affirm them publicly. 

• Communication about sexual feelings, desires, and boundaries can improve sexual relationships.

Communication is necessary to assure consent for a sexual relationship and any sexual behavior. 

• Sexuality is a natural part of being human.

• Sexuality is one component of total well-being to be expressed in harmony with other life needs.

Healthy sexuality enhances total well-being.

• People who are single, married, or in a committed relationship may masturbate.

• Masturbation may be an important part of a couple’s sexual relationship.

Being sexual with another person does not mean that masturbation must or should stop. 

• For many people, sharing a sexual experience with a partner is a satisfying way to express sexuality.

• Couples and individuals need to decide how to express their sexual feelings.

• As people get older, they may continue to discover new forms of sexual expression to share with a partner.

Individuals can learn what gives them sexual pleasure and communicate that to partners in order to enhance their sexual relationships. 

People can have sexual fantasies about individuals of all genders without it necessarily affecting their understanding of their sexual orientation. 

• Some people use erotic photographs, movies, art, literature, or the Internet to enhance their sexual fantasies when alone or with a partner.

With the current Utah Legislation HB 246 that has been proposed in Utah, we feel it is timely to remind Utah that they are actually doing really well, and there is no reason to change when we are very successful in our schools when it comes to combating STDs and teen pregnancy. 

Utah is getting it right when it comes to code and reproductive education and health. Lawmakers have been very conscientious recognizing the rights of parents with an “opt-in” policy and in protecting the conscience of the child, while providing necessary health and disease information.  It is correct and appropriate that Utah policy mandates abstinence only instruction and requires curriculum materials to exclude:

Intricacies of intercourse, sexual stimulation, or erotic behavior

Advocacy of homosexuality

Advocacy or encouragement of contraceptive use, or methods

Advocacy of sexual activity outside of marriage

Positive outcomes demonstrated in data support Utah’s policies regarding reproductive education & health in youth.

 (Information below from the SEICUS website under their state report)

Utah as a state has the least number of abortions in the US.

As of 2010, Utah ranks 50 in the number of annual abortions with 4 per 1,000 pregnancies of youth ages 14-19. The national is average 15 per 1,000.

Utah has a low teen pregnancy rate.

As of 2010, Utah ranks 45 in teen pregnancy with 38 per 1,000 of youth ages 14-19. The national average is 57 per 1,000.

Because of Utah’s low abortion rate, teen birth rates go up some. As of 2012 Utah ranks 39th with a birth rate of 23 per 1,000,of youth ages 14-19. The national average is 30 per 1,000.

AIDS infections are less than 1 per 100,000  of youth ages 13-24 with the national average 11 per 100,000. STDS are low with Utah ranking 50th for chlamydia infection, 48th in gonorrhea infection, and zero cases of syphilis infection as of 2011, youth ages 15-19.

Science also supports the leading direction Utah code upholds. A recent and major study published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescents by the Jemmotts of the University of Pennsylvania showed that an abstinence based curriculum not only reduced sexual activity among youth, but demonstrated other “safe sex” and “comprehensive” programs are actually counterproductive.

    It is very disconcerting that modern standards and practices advanced across the U.S. regarding reproductive education and health for the last 45 years are potentially injurious, but not surprising. Lawmakers ought to be aware that the organizations, individuals, and research behind the counterproductive “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” are founded on bad science and sordid. SEICUS, the Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States has questionably asserted itself as the leading “comprehensive sexuality education” authority. But SEICUS is just a registered non- profit charity organized in 1964 by various sexually dubious ideologues. The founder, Dr. Mary Calderone, former medical director for the Planned Parenthood Federation began SEICUS with seed money from Hugh Heffner.  Her primary goal for the organization though, was not to treat or prevent disease, but to re-sexualize society about “the vital importance of infant and childhood sexuality,” through the education system. Her instruction to parents was that a child’s sexuality ought to:

…be developed in the same way as the child’s inborn human capacity to talk or to walk, and that the parent’s role should relate only to teaching the child the appropriateness of privacy, place, and person-in a word socialization.1

Children are sexual and think sexual thoughts and do sexual things. Mom and Dad must accept and honor their child’s erotic potential.2

But really “socialization” should be “grooming” a term used to describe the behavior of pedophiles in desensitizing & preparing a victim. SEICUS’ sexuality instruction for children today found in the volumes of pamphlets, websites and sex-ed curriculum (also through Planned Parenthood and other type orgs), eerily parallels a grooming mindset used by perpetrators-first, in gaining trust and promoting themselves as the exclusive and confidential (secret) source for information and then introducing erotic material meant to stir curiosity, desensitize, and stimulate.

  SEICUS no longer publicizes its board members, but Wardell Pomery was one of its original members.  Back then, Pomeroy was a paid contributor to Penthouse Magazine and sexual activist, who also promoted incest. He wrote:

“In father-daughter incest, the daughter’s age makes all the difference in the world. The older she is, the likelier it is that the experience will be a positive one.”3

 Calderon’s associate and fellow activist Lester Kirkendall with a PHD from Columbia University’s Teacher’s College also participated in the development of SEICUS sexuality standards. He was author of the 1976 “bill of sexual rights.” His vision was to promote sexual anarchy as healthy and normal, while eradicating any type of sexual bias against his ideas in the social, moral, and legal spheres.

The theory of sexualizing infants and children and “anything goes” sexuality as healthy promoted by such persons as Calderone, Pomery, and Kirkendall, was not of their construction. They were just agents eager to legitimize the pseudo- research published by now deceased Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey, who was a taxonomic professor from the University of Indiana, and a sexual anarchist both in practice and theory turned sex researcher, set out successfully to begin a sexual revolution. He wanted to change society to align with his pathological sexual practices. 

     His research first published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) was fraudulent in its message, methodology, and illegal activity. Kinsey’s big idea was that humans were entitled to sexual pleasure from birth, so terms like “age-appropriate” would include sexual activity for adolescents, children even infants. According to Kinsey everyone was a sexual deviant, but just hiding it, therefore what was being taught as normal was just a lie, and sexual deviancy was the real normal. He claimed society’s Christian morality was harmful from its views on sexual taboos such as incest, to its teachings on monogamous marriage, which he believed a hindrance to man’s full sexuality development, who is really just a sexual animal.  In his actual research, population samples were way too small for his grand conclusions, but more important, the population sampling was specifically pulled from a sexually unconventional demographic. For example, most subjects would fall under the category of prison inmate, prostitute, adulterer, homosexual, pedophile etc. The most sickening of the research came as the result of criminal activity. In the systematic molestation of 300 children, Kinsey gathered data from the abusers and compiled it into what is referred to as tables 31- 34. For the sake of propriety, the graphic contents of the table are excluded. All this was accomplished through his institute at Indiana University and was helped launched by his original financial benefactor Hugh Heffner. 

    Kinsey’s reports were used by ACLU lawyer Morris Ernst and author/academic David Loth to implement legal reform. On the basis of his “social science” reports, the American Law Institute Model Penal Code set the new precedent for detangling morality from law in its “sex offences” section, implementing a complete paradigm shift. The model was swiftly distributed nationwide to legislators, which led to reduced or eliminated rape sentencing, it being considered a victimless crime, as well as the slow dissolving of other sex crimes and laws protecting women and children.

    The far-reaching influence of Kinsey’s work and its negative legal, moral, social and economic effects upon modern society is staggering, and the grip it still holds upon it is unbelievable, especially in lieu of the fact that wide spread public exposure of his fraudulent methodology began in the nineties. To chronicle the current institutional buy-in and power web formed of individuals and institutions, Kinsey spin offs, that continue to legitimize and promote his work, is too great to include.

    In conclusion, this brief synopsis is meant to help reinforce lawmaker’s recognition that “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” and any standard linked to Kinsey, SEICUS or other type organization is outdated, is not science- based and designed to sexualize children, not promote health. It is harmful to children both inside and out. Utah currently does not accept funds from the federal government specifically allocated for the implementation of Comprehensive Sexuality Education- a recent federal funding move away from abstinence only curriculum. AS CITIZENS OF UTAH, WE APPLAUD YOU FOR HAVING THE VISION TO NOT ACCEPT THESE FUNDS, AND KEEPING COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY ED OUT OF UTAH. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND THANK YOU! 

 

References:

1.  Seicus Report,       May-July 1983

2.     Dr. Mary Calerone, Dr James Ramey, Talking with Your Child About Sex, Ballantine Books, 1982

3.  “Wardell Pomery: Kinsey Coauthor Speaks Out” Chic Magazine, February 1981

Much of the information has been learned from Judith Reisman’s, PHD work

 

 

 

 

It really is shocking. 

Society is transforming tremendously fast. In the past 10 years the United States has become drastically divided as a nation on important issues like the value of life, the value of religious institutions and morals, the value of the natural family, and what constitutes proper education. The list could go on. Fruitless debates fill the airwaves and the Internet. Families feel attacked, individuals feel devalued, and children are becoming more aggressive and depressed. What is happening to the world? The answer is that counter culture has become the new culture. Luckily, the families of the world still have hope. If culture and the process of creating or changing culture are understood, then deliberate action is all that’s required to start positive social shifts right in the home. Parents who offer their children deliberate cultural and counter cultural understanding, as well as skills for success, create children who will be confident cultural leaders in the future. 

 

The Impact of Understanding Culture 

 

In 2009, the BBC in England made a television program of my family called The World’s Strictest Parents. For this program the BBC brought two, 17-year-old troubled British teens to live in our home for eight days. The object was to see if they would have a change of heart or behavior if they lived with a family most would consider “strict.” According to the BBC, if parents don’t allow their children to smoke, drink, party and get tattoos, then the parents are strict. The bar was pretty low. In fact, I don’t think they realized how much about the word “strict” they would actually learn when they came to our home to film us. 

 

Before they came, I looked up the word “strict” because I didn’t really like the idea of being called that. In my mind, strict meant “ornery” or “mean.” I was pleasantly surprised when I read in my Webster’s 1828 dictionary that strict meant governing oneself by a predetermined set of principles. Yes, I was a strict parent — maybe the strictest after all. 

 

Our BBC program was a huge success. The filmmakers told me it was “the most watched episode ever on the BBC.” This was because people saw something they never thought they would see: calmness and strictness. 

 

After our episode aired, an article appeared online by a lecturer at Leads Metropolitan University named Mark Wanstall called, “What Can We Learn From The World’s Strictest Parents?”

 

In the article he stated that all the strict families the troubled British children were sent to had three things in common that made them strict: 

 

Each family had a strong family culture. This meant that each of the strict families had deliberately determined what kind of family they wanted to be and created environments where their goals could be realized. They possessed skills and structure and had certain ways they communicated and solved problems at home. 

Each family had a strong social culture that backed up their family culture. So each of the strict families worldwide had a network of friends or fellow church and community members who supported their family culture and parenting choices, even if they might have done something different at their own house. 

Each family had strong beliefs. One of the fun parts of the show was that each episode took place in another part of the world and was a window into other national and religious cultures — as well as family cultures. They tried to suggest with the religiously diverse families that the very fact that a family had a religion made them more likely to be strict people. This makes sense because historically principles, moral absolutes and virtues have been rooted in religious and Godly doctrine. 

 

Deliberately Determining Home Culture 

 

Many years ago I attended a homeschooling conference where a mother was talking about her “home culture,” as she called it. This term was a new one for me and it really stuck in my brain. Even though I don’t think she directly said it, the message was clearly conveyed that learning was cultural and that the family or “home culture” could make or break the education. 

 

It occurred to me that that term “home culture” was the difference between the families who really “got it” (or had a vision of the family and home environment as a means to creating a different more free and confident type of person), and the families who checked off all their to-do lists each day but still seemed to turn out the same kinds of children as every other mainstream family in America. Something was different about the children who had parents that deliberately created strong family cultures. 

 

These deliberate families:

 

Lived purposefully. There were known reasons behind their choices. 

Said “no” to activities and media that other families in their neighborhood might do or watch without thinking.

Believed freedom came from learning self-mastery. 

Discussed deep, profound, timely and socially relevant topics, books and articles.

Spent quantities of time with their children playing, reading, exploring and bonding.

Spent time each day discussing morals, religious beliefs and core books.

Developed a sense of family and personal mission and felt duty bound to reach out and help the world around them become more free and joyful. 

 

 

Who Is Really Counter Culture? 

 

 

The idea is not to parent children in a counter cultural way. Instead, the idea is to understand culture and parent children with true culture in mind. 

 

In Webster’s 1828 dictionary it says that culture is “the act of tilling and preparing the earth for crops; cultivation; the application of labor or other means to improve good qualities in, or growth as in the culture of the mind or the culture of virtue; any labor or means employed for improvement, correction or growth.”

 

The word “cultivate,” which is mentioned in the definition of culture, offers more understanding of what culture means for a home and family relationships. To cultivate means, “To till, plant, dress, sow, prepare for crops; to improve by labor or study; to advance the growth of; to refine and improve by correction of faults, and enlargement of powers or good qualities; to cherish; to foster…”

 

Wow! If we’re going to make strong home and social cultures, then we need to be cultivators. We naturally need to correct the faults of our children, to cherish them and help them improve and develop their good qualities. 

 

If our homes lack adequate instruction, correction and praise, then we’re pulling our families in the opposite direction from culture. Then the family will become contrary or counter culture. The word counter means, “contrary; in opposition; in an opposite direction; the wrong way.” 

 

So even though it’s very tempting to look at the world surrounding our families and think that we need to raise our families in a way that is counter to the culture we see around us, in actuality it’s that section of society that is contrary to morals and family values that is the true counter to culture. 

 

In my next article I will share 5 Elements of a Strong Family Culture. 

 

Find resources for creating a strong family culture here. https://teachingselfgovernment.com/ 

“You have blessed our lives and our families so much.”

“Thank you so much for coming to teach us!  You have to come back. Kenya is a big place. We need more teachings like this.” 

“I have to admit that I never thought anything good ever comes from America. You have proven me wrong. This is good and I am going to teach it to everyone I can.” 

“I have just started using self-government in my home and already my children have given up their cell phones and are disagreeing appropriately.” 

“These self-government teachings are going to change Kenya in a good way. Now we just need to spread them.” 

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These are just a few of the expressions of gratitude I’ve received since our self-government teachings in Kenya began on Nov. 2, 2015. 

After 21 days in Kenyan we’re finally back home to the colder Utah temperatures we’re used to. 

Of the 21 days we were in Kenya, I spoke to groups about self-government 19 of those days. It was a packed trip. We didn’t waste a minute. 

We were invited to visit Kenya by the KCCB [Kenya Conference Of Catholic Bishops] family life devision headed by Theresa Abuya. When we arrived we went to the KCCB office and had a special meeting with Bishop Mugambi, who is the bishop over family issues. 

Before doing any official teaching, I wanted to meet with an actual Kenyan family to discuss family life and some of the issues they see affecting family life in their culture. My 13 year old daughter, Londyn, especially loved getting to know the children of the family — and the family chickens.

Immediately we started our first three-day training for the KCCB Key Team. They were really somewhat surprised to see that the trainers I brought were mostly children, and all from my family. I heard on many occasions, “Porter is an incredible trainer! He really knows what he’s doing and he has such confidence teaching groups of adults. I can’t believe this’s possible for a boy his age.” 

One of the biggest moments of the training was when they saw Paije and I do an actual mentor session in front of them and discuss dating and social boundaries. One of the attendees mentioned that it isn’t customary for parents to get involved in the sexual and dating life of their children because it is considered private business. After seeing a real mentor session, they had a vision of the kind of openness they wanted to have with their children too. 

The other big eye-opening moment occurred when the parents recognized that eye contact was important. In many Kenyan families the children don’t look at their parents, especially when being corrected. A story was shared of a girl who never really knew what her father’s face looked like because she didn’t look at it. After lots of talk and examples, the class observed that eye contact was one of the best ways to create a united family atmosphere. 

We went on a one day safari and saw the wild animals of Kenya. It was a treasured memory!

When we went to church the first Sunday in Kenya, I was surprised by the bishopric of the LDS ward we attended when they asked me to not only speak for a moment in sacrament meeting, but to also give the lesson in the Relief Society hour for women. It was a wonderful honor to be asked. We fell in love with the Riruta Ward in Nairobi! 

The second training began. It also took three days. This group expressed concern about the immoral and negative influences the schools are having because of comprehensive sexuality education that has been pushed upon them by the United Nations and the UN CRC policies that are taught to children, which make parents’ rights unimportant. 

They showed gratitude for our teachings by baking us a cake and presenting us with some gifts. They gave our family a wood carving of us as a Massai family. One Massai gentleman there gave me a Massai name as well. He named me Nashipae [na-she-pie], which means joyful one. I was very touched by that.

We fed giraffes at the Giraffe Center.  I even kissed a giraffe.

We played with baby elephants at the Elephant Orphanage. The baby elephants end up there when their parents die in the wild and the elephant doesn’t have anyone to care for it. It was so fun to have them rub up against us and lay at our feet to be rubbed and played with.

I spoke to students and professors at Tangaza University in a special presentation.

We also spoke to a large group of professors, community leaders and students at Strathmore University for the kick-off event of their new Institute for The Family program at the university. I was asked many questions by this group and others, but one question kept coming up again and again, “What about corporal punishment?” Many adults mentioned that they were raised being hit and that they turned out okay. Hitting children is a very common practice in Kenyan homes. 

I explained to them that hitting children is usually a sign of being reactive and not being proactive (planned ahead), and it doesn’t really teach correct behavior. I also mentioned that if something is simply done to a child, the child doesn’t get the opportunity to actually accept the consequence they earned.  

We were invited to speak at a Catholic Small Community meeting and were honored with food and a party. One child came up to me and told me the steps to following instructions that her mother had taught her since she came to the first training we did.

We trained our final and largest group of trainers. In the three trainings we conducted, we had trained a total of about 85 people to be TSG trainers in Kenya. This last group of trainers had people of multiple Christian faiths in it, which made me really happy because then the Teaching Self-Government message for families will reach even further throughout Kenya. 

We spoke to the KCPF [Kenya Christian Professionals Form] about the damaging effects of comprehensive sexual education on the consciences of the children and the family and about teaching children self-government. I explained what had happened to sexual education in the U.S. and the U.K., which was really helpful since they’re trying to stop the movement to put the program in schools right now. The enthusiasm of the leaders was great. They didn’t want the meeting to end. 

We spoke to a group of youth ages 8-18 about family relationships, communication styles and the four basic self-government skills. It was fun to get an insight into how the youth in Kenya think and relate to each other. 

On Nov. 20 the KCCB held the official launch of the Teaching Self-Government skills being taught around their country now by trained people. The heads of the Catholic Family Life program were there, as well as other enthusiastic people. The bishop attending admonished the people to learn the program well because he said, “She has obviously been called to teach this.” He was encouraged for his country and the families in his church when he heard the TSG teachings. 

We visited one of the slums in Nairobi.  There are multiple areas like this. The families struggle to keep food on the table and to meet their basic needs. 

We got to meet with a family and go inside their home made of mud walls and a tin roof. They were so hospitable and kind. 

The children in the slums were a special delight! They were so happy and loving!

There were other groups I spoke with and things we saw, but time doesn’t allow for more. The teaching trip was a huge success!  The teaching will not stop with my one visit. The people are now mobilizing and teaching each other the principles they have been taught, using the materials we provided for them to teach with. 

The United Nations has been attacking the families of Africa for some time now in an attempt to weaken the families by diminishing the necessity of the parents. I’m optimistic that this one three-week trip has the power to empower the parents to take back their roles in the home and lives of the children so that the children are better insulated morally from the confusing messages they hear at school and on the media. It is about time that a country see what is coming before it fully hits. Kenya has a chance to stop some of the attack on the family, and self-government is going to be one of their defenses. 

Thank you to everyone who donated to the teaching trip! We couldn’t have done it without you! Every time we spoke anywhere the organizers told the people that me and all my friends made the teaching possible and they always expressed words of gratitude during and after presentations. Their hearts were full of love and thanks as we left. 

One of the TSG trainers we brought with us to Kenya, Misty Thompson, is going to move her whole family to Kenya this spring to be a person on the ground there to help the teaching go forth. We are so grateful for their desire to be part of this great project. She is a member of WOW and is the Kenya Specialist for the WOW organization. 

Our family is grateful for the opportunity we had to serve God by helping the people in Kenya strengthen their families so that the immoral voices of the world can be less effective at attacking them. We are also grateful for the work of the organizers, Theresa Abuya and Martin Opondo, and for the sleepless nights they put in to make it all work. And, we are thankful for the divine institution of family and the strength it has to change societies and nations if it has a strong family culture. My one family changed the hearts of multiple families, who will now change the hearts of a nation. What a miracle!