Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Growing Up Wild

 Growing Up Wild is a 5 DVD video series about the life of the Wild family, they are missionaries in Papua, Indonesia.  These educational videos show different aspects of missionary life such as, their home, how they get supplies, water and energy.  They delve into differences in culture like nose piercing is very common with the Wano tribe and the family allows two of their boys to get their nose pierced.  We decided that Kenzie and Kylan could do this as well, have you seen the kids lately?  They both have nose piercings, JUST KIDDING!  They don't, although I suggested it to them and they both laughed but decided that wasn't for them right now.
The videos are filmed by the family and show every member of the family including their pets.  The mom and the dad are the narrators and the filming is gorgeous and very engaging, we couldn't look away! The purpose of the series is to introduce children, ages 5-12, to missions work and what it looks like.

The DVDs are available for $18.99 plus S&H; or you can purchase the complete set (all 5 DVDs) for $80.99 plus S&H (a 15% discount).



Ever since I found out that we were one of the families picked to review Growing Up Wild my children and I have been running to the mailbox everyday anticipating it's arrival.
The package arrived the day before our trip to Orange Beach, Alabama. So, we loaded the DVD's up and the kids watched them during our 13 hour roadtrip.  Kevin and I were in the front and couldn't see the videos but we listened to everything and we could hear the excitement in Makenzie and Kylan's voices as they discussed the videos.


 When we returned home we decided to watch the videos again (so mom could see them) and we also worked on some of the activities that were included.  We had the opportunity to review Growing Up Wild -Volume 1 which included 3 episodes that were approx. 15 minutes each.
 The episodes were the following:
Home Sweet Hut-this episode tells how the Wild brothers house was built in the jungle.  Since we just sold our house and are we hunting for another house while living with my in-laws we were able to talk about the differences in building a house in Oklahoma vs. the jungles of Indonesia.

Supply Trip- this episode follows the Wild family on a trip to the city to purchase several months worth of supplies and shows how the get their supplies home on a small plane and even a helicopter!  We tried to track what we would need for a month and then multiplied it by 3, it was a crazy amount of food and personal items.  I'm sure if we lived in the jungle or somewhere that didn't have a Wal-Mart nearby the amount of items would be greatly reduced!!

Sun and Water- this was a fascinating episode that told how the family gets their water pressure and electricity.  After each episode they have suggested activities to do with your children.  An activity guide CD is included that has printables for each activity, this was very helpful!


We also reviewed Growing Up Wild-Volume 4 and enjoyed it immensly as well.  This DVD had 3 episodes that were approx. 15 minutes each.
 Amazing World Around Us-this episode told about spiders, beautiful birds, a giant stick bug and pythons!

Adventures in Culture- this episode covered many types of cultural differences including the nose piercings that I talked about earlier.

Tribal Calling- this episode talked about the Wild family knew they had a tribal calling.  We talked about how God calls people to do many different things, things they might now ever expect to do. The kids asked is this had ever happened to us and we said yes!  We were called to adopt internationally, I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would be called to adopt but it has been one of my greatest pleasures to share the joys of adoption.  I also reminded them that God told me when I was 19 that Kevin and I would be working with teenagers someday and I pushed it to the very back of my mind because at that time I was still a teenager and not ready to work with teens yet.  In the past year we knew God was leading us to work with some troubled teens and when we followed His lead and opened out hearts many walls have been broken with these precious girls.  Kylan was kind of upset because he doesn't know what his calling is yet but I reminded him that he's only 11 and his calling will come.  Makenzie feels that she's being called to be a missionary but she's not sure where.  We told her to just keep working on her Punky Monkey Missions and God will lead her in the right direction.  We had such a great time discussing our "Calling" and explained that it could change in the future.

This was the perfect ending to a wonderful year of Schoolhouse Crew reviews and was by far our favorite review for the entire year.  In the next couple of weeks we will be adding the 3 remaining videos that we haven't reviewed, we are all looking forward to exploring with the Wild family!






Thanks for reading,
 

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