Hello everyone! It’s been a while and I realized it was time for a bit of an update. On the personal side, it has been a very busy year. Last fall, my husband and I put our house on the market and we moved at the end of January. In March, we closed on a business purchase and my husband did a massive career change from software development to a business owner of a Brain Balance center. Brain Balance helps kids and adults achieve better life performance and overcome challenges with focus, anxiety, social confidence and academic performance. Anyway, due to all the changes in our home this past year, a few of the developments I have in the works have had to be put on the back burner. Recently I had a conversation with my newly-turned adult daughter about balancing and juggling all the expectations of life. I told her, “No one actually balances all the things or juggles all the balls. We all have to choose what things to pick up and can only hold a couple of balls at a time. Everything else get strategically put down so that the most important things can get our focus.”
On that note, I have chosen to focus the time I have for curriculum development this year on the second year of Kingdom Kids: Adventures in the Tanack. This year of curriculum follows the same design and layout as Adventures in the Torah but begins in Joshua and runs chronologically through the Tanack. It will have four units: Israel’s Judges, Israel’s United Kingdom, Israel’s Divided Kingdom, and Israel’s Exile & Return. The lessons are currently written through Israel’s Divided Kingdom and will be finished and ready for sale by the beginning of September.
I am so excited about this year of curriculum! There are so many examples of God’s greatness, patience, and sovereignty in the Tanack. And in this year of curriculum, instead of lessons in conversational Hebrew like we have in the Torah year, we learn the names of God in Hebrew. It’s a powerful thing to learn more about the God we love and serve!
I also picked up an unexpected project, inspired by some people close to me. They had begun a dating/courtship relationship and the two of them had gone through one of those decks of “getting to know you” cards as they were building their friendship. I had the thought that a great tool for them would be a set of conversations cards that guided them through very intentional conversations to see if they were well-suited for marriage. As I told a few friends about my little project, they suggested that a lot more people would be interested in my cards. And so, I am launching these cards here on June 15th: http://datingconvocards.com. They are not “Messianic” per say, but are definitely written for someone of faith who is looking for a God-honoring, intentional way of finding their future spouse. Check them out and share the link with a friend!
As far as the projects on the back burner…
I still fully plan on continuing with the Kingdom Kids Learn Hebrew series. I only have the first two levels written and plan on writing a total of eight levels. I hope to complete another couple of levels this year, but it will depend on whether I can get the extra time to invest into it. While I am not fluent in Hebrew myself, I have been studying it for several years and I have a good friend who is a native Israeli who will help me finish and edit the upper levels.
I also still plan on creating the achievement program. This aspect of Kingdom Kids was put on hold due to financial reasons, as it requires a lot of upfront costs. I still have the design ready and waiting for full development but it has had to wait on resources. My hope is that with the release of the second year of curriculum this fall, I will have the resources to get the first batch of the achievement program pins and awards created.
You may already know that the Kingdom Kids program is a 3-year program intended to cycle over and over. This way, as the kids in your congregation grow, they will hopefully get each year of curriculum twice. This repetition helps to cement what they have learned into their minds, dramatically increasing their biblical literacy. The third year of curriculum, Adventures in the Gospels, will begin production this fall and be released in fall 2025. With each year of developing curriculum, my congregation’s children’s ministry is using them weekly as I write each lesson and providing some feedback. It helps keep me on my toes and ensures that you get a final product that has already been used and tested!
I hope this update finds you well and look forward to serving you more in the future! Stay tuned this fall for the release of Adventures in the Tanack!
Shalom,
-Judy Rich
About Post Author
