I have a wonderful book to tell you about from Seed Sowers called Seed Sowers: Gospel Planting Adventures.  It is a collection of short stories about 21 different missionaries who have served the Lord by sowing seeds of God’s word around the world.  Each page is filled with the fascinating journeys of missionaries who reached out to many different cultures in their native languages.   By translating the whole Bible and / or the New Testament portion of the Bible, these villages across the world could hear about God’s love and salvation through Jesus for the first time.



Seed Sowers: Gospel Planting Adventures is written for the whole family, including all ages, but is also written at a 6th grade reading level.  It can be read as a family read aloud and this way you can include younger children, or it can be read individually for those who can read at a 6th grade level and above.   Though I enjoy reading it to all of my kids, my son who is in 7th grade enjoys reading the captivating stories in this book by himself too. 



Be ready for some great discussions with your kids, and some emotional highs and lows.  Sometimes you will laugh, sometimes you might cry.  Many of the stories will grip your heart.  All of the stories will encourage your faith.

These stories appeal to everyone, so be sure to get the grandparents involved too.  It is a great place to start with conversations about the lives of missionaries and the peoples they reached.  Perhaps your parents or grandparents served as missionaries at some point in their life or had other family who did, and they can share those stories with you and your children.  My paternal grandmother went as a missionary three times to the Ukraine to sew seeds of the gospel.  She loves to share her stories about her trips as a missionary with me, and though she does not live close by, I know she would love to read this book with our family and share in this experience.

This makes such a great Homeschool and Sunday school book.  It is a great introduction to faith studies, real heros, geography, the study of languages, map studies, cultural studies, unit studies, and more.  This book would be a great item to do a unit study with.  You could do an internet search for maps, coloring pages of the different countries mentioned, foods from the different cultures, learn words from those languages, maybe write a bible verse in that language (biblegateway {and other websites} has a really neat link to change the language of the verse that you could use to help with this), etc.  You could make an amazing lapbook or notebook including all the projects you did while reading this book.  I may go back and do this later with my kids as I think it would be a lot of fun and would really help them remember each missionary and culture they visited.  Perhaps we can encourage Gwen to create another wonderful homeschool resource like a unit study or workbook to go along with this wonderful book she has written (hint…hint…if you are reading this Gwen!).



The paperback version is 165 pages and retails for $13.95 (currently on sale for $12.50 through Grace and Truth Books).  There is also a hardcover book and an eBook versions available to suit your needs. Check the website for more details on versions and purchasing options.

It was written by a fellow homeschool mom, Gwen Toliver.  She is a sweet Christian wife and homeschooling mama of 8 kids.  Their family currently serves as missionaries in the Wycliffe’s Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas.   Wycliffe is a worldwide missions organization.  You can read more about Gwen and their work for Wycliffe here.


{pictured: Gwen Toliver and her family serving as Wycliff missionaries}

Gwen is also on the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  The Crew has gotten acquainted with her through reading her forum posts, reading her blog Tolivers To Texas, and now by sharing in the process of getting the word out about her book.  It has been a privilege to read / listen as she shares her heart for homeschooling, motherhood, and missions.



Though the book does not contain pictures, but Gwen has put some pictures on the book cover.  She has also shared some pictures pictures of missionaries from the stories in the book with us on her website and a few of these are posted below.

 
{pictured: Roger Doriot missionary in West Papua, find the story
on pages 119 to 124}
 
 
{pictured: Eddy Riggle missionary to Caquinte people of Peru, find
his story on pages 105-110}


{pictured: Harriet Fields and Hattie Kneeland missionaries to the
Matses of Peru, find their story on pages 59-66}

View more pictures of missionaries from Seed Sowers: Gospel Planting Adventures at the link posted here.  It is fun to have the kids go to the website link and look at the
pictures of the missionaries and their families and the people they reached.



Be sure to read what other homechool families on the
Schoolhouse Review Crew have to say about Seed Sowers.