Dear Friends –
We wish you a wonderful Christmas and a 2014 that holds both excitement and opportunity for you and your family.
Thank you for your fellowship and support over this past year. 2013 has been a fun-filled and productive year for the Homeschool Institute of Science and for the Boyd family. I am very thankful for my amazing wife, Liz, and our five sons, Cyrus, Owen, Abraham, Shepherd, and Amos. I thank the Lord for them every day.
HIS, Inc is about expanding the Gospel. We love the Lord and we want to serve Him in all we do. This emphatically includes science education! Because of God’s good grace through your generous support we have been able to accomplish some good things this past year. Here are the highlights:
- Our first annual homeschool conference, A Winter Encouragement, February, 2013
- We supported and sponsored three FIRST LEGO League teams (NOTE: all 3 teams qualified for the North Idaho FLL Championship tournament), August – January
- We took our first annual rafting trip on the Clark Fork River, September
- Launched Science Knowledge & Know-How Curriculum, August
- Hosted field trips to the Troy Cedar Mill, two Educational Robotics programs (Moscow, Lewiston), the Little Bear Watershed Workshop, and Under the Hood Piano Tour and Workshop at Grand American Piano.
We were able to bring on a part-time technical assistant this year in Levi Heiple, an Information Systems student at the University of Idaho. Levi has worked diligently to produce our first product, a Science Project Video Library, called Science Knowledge and Know-How. We have a small but dedicated subscriber list and we hope to grow this program in 2014 by attending several regional homeschool conferences and through paid advertising. The feedback we have received has been encouraging.
The Lord also granted us a volunteer administrative assistant in Miss Bentleigh Bledsoe. Bentleigh has been working part-time for HIS, Inc. since this fall and has successfully organized our files and financials among other essential tasks. We are very happy and blessed to have the services of these two wonderful young people.
Our board of directors, Dr. Gordon Wilson, Natural History Fellow at New Saint Andrews College, Gary Lester, founder and CEO of Ecoanalysts, John Wanvig, Attorney-at-Law, and I are as inspired and determined as ever to continue the work we have started. We held our first retreat during a cold, rainy day this past November. During this time we celebrated what the Lord has done this year through HIS, Inc. and we discussed the future of our fledgling ministry. We will be adding to our board of directors this year and are in the process of planning some larger events. We’re off to a small but steady start and we are absolutely thrilled you’ve given us the opportunity to encourage and equip families in their home science education.
If you are able we would love your financial support to help get us off to a strong 2014. Our needs include supporting Mr. Heiple as our technical assistant, promoting HIS, Inc. through online publications such as The Old Schoolhouse and Homeschool Enrichment magazine, and support our attendance at 3-4 regional homeschooling conferences in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Meeting these financial goals means more capacity to develop science support programs for homeschooling families across the country. On a side note, we now have Science Knowledge and Know-How subscribers from four countries! God is good! If you would like to donate online please visit https://www.homeschoolscienceinstitute.org/donate/
Blessings to you and yours,
Will Boyd
Homeschool Institute of Science
PO Box 9241
Moscow, ID 83843
(208) 301-4737
