Geoff Botkin's EOY Letter: Semper Bullshit

[hoipolloi]

Isaac & Heidi's first child seems to get more photo love than the other grandkids born this year.

One photo -- captioned "Three first born sons" -- shows Isaac with Geoff holding Isaac's newborn son James.

Do you think Geoff said a blessing over the testes of his grandson?

[Librul]

The Duck Biologist and autodidact and the Mother of the Year are roughly the same age, but while Geoff as spent the past 35 years bloviating and having his shoes  removed for him, Vickie has been waiting on her men folk AND her daughters, who were acting as surrogate help meets. 

[Marian the Librarian]

Anna-Sofia's "Now I'm 25" blog post was deleted a while back - but she definitely turned 30 this year.

Per online public record sources, Geoff is 61, Victoria is 60.

[anjulibai]

How old is Elizabeth now? 

[nokidsmom]

On 12/19/2015 at 3:29 PM, gustava said:

AS & E can't find a man as good as Daddy.

I can see the extreme Daddy worship driving off many a suitor.   And it probably has.  

[Marian the Librarian]

32 minutes ago, anjulibai said:

How old is Elizabeth now? 

She's 28.

[anjulibai]

3 minutes ago, Marian the Librarian said:

She's 28.

Thanks!

I wonder if Geoff ever looks at his daughters and wonders what went wrong. Or is just not that self-aware? My inclination is to the later, but I really hope he does from time to time. 

[gustava]

1 hour ago, CyborgKin said:

I heard about this letter last night from my mother, but she didn't mention anything about the sisters, besides them helping make gun holsters.  Did they get more than two words in the letter?

I didn't actually learn much about what was in the letter cos we got sidetracked by figuring out the joke behind T-rex Arms, and then the conversation turned to the names of the new babies so I brought up Spurgeon

 

I notice in the family photo on the sisters' About page, they're doing the 'hide behind younger brothers' thing.

It's as if she Daddy doesn't want people to realise she's her ovaries are running out of time to become the mother of millions.

Also I never noticed before that the Botkin Ranch in NZ was called Seven Arrows.  Of course it was

 

Is Geoff a lot younger than his wife?  Or has he just aged better?

The latter.  Perhaps that's why AS & E don't want to marry.

 

[nickelodeon]

Quote

the Russians begged us to help them learn to think like free people.

CACKLING @ this quote sandwiched between discussions of the Botkinettes spending their twenties practicing how to take their future husband's shoes off.

[CyborgKin]

2 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

Anna-Sofia's "Now I'm 25" blog post was deleted a while back - but she definitely turned 30 this year.

Per online public record sources, Geoff is 61, Victoria is 60.

Thanks.  Any chance the deleted blog post is archived or waybacked?

[hoipolloi]

47 minutes ago, CyborgKin said:

Thanks.  Any chance the deleted blog post is archived or waybacked?

https://web.archive.org/web/20101107040855/http://visionarydaughters.com/2010/10/greater-expectations

Happy Festivus!

[Marian the Librarian]

49 minutes ago, CyborgKin said:

Thanks.  Any chance the deleted blog post is archived or waybacked?

Amazingly, it is!

http://web.archive.org/web/20150516165513/http://visionarydaughters.com/2010/10

Quote

 

Greater Expectations

Posted October 24, 2010

By Anna Sofia Botkin

I just turned 25. Oddly, it seems a lot more than one year older than 24. The realization that I have lived a quarter of a century brings new awareness of the preciousness of time, the reality of aging and death, and the fact that life unfolds at a speed and in a way that I can’t control. I’m past feeling like my life is stretching out endlessly before me — I’m a good third of the way into it (Lord willing) and the ticking of the clock seems to grows louder. 

I think these feelings are normal; observation has taught me that it’s at some point around a young woman’s twenty fifth revolution around the sun that she experiences a messy head-on collision with certain rock-hard facts of reality. Often it’s her point of disillusionment – the point when she finds out that the world is not what she thought. That life did not deliver what she expected. That things didn’t happen according to her plans. That she didn’t get her way and that her dreams didn’t come true. And to cap it off… she doesn’t get another shot. This is the big moral test in every girl’s life, and I am no exception. 

It’s at this crisis point that a young woman’s true faith and motivations emerge, sometimes in ways that surprise everyone; over the years I‘ve seen many whom I counted as friends and allies change course dramatically and walk away from the principles that they fought alongside me to defend — namely, the tenets of biblical daughterhood.

The reasons are many and varied:

It got too hard. The level of self-sacrifice turned out to be more than they bargained for.
It did not produce the desired result (a husband).

The stigma of being an adult daughter who still lives at home with Mommy and Daddy became too much to bear. 

The barrage of probing questions about why they were so “different” became too wearisome. 

There really was no vision for life at home. For them, home was never really home, just a port to be stranded in, waiting for the soonest ship.

The feeling that God did not hold up His half of the bargain – He didn’t deliver what they assumed was coming to them for their good deeds. 

Rarely do the reasons spring from an honest reexamination of their convictions on biblical womanhood, but rather a disappointment with what those “convictions” yielded. 

Sometimes before we start to question what we believe, we should question why we believe – is it because it’s easy, it’s convenient, it’s socially acceptable to the crowd we’re in, it’s eventually going to pay… or because we know it’s true? If we believe something because we know it’s true, then we will keep believing — even when it becomes hard, inconvenient, socially unacceptable, and appears to be costing, not paying. It’s good to stop and question why we believe – yes, even if those beliefs have been in a published form for five years, permanently set into the stones that make up the bedrock of a so-called “movement.”

This month is also the fifth anniversary of the release of my sister’s and my first book, So Much More. Many speculated that time and experience would dampen our idealistic notions, and change our convictions. Some have asked if I still agreed with the naive 17-year-old me who started that book eight years ago. After all, haven’t I changed?

Well, yes, I have: By God’s grace, my grasp of the Scriptures and the issues is firmer, my communication skills have been sharpened through combat with an onslaught of criticism, and an acquaintance with hundreds of young woman and their unique situations from around the world has broadened the scope of my vision and taught me to have more compassion. But one thing I hope never changes — that I never grow out of — is a child-like faith in the plain teachings of Scripture and youthful zeal in proclaiming them. 

I have changed, but the Bible hasn’t, and I still believe it means what it says. Time and experience have further proved to me that God is a much better Author of a woman’s destiny than she is. Her plans will go awry. His can’t. 

This week I have been reflecting back on the expectations I had for my life: my goals, my plans, my hopes and my dreams. I don’t know if it’s possible for my present reality to have deviated more from my past fantasies. As a teenager, I projected for myself an early marriage (at say, 18) and a quiet, private life, as my three biggest fears were writing, public speaking, and being on camera – in short, anything that would expose me to public scrutiny. So, how do I feel about the fact that seven years have elapsed since my speculated marriage date, that my little brother, four years my junior, just got married, to a good friend of mine five years my junior, and that my life has been characterized by the three things I used to dread above all?

First of all, my feelings have nothing to do with it. Gratitude or bitterness are not really feelings but decisions, decisions that have nothing to do with the circumstances themselves, but with how we choose to perceive to them.

For example, let’s do a retake:

How do I feel about the fact that God has given me seven more precious years to spend with my family and prepare for the future; that I have been able to play a part in my little brother’s transition into adult life which culminated in his marriage to a dear friend of mine (now a dear sister of mine); and that God has brought me many unsolicited opportunities to serve Him that have stretched me and helped me overcome my horror of vulnerability? I should be on my face before God, thanking Him for His overwhelming goodness to me.

God did not give me what I expected – He gave me far more. He has blessed me above and beyond what my little human mind could have imagined. 

This year my heart is overflowing with gratitude that my plans didn’t work out, that I didn’t get my way, and that my little dreams never came true. 

Maybe when we ruminate over life’s unfulfilled expectations we should stop and consider that God’s “withheld” blessings might not have been withheld at all – just presented in a way we did not expect. Let’s hope that we’re not so fixated on what we had on our wish-lists that we scorn the better gift.
My desires to one day be a wife and mother are still alive and well, but they must bow to God’s will. They may be fulfilled soon, or much later on… or they may not be fulfilled at all. If our desire to be placed in marriages really springs from the belief that we will be more useful to God thus, then we won’t feel let down if He decides to deploy us somewhere else. He knows where we will be the most useful to Him. 

At 25, I’m reminded of the bigger picture: marriage is just one front in the context of a much larger war. Whether I get married or not, the war goes on. My life is defined by the fact that I am God’s soldier, not by the fact that I am 25 AND STILL NOT MARRIED. 

I’m grateful for another year to stand by my post as a daughter at home, to: 

Build strength into my family and make them as powerful as possible

Invest into the relationships that God has put into my life right now: my brothers, my sister, my parents, and others in the community.

Prepare my heart and attitude for the greater sacrifices that marriage and motherhood might bring

To learn new skills to add to my armory

To read more books 

To explore more fields of learning 

To have more of God’s word written on my heart, imprinted on my mind, and ready on my tongue

To be more joyful and optimistic 

To be more like the unmarried woman in 1 Cor. 7:34, who is “…anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit.”

To be an even stronger witness as an adult daughter who still lives at home with Mommy and Daddy

Standing at the threshold of my 26th year, God has given me the grace to repeat the hardest statement ever made by any woman:

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” Luke 1:38

 

 

 

 

 

[hoipolloi]

@Marian the Librarian - great minds think alike, as my mother always says!

ETA: Good you posted the whole thing -- no telling when it might really disappear!

[halcionne]

I found it another a new (to me) url

http://botkinsisters.com/article/greater-expectations

[CyborgKin]

Thanks all for doing the work for me!

2 hours ago, halcionne said:

I found it another a new (to me) url

http://botkinsisters.com/article/greater-expectations

Ah so it's not actually scrubbed.

 

Anyhow I looked through their photo gallery that was with the newsletter.  There's a pic of Victoria reading a book to a couple of the grandkids.  Can anyone guess what it is?

a. The Bible

b. A Children's Bible

c. A Bible storybook

d. Something by an American historical figure

e. A Tintin comic by Hergé

f.  A contemporary original children's picturebook

 

Spoiler

The correct answer is e.  Specifically, The Castafiore Emerald

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castafiore_Emerald

 

[sparkles]

8 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

Amazingly, it is!

http://web.archive.org/web/20150516165513/http://visionarydaughters.com/2010/10

 

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

[GenerationCedarchip]

I got the letter, too.  You can leave the fundie farm, but they keep you on the mailing lists.

I flipped through the gallery and noticed all the bloviation on T-Rex arms. I wonder if the plan is to build T-Rex and use the money to then fund spreading their message. What do you think?

[Marian the Librarian]

1 hour ago, GenerationCedarchip said:

I got the letter, too.  You can leave the fundie farm, but they keep you on the mailing lists.

I flipped through the gallery and noticed all the bloviation on T-Rex arms. I wonder if the plan is to build T-Rex and use the money to then fund spreading their message. What do you think?

Well, based on what I'm seeing on Lucas Botkin's FB page,

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009176221345&fref=ts

and on the T.REX Arms website,

https://trex-arms.com

I'd say you're correct - the business has become a cornerstone of their 200-year plan. Because Jesus was all about holsters, guns and ammo, and shoot-'em-ups on firing ranges, y'know.

Ahhh...nothing spreads the Christmas message of love and peace quite like a gift card depicting the skull of an extinct animal.

 

[FormerlyFundyLite]

Quote

The ever-capable Noah traveled with Victoria and me to England, and then joined us on his first trip to Russia to speak to homeschooling families....Victoria had so much to tell [the Russians] about the freedom to think, and how studying can enlarge that freedom.  More than anything else, the Russians begged us to help them learn to think like free people.  And they are making progress.  Little by little they are getting their home cultures on track; fathers and mothers working side by side, learning to believe God to protect them as they take a gigantic step of faith. 

This is disgusting. Perhaps the Russian families did ask for some tips about homeschooling, but to phrase it that they begged the Botkins to help them learn how to think like free people?! Что за фигня?! (What the crap?!) Do they mean "freedom to think" as some sort of code for "being enlightened by the Holy Spirit"? Perhaps they missed the many faithful Orthodox believers in Russia. The alternative is even worse in my mind: the assumption that the Russian people are so completely brainwashed (by the government?! The media?! The schools?!) that they are incapable of forming an independent thought. Talk about demeaning.

[enigmata]

I have tried to search on here but not having any joy.  What is the story behind the name T Rex Arms - it seems such a ridiculous name to choose?

Especially since I thought fundies didn't really speak much about dinosaurs (what with the world only being 6000 years old).

Off topic - at Church yesterday, my Dad was leading the nativity.  He decided to ask the children what they wanted to pray for.  One answered dinosaurs whilst another wanted to pray for Cleopatra.  Never work with children and animals

[sparkles]

34 minutes ago, enigmata said:

I have tried to search on here but not having any joy.  What is the story behind the name T Rex Arms - it seems such a ridiculous name to choose?

Well, I get what they were probably going for—big ol' T Rex, the baddest, powerfullest dino of them all—but when I hear T Rex Arms all I can think of is T Rex's actual arms, which were these completely useless, stubular appendages that frankly, look ridiculous. So come to think of it, maybe it IS a fitting name for a Botkin enterprise.

[enigmata]

6 minutes ago, sparkles said:

Well, I get what they were probably going for—big ol' T Rex, the baddest, powerfullest dino of them all—but when I hear T Rex Arms all I can think of is T Rex's actual arms, which were these completely useless, stubular appendages that frankly, look ridiculous. So come to think of it, maybe it IS a fitting name for a Botkin enterprise.

Yes, that's what I was thinking of - the tiny arms on a T Rex and all I could think was that it was a pretty pathetic name.  Went the website - the pic of the 'team' is hilarious.

[ViolaSebastian]

On 12/20/2015 at 8:38 PM, meda said:

Looking at the pictures, I'm struck by the plethora of offspring. Ben & Audrey have 3, David & Nadia have 3, and Isaac managed to relax  long enough to sire 1. Seven grandkids in what, 4 years? Let us hope that all of them will be "Homeschool Dropouts"

Also, the way Anna and Elizabeth are clinging to their younger brothers in the family group photo is unsettling.

Does anyone else think this looks photoshopped?  The lighting looks different on the left than on the right.  It looks like Isaac and his family and David and his family have been added to the photograph on the left...

[CyborgKin]

1. Don't forget the other important side of T Rex Arms: interacting with the CEOs of Other Companies!eleventy!

2. My dad also thought it looked shopped.  Now that you mention it, it could well be two separate groups.  Hmm.

3. No one has gotten the joke yet?  They sell Small Arms!

1 hour ago, enigmata said:

Especially since I thought fundies didn't really speak much about dinosaurs (what with the world only being 6000 years old).

 

Creationists call them 'missionary lizards' http://creation.com/sue-the-t-rex-another-missionary-lizard

[AmazonGrace]

11 hours ago, sparkles said:

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

 

Yeah... She would perceive it as her biblical duty to force herself to be happy with whatever God and Daddy decide... But life must be really good if being 25 makes you think "omg i've got one foot in the grave..."