Becoming a Holistic Health Practitioner!

I have some super-duper, extra-exciting, life-changing news to share today!  My vision for our family’s farm is to use the farm somehow to help people learn about eating more healthfully and using natural remedies.  So the question over the past year has been how to make that happen.  Papa the Farmer and I talked it over and we came up with the idea to teach vegetarian cooking classes.  Now, that is a great idea, but it also presents a problem.  I’ve been a vegetarian my entire life and I’m a great cook, but that doesn’t mean I was born knowing how to combine proteins or even able to explain the difference between a calorie and a carbohydrate for that matter.  Vegetarianism is a lifestyle for me.  I prepare meals intuitively and I believe wholeheartedly that I am eating in a way that honors God as the creator of my body and helps me to stay healthy, but I really can’t explain the science behind why I eat the way I eat…

We prayed about it and I did some research.  I discovered that the Global College of Natural Medicine offers some great distance-learning courses that are exactly what I need!  I was initially drawn to their Nutritional Consultant Program, but wow!  Their Master Herbalist Program looks great, too!  So, I have decided to take the Holistic Health Practitioner Program, which is a combination of the Nutritional Consultant and Master Herbalist programs. 

Yesterday my box of course materials arrived:

 

I am so excited!  This is all material that I would want to study anyway, even if I wasn’t taking a course!  I have a teaching degree, but I never felt as passionate about teaching reading and math as I feel about being able to help people care for their own bodies!  I expect that the workload of this course will be a pleasure!

I have always said that I would not do anything this time consuming while my children were young, so this has been a big decision that I really prayed about.  But the Lord has given me a conviction that this is information that will help me to be a better mother and I plan to study after the children are in bed.  (Ok, I might move their bedtime up a little bit to give me more time to study… but I promise to never put them to bed before suppertime!) 

The best part of all is that God opened up a way for me to take this program on a scholarship!  The condition of the scholarship is that I need to use the information I am learning to help others… SO…..  After I graduate we will be offering vegan cooking classes, nutrition classes and classes in herbs and natural remedies, free to the public! 

Now that’s great news if you happen to live nearby, but I know that many of you don’t live nearby!  So, I’m going to occasionally be sharing what I’m reading and learning here on the blog.  In addition to the farm life-type posts I usually write, I’ll also be doing book reviews, health-related articles and giveaways.  I hope we all enjoy this journey together!  And at the end of this course, I plan to have a big graduation party!  Right here on the blog!

You might notice that I have added a button to my sidebar for the Global College of Natural Medicine.  It is not my goal to sell you a course, but if you get all inspired by what I’m sharing on the blog and decide to sign up for one of these correspondence courses, please consider supporting the Good Old Days Farm by using our link!