7K-Boys Club
History and Purpose:
In the early 1980’s I served as a youth group leader and at that time I brought my youth group boys on a canoe trip down the Platte River in Nebraska. This is a shallow river that spreads out far and wide and often leaves large tracks of wooded land that become stranded as islands in the middle of the river. It was on one of these large islands where I held some war games for the boys.
I took some limestone dust and tied it up into some tissues to create some golf-ball sized dust bombs. Limestone dust is extremely fine in texture (much like talcum powder) and when the dust balls impacted, they burst and created a sensational cloud of white dust! During these war games this dust lingered in the air making it look like a big phosphorus bomb had been dropped! My brother and his friend rigged up a big pulley and rope between two trees (that they had found in an old hay barn) and boys could roll down that line like a trolley! Everyone had a fabulous time and the boys begged to do this again and even tried to organize another event on their own!
That was our simple beginnings but the creativity in the boys was not developed as much as I would have liked because our props and special effects were so simple at that time. This left the boys with little they could build on their own and the real purpose behind all of these activities is to develop the creativity of boys!
But now we have bigger plans and we want to make our own armor and landing crafts and have rubber band powered launchers that can fire our dust balls and even have artillery to throw limestone dust artillery shells to produce great plumes of white dust as they come down! [This limestone dust is all natural and is used by farmers to lower PH in soil so it is good for the environment and nontoxic to humans! It is sold by the ton so it is really cheap but it makes a great display as special effects for our mock war games and is really something to behold!]
We want to have more advanced war games and organize this as a tool to mentor boys in industrial arts and design and creation of inventions. Each boy will be taught to make his own armor and equipment himself and we will develop their creativity through teaching trade skills. This type of mentoring has many advantages:
1. Imparting trade skills for employment-In the event of high unemployment and having hundreds of men standing in line trying to obtain one available job, who will have the greatest advantage in landing that one job? It will be the one who has the greatest number of trade skills. A man with trade skills has a better chance of putting food on the table than anyone else. If he can drive a truck and do mechanic work and carpentry and masonry work and electrical wiring and welding as well as run a CNC mill or lathe or do CAD design software, then this will be the man who has the best chance of landing the job. If the employer hires such a man, he can do everything that needs to be done. He can deliver products or get materials with the truck, he can build and repair things and he can create and design things or do assembly work. For one salary this guy can do just about any type of work that his employer requires of him. Hence the guy with the most trade skills has the best chance of getting a job!
2. Self-reliance and making what is needed-If a situation occurred where a man could not buy what he needed in any stores, the same man could make whatever was necessary as long as he has trade skills.
3. Great wealth is found in Inventions-There are many people who have made their fortunes by one invention. I know a man who invented a shock absorber and his family is still wealthy today over three generations later! Advanced inventions can even give value to a national currency because that currency is what is needed to purchase the products that are available nowhere else! A nation with technology (advanced inventions) can float its economy even when all other factors indicate that economy should have collapsed a long time ago! It is these inventions that create prosperity and cause a population of people to have an increased standard of living. Inventions bring prosperity not only to individuals but entire groups of people and even to nations! The development of inventions depends on the development of creativity and trade skills within our boys who will become our future inventors!
4. Essence of Manhood– What makes a boy into a man is his ability to fulfill his God-given role as a leader, provider, and protector of his family. Women and children depend upon a man for leadership and provision and protection and a boy should be mentored to develop skills that will help him fulfill his duty as a man. Trade skills are the best survival skills that a boy can possess because with trade skills he will always be able to feed his family under any circumstances. He can make what he needs, repair his own things and readily find employment or start his own business because he is multitasked. A boy with trade skills is prepared for his future and can take care of himself and his family in all situations. Such a boy is equipped to fulfill his trifold purpose as a man to provide leadership, provision and protection for his family.
5. Basic training for Boys-Even if a boy is gifted in academics and has the aptitude to become a professional (like a medical doctor or engineer) the same boy should still have basic trade skills imparted to him. If that boy is ever in a situation where he is unable to buy what he needs or hire some help, then he can still take care of himself. This is the essence of what being a man is all about! Without these manly survival skills, a boy will be helpless to survive later in life. There are medical doctors who have no natural trade skills and are so helpless that they could not change a light bulb if they did not have money to hire someone to do things for them. Every boy should have the basic trade skills imparted to him at young age even if he later pursues a professional degree or occupation. Trade skills make a boy into a man and this is a great contrast to a helpless urban boy who has no ability to do anything for himself. Parents who neglect imparting trade skills to their boys are someone who hates their sons and has no concern for their future survival on earth! Life is hard and no one will give their sons anything for free and all boys need trade skills in order to take care of themselves when no one else is going to do that for them!
6. Developing Creativity-When a boy makes his own toys or projects he is learning something about tool use and crafts and how interrelated systems can work together to create a clever invention. Boys can begin this process as soon as they are weaned and their skills can be developed level after level until they are quite advanced by age 18. A boy who was mentored in trade skills from a young age will have an aptitude or “common sense” to see and understand how things work. This aptitude is what makes them “trainable” and easy to catch on and understand things when they are instructed. Every experience in their past causes them to be on a higher level and increases their natural comprehension for learning new things. An urbanite boy with no natural skills at all will have a difficult time comprehending anything advanced that is taught to him and history bears this out!
See my subpages below concerning:
Learning Projects
It is our goal to train boys and develop their creativity so they can understand how things work. This will have application to making their own gear and equipment for club related events. This activity gives us an opportunity to mentor boys in trade skills.
Pioneer Mentoring:
Early American pioneer fathers would teach their sons by example and the boys would follow their fathers and learn from them as they worked on projects together. Teaching by example is still one of the best ways of mentoring boys.
Pioneer fathers endeavored to impart as many trade skills to their sons as quickly as possible because life was dangerous and the father could easily be killed and leave his son as an orphan. So these pioneer boys were trained as young as possible in survival skills. They were taught how to hunt and trap and fish for food. They were taught how to make jerky to preserve meat. They were taught how to ride horses and build shelters and to tan leather and make their own clothing.
Rifle marksmanship was a high priority as well because the rifle was a tool not only for protection but also for putting food on the table. If a pioneer boy could receive as many survival skills as possible this would greatly increase his chances of survival in a hostile environment. If the father should die by accident or by hostile Indians or by bandits or by sickness, then the boy would be able to survive and care for himself and any surviving family members. Teaching a boy survival skills was a true act of manly love because if a man loves his son then he will provide him with the skills that he needs to survive in life.
Bush-craft and outdoor skills are still useful in the event that someone has a plane go down in a wilderness area or for some other reason finds themselves lost in a wilderness situation. The two main killers in the wilderness are hypothermia and dehydration. If the boys can learn skills to combat these two killers, then they have a better chance of wilderness survival.
Trade Skills Mentoring:
But the condition of the world has changed a lot in the last two centuries. American for example, at one time was teeming with wild game and people could live off of hunting and fishing. This is not true anymore because urbanization has swallowed up many of the forests and natural habitat of game. There is little game left at this present time compared to what once existed during the time of the early pioneers.
Today the best survival skills that a boy can obtain to put food on the table will be trade skills by which he can earn a living with his own hands or make what he needs for himself. Trade skills can even be used to start a business enterprise which can generate wealth for an entire group of people working together.
By starting boys with simple projects we can build on that experience with increasingly more advanced projects until they have developed a reasoning ability that helps them create things. Young boys for instance can make rubber band powered items, then as they mature they can go to spring powered and compressed air powered and even chemical powered items. As we build up their reasoning skills we can also teach them how they can combine systems to create an invention that is more complex in nature. For example, mechanical systems can be combined with electronic systems to make an advanced creation.
When the boys have progressed further we will then begin industrial arts where they can learn techniques like injection molding, metal casting, and machining to make parts. We want to bring them up to a higher level to go beyond just design on paper and use CAD software in designing parts and making molds and castings. They will learn material use like plastics, fiberglass and metals. This can be progressive training as the young boys begin to make projects like helmets or body armor out of papier-mâché using only flour and water and newspapers. This however can give them the concept of making a mold and creating a shell on that mold by layering. Later we can graduate them to using fiberglass and epoxy resins which will enable them to do more advanced projects like creating the hull of a fiberglass boat.
They can also learn to utilize salvage materials for their projects teaching them resourcefulness and problem solving in the event that they are not able to buy the materials that they need. For example, they might be able to adapt a jet-ski pump or motor salvaged off of a commercial made machine and adapt this for their own powered landing craft.
All of these endeavors are teaching the boys about problem solving and utilizing their masculine logic for coming up with solutions and overcoming limitations to bring a project to success.
Our club can become advanced as we pool our resources and have club owned assets that can be used for training our boys. Instruction that includes engineering and physics will greatly advance the development of our boy’s club inventions.
We plan to have competitions where different boy’s club chapters meet for war games. The object of these games is to display their creations and demonstrate how their inventions work. The boys will be graded on how much of their creation they made for themselves and what parts were store-bought or salvaged or self-made. Those who made the greatest percentage of the parts by themselves will have the highest scores because the object of these inventions is to teach trade skills and industrial arts to the boys. A boy who can create and assemble his own parts for an invention will have learned much more than a rich kid going out and buying something with his daddy’s money! Nothing is learned by just buying something that is premade or store-bought.
Inventions will also be graded on safety so that they must incorporate safety designs in all that they make. They will make body armor and helmets and dust ball launchers and artillery shell throwers and landing craft. These special effects props (such as launchers) can be mounted onto their landing craft for a mock beach assault!
If a boy or his team wins the competition with the best all-around invention they will be granted the award of having their invention manufactured by the club. We want to have our club members work on the design and creation of parts and the assembly of parts so that boys will understand how the manufacturing process works. Boys will be rotated through each phase of the manufacturing process so they will lean all aspects involved with it. If they can understand these things, then our boys can readily understand how to design and manufacture any sort of products that they might need. Working together on a team project like this will give them understanding of how to organize an industrial manufacturing enterprise. In fact, if they create a product that has a ready market they could even earn an income for the club by which they can purchase more advanced tooling and equipment like CNC lathes and mills or mold making machines or CAD computer software for design applications. The end result of our endeavors and training and teaching is to produce a group of boys who can design and create anything that they could imagine. In fact, with such skills they can actually create their own employment for themselves as a group!
Boys will also be taught about finances and project management and business related skills. Finances to business is like lifeblood to the human body. When the cash is gone it is like the blood is gone and a business will cease. So financial management is key to the success of business development and we want to teach them these business management skills as well.
We will have our boys document their inventions. This video documentation has a twofold purpose. If they can document these things with video and images, then they can display the steps necessary to create that invention and this will be a learning experience for others in the club. Also some boys will have such refined inventions that people will not believe that they created them by themselves. Their documentation will show how they made these things and every phase of the construction process. This will also be used in grading the inventions when the time comes for giving out awards to the best creations in every awards-class.
Documented Projects
This is a picture of a crossbow pistol that a German young man named Cosmas Bauer has made together with an excellent instructional video about how he created his invention. The U-Tube link to this video is at:
The reason that I have posted this here is because it gives an example of how we want our boys to document their projects with a video.
The trigger system that he made in this project shows the interrelationship of mechanical parts. He corrected the holes on the trigger assembly, thus showing problem solving techniques and even created his own reamer to do this. He made some drawings and glued these as patterns onto the trigger metal for cutting out the metal parts. He even made his own trigger spring by bending piano wire over a nail. He also dovetailed his own scope mount out of wood to match the dimensions of a Picatinny rail to mount a red dot scope.
His video was really done in a professional manner without any signs of “camera shake” or “out of focus” so common with amateur videographers.
I would give Cosmas a 100% grade on his tutorial video and this is a good standard for our own boys to follow in documenting their projects.
Cosmas also made his own table saw, disk sander, router table and C-clamps. These can be seen at the U-Tube links below:
This is an example of creativity and manly trade skills that can be developed in our boys through mentoring them with club projects.
Sample Projects
This is a picture of the inner workings of an Oreo Cooker Shooter made by the German “Big-Boy” Joerg Sprave. This video on this can be seen at:
Joerg makes a wide variety of various types of rubber band powered launchers that can shoot many types of projectiles. A few examples are shown here:
Building and creating things is a manly pursuit. This is an example of boy projects that can be used to develop manly skills in our boys. Such projects impart an understanding of the interrelationship of working parts. When boys begin to develop their masculine logic with these types of projects, they can apply these same principles to more-advanced creations. It is our goal to bring them to a higher level of competence in creating projects to prepare them to design and create advanced multisystem inventions.
COMPETITION TO INSPIRE CREATIVITY
The competition of having war games against opposing teams and the desire not to be put to shame by the “superior inventions” created by their opponents is a great catalyst for boy-learning. They will be naturally motivated to come up with better inventions and this competition will inspire them to make better creations for every competition event that we hold.
Molded Plastics
This is a picture of a small size watercraft that could hold one or two boys and yet be light enough for them carry to the shoreline. This type of craft can be molded out of plastic but we plan to redesign the contours and add our own propulsion system. We also want to add or own “special effects” artillery launchers to conduct beach landings with dramatic display! This can be classified as a more advanced project intended to bring boys to a higher creative skill level.
Fiberglass Projects
This is yet another small watercraft design that can be made from fiberglass and is also light enough for two boys to carry to the water for launching. Our boys will have the opportunity to make their own designs (possibly adding retractable outriggers) to make the watercraft more stable to avoid tipping. We want to expose our boys to as many manufacturing techniques and material uses as possible to give them a broad understanding of trade skills involved with making these masculine projects.
Advanced Multisystems
This is an example of an advanced watercraft that has the attributes of a jet ski and also wheels to serve as an ATV. This would be great for a beach landing and for climbing out of the water onto the shoreline. This is an example of an advanced creation that has multiple systems working together to make this machine. It has an internal combustion engine, jet-ski pump, hydraulics for the wheels and many other integrated systems. If our boys can advance to this level of manufacturing of a multisystem machine like this, then it is something of a great achievement for them! It is our goal to have them do their own design and parts creation and assembly and work together as a team. When they reach this advanced product level, then they will be on their way toward being able to create just about anything that they could imagine.
Improvised Systems
I have been an international minister for many years and have visited many nations but it does not cease to amaze me the inventions that the nationals can come up with. Above is an example of using salvage parts and a gas powered water pump to create a primitive Jet Ski! Necessity can be the mother of invention but in fact this young man has more creativity than any rich kid who merely takes his daddy’s money to the store and buys whatever he wants!
Hydrostatic Drive Machines
This self-made trencher is using hydrostatic drive motors at the blade that run off a gasoline powered hydraulic pump. The same pump also drives the machine’s hydrostatic wheel motors and operates its hydraulic cylinders.
This same concept can be used to power just about anything including crawler wheels under an amphibious vehicle or even a hydraulic arm that can pull an amphibious vehicle on shore like a backhoe shovel.
This is an example of using a relatively small combustion engine to run all powered parts of this machine with hydraulics. There are many applications for the use of hydrostatic drive motors in machine building.
Wooden Mechanical Drive Projects
This is a wooden excavator made by a Japanese young man named Kinohaguruma. This is a good project to display the interrelationship of working parts. This is the type of project that can teach boys how parts work together during machine operation. These type of projects develop masculine creativity in boys and this creativity is the essence of what manhood is all about.
A link to video showing this wooden excavator machine in action is:
Below are links to more than a dozen inventions made by Kinohaguruma. All of his creations are made of wood but he is obviously a mechanical genius as far as interrelationship of parts is concerned. I have never seen anyone make such intricate and sophisticated and complex working models:
Metal Casting
Here Cosmas Bauer of Germany makes a two-part wooden mold and uses foundry sand to do metal casting. This is a link to his instructional video:
This project will help boys to understand a 3-Dimensional object and how to make molds for metal or plastic parts. This concept is important so that the boys will have an understanding that enables them to comprehend more complex operations like using 3D-CAD software and making 3D molds with mold making machines. We are endeavoring to build up the boy’s comprehension by having them make these simple manual projects so that they can progress in understanding for more complex automated equipment. The end result is that our boys will be “trainable” and able to comprehend and mentally “catch-on” to more advanced principles of parts creation and inventions.
Ferrari 312 PB
A Frenchman named Pierre Scerri made a 1/3 scale model of a Ferrari 312 PB. He spent 2-years in developing the scale drawings from photographs. He spent over 12-years in building the car and about 20,000 hours of his time. He was self-taught on all of the machinery to make the parts and even created all of the molds needed for parts fabrication himself. He even created a 100-cc 12-valve engine with 24-valves and valve springs and everything found in a full-scale version of the car. He also created the gear box and stick shift mechanism that includes a reverse gear and transmission system. Everything is fully operational in every respect just as the full-scale car is. His car can be seen at the following link:
Some people might ask if this was a waste of time or money in making this car that no one is small enough to drive. But in fact none of this was a waste because of what this man learned. The process of creating every part of this car was a great learning process that enables this man to make any type of car part that can be imagined.
What happened was that a car-restoration industry grew up around this man’s home in France because he is able to restore any vintage car on earth. Vintage cars have the disadvantage of not having any parts available for any price because they do not make them anymore. But because of what Pierre Scerri has learned in making all types of auto parts for his model car, he is now able to create any part needed for complete restoration of vintage cars.
The bible says that a man’s gift will make room for him.
Proverbs 18:16 (NASB)
16 A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.
This means that if a man is talented or gifted then he will be brought before great men because he has experience in problem solving and coming up with solutions and is creative. The same was true of Hiram of Tyre who was a famous craftsman of great skill and understanding.
1 Kings 7:13-14 (NASB)
13 Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre.
14 He was a widow’s son from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill for doing any work in bronze. So he came to King Solomon and performed all his work.
King Solomon personally sent for this man because Solomon was building the world’s most magnificent temple and only this man Hiram had the design capabilities and talent and experience to accomplish the tasks set before him on this advanced project.
It should be noted that the father of Hiram was a worker in bronze and this in fact indicates that Hiram learned this trade by being mentored by this father. Mentoring is still the best means of instructions for boys. First the father shows the boy what to do, then the father assists the boy doing the task, then the father supervises the boy as he does the job. When the boy has proven that he can do the job correctly (without supervision) then the boy can be trusted to do a project on his own. This is all part of the mentoring process of how a father can instruct his son and teach him to do a job in a safe and correct manner.
Pierre Scerri is like Hiram of Tyre because he is a man of experience who is now sought after by great men. Pierre became great and skilled by being self-taught in automobile parts creation! His gift made room for him and wealthy car collectors all over the world have sought out Pierre to restore their vintage cars that no one else has the experience to restore!
These are the type of skills that boys can learn by creating things even if that object is only a scale model. This endeavor is never a waste of time because it is all about learning something and gaining trade skills, often which are not available in any school and cannot be bought for any price.
This is especially true after a boy progresses beyond all known-knowledge and enters into an area where no man has gone before him. When he has reached that level of expertise then there are no books he can read and no one else he can call for advice because no one has ever done that before. It is here where a man begins to enter the realm of being a self-taught expert and master in his own area of trade skills.
This is the level attained by “pioneers” who opened new ways into science, technology and inventions that have changed the world. This level is not gained overnight but if a boy is mentored in trade skills (and in engineering and physics and science) he can one day arrive to that level of a master and he can pioneer a way where no man has been before!
Automated Systems
This is an example of automated systems for mold making of complex items like an engine block. This process works with both aluminum and cast iron. A video link can be seen at:
All of our boy projects are designed to develop their reasoning skills and their mental capacity to understand technical things. Boys who have done manual foundry process and mold making will readily be able to catch up with understanding automated systems like this. Boys without any previous experience would be entirely lost at this advanced level. Manual projects help the boys to be “trainable” so they can grasp more advanced technical processes. It is our goal to develop them and expose them to CAD software, automated mold making machines and automated foundry processes. This is an advanced goal we have for boy training by mentoring.
High Technology Systems
Above is an image of a Precision Guided Firearm (PGF). I have included a hunting video showing this creation in action as well as a link to their company site:
This is an example of a multisystem creation that some might even call “Space-age” because it is so advanced! Incorporated into this system is a Long Distance Range Finder, target painting laser, an on-board computer for calculating ballistic solutions, target tracking, guided trigger, Wi-Fi for streaming video and much more. With this rifle the shooter can “paint-his-target” with a laser then the computer controlled trigger system will release the shot as soon as the painted-target is lined up in the scope. Even an inexperienced shooter can hit the target over 1000-yards because the system holds the shot until the system is on target. It also has an on-board Wi-Fi so that video of what the shooter sees can be streamed to any computer (like Smart Phone or tablet) so a spotter can see what the shooter is aiming at and even record that shot.
This multisystem creation seems so advanced that most people would not consider it could be made except by an agency as large as NASA.
But in fact each of the system components of the PGF were previously invented and have been in use for quite some time. The inventors of this rifle system simply combined existing systems like range finder, laser, software and Wi-Fi in such a way that they all work together in one system. Yes, they did solve some technical issues to make this system work but in fact this is not as “out-of-this-world” as many might presume! Combining already existing systems into a creation to do a specific task is something that produces an invention that is extraordinary!
But again, these pre-existing systems were all commonly in use prior to their integration into this shooting system. From this perspective of integrating existing systems, creating cutting edge technology no longer seems to be an unobtainable goal.
We in fact can groom our boys from youth toward developing multisystem creations so that the creation of high technology systems like this PGF will be normal work for them. If a man’s mind has been programmed from his youth that nothing is impossible for him to create, then that man will be able to invent things that were never before seen on earth! Our boys can be developed to create advanced (and even high technology inventions) simply by teaching them how to integrate existing systems and also to develop and “add to” what has already been created.
Male Educational System
Boys are born with everything within them that is required for them to become a man. All that is needed is for them to be mentored by men so they will know what it means to be a man and what is required of them by God to fulfill their created purpose as men. Men are created to be leaders and providers and protectors of their families and boy-training should be focused on imparting the skills needed by boys to fulfill their God-given duties as a man.
1 Timothy 5:8 (NASB)
8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
This scripture uses all “masculine gender” pronoun-terms like “his” and “he” because this is an indication of God’s created role for men to be providers for their family. Men are to provide not only food and shelter but also leadership and protection for their families. If a man does not provide for his own household (even if he is a believer) that man is worthless! The bible says that any man who neglects this responsibility as a provider for his family is even worse than an unbeliever! Providing for the household is the basic requirement given by God to all men. After Adam was driven from the garden it was his assigned duty to produce a living for his family by the sweat of his brow!
Genesis 3:19 (NIV)
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
All boys ever born on the earth are created to become men and as a man it is their duty to become providers for their families and labor by the sweat of their brow to produce a living. Some men work under the sun laboring on farms or ranches or in construction work or in other trades. Some men may work in an office running a business enterprise or in a professional career as a doctor or engineer. But all of them have to labor under the curse of Adam to produce a living for their families.
Manual labor is hard work with extreme outdoor conditions but manual workers will generally have peace of mind and can sleep well at night. Businessmen are often beset by many pressures of meeting payroll, taxes and stiff competition in the market place! Doctors may have little free time when so many sick people require their services! So the sweat of the brow can be literal perspiration of labor under the sun or stress induced perspiration of pressures involved in making a living for their families.
Whenever a man gets out of bed and goes to work faithfully that is an evidence of his love for his family. If he does not work, his wife and children will go hungry. They are depending on him to use his masculine strength and creative mind to put food on the table!
If a man loves his son then he will want to prepare his son to become a man and assume his role of leader, provider, and protector of his own family. True masculine love will seek to impart survival skills to his son knowing that no one will give anything free to his son and it is a hard cruel world to live in.
The impartation of trade skills is the best means of helping a boy survive in life and enable him to feed himself and provide for his family. It is a noble thing for a man to be a provider and care for his family. But a boy will need trade skills in order to fulfill this role and it is the father’s responsibility to teach these skills to his son.
When mentoring boys, the best method of education is a “hands-on” approach of having the father show the son how to do a task, then do that task together with his son, then supervise the son as he works on this task and in the end the boy can be trusted to do the task on his own.
If we do our “hands-on boy training” only during the public school vacation times, this will greatly hinder our progress. It is for this reason we plan to develop our own electronic home school curriculum for boys that covers all of the academic subjects found in a standard twelve-grade teaching course. But we want to incorporate this study together with “hands-on instruction” to combine academics together with practical application (on a full-time basis).
Before a boy can learn math he should see how that math has application to something practical like the shop math used in machining. If a teacher just throws an algebra book in front of a boy and orders him to learn algebra, that boy may develop a mental-block for learning something he sees no purpose in. But if he can see some practical application to learning this subject (in that it helps him fulfill his goals of becoming a man) then he will be able to learn that subject with eagerness!
All that we do in boy training must incorporate a “hands-on approach” with academics serving in a supportive role to practical application. Boys are created with masculine logic so that they are “action-orientated” in their learning. Show them how academics is related to a practical application and they will readily be able to learn the “book-theory” that is behind the physical application.
We want to incorporate a standard type of general education from grades 1-12 together with specially developed courses in Engineering, Physics, and Science so that our boys will be able to apply these things toward the making of inventions. We will break these things down according to the boy’s maturity level. We will give simple concepts (that can be understood by young boys) to the immature and more complex concepts for the more mature boys.
The final goal in male education is imparting trade skills to young men so that they will be able to fulfill their roles as leaders, providers and protectors of their families.
During the 1930’s worldwide depression, factories closed down and unemployment soared and men had difficulty in providing for their families. But if a man has trade skills he can team up with others of like-skills and they can make just about anything that they might need (even if there are no products available in the stores). Trade skills are survival skills that can provide for a man even during an economic depression when factories close down, there are no products for sale and currency is worthless. A man can make anything that he needs if he has the skills to do so and such a man has the highest chance of survival even if there is a great nationwide or worldwide economic crisis. It is better to be prepared for the worst and provide a boy will all of the survival skills that he needs rather than doing nothing and allow the boy to remain ignorant like a totally helpless urbanite boy who has no idea what to do if hard times should come!
Individual graduates of our school will always be able to put food on the table for their families but if all of our graduates will team up together they could actually create their own micro-industry and their own micro-economy that is not dependent upon the world’s economic condition. Our boys could pool their resources and ingenuity together and create employment for themselves as a group! In short, all of our boys would be prepared for anything!
Mentoring Boys
On our community ranch, members will have the freedom to live a ranching lifestyle in a manner that most urbanite people have never experienced before. On our community owned ranch we can also provide equestrian skills for our boys and train them in working cattle. Cattle ranching will be yet another enterprise that can produce income for the community in the form of beef production and sales (plus the benefit of good meat for our own member’s consumption).
Boys will learn all of the skills that they need to fulfill their roles and men to serve as leaders of their households and providers and protectors of their families as God has created all men to do. These boys are “men-under-development” through male mentoring!
Projects Divided by Age Group and Maturity Level
The 7K-Boy’s Club is a male-mentoring program divided into three age-groups. There is the Bot-Tots Baby Boy training (age 3-8 years old) and the youth training from (age 9-12 years old) and the teenage boy training from (age 13-19 years old). Each level of the training will have projects that are adapted to the maturity and comprehension level of boys within each age-group. These programs will combine to provide boys with all of the man-skills they need to become future leaders and providers and protectors of their own future family units.
Bot-Tots Baby Boy Training
For the youngest ages (from the time they are weaned) at about three-years old to the time they are 8-years-old, the boys can enroll in a program called Bot-Tots Baby Boy Training. This program is specifically created for training baby boys. All of the projects are simplified so that these baby boys can understand according to their own age-level. Projects are focused on teaching them how to do simple things which will prepare them for more advanced projects in the future. Simple arts and crafts teach them tool use and how things fit together so they can make simple toys and gadgets of interest. This program is designed for preparing the children of our members from the youngest age to develop them as future innovators and entrepreneurs.
Youth Training Program
This program is designed for ages 9-12 years old and utilizes more advanced projects as keeping in line with their maturity levels. This is part of a progressive training program which prepares boys by providing them with projects focused on developing their masculine logic and reasoning skills. It prepares them for the more advance concepts they will encounter in the following programs.
Teenage Boy Training
This program is designed for boys within the age group of 13-19 years old. This program has the most advanced projects which build upon all of the experience the boys gained in the previous courses.
Male Mentor Program
The Male Mentor Program involves fully mature instructors (over age fifty) who are experts in their particular trades and skills. These men will serve as instructors for boys interested in their particular trade or field of experience. Each boy will pay a tuition fee so that the senior mentor will be reimbursed for his time teaching. In this manner, our boys can have instruction from the best within their particular fields.
Male Mentoring Programs
Not every father knows how to do everything but if he can rotate his son through a series of male mentoring programs (taught by experienced experts), then his son can receive a “well-rounded” education, derived from actual “hands-on” experience. These boys will have had previous experience in prior “boy-training” programs so that they will be familiar with tool use and tool care and will be able to understand more advance concepts presented to them within the Male Mentor Program.
A man-skill is something that boys will need to take care of themselves in real life. It is a hard and cruel world out there and no one will give anything to these boys for free. They have to know how to take care of themselves and it is “man-skills” that enable them to feed themselves under any situation and help them provide for their future families.
Trade Skills for Jewish Survival
A good illustration of this are the Jewish fathers because even their Jewish Talmud (collection of Jewish writings) says that a Jewish father should impart some kind of trade skill to his son so that he has a means of making an honest living. Throughout the history of the Jews this has proven to be sound advice because often they faced satanic persecution for being God’s chosen people. There were massacres and pogroms and often Jews suffered confiscation of homes and property and were cast out of nations by demonic people in civil government who hated Jewish people. If a Jewish father provided his son with a trade-skill then it was something that no one could take away from him. If a Jewish man possessing these skills were to be expelled from a country (with nothing but the shirt on his back) then he could still go anywhere and start over again with just the trade-skill knowledge he carries within him.
Jews Expelled from Rome
Acts 18:1-3 (NIV)
1 After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
2 There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them,
3 and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.
When the godless Roman emperor Claudius expelled all of the Jews from Rome, then a Jew named Aquila was forced to leave together with his wife Priscilla. This Jewish man possessed a trade skill of being a tentmaker. His Jewish father saw to it that he had a trade skill to feed himself just as the father of the Apostle Paul also provided him with the same trade skill of tent-making. This was a good skill to have in that day because soldiers and shepherds and travelers and Bedouins all lived in tents so there was a good demand for this product and those with the skill to make tents were always able to find a ready-use for their trade skills. This means that when Aquila was expelled from Rome (possibly with only the possessions he could carry) he was able to set up shop again in Corinth and practice his trade. This helped him provide for himself and his wife and family and this shows the wisdom of the Jews in providing such training for their own sons.
Man-Skills and Survival Skills
Man-Skills and Survival skills are largely synonymous because if a boy has man skills, then he can provide for himself and his future family under any circumstances.
My Own Experience with Male Mentoring
When I came to Korea in May 2009, my Korean nephew was without a father so I assumed the role of father for him and began the process of imparting trade skills to him. But since I came to Korea, I had no more access to the machine shed and shop and the tools we had on our farm in Nebraska. We were living in a small apartment in an urban setting without tools or shop so I had no way of imparting man-skills to my nephew to prepare him for adult life. So, what I did was to “farm-him-out” to a mechanic shop where he could learn tool use and skills of being a man. He worked here for 15-hours a day in a shop with nothing but an open-air tin-roof. They worked outdoors in the heat of summer and in the cold of winter and we were paying his travel expenses for him to work there for free. But over time he gained the skills he needed to become employable. With that knowledge he found a job with an electrical wiring shop and was paid for this work. It was so much easier than what he did for free at the mechanic shop that he felt like he was on a paid-vacation! Then with the experience he gained from the first two places of employment he was able to get a job in a production factory making casement windows. At this point, I trained him how to ride a motorcycle because the Korean law at that time permitted him to drive a motorcycle of up to 125 cc size before his sixteenth birthday. Then with the experience he had in the first three jobs he finally landed a job at a LED light manufacturing company. He utilized all of the previous job experience in this company and was able to do everything they required of him. On his sixteen birthday I purchased a manual transmission car for him so he could learn to use a clutch and stick-shift. This helped him greatly in preparation for obtaining his truck driving license. When he obtained his truck driving license this helped him a lot at his company because he could drive a company truck to haul materials or supplies. He could also do computers and do office work and other management jobs. He could do production line work and electrical wiring. All of this experience combined from previous jobs all helped him gain promotion after promotion. He soon was in a management position making a good salary and overseeing all aspects of that business. In fact, he was already gaining experience while his former classmates were still sitting in school. So, he obtained his GED while working and later he ended up having college graduates working under him because he started gaining experience before he was age sixteen and he had more experience than they did. He was able to do anything that the owner of the company could ask him to do. Today he is doing well and is driving a nice vehicle and has a nice home and computers and smart phone and a large savings and everything that could be called prosperous.
All of this success and prosperity was derived from the impartation of man-skills to this boy when he was young so that he would have the skills needed to take care of himself in adult life.
It is said that a man needs experience to get a job but he needs a job to gain experience. But in our case, we had our nephew work at a mechanic shop for free while he was still young so he learned tool use and welding and auto-body painting and mechanical work so that he had a strong foundation of knowing how things work. With this understanding my nephew became “trainable” so that he could easily catch up with understanding any type of new concept presented to him. So, this opened the door for him to learn new trade skills and one after another he progressed until he was one of the most valuable employees at the LED Lighting company where he works today earning a good salary.
Wide Range of Man Skills
Man-skills can be synonymous with trade skills but it is a broader category that includes just about anything that would give a boy increased chances of survival and the ability to be able to feed himself and his own family in adult life.
Again, every father should provide “man-skills” for his son because this is true manly love to provide the skills necessary for a boy to feed himself in adult life.
Example of Pioneering Fathers
The pioneers of the early western period of US history would typically begin imparting man-skills to their sons at the earliest age possible. Life was difficult on the frontier and a father could easily lose his life to accident, exposure, hypothermia, dehydration, hostile Indians, bandits and numerous other dangers. If he should die unexpectantly and leave his son an orphan, then he would have done the boy a big favor to have imparted as many man-skills as necessary to his son at the youngest possible age.
A pioneer boy had to learn to shoot because a rifle was not only used to put food on the table but also to defend themselves and their families from attack. He had to know how to fell trees and split rails and make lumber and to how to build a shelter. He had to know how to make fires in all weather conditions and how to prepare and store food. He had to know how to hunt and trap and fish and tan hides and furs. He had to know how to ride horses and manage livestock which were a valuable source of food and income for the family. He had to be able to repair wagon wheels and make just about anything that he needed for himself. Again, the more man-skills that a boy had the greater his chances of survival would be especially if he was left as an orphan and had to fend for himself from a young age.
Father/Son Training
It is good if a father has the time to mentor his son in the man-skills that he needs for survival in adult life but this can be difficult when a father has to spend many hours laboring every week in order to provide for his family. This can leave little time for mentoring his own sons.
Also, there are some men who did not have a good father-figure themselves when growing up so therefore they lack the knowledge they need to train their own sons in needed man-skills.
Gifted Trade Skill Teachers
Sometimes however there are men who are exceptionally gifted in teaching man-skills and these types of men have a wide range of knowledge in many different subjects. Huram of Tyre was just such a man who possessed the ability to work with just about every type of material from stone to cast metal and wood working and even textiles. He was used by King Solomon to build the most magnificent temple structure the world has ever seen!
1 Kings 7:13-14 (NIV)
13 King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram,
14 whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was a man of Tyre and a craftsman in bronze. Huram was highly skilled and experienced in all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.
Huram was well-known for his ability to do metal casting especially with cast bronze. He made things like the cast pillars for the temple which would be difficult to make even today with modern technology available.
2 Chronicles 2:13-14 (NIV)
13 “I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill,
14 whose mother was from Dan and whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given to him. He will work with your craftsmen and with those of my lord, David your father.
Huram also utilized different types of metals in casting including gold and silver and bronze and iron. He could also work with stone and wood as well as textiles with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He was also experienced in engraving of all kinds and could execute any type of design given to him. Huram was a master craftsman who could make anything that was related to the magnificent temple built by King Solomon.
I met a man like Huram who was an industrial arts instructor at a high school I attended in my youth. He could do construction and woodworking and was a master craftsman like Huram. He was also artistic and could do any type of sculpture or pottery or art project as well. There are certain men gifted by God as natural born craftsmen and artists and some of these men are also gifted teachers and can teach any type of subject and make it clear and easy to understand for their students.
If just such a man could be found then fathers who lack trade-skill knowledge themselves could gather a group of men together and they could all contribute toward the support of a master craftsman who could teach their sons what they need to know. In this manner, even if the father was not able to do this job himself (because of his own lack of knowledge) he could contribute toward the education of his own son by paying a tuition fee to someone else who has such knowledge and who is a “Huram-type” who can teach anything and is a master craftsman in many subjects.
It would not take much more effort for a man to teach a dozen or more boys than it would to teach only one boy. So, with more boys contributing toward the support of the master craftsman then they could sponsor him so he could afford to teach full-time and they could all benefit from his instruction.
Another possibility is that boys could be rotated through existing businesses enterprises in the same manner that I sent my own nephew through a mechanic shop. My nephew worked for free to gain experience and this also helped the owner of the mechanic shop a great deal. In this way, it could be said that my nephew was engaged in a work/study program and his labor working at that shop was paying for the cost of training him.
For example, I know of some business enterprises that are booming and they are having difficulty in keeping up with the orders and the increased demand for their products. Under such a situation we could train up young men to handle much of the overflow work for such a busy shop. Our boys would gain knowledge in that trade and their labor could also help the owner of that business to expand and keep up with orders. Their training therefore would be paid for by their own labor as part of a work/study program.
I also have some boy-projects which would help develop mechanical ability of young boys which would cost only a small amount (especially for the fathers who do not have a large budget to spend on their son’s training). These projects involve making rubber-band powered toy guns, which have all of the working parts made of wood. Some of these projects are very simple and elementary while others are extremely advanced (and even imitate a real slide action pistol but which shoots rubber bands). I saved these designs as downloads in the event that they are removed from the internet. This are some of the projects we can utilize to develop “man-skills” in the sons of our members.
Identifying A Boy’s Technical Ability
Those boys who are gifted in mechanical things will be able to display their prowess immediately and thus identify themselves as having a mechanical aptitude. This is one way to help a young man to discover where his gifts and talents lie so that he can define his direction and training to find an occupation that is best suited for him.
Another option is that if a rancher has land and a shop then arrangements could be made to establish an intern program for ranching. Boys could be rotated through such a program which is set up on their ranch. I know of a ranch in Montana that has just such a program for mentoring young men in the ranching business so they would gain hands-on experience in all types of ranch work.
Rotating boys through any type of enterprise is a way of helping fathers who do not have the shop or tools or the knowledge to mentor their own sons in these valuable man-skills. If these boys are started off young (before they are age 16) then they can gain a lot of valuable experience which can make them “trainable” so they are able to “catch-up” with and understand increasingly more complex tasks.
Under hard times those boys who have the most trade skills could survive and create a livelihood for themselves. A group of graduates working together could even form a business enterprise manufacturing parts or products and thus create a livelihood for an entire group of graduates working together.
Progressive Training
I know of a business that makes products from fiberglass, carbon fiber, and composites. In order to train young boys to prepare them to comprehend such an industry we could start out with something simple. Instead of using expensive materials like carbon fiber, our young boys could start making projects with paper-mâché using only flour-water and strips of newspaper. This allows young boys to experience layering on a form to create a shell much like the process for the more advanced materials like fiberglass, carbon fiber or other composite materials.
Forms can be created out of foundry sand and even molding material can be made from melted-down plastic containers like discarded milk jugs. These cheap materials allow boys to learn to make molds and shapes and to create a shell or casting. Such knowledge helps a boy to become “trainable” so he can grasp more advanced concepts later like making metal-cast parts or objects.
In the military, the farm boys would typically qualify as experts on the rifle range immediately while the urban boys would be wasting large amounts of ammunition and could not hit the target whatsoever. This is because the farm boys started off with homemade sling shots which shoot a slow projectile and the boys could see how that projectile arches through the air while in flight. They had to aim higher to hit farther targets. Then they learned to use a BB gun and pellet gun then a .22 caliber rim-fire rifle then center fire rifles. The projectile from a rifle is so fast that the human eye cannot see it in flight. But the farm boys understood trajectory from shooting the homemade slingshots so they could easily understand trajectory of a bullet in flight even if they cannot see it, when it is fired. They could adjust sights for longer range or hold-over a target that is farther knowing the bullet will drop over a long distance. Thus, they were able to qualify as expert marksmen immediately while the urban boys could not hit anything whatsoever at any distance!
The principle here is that the farm boys started with elementary things like sling shots made from a forked tree-branch and some rubber cut out of a car tire innertube. This taught them trajectory of an object in flight. The same concept was applicable in shooting rifles at long range even if the projectiles were too fast for the human eye to see. The farm boys understood the concept of hold-over or adjusting sights for longer range and this caused them to “catch-up with” or “understand” more complex concepts which the urban boys were at a total loss in trying to understand.
There are many boy-projects that can be used to develop the understanding and comprehension of boys to be able to grasp more advance ideas. They need foundational and elementary projects at a young age so they can comprehend more advanced concepts later. If they try to start with the advanced projects immediately then they will typically be like an ignorant urban boy who has no foundation of understanding to be able to understand advanced concepts presented to him.
Senior Male Mentors
Numbers 8:25-26 (7KB)
25 and at the age of fifty years they must cease performing this work, and shall no more do the work themselves [but instead serve in a supervisory role].
26 They may assist their brothers in performing their duties at the Tent of Meeting, [in a supervisory role] but they must not do the work themselves. This, then, is how you are to assign the responsibilities of the Levites.”
The 7KB translation above clarifies that the senior Levites (beginning at age fifty) are to cease preforming the work but are to serve in a supervisory role to the younger men rather than doing the work themselves. This direction was given by God’s wisdom because a fully mature man of age fifty and above, has gained years of experience which the younger men do not have. It would be tragic to allow such experience to go to waste while a senior Levite wastes his time doing mundane tasks or repetitive work that could be assigned to younger men. At age fifty, the Levite is fully mature and experienced and it is at this time that God required them to stop doing the work themselves and move into a supervisory role to begin to mentor the young men who would replace them. There is a proper way to do things so that the young men can be trained in the proper way.
This is why God required that the senior Levites stop doing the work themselves at age fifty (not because they were to retire and sit in a rocking chair) but instead they were to use their maturity and superior “life-experience” and mentor the young men after them just as their own fathers had mentored them. It is insane to reinvent the wheel by allowing some ignorant young guy to invent his own way (who knows nothing about the proper way to do things). The proper way was developed by generations of men knowing the right way to do things so that they could teach their own sons so they will not repeat the same mistakes. It is senseless and foolish to throw back to a time of 1,000-years ago when people were still ignorant and inventing their own “nonsense-way” by trial and error.
This same principle of the “Senior Mentor” can be applied to just about any type of trade that can be imagined. Those who are fully mature (at age fifty) are doing everyone a disservice by continuing to do the work themselves. It is at this time that they are to use their superior wisdom and experience to train and mentor the young men. They should allow the young men to do the work while these “senior mentors” are to supervise them and mentor them in how to do the work in the proper manner.
The principle of the “senior mentor” has application for our boys training program as well because fully-mature men of age fifty or more can cease from doing the jobs themselves and begin their role of being a trainer and mentor.
Summary
In summary, if fathers will mentor their young sons using simple crafts and projects (like making rubber-band guns) then they can develop the “masculine logic” of their sons. This enables their boys to become “trainable” so that when they are presented with more advanced concepts later in life, then they will be able to easily understand them. Once they have developed their mechanical-aptitude then they can qualify to progress to a place where “real life principles” are used in industry or trades.
In the second phase boys can be rotated through established shops which are making parts or products or preforming service industry work. If the business owner becomes a “senior mentor” at this point, he can stop doing the mundane work himself and move into a supervisory role instead. Here, he can train young men to do the work for him and at the same time the students can also learn while they earn as working students without acquiring any student loan debt.
A senior mentor can also expand his business greatly if he has qualified people to run the work (enabling him to take more orders and expand his business to a level that is not possible if he is doing the work by himself). Serving in the role of “senor mentor” can prosper him financially and expand his business and be of great service to the young men which he mentors in his trade skills. This is a win/win situation for everyone because fathers can obtain “professional training” for their sons that they may not be able to impart themselves. The senior mentor can stop doing the mundane tasks and repetitive work himself but have his students do this labor while he supervises instead. He can also expand his business greatly if he has trainable employees who are faithful and can be trusted to do what he instructs them to do.
When I first got married in Korea in 1997, I remember a Korean businessman who took my wife Helen and I out to eat at a nice restaurant as a means of showing his appreciation. As it turned out the best workers this businessman had working at his business enterprise were those who came from the international church fellowship led by my wife Helen. These workers learned about biblical principles of doing their jobs faithfully (as if doing their job was unto the Lord) and they were honest and had integrity and the boss could fully trust them. Having good employees who were faithful and trustworthy allowed him to expand his business and increase in prosperity. When he did not have any good employees then he was constantly going back to put out small fires and was distracted by having to do things himself because his past unfaithful employees failed him. But with good employees he could focus on “expansion” instead of being stuck on a “survival-level” with repeated cycles of hiring and firing and again training new workers.
The point to make here is that when a senior mentor learns to delegate (and he trains young men) then he can stop doing the mundane repetitive work himself but instead he can focus on business expansion and developing new products. Once he has faithful employees who fear God and are honest and have integrity and are trainable then he can place them in charge of matters enabling himself to be free to do other more important things related to business expansion. This thing about training new employees is a way for the senor mentor to prosper and have free-time and be relieved of stress and to put things in order. He can train faithful young men to take over every department of his business and once these departments are operational then they can follow a fixed system and produce the exact same results every time. Then he will gain peace of mind and can focus on things important to expanding his business. Learning how to delegate tasks and mentor new employees is a way toward obtaining financial freedom and freedom from stress and freedom for the senor mentor to expand his business enterprise.
With this in mind, a program for boy training can be developed which will provide good trainable young men for a senor mentor to teach and these young men can cause his business enterprise to grow so that all of them can prosper together. Again, this is a win/win situation for the fathers and their sons and for the senor mentor who trains them. They can all prosper together as the young men gain new trade skills and the senior mentor can stop doing mundane repetitive work himself and focus on more important things of business expansion.
Pre-Military Shooter Training
This program is for young men ages 17 to enlistment age (age twenty or over) and it prepares them in advance for military service teaching them shooting skills which have been founded upon their previous boy training experience of using sling shots and air-guns (BB-guns and Pellet-guns) and rim-fire guns before they engage in this program using scoped centerfire sniper rifles for long range shooting. The essentials of shooting will have been already covered in the various boy-training programs to condition them to understand more complex topics of trajectory, ballistics, hold-over, range-finding, doping the wind, and other topics related to long-range shooting.
See the link “Marksmanship Training” for more details.
Boy Development Covering from Age 3 to 19-Years-Old
The age brackets for boy training fall under baby level 3-8-years old and youth level from 9 to 12-years-old and teenage level from 13 to 19-years-old.
God Holds Humans Responsible as Adults at age Twenty and Above
Exodus 30:14 (NASB95)
14 “Everyone who is numbered, from twenty years old and over, shall give the contribution to the LORD.
In the scripture above God held the people responsible beginning at age twenty to give the prescribed contribution to the Lord. This was important that they were fully mature and able to comprehend the significance of giving to God.
Numbers 1:3 (NASB95)
3 from twenty years old and upward, whoever is able to go out to war in Israel, you and Aaron shall number them by their armies.
The scripture above states that at age twenty, the men were considered adults and could be enlisted in the military beginning at this age.
Numbers 14:28–32 (NASB95)
28 “Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you;
29 your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me.
30 ‘Surely you shall not come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.
31 ‘Your children, however, whom you said would become a prey—I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected.
32 ‘But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness.
The scripture above says that every complaining Israelite was destroyed by God (from age twenty and above). Again, this means that these people were considered adults at age twenty and therefore they were judged for their willful and rebellious sin of resisting God and speaking evil against Him.
It is for this reason that we consider our young men to be fully mature (as responsible adults) by the time they reach age twenty and above. This is why our boy training begins after they are weaned (about three years old) and extends through their youth and teenage years until they are 19-years-old. At the time they turn twenty, they are considered fully mature adults and will be treated as such.
Therefore we want to complete all of their boy training by the time they reach age twenty and impart as many man-skills as necessary to enable them to function as a man to serve within their God-given roles as leaders and providers and protectors of their own family units.