Starting School

This was our first week of homeschool around here, and Kaylia’s first week of Kindergarten! I love homeschooling for many, many reasons, but as I read the weepy status updates on Facebook last week from moms who were braving the first day of school, my pregnancy hormones were extra grateful not to have to be sending her off for the day – not sure my unstable emotions would have been up to that test right now!

Nope, “first day of school” for Kaylia meant that she joined Anika and me at the table with her own little stack of workbooks, and it felt very natural and right for her to be there!:)

I wasn’t sure how it would go – she is of the opinion that everything needs to be her idea, or it isn’t worth doing. But so far, she’s been great about getting her work done – I let her choose the order of subjects – math, printing, science, or reading. She often decides to do extra pages. Not sure how long that will last, but I’ll take it while I can!;)

I quickly found that math games on the iPad are a wonderful incentive for when she’s running out of steam, and we have a little more to finish.

“Recess” has taken on a whole new meaning at our house, now that there are finally two students to get excited about having a break. Our first day included some Ladder Ball, and a back to school photo session!

Anika’s photo took two tries. Kaylia’s? Countless…

Goofball. It’s almost as though Ben was disguised as a five-year-old little girl in a pink T-shirt…

If You Ask Me About Homeschooling, I Might Cry

Most of the time, I try to stay away from writing about homeschooling on my blog. This is not a homeschool blog, and it’s not a topic that everyone really cares about all that much.

But right now, it’s one of the big things in my life that’s getting a lot of attention, stress, and prayer. And the longer I blog, the more I find that those are the topics that resonate with people – the personal, privately painful, deep, life stuff.

If I share what I’m truly struggling with at the moment, it seems there is a much better chance of someone else connecting with my story – someone who, for whatever reason, needs to hear those certain words, that different point of view, the reassurance they’re not alone.

So here’s a post about homeschooling, for anyone who might be needing it, for whatever reason:

I grew up in a town where homeschooling just wasn’t done that much. The few who tried it were viewed as being…kind of weird.And beyond that, I never gave it a lot of thought.

But when Anika was three years old, some friends of ours came over for a visit, and shared how they were considering homeschooling their kids.

I was surprised – they seemed so normal. Why would they be interested in homeschooling?

As they shared their reasons, I felt myself slowly starting to relate to what they were saying. The dreams they had for their family were very similar to ours, but I had never considered homeschooling as a way of accomplishing those dreams.

When our friends left that evening, Ben and I looked at each other and said, “Interesting. We may have to talk about this some more, someday.”

But Kindergarten still felt a long way off at the moment, and it didn’t feel like a pressing concern, just an interesting thought.

Two months later, the opportunity to move to Red Rock Bible Camp presented itself, which meant some big life changes for us, including…homeschooling.

If we chose to move out there, sending Anika to the nearest school would involve her spending two hours per day on a bus, in addition to over an hour of driving for us, getting her to and from the bus stop.

We saw homeschooling as our only option: Were we prepared to do it?

I have never been so stressed about Anika’s future. It was extremely difficult to make the choice to homeschool, and to move to a place where social interaction with other children was not guaranteed. We were dealing with infertility at the time, so producing siblings for her to play with wasn’t even looking like a realistic option. Would she be lonely? Would we regret moving out there?

In the midst of my turmoil, one day I felt God say, “Trust me with Anika’s future.” I realized He cared far more for her needs than I even did.

So we went for it. And at the job interview, when I was asked how I felt about my possible role at camp, and if I was prepared to homeschool, I cried when I answered.

I couldn’t help it! It was such a weighted question for me at that time.

I thought for sure Ben wouldn’t get the job because of his crazy, emotional, bawling wife.

But he did, and we moved, and we homeschooled.

And we loved it.

Not in an “Everything is sunshine and roses and happiness ALL THE TIME” kind of way, but in other ways.

Our family found it’s rhythm. We found a relaxed, flexible pace and schedule. I loved being there for all those times when Anika was learning something new, and the look of understanding and excitement flashed across her face. I loved learning with her. I loved shopping for all the fun books and resources. 🙂 I loved being the one to help her with all the other life stuff that came up while we were doing school. I loved seeing the kind of relationship she grew with Kaylia because they were together all day. I loved all the hours she had for playing, reading, imagining, and getting outside when she was done her school work. I loved being in a place where every other family was doing the same thing, and loving it for many of the same reasons we were.

And we didn’t love every single moment of homeschooling, but we loved the results.

It’s like potty training – sometimes it’s hard and messy and frustrating, but I don’t ever quit for those reasons. I stick with it because in the end, I love the results, and it’s so totally worth the effort.

After four years of homeschooling, it’s become a part of who we are as a family.

We could change. We could send Anika to school, and she could love it.

And we may do that, someday.

Or we may not.

But for now, we just like it. Sometimes it’s hard, and very frustrating, but some moments are gold.

Now that we’ve left camp, I am starting to see more clearly how much our family changed and adapted to our life out there. It was very, very different than life out here.

Maybe our adventure at camp made this “normal life” seem harder to blend in with, but maybe blending was never the point. And I could never regret these past five years, because we loved it. It made us who we are. So has homeschooling.

But I find myself feeling scared again.

I am scared this could end up being a bad choice for Anika. I’m scared I won’t be enough. I’m scared we’ll shelter her, or hold her back from good opportunities. I’m scared she’ll seem weird to other kids.

Right now, though, this is where our hearts are at, and once again, I have to trust God with Anika’s future.

If He makes it really clear that Anika needs to go to school, off she goes. But in the meantime, this is who we are.

God has blessed us and cared for us so very well – far beyond our expectations.

Those social concerns I had for Anika at camp – not having enough kids to play with? There were 15 children living at camp when we left. I really didn’t need to be so worried.

I think He’ll work things out this time, too.

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If you want to read some great resources about why homeschooling can be amazing, these are my favorites:

Why Be Crazy Enough to Homeschool

So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling

And to think I was going to pack away my swimsuit….

I’ve had very many people ask me this week when I plan to start homeschooling Anika for the year.

My answer is always the same – I was going to start this week, but we decided to go to the beach instead.

There have to be some perks to planning our own school schedule, right?

We’ll start school next week.

Maybe. Depending on the temperature….

In the meantime, we will play, and have snacks, and enjoy the sunshine.

Been Thinking About Greenhouses

Paul Scanlon is a pastor in the UK who writes:

“Our native environment is not the church: it’s the world – not the comfortable club, but the dangerous ocean. We were born to thrive in the adversity and hostility of a broken world. Like fish, who do better in water, we do better among a lost world because, like fish, we were designed to always stay in that native environment. Remove a fish from the water and it dies. Remove a flower from the soil and it dies. Remove the church from the world and we die.”  (from The Love Revolution, p. 144)

I feel like I’m a fish who has grown up in the comfortable club.

I was raised in a Christian home, lived in a small Mennonite town where almost everybody was a Christian, and went to a school where almost everybody was a Christian. The question was not “Should I go to church?” but rather, “Which one of the Mennonite churches in this town should I go to?”

Then I left to go to Bible school for 3 years. Once I was done there, I taught piano in a Christian school, married Ben, and moved to another Mennonite town where he became a youth pastor.

And now, we have entered the most sheltered environment of all, a Bible camp in the middle of nowhere.

Sometimes that bothers me.

Sure, the nearest town is about as unchurched as you can get, but it’s 20 minutes away. We don’t really “rub shoulders” with the world on a regular basis.

I have nothing against Christian “bubbles” – there is an important time and purpose for them. And I know that many, many people have been blessed in life-changing ways because of the ministry of Red Rock Bible Camp. It is so amazing to have a quiet place to get away to where you can slow down, be surrounded by nature, and experience God in ways that you often can’t in the regular busyness of life.

But living at camp has made me see how important it is to remain in the bubble only for a time.

We need to come away from everything so that we can be refreshed and strengthened to go out into it all again.

That’s the point.

Ben and I have often talked about how Red Rock is like a greenhouse. Plants can thrive in a greenhouse because they get the perfect amount of sunshine, the perfect amount of water, the perfect temperature. Everything is controlled in that environment to provide the optimal experience for growth. The plants grow big and strong so that they can be planted out in the real world with a “head start”.

photo © 2008 Wendy Piersall (via: Wylio)

There is an important purpose for a greenhouse.

And so I think that sometimes Christians need “greenhouses” too.

But only for a time. And then it’s so important to get back out into the real world, before we start to think that the comfortable, safe, “easy-to-grow-in” environment is actually “normal”.

I think I’ve forgotten what “normal” is. Actually, I change that – I don’t think I’ve ever fully known what “normal” is. I am so very thankful for the life that God has blessed me with – the home I grew up in, my parents, the churches I attended, my Christian friends – but these days I’m asking myself what I’m going to do with it. I’m like the plant in the greenhouse wondering how it will survive in the real world.

It reminds me of playing Prisoner’s Base. Two teams, each team has their own line, and you keep trying to tag people from the other team. Whoever was on their own side of the line most recently is “freshest” and can tag other people who have been out in the middle longer, who aren’t as “fresh”.

So you run around yelling “Fresher!” at the top of your lungs. If you just hang out around home base, it’s a really boring game. You miss out on all the excitement and action.

Camps are great and churches are great, but I’m just feeling like it’s been a really long time since I’ve gone running out into the world yelling “Fresher!” at the top of my lungs. I’ve been swimming in the safe, comfortable waters, instead of in the dangerous ocean. I’m not blaming this on camp or churches – I’ve chosen to stay in my comfort zone. It was all I knew how to do. And learning new stuff can be scary. Excuses? Yes.

But I’m realizing that while fantastic quiet times with God, or amazing times of prayer and worship with other Christians feeds me and helps me to grow stronger, it can’t be the end of how I live out my life of faith. The point of being a Christian is not just to try to increase my own level of “holiness” or to continually bask in the glow of knowing that Jesus loves me, just for the sake of feeling great about it.

It’s not supposed to be like Tupperware, keeping the freshness all sealed up inside.

So how can I live in the bubble of camp and not feel like Tupperware?

How can I make the most of this “greenhouse experience” while still realizing that it is most definitely not “normal”?

And when the time comes, will I learn to thrive in the dangerous ocean when I’ve never really done it before?

These are the questions I’m asking myself these days…

So how about you? Do you feel like you need to get away from the craziness of life, and have a greenhouse experience? Or do you feel like your life has been a bit too sheltered, and you’re longing to get out into the ocean? Or maybe you’re completely comfortable swimming in the dangerous ocean, and you could give me some tips!