Homeschool Beginnings (Part One)

Our homeschool "adventure" didn't happen by accident. I call it adventure here because that's what one well-wisher said to me, "Good luck with your homeschool adventure." While our homeschool journey has had it's ups and downs, I don't liken it to a roller coaster adventure. I prefer to call it a "journey". The definition of journey is the act or an instance of traveling from one place to another; a trip; any course or passage from one stage or experience to another. The last definition certainly describes what I hope our children have experienced: a passage from one stage to another.

Before my husband and I were married, we discussed many things most couples do such as, what kind of house do we want to live in, where do we want to live, how many children we would like to have. One decision we made right off the bat was that when God did bless us with our first child, I would resign from my full-time job and become a stay-at-home mommy. I guess we naturally assumed that our children would go to public school. Although we were Christians, the thought of sending our children to a Christian school had never crossed our minds, much less the thought of homeschooling them.

A few years went by and God had blessed us with a son and a daughter. We had spent three years living in Panama, had returned to Virginia, and waited until we were assigned to our next overseas post. I was happily busy with my new job as a full-time mommy and my day was spent feeding babies, changing diapers, and homemaking. We were attending a church that we loved, but I knew not to get too attached to the people there because we were slated to go overseas. But in that very short time we were at that church, God had planted a tiny seed that would forever change my life! We met a couple in our weekly bible study that had two daughters in elementary school. They had shared that they homeschooled them. After the study was over and we driving home, my husband and I firmly decided that we weren't going to do that to our kids. Do what? I don't know. It wasn't that there was anything at all wrong with the girls. In fact, for as young as they were, they were very bright and easily carried on conversations with adults. It was just that my husband and I had spent our school years doing fun activities: my husband in sports and I in music. We wanted the same for our own children, but at that point, we weren't thinking beyond that. I never gave the homeschooling idea another thought. Until...

In 1994 my husband was assigned to a position in Guam and a house was chosen for us. Funny how God has a sense of humor. The man who my husband was replacing was the man whose house we were moving into. So we met the family and quickly found out that they homeschooled their two children. There would be a four-week overlap with my husband's position while he learned the job. We would have several opportunities to get know this family. The wife invited me to a homeschool support group meeting and sweetly suggested that I "would be great at homeschooling". I was intrigued, so I decided to go. I was amazed at the number of families represented at this meeting (about 20 or so at the time--four years later there would be over 100 families involved with the group). Over the next year, it seemed that God was constantly placing homeschool families in my path. Each time, I was pleasantly impressed at how well the children always behaved, their good manners, and their ability to converse with adults and children of all ages. I tucked all these things in the back of my mind until it was time for my first child to start kindergarten. That time would come soon enough and I had to make a decision. All that time, God was doing a wonderful work in my own heart. That tiny seed was beginning to blossom. What did God have in store for our family?