As days March on through wind and rain, I'm reminded daily of our weakness apart from Christ Jesus Our Lord and our frailness in the midst of a hurting world, yet in Him, we have joy unspeakable.

My mom (74) has a brain tumor, my grandmother (90) has a bacterial lung infection and my dad (75) has coronary heart disease.  That's something, isn't it?  Yet if you met each of these wonderful people in my life, you would never know that they are facing insurmountable circumstances.

Mom, even after the diagnosis, continues working about 20-30 hours each week managing several businesses. Just this week, she began sharing the load with someone.  Working brings her joy. She's forgetting things a little, but for the most part, she keeps trucking.

My grandmother, Mama Armstrong, has lived by herself for almost 50 years after my grandfather died of cancer. She constantly says, "I think I'm doing pretty good to be an old woman." Daily she climbs stairs and crosses a busy street just to feed the animals in a neighbor's yard.

My diabetic father, who's had 2 open heart surgeries, 5 stents and 4 balloons, drives my mother everywhere right now.  He constantly jokes about his abdominal aneurism and encourages us all to eat more healthy (but will eat a piece of chocolate daily).  He remembers almost everything, but just doesn't tell anyone about it.

Each one of these pillars in my life are facing new circumstances I knew they would one day, but they are all so joyful in the midst of these struggles.  We laughed as we left the MRI office today about all that we're facing and seeing it as just a new part of life God has given us. Mom forgets. Dad remembers everything from 10-50 years ago. I take notes so we all remember what's important, but I still make wrong turns by not exiting highways at the right exit.  Yet truly God leads us in triumphal procession for His Name's sake.

Keeping Focused

Plans for 2012-2013 are underway and I'm still attempting to home educate three of my children with excellence and encouragement and maintain a relationship with my husband and eldest daughter.  It's exciting, but everyone needs to know that I'm looking forward to Spring Break so I can tame the laundry giant and make some major adjustments to the financial paper pile (mountain) I have in my bedroom.  I want to focus.

Our daughter, Abby, who struggled so much in school has made huge leaps in the past 3 years and I'm excited to say we moved her to the next grade level mid-year based on her SAT score.  Thank you, Lord Jesus. With her ballet schedule increasing, it's a real joy to see how much responsibility she has taken for her education with such a heavy load. She's focused.

David plays in his band E28, plays flag football, and still loves video games, but gave them up until Easter. We grew the cooperative mainly to challenge him and we have.  He complains the most, but is usually still the one who finishes his work earliest when he's focused.

Timothy can create incredible cardboard inventions and he is focused on making every detail exact.

Why do things that are easy or simply boring to us seem so hard?  I wonder this daily. Housework is my nemesis.  I hate it, but if I focus on it just a little while, it's amazing what my house begins to look like.

As home schoolers, we can get side tracked by many things - good things - great things. Sickness, family events, church commitments, coop planning, event planning, laundry, Facebook, email, but "one thing is needed." Like Mary, we must forget what seems important and focus on what really is important.  Keeping our eyes and hearts focused on Jesus Christ, loving Him, seeking Him, praying and reading His Word daily and "all these things will be added" to us. He can make our steps plain. If we endure and focus on Christ, He promises to lead us clearly. I'm praying that our family and every family in our cooperative, church and dance/drama ministry will be focused on what God has planned for them now and the coming year.

New Directions

Well, the Lord is leading us in a bigger direction regarding our home schooling.  This past year I've had four children to educate and one of those graduating.  Who knew so many senior activities would impact the rest of our school work? It's over and now we are working to provide many of the same wonderful opportunities we gave to our graduate, Anna, while she was home educated.

We've been involved at Cornerstone Cooperative for several years and what a joy it's been to me and the kids.  It's funny.  I think it's been four years, but I honestly can't remember when we started.  A few of my friends and I joined together to do science, spanish and a little history originally.  I chose to name the group Cornerstone because we always want Christ to be our Cornerstone in every area of our lives.

Anyway, earlier this year, I checked out the Excelsior Cooperative for my son, David.  He's an easy learner and since I felt I wasn't challenging him enough I explored the idea of a cooperative with greater challenges.  The sixth grade class was full so then I start thinking, hmm?  What if we provide the accelerated demands for gifted students at our cooperative? Well, I had already been leaning toward having more class offerings at our cooperative, but I didn't have any idea how many other families in our cooperative were thinking the same thing.  Several of the teachers I really wanted joined our ranks and now with over 24 families and a host of class offerings our cooperative is growing.

Each teacher is developing a formal syllabus for each class to help us to establish strong expectations and commitment from students and their families.  All are laying out their lesson plans for the fall so we can provide homework early and, hopefully, encourage families to be intimately involved in their children's education.  It's exciting, but always overwhelming.

Father, please let everything we plan, let every thought and word we speak to our family, our children and all others, be acceptable in Your sight, O God, our Redeemer.

Benei Aor

Well, this summer has been eventful for our family. A group of 21 youth and adults from Brazil came to our home from June 22nd - July 12th. The group, Benei Aor, (Children of Light) is a dance, drama and music ministry from Recife, Brazil led by Dalvani Oliveira. The group presented their wonderful talents at multiple venues - YMCAs, parks, churches - throughout Alabama and North Carolina, U.S.A.

We traveled with the group and went through their training. We learned several dances and dramas and now we begin to teach others and plant these groups in our country.

Hope you would like to hear more about Benei Aor. I'll be posting more information about this great opportunity for youth.

Another year to minister to our kids

Well, it's been a year since I last posted here, but I thought I would drop a line to tell you that we have begun our school year already. Each year things seem to get a little easier as far as educating the children, but each year I find more things to be involved in.

My constant prayer is "What is God saying about our activities?" We have piano, ballet, soccer, art, drama, cooperative classes, and the list goes on. We have 4 children and their lives are speeding up rapidly. Do I slow things down or not?

We must always be looking to the Author of our faith as we submit our lives and daily challenges to Him. He will sustain. He will guide. He will make clear the next step to take - if we humbly submit to Him and seek Him with our whole hearts. Knowing Jesus Christ and Him crucified that is our ultimate home school goal.

Have a great day...

Welcome!

Our hope is that your life in its many roles - as an educator, parent, friend, family member and citizen - will be filled with joy in Christ.... "He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly." John 10:10 This is what we hope the articles, reviews, posts and links that fill these pages over the next several months will help you experience.