Mrs. Homeschool

Sometimes I feel like Peter.  Peter, the apostle.  Sometimes I feel like him, with wet feet, knowing that with Christ’s help, I can walk on water, but losing my focus, I start to sink…and PANIC!  Just then, Christ comes over to him and (I think, probably laughingly) says, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matt 14:31)
 
The past two weeks have been “Peter weeks” or “weak Peter” days for us.  As you probably know, our family of 7 has uprooted from our 10 acre hobby farm and moved south to Florida.  We knew the transition and the weeks leading up to it would be hard, but until we were in the thick of it, we didn’t realize how trying they would be!
 
I won’t bore you with all the details of our stresses, but knowing how the housing market is across the country and knowing how timid banks are about loaning people tens of thousands of dollars, I would bet that you can think of more than a few things that crossed our minds as we awaited the final “ok” for our closing.
 
Thankfully, the church we’re members of constantly reminded us to pray our way through the days and were very faithful to pray for us…and the Lord answered their prayers (and my cries).
 
But the story of God’s sovereignty really played out SO clearly for us in the past few days.  My typed out words surely won’t be able to do these events justice…

To sum up what has happened, our family relocated from NC to FL with no “home” to move into.  Not that we weren’t looking.  We just realized the rental market here is VERY aggressive and didn’t want to get our hopes up on a home that would be rented out by the time we arrived.  But having my sister here, she was able to help us find homes in safe locations.

On Monday, we started the official hunt.  That morning we saw an “okay” house…it was a bit too big, the rooms were a little awkward and it had a lot that sloped straight down into a pond and no fence.  I was less than thrilled with it, as was my husband, but we knew we could make it work if we couldn’t find anything else.  Later that day, I went on Realtor.com and found a house that had just been added 3 hours prior.  It looked “too good to be true” with exactly what we’d been praying for: 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a fenced yard, good location…

Within 30 minutes, we saw the house and knew we wanted it.  The bad news was that there were at least a half a dozen other people who’d called about the house THAT DAY and wanted to see it.  That night, my husband met with the owner and got the application process started.  We got the house.

Now, I am leaving out lots of details, not the least of which is that there were even MORE people that called on Tuesday and people were offering the home owner MORE money for rent…just to get this great house!  She said she had it for rent since April with ZERO interest at a higher monthly rent and slowly lowered it over the past few months.  Oddly enough, the last rent amount she thought it was marketed at was the upper end of our price range and I NEVER saw it online.  She also said that several other people remarked the same thing…they’d been searching for a while and never seen it before.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I believe in God and our family believes 100% that the Lord was holding this house just for us.  Yes, you can try to rationalize all you want about this and that, but if you knew all the details, you’d know this is truly nothing short of a “housing miracle” for us to be in this home.

So what does this have to do with the Sovereignty of God?  This series of events just demonstrates to us SO clearly that God is ALWAYS in control.  Always.

Could we be prideful and claim that it is because of our deep faith that these prayers were answered?  Probably, but we know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we have done absolutely NOTHING to deserve getting this house.  Not a single thing.  For some reason, the Lord saw fit to allow us to get this home for WAY under market value and we are simply humbled by His grace and mercy.

We do not subscribe to the “health and wealth” gospels that teach that God rewards us when we obey Him and punishes us when we don’t.  I’m sorry, but there are SO many examples contrary to those teachings that it’s hard to subscribe to them.  Job and Paul are just two.  No…God sometimes will allow us to experience joys for His glory and trials for His glory.

Are we more blessed than others because we don’t have children with mental or physical disabilities?  Not a chance.  Are we less blessed when we have a lean month financially?  Nope.

God is sovereign.  Plain and simple, yet wildly complex and unexplainable.  I want to praise Him for this amazing thing He has done for us, NOT because of what we’ve done, but because of who He IS!

Do you have an example of God’s sovereignty in YOUR life?  Do share so we can encourage one another in the faith! “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up” 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Happy Saturday!
 
Just a quick message for you today.
 
Remember the webinar I told you about with Terri Johnson of Knowledge Quest?  Well, she’s made the recording available for a VERY limited time for my newsletter subscribers.
 
The link to the recording is below.
 
But…there’s one more thing I want to mention.  Terri has created a step by step course that will walk you through the process of creating your own information product.
 
In case you missed the webinar, Terri and her husband, Todd, run an information product/publishing company and they are able to comfortably support their family with this business.
 
It all started with a simple idea of making maps for her homeschooling.  But, instead of being paralyzed with fear when an
amazing opportunity presented itself, they stepped forward in faith and the rest, as they say, is history.  (No pun intended…Knowledge Quest creates historical maps. )

If the Johnsons can support their family of 8 on information products, don’t you think YOU could, too?  And don’t you think you could really LEARN something from a person who has literally “been there, done that”?

Terri is offering her course to only 20 of my subscribers (and some of those spots are already taken) until this Sunday night at midnight.   I’ve actually had a chance to review the course and it is so complete that you truly can go through it and come out on the other side with a business.
 
To check out the webinar, just right click here to save it to your computer:
 
http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/8steps/recordedg15.wmv
 
To check out Terri’s course, go here BEFORE tomorrow at midnight:
 
>>>  http://ow.ly/2c6HR
 
Actually, if you’re going to register, you need to do it well before then because of the (now less than) 20 spot limit. 
 
Questions about the course?  Just let me know by email and I’ll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

If you want a book that will challenge how you view missions and charity work, I highly encourage you to check out “When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.  My husband was given a copy of the book by a gentleman that visited our church a few weeks back.  It is an eye opening look at how flawed our views are of the poor and how this adversely affects them through the work we do in the name of “outreach”.

Part of the research done in preparation for the book was looking at how the poor view poverty.  The underlying theme in their comments (and the survey was taken by the poor in countries all around the globe) was they want to have a voice, want to be respected and need true hope.  Yes, many responses included parents who wished they had enough food to feed their hungry children, but oddly enough, they weren’t asking for handouts.

One of the things that really struck me was that so many churches and organizations take the “easy” way out when serving those that WE perceive to be in need.  We bring them Thanksgiving meals and Christmas meals.  We buy toys for their children at Christmas…toys that the parents could never afford to provide them.  We go into a community, clean it up, and wonder why, in a year’s time or so, nothing has changed in that community.

I’m not saying that we should not give to charity or be involved in missions or community outreach.  We DO need to really examine the core needs (not just the symptoms) and also examine our own HEARTS to see if we’re doing these acts of service to make ourselves feel more “holy” or as a response to our feelings of being “better” people than the poor we are reaching out to.

For myself, I know I’ve participated in lots of programs that just required a few dollars and minutes of my time and, afterward, had what I now believe to have been a false sense of pride in doing something good.
 
My husband’s cousin was going to be involved in a church outreach to a local Hispanic community by giving out light bulbs.  Not sure why they chose light bulbs, but it was obvious to him that the church was missing the mark.  The Hispanics look poor to the outreach team.  But these church members didn’t understand what a huge insult it would be to the men in the families to get a light bulb from the “rich, white folks” from the church up the road.

A trivial offering like that sends them a message that they can’t provide for their families.  They don’t “need” light bulbs.  They need respect as human beings and perhaps some help learning English, not charity.  Honestly, before this book, I likely would have participated in this type of outreach, but now I see these in a very different light.

One ministry/charity that I think is doing a good job of addressing the core needs of those they serve is Compassion International.  If you’re not familiar with them, they connect donors with children to sponsor in areas of the world where material and spiritual poverty are prevalent.  Compassion provides for some of the children’s physical/material needs, like providing school supplies, clothing and shoes, but they also address the spiritual and psychological needs of the children by sharing the Gospel with them and helping them gain an education and skills they need to break the poverty cycle.

The book also touches on the dangers of the “health and wealth gospel” that seems to preach that those who have “health and wealth” are more favored by the Lord than those who are sick and live in shacks made of cardboard boxes.  I can’t do justice to the story shared about the spiritually strong church that meets in the worst slums in Nairobi, Kenya, but my husband and I were both deeply moved by the spiritual giants that worship there.  Truly humbling.  Truly humbling.

So, what does this have to do with homeschooling?  I know most homeschool families try to consciously find ways to reach out to their communities to serve others.  We have flexible schedules and seem to have a good grasp of being part of something “bigger” than ourselves.  As for us, we’re looking for ways we can truly bless others without hurting them.  The top idea on our list is to start making regular visits to some of the senior citizen homes and spend time talking with the residents, having the children color pictures for them and reminding them that they haven’t been forgotten.  Over time, we hope to build relationships with them and teach our children that life is about more than doing little things here and there.  It’s about building relationships with those that need someone to listen to them and, as the Lord opens opportunities, share the Hope we have in our lives.

What are your thoughts?  Are there some ways you’ve reached out to others in a way that was truly effective in producing change? 

Here’s a link to a page with webinars on this topic.

Before you launch or even start the process of getting a product or service put together, do you KNOW with almost 100% certainty that there is an audience for it?  If you have any doubts, I invite you to join me on a call I am doing THIS THURSDAY at 9:15pm Eastern on market research for product creation.

Sign up is free and there WILL be a recording, but you have to register to get it.  You can sign up at www.mrshomeschool.com/createaproduct/

All ages are welcome.  In fact, I encourage you to have any entrepreneurial children in your house hop on the call, too!  This is open to anyone interested in creating their own business, so invite your friends.

I look forward to having you on the call!

I was so encouraged by the responses to my article last week that I wanted to continue by writing a follow-up message.  One of the responses came from a dear friend…the very first homeschool mom I ever met, and one, whose example, God used to bring me to faith in Him.  Mary is now at the point in her life where her children have “graduated” and she shared an “idol” that, I think, many mothers struggle with…making our own children idols for ourselves.   I very much appreciate her candor and transparency about this. Read the rest of this entry »