My Mission

     "Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help Mom with the dishes." I often find that I struggle with my identity since I became a stay-at-home mom.  When I was working I had a sense of purpose and accomplishment that I have not been able to find at home.  Several months ago a friend of mine shared the blog post Motherhood as a Mission Field by Rachel Jankovic with me.  I have read this post many times as I try to adjust my thinking and accept what God has for me during this time.
     I have included the last section of her article below.  Reading this helps me refocus on what is important and develop a new understanding of who I am in the role God has given me.

Gain What You Cannot Lose in Them

So, if mothers are strategically situated to impact missions so greatly, why do we see so little coming from it?  I think the answer to this is quite simple: sin. Discontent, pettiness, selfishness, resentment. Christians often feel like the right thing to do is to be ashamed about what we have. We hear that quote of Jim Elliot’s and think that we ought to sell our homes and move to some place where they need the gospel.

But I’d like to challenge you to look at it differently. Giving up what you cannot keep does not mean giving up your home, or your job so you can go serve somewhere else. It is giving up yourself. Lay yourself down. Sacrifice yourself here, now. Cheerfully wipe the nose for the fiftieth time today. Make dinner again for the people who don’t like the green beans. Laugh when your plans are thwarted by a vomiting child. Lay yourself down for the people here with you, the people who annoy you, the people who get in your way, the people who take up so much of your time that you can’t read anymore. Rejoice in them. Sacrifice for them. Gain that which you cannot lose in them.

It is easy to think you have a heart for orphans on the other side of the world, but if you spend your time at home resenting the imposition your children are on you, you do not. You cannot have a heart for the gospel and a fussiness about your life at the same time. You will never make any difference there if you cannot be at peace here. You cannot have a heart for missions, but not for the people around you. A true love of the gospel overflows and overpowers. It will be in everything you do, however drab, however simple, however repetitive.

The Decision

     From the time my oldest daughter was born, people have asked me if I was going to homeschool her.  It seemed that many people believe the primary reason for becoming a teacher is to get the skills necessary to homeschool your kids.  I became a teacher because I love the teaching, science.  I couldn't imagine sitting on my couch day after day, hour after hour and patiently helping my kid sound out the same word we just sounded out on the previous page.  Was I planning to homeschool? NO!
     Ten years later I am expecting our homeschool curriculum to arrive in the mail tomorrow.  It may appear that I have had a change of heart, but that is not the case.  This path is one of the scariest I have ever walked down in faith.  I fully believe that the public school system in most places can provide students with excellent teachers and provide them to a variety of resources to help students.  When I taught school, I worked through the summer to write curriculum for the school district.  Every year a team of 3-5 teachers for each grade level would work together to evaluate the curriculum and assessments from the previous year and make changes to address the weaknesses.  I know what it takes to have a strong curriculum.  I know what it takes to have an engaging lesson that meets the needs of a variety of learners.  I know how hard it was to do that for a single subject in a single grade.  I know it is not humanly possible for one person to do it for every subject in multiple grades.
     However, we recently moved to Oregon, where the school system is vastly different from Texas.  My kids were in classes of 18 in Texas and each put in classes of 28 here.  The teachers were wonderful in assisting with the transition but with huge classes it is impossible to keep up with the individual needs of students.  My kids were in a gifted program where they were pulled out of class and a G/T teacher supplemented their curriculum.  Here modifications for G/T are left up to the classroom teacher (the one with 28 kids).   Due to shorter student days and a shorter school year, students here attend school 210 few hours per year than their Texas peers, that is an equivalent of 6 weeks.  The tipping point for me was this spring when the district began discussing budget cuts.  For the coming school year they are increasing class sizes, making the music teachers part-time, and eliminating all librarians.  I know enough about teaching to know that the more kids you put in a class the less the students at the top learn.  Instruction is done to those in the middle with tutoring for those that are low and the ones at the top are virtually ignored until they cause enough trouble to be sent out of the room.  Without a librarian, teachers are even further limited in dealing with the needs of diverse learners.  They can't work on special projects in the library or even be sent to check out an extra book.  It is an impossible situation that has lead me to homeschooling.

And so the journey begins...

Family Motto

            Many people go to great lengths to research their history.  However, many of our ancestors came to America in order to start over.  It was in their memory that my husband began the process of creating a family motto.  God lead him to the passage of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel.  When they were about to be thrown into the furnace, they said that they knew God could save them but even if He chose not to help they would never stop worshiping Him.  From this passage our family motto,  “But if not…” was developed.  For us it meant, our faith in God is based solely on who He is, not what He does for me.

                It was several weeks later before the true meaning of this motto became real to us.  When our son was 5 weeks old he, started running a high fever.  We took him to the emergency room.  The test showed a high level of white blood cells in his spinal fluid.  He was immediately admitted him to PICU with meningitis. It would take the doctors 4 days to determine if he had the deadly bacterial form or the much less dangerous viral form. It was during this time that God asked me, “If I don’t heal your child, will you still serve me?”  I struggled with this question for 2 days.  On the third day of our hospital stay John developed a heart murmur.  All the iv fluid he had been given, reopened the natural hole in his heart.  I held him as they did an ekg, and once again I heard God ask, “If I don’t heal your child, will you still serve me?”.  

                I learned a lot during these days.  I learned how to swaddle a baby without disrupting any of the cords coming from his chest or the iv into his leg.  I learned that God loves my children more than I ever can and He loves me just as much.  I learned that my commitment to God was not based on what I could get from Him.  Faith has never been easy for me, but as I grow in my understanding of who God is, it is easier for me to worship Him for whom He is regardless of the circumstances in my life. 

                Last week we celebrated John Paul’s 7^th birthday.  After 4 days in the hospital, the doctors determined that John’s meningitis was the viral form and he was released.  It took another 3 months for the hole in his heart to reclose.  

Time without Opportunity

       When I decided to be a stay-at-home mom, I was really looking forward to getting more involved with my kids and my husbands ministry.  I have always wanted to be able to volunteer at my kids school or help out with things at church but as a teacher I was working 50+ hour weeks and then bringing work home so I never had time.  Now that I have the time to help, I have discovered that the opportunity is not there.  It seems the very thing that keeps me home (my youngest child) also prevents me from being able to help with anything.
       It would be nice if the organizations that need volunteers could help connect people like me.  If there were 5 mothers willing to help one could keep the kids and the other 4 could volunteer.  They could rotate childcare duty each week, so everyone has a chance to be involved.

Gardening Class: Trees, Shrubs and Roses

This is what I learned this week in my gardening class. 

• Shade trees can reduce the temperature by 20 degrees.  This can effectively reduce the need for air conditioning in the summer if they are on the South side of the house.  Deciduous trees are great for this because they allow the sun through in the winter to help with heating.

• My new favorite tree is the Rhus typhina or Staghorn Sumac.  This tree produces flowers at the ends of its branches causing them to turn a different direction each year. (Pictured on the right)
• Shrubs are able to do everything trees do but on a smaller scale.  They are most often used to define a landscape.
• Roses do not compete well with other large plants and need at least 8 hours of direct sunlight during the summer.  For these reasons, they should not be planted near any trees.
• In the late fall roses should be cut back to waist height.  In February, they can be cut back to 10” – 18”.  The shorter that you cut them the larger the roses will be during the next season, however, the shorter you cut them the fewer roses they will produce. 

Glasses

Yahel broke her glasses playing wall ball at school the week before spring break.  When I took her to get a new pair, the store was having a buy one pair get a free pair promotion, so she got 2 new pairs of glasses during spring break.  Three days after returning to school, she came home with broken glasses.  (They fell off and were stepped on.) Fortunately, she has the second pair and we got the warranty so we will be able to get the broken one fixed.  When she was getting ready this morning, she couldn't find the glasses.  Both of us looked all over and they are not in a logical place anywhere in the house.  In the last 3 weeks, she has broken 2 pair of glasses and lost one pair.  She has never had a pair longer than 6 months without breaking them but this is a little excessive.

Getting Started

I have wanted to start a blog for several years.  I have played around with the idea of writing about teaching science, education in our nation, family & parenting, and our ministry.  At this point in my life all of these things have come together and so this blog will be a hodge podge of them all.