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...