This year I joined the Facebook crowd and have found it great fun to connect with high school and college friends as well as many local folks. I have always made it a point to stay connected with many of our out of town friends and family with a yearly letter usually sent some time after Christmas. I was inspired to do this by Edith Schaeffer’s family letters. As a single girl, I moved around quite a bit after graduating, including a two-year mission term in Europe which led to friendships all over the globe. I often toy with the idea of dropping our family letter but I just cannot bring myself to do it knowing it is my only tie with so many of these friends.

Lately I am appalled at how poorly I have kept up with friends who live here in Chattanooga. Many are on Facebook but that is not the connection I am talking about. Something is wrong when we are no longer in touch with dear friends who live near us but we are in touch with hundreds of friends via social networking sites.

Shortly after that wedding, I attended a gathering at a friend’s house. It was supposed to be a two-hour drop-in. I arrived at nearly the end of the specified time, found three women there as well as the honoree and we sat and chatted for four more hours. It was so soul satisfying to see friends face to face, to laugh together, to share real solutions, to laugh some more, to talk about books (what else is there to talk about?) and to recount God’s faithfulness to us and to our families. You just cannot do that on your Facebook status!

A friend in North Carolina shared a thesis on this subject of social networking. The title was “Twitterpated: False Community on the Internet” by Beth Churchill. Here are some gems with commentary:

“Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter are more about the self and less about others simply because of the difficulty of feeling meaningfully connected to others using only text as a means of communication.”

This is so true. You cannot view someone’s face when they read what you posted, you cannot see body language. Social networking sites offer only a truncated type of relationship building. Compare this with true community in which

“They held one another accountable for their actions, and encouraged one another in faith: “We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone” (1 Thess. 5.14).

This quality of encouragement is needed by all of us. We need to be on the receiving end as well as the giving end.

“Social networking sites do not provide an adequate substitute for communities formed by real-life relationships, such as Christendom’s communities. Christendom provided adequate context for the forming of relationships, a system of accountability in the building of relationships, and a sense of identity as a result of those relationships. Wherever social networking sites provide hints of these things, they provide them insufficiently.”

Now I am not saying that social networking sites are bad and should be discontinued. They just should not supplant your real friendships. Even though I tell myself that I only spend 15 minutes or so every day on Facebook, that time could be accumulated and instead used to have a very meaningful visit with a neglected friend. Again it is a matter of priorities: we need to be sure we are connected in a real way with our friends, we need to be sure that our 15 minutes of facebook time a day is not the only way we are nourishing friendships and feeding our souls.

So please take the time to call those friends you have neglected and plan a time you can meet with one or two of them together for a breakfast before starting your homeschooling day. Share a walk together on the Riverwalk, or a tea at a tea-room. Find a quiet place, free from distractions, and share your heart with each other. Then you can post about that lovely time to your facebook status. . . or NOT. Seriously, let that be your mother’s day gift to yourself: to get in touch with at least one local friend you have neglected or to call up someone you know needs encouragement or to plan a get together with a woman wiser than yourself.

“This communicating of a man’s self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joy, and cutteth griefs in half.” —Francis Bacon

— JMT

Political and legislative events of late are more than just a little discouraging. I was in Nashville watching my eldest son as a witness at the state mock trial competition during the fateful days before “the bill” passed. I had the opportunity to stay with my sister in her lovely home in Franklin which comes equipped with a media room so I could watch Fox news in surround sound each night until I could no longer hold my eyelids open.

I was mesmerized by the health-care battle, never thinking the bill would pass, taking heart in a few stalwart congressmen who surely would not fold on important issues such as abortion. And now it is just so disconcerting to read or hear the news as it seems we are losing the war. It is times like these that I find it hard to get back into the daily routine. What is the point of drilling math facts when it seems as if the constitution is being shredded and we are losing more of our freedoms in an increasingly socialist society. How can we fight this? What are the battles that lay ahead?

But is it precisely during these times that we can take refuge in the familiar and the routine aspects of family homeschooling life. It is even more important to inspire those thoughts which become actions, to encourage those actions which become a habit and to instruct in those habits which form our children’s characters.

Apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the humanist and existentialist for borrowing his words here.

For the past year I have been part of a group reading the book Laying Down the Rails: A Charlotte Mason Habits Handbook by Sonya Shafer of Simply Charlotte Mason (a free sample of which is available at simplycharlottemason.com). In the study we have been encouraged to work on just a habit or two at a time, both in our lives as well as in our children’s lives. Sometimes I have been successful in instilling a habit in one of my children. I am heartened when I see annoying behaviors change, or rudeness turn to civility. Then I stop working on that particular habit and surprise, surprise, the habit is lost and the old behavior returns, sometimes with a vengeance.

Charlotte Mason had something to say about this: “The little relaxation she (the mother) allowed her child meant the forming of another contrary habit, which must be overcome before the child gets back to where he was before.”

When you excuse lapses in a newly formed habit you do yourself and your child no favors. In the introduction of Sonya’s book, she gives five principles in the formation of good habits.

1. Be consistently diligent to deal with your child the first time and every time he offends. Divert their thoughts to redirect. Attend to small things. Realize discipline is not just punishment. What you are giving your child in forming good habits is more valuable than gold or silver.
2. Devote yourself to the formation of one habit at a time, keeping watch over those habits already formed.
3. Develop your own habit of watchfulness and cultivating good habits in your child.
4. Motivate your child with an interesting and inspiring example of a person who possesses the habit you want your child to develop.

This law of things tending from order to disorder is known in science at the law of entropy. In the home it is known as clutter and in the garden it is known as weeds. I have an intimate acquaintance with this law. It is my boon companion.

We should see it as a further evidence of intelligent design. If evolution is true and order came out of disorder, why does this not work with countertops in the kitchen? OK, I am being a bit facetious. But the point I wish to make is that we have to be quietly on guard with our children’s training just as we have to be vigilant with our housekeeping.

Enough about that.

In March I promised to tell a bit more about the Biblical Student Worldview Conference for students ages 15 through college. This conference has been going on for many years under the auspices of a church in Virginia. Each time I would see the speaker roster and list of topics and wish my children were old enough so I could go as a chaperone.

Last year I finally got my wish. Providentially for us, the conference is now held in the Tri Cities area in Tennessee, at picturesque Milligan College. This is one rigorous conference. I have not sat through lectures and taken notes like that since I left the university. There are usually two lectures in the a.m. after an early breakfast, then lunch, then two lectures after lunch with a break from 3 to 5:30 or so for supper and then two more talks in the evening. Needless to say it stimulates the old bean as Bertie Wooster is fond of saying in Wodehouse’s madcap tales of Bertie and Jeeves. I am planning to return again this year as a chaperone and am looking forward to hearing Joel Belz the founder of WORLD magazine speak on journalism, Gary DeMar the founder of American Vision speak on politics, history and culture and James Nickel speak on mathematics, among other speakers. All the info including cost and registration forms are available at westminsterkpt.org.

❒ If any of you are interested in the Charlotte Mason ideas of education, I would like to recommend another conference, the Childlight Conference at Gardner Webb University between Ashville and Charlotte, N.C. Lord willing, this will be my fourth year to attend. The conference starts Wednesday, June 9, and goes through Saturday afternoon. This year it is an intensely practical conference with workshops covering every topic that you are likely to teach.

The conference is geared for private school teachers as well as homeschool moms. I always appreciate the blend of the hands-on as well as the mental challenge of the intellectual ideas. I have met lifelong friends at this conference and always come away refreshed and inspired. If any of you plan to go, let me know and perhaps we could carpool (jmtulis@gmail.com). More information including a complete schedule is available at childlightusa.org.

The warm days are warming my soul. Praise to God who reminds each spring of new life, of hope when all hope seems gone, of the incredible beauty of His creation. I hope we all find the time to notice all the wonder of the spring wildflowers, learn some of their names and rejoice in their loveliness.

Forgive me if I get a little maudlin in the next few months. My oldest is graduating in May, Lord willing, and it is just hitting me that she will be leaving.

It is a double blow for me as she is also my only daughter and my best friend. She and I often hide out from her three brothers. We have had lots of girl time, leaving the boys to their noisy, rambunctious, pugilistic selves.

My daughter just got back from an unexpectedly extended visit to New York. She had planned to stay just a day and a half but the snowstorm changed all that and she was “stuck” in Manhattan for nearly a week! And yes I am using that term very loosely as she had such a delightful time visiting art museums and sketching to her heart’s content.

She also had to do some shopping — such a hardship! As a serious aside, let me say how much the body of Christ meant to me when my daughter found out she could not get home. Through the kindness of friends, some of whom I have not met, I found several places for her to stay. She ended up staying part of the time with close friends of ours who live in New Jersey and part of the time with the secretary for the art academy at which she was interviewing. It is so encouraging to see that in a place as huge as New York, God’s care for his own is so evident.

Yesterday the word came that she has been accepted at the classical figure sculpting program at the atelier school in Manhattan to which she had applied. Lord willing, she will be headed to NYC this September.

What really strikes me at this time is that my daughter has always been so close to me, not just because she is a girl, but because we have so much in common. We like the same movies, books and people for the most part. Her taste in fashion is not identical to mine but it is not identical to anyone’s! We have always loved art together and watching her grow into her own as a young artist has been deeply satisfying to me. So here is a child about to fly the nest and I know that I will miss her more than I can say.

I also have a son with whom I am not as close, yet most likely he too will be leaving home sometime. I know I have a lot of relationship building to do. It will take much work on my part. I am not even sure what that work will look like. I am trusting that God will show me how to make heart ties with this son. My goal is to have such a good relationship with this young man that when he leaves home, I will feel just as bereft. Perhaps in a different way, but I am determined to figure out how I can develop a closeness with this son who has many admirable qualities. There is a paradox here that does not escape me. As homeschoolers, our ties with our children are apt to be close; we know our children well; we are with them all day, every day for the most part. Are we just setting ourselves up for heartbreak when they leave? Yes we are!

Still I want to encourage you to pursue making those ties with your children, especially those with whom you may have less of a natural affinity. Not that you love them any less but it just seems harder to have that relationship with them. He or she may be the quiet one, the sullen one, the one who is more independent. Perhaps they have interests that you have never had or know nothing about. In our technological age, it seems to me that it is even easier for a child to isolate himself from parents and family. Your children have social networking that is always available. One no longer needs to be tethered to a cord in the wall to talk to friends from your home as I did growing up. All of which means that we parents need to work at building those relationships that elude us because of competing “relationships” in the electronic netherworld.

I must admit that in the past years I have made the mistake of substituting talking at my child for building a relationship. Sure, I have made dates with him, taking him out to lunch at a favorite restaurant — just the two of us. But I always have had an agenda. Sometimes it is all too obvious when I have a small stack of relationship books or spiritual growth books tucked away in my purse complete with a list of questions I need to ask. No wonder he is not excited anymore when I offer to take him out to eat! “Just drop me off, Mom; I’d rather eat by myself.” I guess my son is tired of me trying to fix him instead of just accepting him and loving him. Even though my motives are good, I have gone about it the wrong way.

So now I have a few years left to really communicate in a way that he understands, to show truly that I love and care for him. Are there three quick steps? A failsafe program? Perhaps a book with all the answers? I wish there were, I know there are not.

I know that God in His providence gave me each of our children to keep me humble, to keep me looking to Him, to keep me on my knees. I have made mistakes aplenty. I could fill a book with all that I have done wrong. I cannot tell you how many days I have woken up to new resolve, new commitments to say only positive words — only to crash and burn in the first few hours of the day when I cannot help but offer that tidbit of helpful criticism or that testy reminder of what chores need to be done. A wise friend of mine said even if I say all the right things to “fix” this son, he would not hear me, given our present strained relationship.

Each day is a new one. I have yet to find the solution for my stubborn insistence on correction being the primary way I communicate my care. I just got back from another C.S. Lewis lecture on the Space Trilogy. This month we discussed the second book Perelandra. This is a story of temptation, of heart struggles, of persevering. The book moves along at a glacial pace most of the time. The temptations the character faces seem endless, one barrage seemingly melting into another. The reader gets the impression that the battle is being lost and that the evil one is winning by accomplishing the sheer exhaustion of the one fighting the temptation. In fact, the hero is winning just by staying in the battle, no matter how exhausting it is.

Let me encourage you all to stay in the battle for the hearts of your children. It is infinitely worth it and God is on our side. — JMT

“Excuse me, but does your mom or dad know what you are watching?” I said, leaning over to the boy. He pointed to a young woman seated on the other side of him. I immediately apologized to her but could not resist pointing out that such videos could not be healthy for her children, especially her son.

Perturbed at my intrusion, the mom said, “They watch that all the time; there is nothing wrong with it.” During this exchange the library staff person was shooting me a look as if to say, “You are wasting your time.” The mom tried to make a hasty getaway but she had to pull her son away. His eyes had been glued to the screen. I could not help but think of what that young boy was being exposed to. Perhaps I did not accomplish anything but I had to say something.

Several years ago I attended a conference in which definitive evidence was given for the effect of exposing children to sexually suggestive material. The research showed that the one common factor of juvenile delinquency, especially among males was this early exposure that awakens in them feelings they are not mature enough to handle. Hence they act out, often ending up getting in a lot of trouble.

It is almost impossible to avoid all exposure to those kinds of images. Mothers and dads would be wise to explain to coming-of-age sons the concept of making a covenant with your eyes. My boys deliberately avert their eyes when passing certain stores in the mall. I try to avoid taking my teen boys to the mall, period, mostly for this reason. Still, I was rather brutally reminded in the library that day that the world we are sending our children out into is a world where many young people have become hardened to images which should shock, but no longer do. Our children will probably be attending classes in college and most likely will be working alongside other young people who have perverted ideas of truth, goodness and beauty. What is a mom or dad to do? How can we battle the forces of the culture? How can we prepare our children to impact the world around them for good?

We may be tempted to want to keep our children in a protective bubble. Of course when our children are young, we need to protect them as much as we can from a world in which children grow up way too fast. As our children are growing up, we need to prayerfully consider how to and when to talk to our children about some of the ways our culture has twisted God’s order of things.

Of course we are instilling in our children biblical values as we teach them. Hopefully, we are having regular Bible study times as a family as well. We all know the importance of just talking with our children, making God’s truth relevant to daily situations. Most importantly we need to pray for our children that God would protect them. One of the most encouraging thoughts to me is the knowledge that even though so many children are being exposed to so much and even though they may not be exposed to God’s truth, that does not limit God.

Our gracious heavenly father is strong enough to save even those mired in unholy lives as children. The Savior who was born in a stable is one who brings God’s light in the midst of darkness. Cultural collisions Continued from Page 4

I don’t know about you, but I am so looking forward to taking a Christmas break. When you have students in outside classes as well as classes at home, their breaks almost never coincide and it seems as if the homeschool mom never gets a rest. I am planning on starting some new things with my children after the break while stopping some other things. That is one of the advantages of home education.

Unlike school systems, which sink small fortunes into programs that may turn out to be duds, we are not locked into the decisions we make at the beginning of the school year. We may have spent some money in curriculum we do not like or that does not work for a particular child and that is perfectly OK. We do not need to beat ourselves up about that. Perhaps we can use it for another child down the road. At the very least we can resell it and recoup some of our cost.

I encourage you to evaluate what you are doing in your lessons. Do not be afraid to admit that something is not working or not well suited to a particular child. I am not talking about that child who just does not like math and is telling you that you MUST find that perfect curriculum that will cause him to get up everyday looking forward to more sums. What I am saying is that you know when something is not working.

You know when you and your child daily dread a particular lesson or curriculum. After more than 10 years of home education, I still believe that my children and I should mostly enjoy our lessons. My older ones are now largely on their own, but my two younger ones do all their lessons with me. I want to look forward to each new day of lessons knowing that I am helping to spread out a veritable feast of knowledge and ideas.

Note that we did not collect loads of activities to suggest in this issue of Esprit. On one hand, we ran out of space. On the other hand, we figured you had plenty to keep you busy over the Christmas season. Not that we need to be busy. I am longing for the days when my children and I have nothing to do but sit by the fire and read. I again have made a resolution to read one Christmas story aloud to my youngest each evening between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I pray you will find your own way to create memories with those you love. May your holidays be full of the joy and wonder of God’s incomprehensible love in sending us a Savior.

—JMT

If I were to tell you of all our adventures and all God’s providences, it would take more space than a column allows. Suffice it to say that the trip was immensely valuable, visits with friends and family along the way were delightful and God’s provision was evident everywhere.

Of course all those hours on the road were a bit stressful and we were not always as patient and kind with each other’s driving flaws; but that is another story!

Knowing that our last leg of the trip would be a 10-hour drive from Pittsburgh, I begged a dear friend and hostess for the loan of some tapes to listen to. All along our road trip, I had enjoyed musical selections chosen by my daughter and played courtesy of her i-Pod but I wanted something a bit meatier than indie music for that last stretch of highway.

My friend came through with a series of tapes titled “Saints and Sinners,” a collection of talks given at the annual history conference at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.

The speakers were Doug Wilson, Steve Wilkins and George Grant. I commend to you all any of the history conference tapes/CD’s available from Canon Press.

All of the selections were excellent but one of the most fascinating was the story of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, in a talk given by one of my favorite speakers, George Grant, the pastor of Parish Presbyterian in Franklin, Tenn. I love the way Dr. Grant utilizes the richness of the English language. He is like a living thesaurus in his ability to come up with not just one descriptive word, but a plethora of words, each adding a nuance to one’s understanding.

While hearing Dr. Grant relate the story of Margaret Sanger’s life, I was struck with how her father had affected young Margaret. Back home I did some quick research and found that Dr. Grant put this bio in a book form titled “Killer Angel,” which was happily available on Google books. Reading this book went along nicely with the taped talk. Here are some excerpts from the book which highlight the impact parents have on children. It is a cautionary tale.

Margaret Sanger’s father, Michael Higgins, was a very young soldier in Sherman’s army during that infamous march to the sea when the South was pillaged and wide swaths burned without mercy and with much vindictiveness. Dr. Grant deduces that Michael’s exposure to this evil of man against man was a “cruel and inhuman experience which apparently hardened and embittered him. … Forever afterward he was pathetically stunted, unable to maintain even a modicum of normalcy in his life or relations.”

Michael Higgins, was a “radical free thinker and free-wheeling skeptic whose family suffered greviously from scorn, shame and isolation because of Michael’s sullen improvidence.” Margaret was the 6th of his 11 children. Michael treated his wife and daughters as “virtual slaves.” Sanger later described her home life as “joyless and filled with drudgery and fear.” Margaret grew up in a house where she and her siblings were known as “the devil’s children.” One can easily see how not just the lack of faith but the open derision of faith can damage the soul of children. “As a confirmed skeptic, Michael mocked the sincere religious devotion of most of his neighbors. He openly embraced radicalism, socialism and atheism.”

Margaret’s mother tried to raise all of her children in the faith of the Catholic Church. In her early years, Margaret responded with youthful zeal for the church. But after the death of her her mother while Margaret was a teenager, her young faith could not withstand her father’s constant barrage of cynicism. “By the time Margaret was 17, her passion for Christ had collapsed into a bitter hatred of the church. This malignant malevolence would forever after be her spiritual hallmark.”

Margaret went on to a life that was unfettered in its desire to destroy and undermine marriage, femininity and motherhood. Her legacy, Planned Parenthood, is responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent babies all over the world. Her ideas have poisoned an entire culture with twisted notions of what it means to be free and independent from the perceived shackles of faithful marriage and childbearing.

I am certain that even believing wives and mothers have allowed some of her ideas to pervert God’s created order in their lives.

My intial response to this narrative of Margaret Sanger is to wonder what ruin I may already have caused in the lives of my children with my harshness and impatience!

But that is a lie from the enemy, for God’s promises do not hinge on us being perfect mothers and wives. Rather, He tells us He is conforming us and our children in covenant relationship with us and with Him to be more like Christ. Michael Higgins had a terrible life experience during the War Between the States.

But even these circumstances could have been covered with God’s grace. Our own childhoods might have been traumatic. Still, this does not limit God or limit His mercy to us or to our children. His sovereign rule over the hearts of men is all part of His outworking of His grace.

It has been said that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. God has put us in a place of influence in the lives of our children. What we do does affect them. He has charged us to train them up. We see our imperfections only too clearly and we fall on our knees asking for His strength, His joy and His grace. He stands ready to supply all our needs in Christ. May we realize the awesomeness of our task and the awesomeness of our God.

S peaking of culture and how it affects us, there is a film festival Oct. 30 and 31 in Franklin, Tenn., at George Grant’s church just outside Nashville. I try to go to this every year. We have included the details on Page 12. I cannot recommend this festival highly enough for you and your older children. Film is a very powerful medium. It is so very important that we think christianly about what we are watching. The stories are either revolutionary or redemptive. It is difficult at times to tell them apart.

Greg Wilbur and Dr. Grant do an excellent job of helping sort out truth, goodness and beauty in the images before us.

Finally, I want to give an update in the progress of my son with his reading and writing difficulties. His reading has improved markedly with the vision therapy. For that I am very grateful. Writing, however, is still hard for him. What I have realized is that for all these years he has felt like a failure, he has learned his own way of coping. Mostly he would just lie low and hope that no one asked him anything. If a task seemed hard, he would respond emotionally and hope that would get him out of it.

We decided to put him in a rather challenging tutorial this year, believing that I was doing him no favors by accomodating his weaknesses. Rather I wanted to present him with opportunities to step up and do things he has not been able to do before, such as copy math problems, take notes in class and write papers.

The first few weeks were not pretty. However, now we have found somewhat of a routine with the level of work expected. It is still very challenging for both of us in all the work we do together during the week. I am still not sure I did the right thing. I am trusting that God is in this and is teaching us both to trust Him.

That is enough for now.

—JMT

This is a difficult time of year for me. It happens as the seasons change. When chilly days come, the coldness seems to go deep into my bones and I feel deprived of energizing warmth. My normally cozily cluttered house morphs into a unbearably cluttered house as I have dragged all the winter clothes bins from the attic crowding the floorspace, and mocking me with the realization that my current schedule will not allow me to organize them all immediately. My empathetic husband attempts to help and suggests that the bins actually hide the piles behind them, but that does not work for me. I am in that transition period which sets me on edge emotionally. A good solution would be for me to cancel all schooling, check into a hotel for a week and hire someone to clean my house — just to spare my poor family my unreasonable temperament. Alas, that is not a viable option. However I do plan to do whatever it takes this next week and clear my schedule as much as possible to organize and de-clutter in preparation for the next few cold months when we cluster together as a family more than usual, making our living spaces seem even smaller.

Compounding the problem is the fact that our main CSTHEA computer has been in the shop for over a week, and we have not been able to access CSTHEA mail for over two weeks. If we get it back in the next day or two, we will have to put the Esprit together in about four days, when usually we distribute the task over a couple of weeks! My hard-working husband is up for this challenge, but I just see this as more stress. Please forgive us if this issue is later than ususal, if we have ignored e-mails or if we have left some items out.

That said, I know that God is in control of all circumstances, even our technology failures. The saying “Lord willing and if the creek don’t rise” has a whole new meaning for me. Last month I was caught in some floodwaters, could not leave a parking lot which was surrounded by a raging creek and had to literally wade over a walking bridge through the 6 inches of water to get out, leaving a car behind on high ground. It was a vivid reminder to me of how man may plan his day, but the Lord directs our steps.

While I am in this seasonal funk, the everyday challenges seem even more insurmountable. Lately I have been thinking how even though it may be easy to mentally accept the difficulties that come our way, it is quite another thing to embrace these circumstances as coming from the Father who loves us and designed those very situations to make us more like Christ. The trials we see in our life are not just to be borne and endured. Rather we are to recognize them as a gift, personally designed to work in us the character and spirit of Christ Jesus.

If I have a difficult relationship with someone I love, it is easy to think this is not what I expected. This is not what I hoped for. This is not what I dreamed about. We can get stuck just grieving over our disappointments, thinking we are having a righteous response in that we are accepting our “cross to bear.” But this is not going anywhere near far enough. It is not just that we must come to peace with our lives, our marriages, and our children when we are disappointed, but we must somehow embrace the difference between what we had expectations for and what is. Not seeing these circumstances rightly will lead to constant efforts to change people around us, often communicating our disapproval and disappointment. If, on the other hand, we can somehow with God’s grace recognize that we can respond with that “in spite of” kind of love, that unconditional love that we are loved with by God, then we will embrace with joy those very same difficulties and disappointments.

Of course, this is not natural, in fact, it goes against the grain. The cynic in me says that this kind of loving response in the face of disappointment is not even possible. Yet I see glimpses of what God can do when we deny ourselves and cry out to Him. He delights in doing the impossible. He longs to show Himself strong where we are weak. He promises to lift up the faint hearted. Let us look to Him and recognize His sufficiency, His grace and His sovereignty.

♦We are so glad to be able to offer you the articles of Cindy Rollins. This month she writes about boys. I got to know Cindy back when I started homeschooling. Although she lived up north, we were on the same Charlotte Mason list and I profited often from Cindy’s insights. Then we met through a mutual local friend when Cindy moved to Alabama. I hoped for years that the Rollinses would move to Chattanooga and last year they did. I have followed Cindy’s blog for years. Her book reviews and comments on family life are always helpful. We hope to offer more of Cindy’s work in future issues.

— Jeannette M. Tulis

However as homeschoolers, the end of summer is a bit daunting. We do not look forward to a “break from our children,” rather we look forward to going with them through the next year of their educational adventure.

In fact, we are in charge of it. It is up to us. Those words put me in mind of another kind of mission statement. Remember this?

Space the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilization, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

I’ve seen the new “Star Trek” movie and loved the way it showed Capt. Kirk, Spock, Scotty et al who fascinated me as a girl. I was delighted to see the imaginings of some screenwriter as to what the Enterprise crew might have been like when they were younger. The mission of the Star Trek crew is not unlike our challenge as home educators.

We, too, explore strange new worlds. Sometimes we are in totally unfamiliar territory. We wish for clear step-by-step directions. Then we hear a voice, “This is the way, walk in it.” It may not be an audible voice but we know that we are not alone. God is gracious to provide so much support in the form of friends, publications, support groups (local and online) and of course, God gives us His word and gives us His thoughts as we seek Him in the training of our children.

Sometimes our children act like aliens who do not understand our language or our ways of doing things. Instead of saying, “Beam me up, Scotty,” we should take a deep breath, commandeer the fruit of patience and peace as we once again explain a difficult concept or idea to our children or take them to Scripture and let God’s Word minister to them and to us.

We too are seeking out new life and new civilizations. We are not content to let our children think like the world thinks. We want them to be different, to be salt and light. We are attempting to infuse their educational experience with life, with hands-on lessons, with living books, with encounters with real people and with God’s truths. We are doing our best to make our home a place of lifetime learning as well as a haven for our family.

“Where no man has gone before” is not exactly true. By God’s good providence we have the benefit of walking where others have blazed the trails. The resources available to us boggle the mind. Our recent expo/curriculum fair was evidence of the bounty of choices to help us educate our children. However, most of us are first-generation homeschoolers and we are often the first in our extended families to choose this method of education. We often have to justify our choices and put up with a bit of “constructive criticism” from those who care about us.

Thankfully we have so many witnesses surrounding us and so much evidence of the benefits and blessings of home education. For those who really want to know, the research overwhelmingly shows that home educated students surpass their peers in testing and in college performance.

But that is not why we homeschool.

Our real mission is to equip our children with God’s truths about the world, to form their character to be like Christ, to help them find their role in the building of God’s kingdom here on earth. We want their education to fit them to be useful vessels so that whatever God has for their future, they will be able to do all to His honor and His glory.

I do hope this finds you thriving in your homeschool, with you and your children looking forward to the year you have planned. If you are new, please do take a look at the article on Five Homeschooling Must Haves (see Page 7). Terri Johnson of Knowledge Quest graciously allowed us to reprint her article for new homeschoolers. We are not trying to fill up your inbox or to give you more to do but it might be a good idea to take a look at these five resources and decide which ones might fit into your lessons.

I am signed up with most of them and have checked out all of them at some point.

Many thanks to the volunteers who assisted in making our Home Education Expo and Curriculum Fair in July such a success. Among them: Gary Hargraves as exhibit hall director, chief tape-layer and boss; Sam Clemons, his understudy; James Hindman, Jeri Taylor and Cathy Craig at registration, Renee Hipp and Carla Stevenson and all their volunteers in the vendor breakroom; the Scout troop and CAP with its members’ muscles; Jennie Landreth and Caroline Hunt who helped Jeannette with radio spots; the Hixson astronomy co-op and Eddie and Carlee Hilgers for helping with the newspaper story; Joyce McPherson for her faithful faxing to media outlets; Carole Hargraves for her hard work on the brochure; Sandra Stansell who’s once again busy with data entry; and Shan Hughey for our updated and helpful quickstart guides. And of course we could not have had this event without the work of Jan Bontekoe, who selected and coordinated all our marvelous exhibitors and their workshops. Be sure to send Jan any suggestions for exhibitors for next year; we already are starting to fill up (exhibitor.reg@csthea.org). Our fair has become a sought after one by businesses thanks to its success.

Thanks to many moms took two-hour slots at the registration tables. Others discussed homeschooling with moms and dads just starting on their own adventure. Teens helped vendors unload and reload their wares. Thanks to all of you for getting the word out, for inviting your friends, for passing out flyers. Most of the visitors David and I met at the CSTHEA booth said they heard about our expo from a friend. I was absolutely floored by the number of folks just getting started. If you have friends who are new, be sure you keep in touch with them and make sure they get connected in the homeschool community. We are all on this mission together. To God be all the glory!

—JMT

I have gone to the banquet in years past but somehow never attended the actual commencement. I was not prepared for what I saw when I walked into the sanctuary at Central Baptist church. It was a sea of families about 2,000 strong. I felt a lump in my throat as I realized how big our area homeschooling community had become. I have been involved with homeschooling for around 17 years and I remember my first curriculum fair. It was in a gym type building at Bethel Bible Village and perhaps 200 families attended. I was pregnant with my first child and I was viewing with much curiosity what I was about to embark upon. What has God wrought in growing the movement to educate our children at home!

Out of the 71 graduates, I knew perhaps a third of them by name. Most I did not know at all. As I watched them walk down the aisle escorted by their parents, I knew what that meant. I knew and many of you all know all that had gone into that moment. All the trials of teaching math facts, all the challenges of pursuading sometime recalcitrant students to finish that chapter, to do that next project, to listen to the current read-aloud. That march down the aisle and later across the stage to receive their diplomas meant a finishing point in one respect, a starting point in another.

Lord willing, my daughter will be graduating next year. Hopefully I will make it through the ceremony without becoming a total basket case!

The week following graduation I was a counselor for a Biblical Student Worldview Conference held at Milligan College near Johnson City, Tenn. It was the third year for my daughter to attend, the first year for my eldest son. I had been chomping at the bit for many years to be a counselor and this year my husband graciously agreed to let me go for the week while he and the younger boys lived batchelor style.

The speakers were Dr. John Morris from Institute for Creation Research; Lou Priolo, a nouthetic counselor and author of the wellknown book “Heart of Anger”; Dr. Jeff Roach an ecomomist from the Charlotte area; Dr. Joey Pipa, president of Greenville Seminary; and Dr. Paul Jehle, founder of Plymouth Rock Foundation.

All of the speakers were excellent and I took pages and pages of notes but Dr. Jehle was especially dynamic and his message to the 110 young people from rising high school sophomores to college graduates was particularly visionary.

He spoke of God’s blessings from generation to generation. He questioned the young people as to what they were giving their life to, from whom they were learning and to whom are they passing that on to. I may be a first generation Christian but my children are second generation and their children will be third generation.

By God’s grace that will be a mightylegacy. God is doing a work in our children which will have ramifications for generations to come.

It is good to catch a glimpse of the big picture.

Then we can go back to the often mundane activities of home education and homemaking seeing how each act of faithfulness on our part can be used by God to accomplish His purposes in the lives of our children.

So as we gear up for yet another year of daily lessons, building godly character as well as academic accomplishments, we can again take heart in what we are part of. God’s kingdom building — to Him be all the glory!

Speaking of gearing up, if you have not taken a peek at this year’s home education expo exhibitor list and at the workshop titles, I encourage you to do so. Jan Bontekoe has done an amazing job this year of gathering experienced folks to come and share their wares and wisdom with us. Please if at all possible do plan to come to the expo this year. We need your support.

Also please consider what you can do to help spread the word among friends and acquaintances. In the expo brochure you received in the mail is a double flier of which you can make copies (or print off our Website). I always keep a small stack in our van and several copies in my purse. You never know whom you might run into. You can pass around fliers at summer community events, swim meets, ballgames and, of course, Sunday school. You can post one at libraries, YMCA’s and grocery store bulletin boards. Dads can post a flier on their boards at work.

In these tough economic times, I can imagine lots of families may no longer be able to afford private Christian schools and we need to be ready to encourage these families to seriously consider home education. We are ambassadors for a mighty work of God. We all have stories to tell of His faithfulness and grace added to our efforts to train up our children.

See you at the expo! — JMT

We are considering going online with our areawide homeschool newsletter Esprit. We are weighing this for two main reasons. The first is cost, and the second is convenience. Many of you appreciate or prefer accessing news online.

The cost reason has two sides to it.

To the subscriber, CSTHEA would be able to offer the online or electronic subscriber a lower rate. The other side of the coin is that it would cost less for CSTHEA to produce the newsletter. Currently, we are losing $5,000 a year publishing Esprit. The deficit has grown because of our upgrade in printing services, first-class postage for areas which had been receiving the newsletter late, and as our costs went up while our subscription rate stayed the same.

Having the Esprit available as a download or sent as a PDF would also fit right in to the digital age. Many of us actually prefer to get information that way.

But putting the Esprit online invites a potentially embarrassing problem.

Before we allude further to the problem, we’d like you to think a moment about a homeschool mom named Jan Bontekoe.

A mother of seven children and a bookkeeper for her husband’s business, she manages our homeschool curriculum fair/ expo every year, dealing with vendors, organizing services months in advance and arranging thousands of details that make our July event come off with a profitable bang. She works with the zeal and selflessness of someone on a mission.

How much is she paid?

Well, she’s reimbursed at the same level of executive compensation as our president, Gary Hargraves. His is a big job. As area coordinator, Gary leads our board in many decisions. He oversees the addition of local support groups, sports teams and chess clubs to our main association. He fields calls and takes trips for us. When Gary takes a July vacation, he doesn’t slip off to the beach to enjoy waves. No, every year he devotes a week setting up our homeschool fair at Camp Jordan. He sweats the details and hassles with the precision of an engineer and the doggedness of a Fortune 500 CEO.

Soccer mom Jan Bontekoe is paid the same amount as our long-elected president.

Which is?

Nothing.

We mention these homeschool servants because their desire to improve the lot of homeschooling overall is not shared by everyone.

Little birds have told us that families share subscriptions and photocopy the Esprit. We suspect that many moms are making their own copies of Esprit under the best intentions.

This practice results in fewer paying readers sharing the burden of our expenses as publisher. These readers’s getting an E-Esprit provides to some a fresh way to nab a small savings, especially as the national economy falters and families are becoming increasingly concerned about their financial stability.

Esprit meets a need for our homeschool community. We are able to share prayer requests, information about classes and field trips, cover current legal and legislative issues and print articles that are informative and encouraging.

This is your newsletter. We want to see it continue to bless and serve our homeschool community.

What comes into view when we look up from the tightness of our own billfolds and purses is the larger gain of home education that CSTHEA brings to Christian and other families in the Chattanooga area.

Because this more generous view is strongly operative, we’ve been able to pay for “money losers” such as Esprit and sports. Sports groups, as you might have guessed, are very costly to start. So profuse is the growth in sports that we have engaged a second treasurer, also a volunteer, to handle the workload.

Every dollar pulled in by our biggest source of income, the curriculum fair, goes into activities for area homeschoolers. We are very fortunate to have CSTHEA board members and many others on a strictly volunteer basis who give of their time. That is the role they envisage for CSTHEA: To provide opportunities that you, the homeschool parent or the local support group, cannot do on your own — the curriculum fair, Esprit, graduation, Cornerstones yearbook and so on.

So, it is with a slight sense of trepidation that we ask you to consider whether you’d prefer an electronic version of Esprit or the put-in-your-hands print version.

We wonder how we can encourage all our moms and other readers to support our labors — and encourage others to do the same. Is there enough sense of community among homeschoolers to think of the larger good and support Esprit versus the making of photocopies or PDF duplicates for “poor” but deserving friends?

Is turning Esprit into electrons going to turn it into a financial bust? Or will it make Esprit more widely read than ever, more self-supporting, a greater force for encouragement in Chattanooga?

This is what we are asking.

Speaking of questions, we have a survey on the question of “online” or “print copy” Esprit. Please go to www.csthea.org and tell us what you think — “online” or “print copy”?

It’ll take just a minute or two. Thanks.

Meanwhile, be in prayer for the board as we make decisions regarding Esprit. We desire to be good stewards of the money that the Lord Jesus Christ has provided.

Please participate in our Newsletter survey! Answer a couple of quick “Yes or No” questions and help us shape the future of our newsletter distribution!

Click this link to take our Newsletter Survey.

Please note: you may have to turn off pop-up blockers temporarily to allow the survey to display.

Each time I open my in-box I am inundated with bad news on way too many fronts. The economy is faltering and getting worse; yet another troubling nomination for a cabinet level post; the pro-life movement may be gutted by proposed legislation; parental rights are threatened; homosexual marriage is gaining ground in more states; the national debt is out of sight. The other day, “Focus on the Family” founder James Dobson actually told his crew that the culture war is being lost in America.

What is a homeschooling mom to do? As for me, I am barely covering the basics: Getting lessons done, feeding the family and minimal housekeeping. There is no way I can read, let alone act on all the scary news I receive. I read the paper nearly every day (since my husband is on the staff!) I did attend the Chattanooga Tea Party in April.

My husband wanted me to take some of our boys so we gathered along with about 2,000 others at Ross’s landing and heard a smattering of local conservatives tell us what we all already knew. Our country is out of control.

Lately I have been deleting all e-mails that have news in their subject line.

Right now is just not my season to be an activist. Reading all of what is out there puts me into a major funk. I do not need that and it is not fair to my children to get me all worked up.

This is not to say that we should not stay informed, make phone calls or send e-mails, sign petitions or organize protests when we can. Each of us knows our limits and what we can and cannot do. If God is calling you to be active on one front or another, go to it!

I have been listening to some tapes I borrowed from a friend (thanks Linda!) made at a Christian worldview conference several years ago. The speaker is one of my favorite people, George Grant, pastor of a church in Franklin, Tenn. The series is on various revolutionary movements in American history, specifically in the 20th century. What we are facing is no new thing, really.

It is just the rebellion of man against God and His truths. Perhaps a blessing back then was that all the bad news could not be disseminated as fast or as often or commented on by so many articulate people as it can be today.

Of course that is also a good thing as we do not have to just rely on the mainstream media which used to be the only informant. But in the 20th century, the culture was also under attack by Darwinists, the elite art movements and expansionist government to name a few. Dr. Grant’s words were very consoling. Thanks to my helpful son DJ for transcribing them.

“When the enemies of the faith come roaring against us with their foolish ideas, their wicked schemes, their political power plays, if we respond in kind, we’ve missed the point. But if we respond with loving families… if we respond with good barbeque… if we respond with churches that are healthy, teaching the word of God and the fullness of life… if we respond with laughter and joy, they cannot prevail. Ultimately all their falsehoods collapse in a heap.”

In the tapes, Dr. Grant highlights four men who made a difference in these times. Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch prime minister, editor and educator; Theodore Roosevelt; C.S. Lewis; and G.K. Chesterton. Not only did they live out faithful lives but they went on to inspire many other writers, politicians and other notables.

“That’s the thing that these, a handful of stalwarts understood. Oh to be sure the Kuypers and the Roosevelts and the Chestertons and the Lewises are few and far between in the story of the 20th century. But what an impact this handful had. What a difference C.S. Lewis has made. What a subversive notion Jan Karon (novelist inspired by Lewis and Chesterton) has introduced, simply by living out the story of a town where there’s orange marmalade cake contests, a snowman building contest, where the difficulties of life are worked out in the context of the life that God intended us to live. The revolution has no answer for the covenant.”

When we live out our lives with our families and other likeminded families enjoying our children, training them up as God leads us in our homes and in our churches, it is one of the most effective answers to the confused world we live in.

“That is the advantage that the Christian worldview affords us. These four caveats, these four resistance movements provide for us a pattern. The pattern you should study and take seriously so that in days to come you can pose your own caveat or resistance. Not in a reactionary mode. But a resistance of good bread, great friends, lots of laughs, wonderful songs.”

In the midst of all the culture wars, we can gather our children near to us and read great stories, we can laugh together around the table. We can take heart in that we are rearing soldiers for future battles that we cannot even imagine. God knows what the world will look like for our children. He is preparing them to take their place in it to build His kingdom. This is what He is definitely calling us to do right now. It may not look like much but it is a mighty resistance. May God bless you all as you find your place in His restoration work.

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• Many have asked me to keep them updated on the progress of my son in vision therapy. I have seen definite gains in his reading ability, less so in his writing skills. His therapist says she sees huge progress in how his eyes are working when she does exercises with him. The home vision therapy is very rigorous. Some of the exercises are impossible for my son to do. Some are impossible for me to do! But I definitely see the value of our sessions together each day. I have heard from several knowlegeable sources that the specific problems my son has are relatively easy to remediate with home vision therapy. I will keep you all posted.
• I wanted to add a word of apology about the last booklist on Rome and New Testament times which I assembled for Esprit. I found so many great booklist resources that the collection morphed into the Booklist that Ate Philadelphia — once I got started, I could not stop! I will try to be a bit more moderate the next time.
• Also as curriculum fair season approaches, please recognize the importance of supporting our local expo July 24 and 25 (see story on Page 9) We are all working hard to make this year’s expo worth your time and we cannot stress enough how much we depend on your continued support of our event by your presence and by your purchases from our exhibitors.

—JMT