It was a true honor to share my heart with you precious young wives and mothers.

Children Are A Gift From God Bible Verses

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

(Psalms 127:3-5 ESV)

My trip with my oldest son was a blessing and he continues to bless me as he freely talks to me and shares his heart which I am grateful that the Lord allows me to have. Our children are so forgiving and want to love us and to be loved. They don’t remember our failures and they stand with us as arrows – ready to face our enemies at the gate!!

Thank you, Amy. I am blessed that you have taken my advice to heart. Our husbands (God-given leaders) are the first in command – and we second lieutenants – responsible for carrying out the “orders” of the first in command. I was telling my husband about our talk and he wanted me to remind you that if your reaction is to think, “my husband never voices an opinion about anything,so I have to do it and make decisions,” it is because he has not been given the opportunity to rise to that position of leadership in your home.

 If you begin to ask his opinion in the small things and tell him that you desire for him to be the one making the decisions, he will slowly begin to shed his passive nature and you will see a bold and holy man of God unfold before your eyes. My husband wanted me to advise you that this could take some time. Andyou should be patient. He remembers being very passive as he followed his ownfather as a role model – his mother was dominant and father passive – and I followedmy own mother as dominant wife and my father was passive – we had to work at and STILL have to work daily at reversing that tendency to model our own parents.

But our homeschool would NEVER have worked and survived for 24 years without my husband beingthe head so I praise GOD that HE graciously and oftentimes reminded me of that truth and gave me many chances to correct my wrong attitudes and actions toward my husband.

The many, many, many familiesI have seen quit homeschooling over the years, have been because the roles of the husband and wife were reversed with the wife making all the decisions. Remember the two-headed monster… I recommend Power of the Praying Wife – read the prayers each day and each daystart the day with your children praying for DAD – who is out working hard to providea home for you to be safe and secure in. Your position as wife and mother is oneof privilege and if you let your children know that DAD is “king” as one of the moms shared with me, you will be giving your children the greatest gift in the world. And you will also become a very, very happy woman.

Ann~ I am very sorry about your mother-in-law. What a blessing she has in you. We missed you at the meeting too!

I was very encouraged about what Deborah had to say. God has really been teaching me a lot about the importance or respecting my husband, and has used Deborah in many ways to teach me this lately. One thing that stands out in particular is that she reminded us not to be traitors. Because our husbands are our God-given leader, any time we go a different direction than he is leading, we have become traitors. Anyone knows things can’t run smoothly that way, whether we are talking about a country, or a home.

And of course – I love having a break from my little ones, a chance to visit with friends, and my children love the diversion too!

Thank you for all you do.

~Amy

 Hi, NHS’ers!

 Thanks for your prayers for our family. My sweet mother-in-law had a stroke last weekend, and we’ve been in the process of making the necessary adjustments to our new “normal.” We are grateful that she didn’t experience the paralysis that often comes with a stroke, but some of her thinking skills have been compromised. I’m glad we live near Ron’s folks – it is a privilege to be able to walk through this with them. They’ve “been there” for us many times when we were in crisis.

I’m sad that I had to miss our meeting last Monday. Sure would love it if some of you would post on our Loop what encouraged you at the meeting. I know Deborah had some good things to say. What spoke to you? Was it something in her “talk” to the group? Was it just getting together with others and comparing experiences in parenting and homeschooling? -or, was it knowing that your children were being cared for so that you could have a little break?

Looking forward to hearing from you. There were quite a few from our group who weren’t able to come on Monday, so now is your turn to encourage them by sharing what helped you.

We are praying for you and your families as you begin the new week!

blessings, anne

Dear New Home School Moms,

We are still in the process of re-scheduling the meeting we missed in April, so be patient a bit longer please.

Last Saturday my oldest son received his Master’s Degree from Baylor. It was a very moving moment for me. I am not the first mom in the world to have her home schooled son receive a Master’s Degree – but it was my first.

My husband and I were very proud – we struggled home schooling him. He was a high-energy, bright boy – and I always felt inadequate to be his teacher. So my husband very plainly made me use workbooks – simple and cheap School of Tomorrow workbooks – and told me to be the overseer of his learning and not the teacher. This meant he taught himself at his own pace – and even took his own tests – grading them himself with the answer key. If he got more than 2 wrong, he had to show me – otherwise – he just moved on to the next chapter.

My friends were more hands-on with their children’s home school and thought I was really out there being so hands-off with my children’s academics. But it worked for us. All three of my children are self-motivated, high-achievers. When my children came to me and said – “I don’t know how to do this”, my reply was, “read the directions”. If they said, “I already did and I still don’t know how to do this”, my reply was, “read them again”. They soon figured out that I was not the source for the academic answers. So they busied themselves reading and re-reading to find the answers to the questions they missed on the tests – which they graded themselves. (This went for math and advanced math too!)

But what I was very hands-on with was their spiritual training. Our jobs are not to raise academic geniuses but Godly men and women for the Kingdom of God.

My son has a Master’s Degree – that is good and makes us proud. But more than that, he loves God and seeks to do His will in his daily life. That is what will set him apart and give him a unique place in this life and in the next.

Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek Ye First The Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added…”

I Corinthians 10:31 says, “in whatsoever you do – do to the Glory of God”. Teach your children to do all things to the Glory of God and they will excel – both spiritually and academically.
Deborah Korpi, Coordinator
New Home School Families

I regret that we did not have a separate get together this month – but, alas, the month has been very full with activity.

One thing we must guard against is over-activity.  It robs us of peace and time – which makes us tired and cranky.

Let us also remember there is a “home” in Home School.  It behooves us to spend some quantity time there.  Home is where the heart is.  Home Sweet Home.  There’s no place like home.

As our second semester draws to a close, I’d like to also give an admonition that we are not called to Home School in order to turn out academic geniuses – although we may do that.

We Home School to raise Godly children – that is the reason God gives us children.  Malachi 2: 15-17, “You were united to your wife by the Lord.
In God’s wise plan, when you married, the two of you became one person in His sight.  And what does He want?  GODLY children from your union.”  This of course, implies, that UNGODLY children could be the result of your union.

God’s Word has much to say about raising Godly children.

Proverbs 5:1&2, “My son, attend to wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding; 2 that thou mayest regard discretion and that thy lips may keep knowledge.”

Proverbs 6:20-25, “My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother:  21. Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck.  22: When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.  23: For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: 24: To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.  25: Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.”

This is important because we are raising sons and daughters to adulthood.
When I was teaching these things to my sons and daughter, it didn’t always seem relevant – and some days I felt that we needed to focus more on
academics.   But, in hindsight, the great teacher, has shown me that the
most important thing I taught them to help shape their values as young adults – was God’s Word.  And they must have had enough academics along the way to get them in and through Baylor with honors (the oldest two).

When we began Home Schooling, 21 years ago, we claimed these two verses as our foundation because we wanted our children to grow to have Godly wisdom.

Psalm 111:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and a good understanding have all they that do His commandments.”

Proverbs 1:5-7,  “A wise man will hear, and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsel;  6. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; 7. but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

We did not feel that our children could rise to this goal spending 20,000+, K-12 hours away from home in any public or private institution under the tutelage of strangers.

Thus began the Korpi’s journey of journeys – the adventure of a lifetime.
Of all the courses we could have chosen for our lives, NONE has been or could have been more challenging; more rewarding; more frustrating; more fulfilling; more awe-inspiring; more gut-wrenching, more delightful.

18 years+ of your child’s life – literally flies by.   The investment we
make in their lives now, will yield an eternity of benefits.  It may, in fact, change this world in which we live to be a better place because we are raising future leaders–Wise and Godly ones.

Galatians 6:7-9, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  8. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.  9. And let us not be weary in well doing; for in  due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

God give us all wisdom, knowledge and understanding to continue to be faithful in the high calling to which he has called us.  He does not call us to something He does not also equip us for.

Deborah Korpi, Coordinator
New Home School Families
GWCHE
newhs@gwche.org