Homeschooling becomes a large part of your family’s life and even a part of your identity. However, I woud suggest you continue to do things that might not “count” on your paperwork. Live your life outside of the “school”. One of the things our family did was serving in a nursing home as part of our church outreach program. Those years bring fond memories and even some tears. I believe it is one the most meaningful things we did with our kids.
Our most unforgettable was a nursing home in Sidney, Ohio. It wasn’t a fancy place at all. We went once a month and did our best to encourage the residents in Christ. The children all did whatever their talent was — playing piano, guitar, or recorder, singing, reciting memory verses, or even being the Master of Ceremonies and announcing the next song or person. My husband always gave a short message. The rest of the time was spent getting to know the residents and trying to be a light to their day.
We met people who made us laugh, some who made us cry, and many who encouraged us more than we encouraged them. Going there for the length of time that we did meant that we often watched them decline and eventually not be there when we came back. Tears would fall.
One Fourth of July, I talked with a lady who struggled to put any language together and couldn’t even tell me her name, but when we stood for the Star Spangled Banner, I saw her looking around, and I sprang forward and grabbed her hand. She sang all the words right to me — I sang them back. I held hands with another woman who told me, “I have no real family left, this is my last home, I am going to die here.” She talked with me for a long time and told me over and over to “stick with it” every day with those kids. They will never forget these years — keep teaching the Bible and showing them Jesus — “it won’t leave them alone when they are older.”
I watched my son pat the shoulders of little old ladies who missed their sons, and feeble hands grab the face of my youngest and cry, “cute, cute”. We sang hymns, we pledged to the flag, we prayed to our God, and we all left richer for having spent an hour with the mostly forgotton older folks in a little nursing home.
As important as homeschooling was in the life of our family, I believe we were all marked just as much or more by days like that Fourth of July that we spent not “counting” anything for school, but serving Christ on a hill in Sidney. Not many people remember that day and I may, in fact, be the only one. However, we were all impacted by the many days we held those wrinkled hands.
Coffee with Titaw 