Home, Public, and Christian School

I know it's summer, but in light of our series on education options (you can start with Why Public School, and follow the links to the others posts), I thought it would be worthwhile to include a link to a similar series.

Sam Luce not only gave his pros and cons on each choice, but also gives five tips to remember as you discern what is best for your family:

1. Pray.
2. Take the educational process one kid at a time one year at a time.
3. Openly and honestly consider the positives and negatives.
4. Why you do what you do matters.
5. Never assume what you are doing is the ONLY way.

This last point can be a particular hot topic among Christian families. After comparing the options we have decided to home school our children (which has been beneficial for us in this season), but I would not say that this is the best choice for all families. That is the case I presented in A Response to "A Case for Homeschooling." And even more, we are not even sure how many years we'll home school (to go along with Luce's point #2).

Let's here from you:  Are you making any new educational choices for your children this coming school? A new school, or new curriculum?

Family Time

At a great playground in Beaufort, SC

A few weeks ago, I shared some thoughts about the Sabbath, and outlined an idea about spending time on Sunday afternoons (or Saturdays) together as a family, with each person getting a chance to pick the event of the weekend. Here's a recap of what we've done:


Week 1:  After a Saturday of Cooter Fest fun (and me taking a quick trip back to Greenville to pick up some furniture), we laid low on Sunday afternoon. Lunch at Clara's, including eating ice cream cones in a nearby park. Then, some family Wii time in the afternoon. Yep, my wife had a great (at least unique) Mother's Day.

Week 2:  Hannah's pick was to go to Beaufort. (Of course, we helped her with this, as she had never been there before. Now she wants to go back every weekend.) Walking by the waterfront, eating ice cream, playground, and dinner. Oh, and picking up a snack (and the next day's breakfast) at Dunkin Donuts on the way home.

Week 3:  Laid low again, since Joanna and I had a trip to and from Charleston for a wedding on Saturday. Lunch after church services, and games in the afternoon. This was also the first weekend that we had another housemate, as we have a college student staying with us this summer. The more the merrier!

Week 4:  Sender's pick. We let him skip his nap, which he thinks is a big deal, though he rarely sleeps during "nap time" anymore. We drove a golf-cart to Hardee's for milkshakes. Perfect for a hot Sunday afternoon.


As you may notice, much of our family time centers around food. You could say that eating is my favorite hobby, or maybe that gluttony is my favorite of the seven deadly sins. But meal time is a great time to connect and share. At the least, it's been shown that frequent family dinners decrease substance abuse in children. At the most, we have a captive audience where our kids can be a part of gospel- and family-oriented conversations.

What do we talk about? Sometimes it's just listening to their fun and wild thoughts and ideas. Sometimes, we tell them what God is teaching us. Sometimes I use resources that provide questions as prompters, like this from All Pro Dad.

Mentors with older kids repeatedly remind me that family time (including meals) gets harder and harder as the kids get older. That's why we are trying to lay the foundation now when they are young.

Lessons Learned from Having 3 Kids

image courtesy of softerlogi via sxc.hu

For the first 7 years of our marriage, Joanna and I seldom drank coffee. We'd drink it on social occasions, or maybe once every 10-12 weeks with breakfast. But that all was about to change.

We had a lot of life change in a seven-week span between December 2006 and February 2007. We sold our house, bought a house, fixed up the new house, moved, and I started a new job. But the biggest and best event (and the one that we blame for our current coffee habit) is that our third child, Sender, was born on December 23.

As with most families who have multiple kids, we were much less uptight in our parenting style. This is good in the sense that we are not stressed over so many things like we were with Hannah. This is bad in the sense that Sender gets away with a lot more than he should be. Our discipline style usually consists of one of us correcting Sender while our spouse tries to stifle his or her laughter.

Some good friends of ours, Ryan & Molly Burns, also have three kids. Over the years, we have received so much encouragement and support from them. We have learned a lot from how well they have parented, including why they chose to be a Santa Family.

The Burns just celebrated year one of having three kids, and in Year 1 With 3, Molly shares some lessons she learned. If you have kids, especially three or more, you can appreciate the topics that she hits on, including:

• Shredded cheese
• The time it takes to get dinner ready
• How long it takes to get ready to leave the house
• Laundry
• Why she might call you at 11PM

For the record -- Molly is one of the best thinkers and writers I know, and I wish she had time to blog more. But with three kids, I know it's hard. I mean, look at her blog. She doesn't even keep up with it enough to take off the link to the blog of "My Dear Husband," even though he hasn't written on it in over 18 months.

Oh, well, check out her latest post anyway. And maybe you can share what lessons she could expect in year 2.


Related Link:

• Why First Time Moms Lose Their Minds

The End of the School Year

He's soooo done.

Yesterday was our last day of the after school program. We now have about a week off, before starting our full-day summer day camp on June 13. We have been together as a family since mid-April, and we have settled in some more in our Allendale home. We will be in Greenville for a few days. Besides appointments, meetings, and being with friends and family, we will need to clear out our house so renters (so excited for the old friends who will be caring for our place!) can move in.

Joanna finished up school with the kids the Friday before Memorial Day. She worked hard for the past few months, even doing school on regular holidays, knowing that we would need some flexibility with the move. She has been awesome, of course, at the after school program -- doing everything from helping with homework, leading games, loving on kids, and doing major reorganization and inventory. I have a great Ezer in Joanna!

Hannah is enjoying the time here, at home and at the after school program. But she's also looking forward to seeing friends in Greenville next week, and for Grace Church's Elementary Camp in the end of June. And it looks like a girl from Allendale will be going to camp, too!

Elijah has become friends with a couple of boys in the program, and has done things like make them paper airplanes, do a good magic trick with cards, and do weird things with his double-jointed-self. All of these are great ways for boys to connect with each other. At one point, he mentioned that he wanted to get a tan so he wouldn't be the lightest kid there. But then I explained that it was good that he was the lightest; after all, if he wasn't then another kid would have to be! Understanding that he was providing "protection" for another child helped him be OK with it.

Sender is pretty much our "mascot." All the kids love him, and even the middle schoolers go along with whatever he tells them. We might be giving him a little too much freedom, but also we understand that with late nights and little to no afternoon nap, he's got a long, long day.

Looking forward to being together in the Upstate!


Related Link:

• What Surprised Me About Summer Camp 

Why Ask for Financial Support?

image courtesy of hisks via sxc.hu

I had a great conversation last week with my friend Joseph Osborn. As you may recall from a previous link I had to their website (Osborn Mission), they are headed to Papua New Guinea this summer in order to live with, love on, and teach the gospel to an unreached people group.

Without a doubt their level of commitment to the gospel dwarf ours. Their mission will require more sacrifice, more time, and more money than I can imagine.

Read the rest of this post here.

How to Honor Your Wife

Here's a great article from Resurgence for both men and women. The article is specifically written to men. However, married women can use this information to encourage and support their husbands, and single women can use a lot of the principles as they discern what kind of men should rightly pursue them.

We need to give our wives security, not fear, and here are some categories for how we can honor them:

1. Maritally.  "Being sorry is not enough; being Christ-like is what is necessary."
2. Physically.  Do not use force or threat of force to get what you want.
3. Emotionally.  "Men and women have the same emotions; they express them in masculine and feminine ways."
4. Verbally.  "Speak honestly respectfully, lovingly to her and about her."
5. Financially.  Men and women each have roles to fulfill. One of ours is to provide.
6. Practically.  Have a budget, schedule, plan, and life.
7. Parentally.  "It's your job to love your kids. It's your job to pray with your kids. It's your job to teach the Bible to your kids. It's your job to encourage your kids. It's your job to discipline your kids."
8. Spiritually.  "Leading spiritually is the foundation of everything else."

Be sure to read the full article for more explanations on each point. And leave a comment here answering one of these questions:

• Husbands -- which area do you need to work on most?
• Wives -- where is your husband succeeding?

I'll go first in the comments.

Poll: Summer Vacation

Whether it's a family vacation, a ManTrip, or a get-away with your spouse, I hope you are planning some time out-of-town this summer. Please take the polls to the right and let us know:

• About how many days you plan on vacationing
• Where you plan to go (you can select more than 1)

Have a wonderful summer!