schooling

FINALLY a decision has been made!

For the past year Chris and I have been discussing where Hannah would be going to school for Kindergarten. I had a brief (OK, it was about 6 months) period where I seriously considered homeschooling. Chris and I feel that we have a HUGE responsibility to train up our children in God's ways. We also knew it would be a big money saver to keep her a home, even if it was just kindergarten, rather then sending her to private school. However, after much praying, discussing and talking with families from our church who are homeschooling now, we have decided that is not for us. While we still believe that we need to be training out children at all times, as Duet 6 talks about, we don't believe that our children need to be ONLY trained by us. We will definitely still be training her when she is at home, which will still be the majority of the time! We also want Hannah to learn to work with others, something that you don't get an opportunity to do as often with homeschooling.

Next we had to decide whether to send her to public school or Christian school. Chris and I both went to Christian schools most of our lives, however I did attend a public school in Dallas Texas for a year and LOVED it!

I think that the first question we had to answer was whether we were running AWAY from public school or TOWARD Christian school. We didn't want our decision to be made out of fear. We believe it is so important that Hannah be salt and light in this world, but we also believe it is so important for her to have a solid Biblical worldview and be trained by teachers who care about her heart issues. So again, more praying and talking with families who've sent their kids to public and private schools.

We finally decided that the best place for Hannah to grow and learn right now is at Trinity Christian school. I talked to a good friend of mine who reminded me that Hannah IS salt and light RIGHT NOW, she doesn't have to be in public school for that. She has many neighborhood friends, soccer team friends, preschool friends who she is shining the light of Christ to.

Our decision really came down to a Biblical worldview. When we meet with the administrator at Trinity Christian he talked about how their curriculum is geared toward Biblical worldview in all their classes, not just a Bible verse at the top of a math sheet, not just during Bible class, but how all of life is seen through the lens of our faith. We also talked to many families who have sent their children to Trinity and they all kept on saying that they just LOVED the teachers. We were also impressed with how established Trinity was as a school, they have an excellent music program (that was important to me, not so much to Chris), drama program, computer lab, library etc.

Right now we're taking it one year at a time. Honestly I don't know how we're going to pay for years of Christian school, I only know that if God wants Hannah at Trinity he'll continue to provide the finances.

I am SO glad that God uses children is ALL schools for His glory. I'm SO thankful that there are kids getting an amazing education at home and being knit so closely to their families. I'm SO thankful that God is using kids to be a shining light for Him in public schools. And I am SO thankful that there are kids, like Hannah, who go to Christian school and have a solid Biblical worldview being taught to them.

I am excited and a little apprehensive about this new schooling journey, thankfully I still have a couple more months to prepare! :) It's just another step in faith, letting go of having my little girl with me almost all day and seeing how God is going to use Hannah for His Kingdom!