Changing direction

The Lord is adding to our number - we have been blessed with a few new families coming along to church. One of them is the Upfold family, who we look forward to getting to know better when they move from Ashburton to Timaru in the near future.

Actually, meeting with them has been an answer to prayer - I will sideline this blog post to announce our intentions to homeschool again, starting with Caleb on his own next year and Aaron joining in the year after.  Timaru sadly has no Christian high school, and the more we considered options and prayed over the matter, the more it seemed that the right choice would be homeschooling.  We are no strangers to this mode, having kickstarted the boys' education from the comfort of the Baptist Manse in Jamestown, St Helena.  We homeschooled for four years before enrolling them at TCS.  This time around, as we teach through the high school years, the boys will be working more independently with much less input and hands-on teaching.  So, the plan is that they will use the church as their base, with Nick as the primary overseer (and also a theology teacher); I will continue working but drop a few hours so that I'm available for extra-curricular chauffeuring (et al) each afternoon. We are excited about the new direction and shift in gear for the family - and pleased to say that the boys are looking forward to it too.

Back to the Upfold family then - they homeschool!  I had prayed specifically that the Lord would bring people our way that we could speak with on the topic before we finally settled the decision, and He answered directly and speedily with a family comprising three teenage boys and two younger girls, who all seem to have their feet firmly on the ground, and who enjoy what they are doing.  What a blessing and encouragement to us!

We extended an invitation to the wider church family to join us for a picnic at the Scenic Reserve (when you look out the window after church and see blue sky, you grab the opportunity for a picnic, to be sure!).