I haven't participated in Memorial Box Monday for awhile--mainly because I am SO BAD at remembering to write things on certain days. ugh. But anyway...I remembered this week.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to send our kids to a Christian school. But yeah...the tuition... There is just no way.
We tried homeschooling when Molly was going into kindergarten. God very clearly called us to it at the time. Molly was just too emotionally fragile to attend school. I homeschooled for two years. The second year it went rather...um....badly.
As in epic fail.
The following year, God directed us to put the kids in public school. It was so hard to admit defeat in the area of homeschooling because it is something I think can be such a wonderful thing.
God continually reminded me that He could take care of my kids no matter where they were...home...public school...or Christian school.
And so I had to trust Him to take care of them. It sounds foolish to say that--but it was really hard for me to let them go out into the harsh cold world.
Last year, Molly began asking to go to Christian school. I shared my own longing with her and told her to pray that if God wanted them to go, He would make a way. Honestly, my faith was rather weak in this area. I mean, really, how could we possibly afford to send all the kids to a Christian school?
Well, WE couldn't but GOD could.
And so we prayed.
When we first started attending our current church, I was approached by a family who serves on the board of a small Christian school, wondering if we would be interested in sending our kids there. I laughed and said yes, but we could never afford it.
Over the past 10 months there have been occasional references to the school, but each time, I brushed them off, knowing we could not afford the tuition.
Last week, the mom and kids of the above family came over for a playdate. The mom mentioned again that the school was looking for students and that they might be interested in working with us on the tuition problem.
I gave her permission to have the school principal call us and started to have a glimmer of hope that God might be up to something.
He was.
The principal called and after a long talk, asked me to come up with a number we could afford and get back to her. Jeff came up with a number and I went to visit the school the next morning.
It's a very small school. Each class has about 5-8 students. After showing the kids around, she and I sat down to talk about coming to the school. Bottom line...she is willing to take what we can afford because our family's story of 10 adoptions touches her heart.
And so...our God, Jehova Jirah our Provider, has made a way for our five elementary kids to attend a Christian school this year. And not just any Christian school. A small school.
You see, several our kids struggle with some learning problems. They have IEP's and need extra help. They get pulled out of class for tutoring with groups of about 5-6 kids. It is a great help to them, but they miss class instruction and end up having lots of extra homework that they didn't have time to finish in class.
This year they will have a full class size of 5 or 6 and will get that 'tutoring' all day long.
Only God!
We live 25 minutes from the school, so it will mean a significant amount of driving for us, but I am trying to concentrate on the GOOD in this situation rather than how I will be spending two hours a day in the car. ha ha.
I'll have to find a little schoolhouse to put in our Memorial Box.
