It has been a while since I have written anything new for this blog and I have been cycling through old articles for a number of months. Thanks for bearing with me! I just thought it would be worth writing a bit of an update about what I have been doing and how our family is in general.
About a year and a half ago, Simon suggested that I write a book for home educating mothers based on the book of Proverbs. I read and reread Proverbs for about a year and had the idea of looking at the qualities of the Proverbs 31 woman and writing about what we can learn from her. The working title is “Clothing Herself with Strength: Proverbs 31 and the Home Ed Mother”. This is where most of my energy has been going over the summer and I am about half-way there! I am not quite sure how the book will move from my laptop to a hard copy that people can hold in their hands, but we have a few ideas and are gently pushing doors to see if the Lord opens one for us.
I have continued to write shorter articles albeit for a couple of other platforms. I wrote an article for the Conservative woman that can be found here https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/who-thinks-of-the…,as well as for the Evangelical Times https://www.evangelical-times.org/author/jessica-turpin/
In a few weeks, I will be speaking to mums at the CHESS conference on raising 0-5s https://chessuk.org/rock-solid-conference/.
The make-up of our family is currently this: a thirteen-year-old boy, eleven-year-old boy-girl twins, two girls aged nine and eight and then five-year-old girl twins. Our eldest son was baptised this year, the day after the “Firm Foundations Conference” so we had an extremely special weekend. We see signs of grace in some of the other children and are praying for six more baptisms and six more lives dedicated to the glory of the King.
Simon is in a busy period at work with an abundance of speaking engagements. He has had another book published by Master Books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam…/dp/B0CCYVJTFX/ref=sr_1_1… and has been giving cross-Atlantic interviews from upstairs while we tune in to what radio “across the pond” sounds like from the downstairs sitting room!
We are very committed to our local church and love the fact that it is so supportive of those who are looking to give their children a Christian education at home. We are hoping to hold another “Firm Foundations Conference” next year and the home ed group that we run at the church is full with around ten families and has become a part of the gospel witness of the church.
Our homeschool is running fairly smoothly. Of course, there are always things that I would like to tweak, and better disciplines and habits to be formed, but I think we are reaping the fruit of the early years of hard work to some extent. Of course, as with all families, there are ups and downs. We have great days and days that don’t run as smoothly and with nine bodies in the house there are lots of relationships to negotiate! We have some challenges on the horizon that I would never write about on the internet, but I know God is faithful so whilst we cannot see the other side of the mountain at the moment, we know he will provide a way though!
On a lighter note, much to the amusement of our local dog-walkers, I have taken up early morning jogging!!!! Over the last year or so, I have been convicted about working to keep my body strong so that I can serve the Lord and my family better. I was struggling with tiredness and lethargy in the evenings and realised that it could be because I really get very little exercise. So, I dusted off my running shoes that haven’t seen the light of day for fifteen years. Accompanied by oldest son (who Simon insisted that I take, presumably to carry me home if things went badly!), I managed my first half-mile. My son barely broke a sweat whereas I was stiff for three days! I prayed the Lord would help me keep going and he answered the prayer in the form of my oldest daughter who has decided to rise early and run with me. Somehow, the extra accountability keeps me going! We manage one and half miles about four or five times a week and have been going for several months now. You probably won’t spot me at the next Olympics but somehow a quick jog in the morning means that I begin the days earlier and sharper, and in general I am feeling much better. It probably isn’t for everyone but it is for me!
So, there you have it! I am very called to keep writing about Christian home education. If I could write something that helps to remove an obstacle for a family considering home education, or I could encourage a mother to brush herself down at the end of a hard day and give it another go tomorrow, then I think I am doing the work that the Lord has particularly called me to do to serve him in this generation. I will keep reposting old blogs for the time being because I know that new people often across them for the first time and it is a witness to Christian home education on the internet. But I just wanted you to know that I haven’t given up, grown tired or jaded. I am still writing and I am still praying that the trickle of Christian home educating families will become a stream, will become a river, will become an ocean!
