Sweet relief

It's Friday!

And for the past five weeks, for me that meant rushing around trying to finish up the last minute things I needed to do to prepare to teach our homeschool group.

But not today.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE our homeschool group. In fact I have mentioned how much I love it and all of the families in it several times on this blog. There are so many wonderful things that I love about our time every Friday. The boys have friends their age that they interact, learn and play with every week. I get to talk and fellowship with other moms who understand me and are so encouraging. And each mom takes turns teaching for 5 weeks out of the year, so the kids get lessons from people who are different and teach differently than me- which is GOOD. But of course the downside is when it is your turn to teach, the majority of us have waited until the last minute and end up neglecting other things so we can get the lesson done. Like actually teaching our children at home and making dinner for our families. (ok, so I confess the dinner thing is probably just me, but for the past several weeks I have been a little pre-occupied on Thursday nights!)

So, while I absolutely LOVED teaching those 5 weeks... I am feeling the sweet relief that it is Friday and I finished school with the boys, cleaned up the house, and I am blogging all before it is time to leave!!!

So of course I have a hard time blogging without posting pictures, so here are a few of the past five weeks of me teaching in the younger class (K- 3rd grade). We are studying missions and missionary heroes... and as you already know, it is my biggest passion- so I totally lucked out!!!

I was teaching about some of the things I have learned in Perspectives and how missions is the golden thread that connects the entire Bible together. It might have been a little over their heads, but I got a lot out of preparing to teach this lesson!

After reading about Eric Liddell (who was an olympic runner who chose to not run on Sunday and a missionary to China) we had our own olympics outside complete with torches to pass during the relay and medals for the winners.

Gladys Alyward is one of my favorite missionary heroes. After reading her story we spent time learning about China, drew pictures and prayed for persecuted Chirstians in prison, and ending with a celebration of Chinese New Year.

Last week I ended with George Muller who is one of the most wonderful examples of a man of faith that I can think of. We prayed for the street children and orphans around the world and talked about true faith. Here are the kids acting out the breakfast scene. The baker is giving George fresh rolls for the orphans to eat.


(In case you don't know what I'm talking about, in his lifetime George Muller helped over 10,000 orphans in England. After becoming a believer, for the rest of his life he lived by what most would call extreme faith. He never asked for a dime, but trusted that God would provide. One story in particular is just an example of this kind of faith. He sat down with about 300 orphans for breakfast one morning, only there wasn't any food to eat. Nothing. He prayed with the children and thanked God for the food that He would provide for them to eat. And there was a knock on the door. It was a baker who had woke up in the night and thought about the orphans not having anything to eat, so he brought them fresh bread. And then another knock. It was the milkman whose truck had broken down and he needed somewhere to unload the milk. He gave it to the orphange for free. It is only one example of a whole lifetime of living by faith that George Muller was/ is known by. That is the breakfast scene that the kids were acting out.)

The Milk(lady)

A few of the "orphans"

Everyone eating their snack of bread and milk

Happy Friday to you... have a great weekend!!!