Evening Event for HE Mothers – 18th May 2024
The 18th May was our first attempt at an evening for mothers to come together and enjoy each others company with a cup of tea, slice of cake and an array of different curriculums that we have found helpful in our home-schools. We also took some time to look at God’s word together and pray for one another.
Unfortunately, not many were able to make it on the night, which meant a lot of people missed out on some of the great discussions we had. I have tried to provide a summary below for those that were unable to come. (I apologise this has taken me so long to get up).
Curriculums:
A few different curriculums were brought and discussed, however 3 stood out in our discussions.
Toe By Toe
This is a good resource for struggling readers. A couple of us found it very helpful when other teaching methods failed to work. It requires a regular commitment, ideally 5 days a week. It can feel like a chore as it is very repetitive and methodical, but it does seem to work!
Gather Round Homeschool
This is a beautiful open and go curriculum. Unit studies can be purchased online. For each topic there is a teacher manual, and workbooks can be purchased for different age groups and abilities, so the whole family can learn topics together.
Five in a Row
Five in a Row is a curriculum that uses quality picture books as the basis for a unit study which covers several different subjects. You can purchase a 1-year curriculum, which covers about 20 books (you must purchase the books separately which can be tricky as many are American). At the evening event, we looked predominantly at the mini units which can be purchased as pdfs online. They provide a nice break to other curriculums and work especially well for seasonal topics.
www.fiveinarow.com/product-category/mini-unit/
Bible Study
After some discussion of curriculums, we looked at some verses from Exodus. Below is a transcript of a short bible study I prepared, to encourage Christian home educators.
Exodus 3 10-14
10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
I had to give a presentation on this passage late last year, and I wanted to share some of the presentation, because thinking about these verses has been such an encouragement to me, and has stayed with me over the last few months.
To set the scene, God has just called to Moses from the burning bush and Moses has responded ‘here I am’.
He sounds so ready to follow God’s call, but then God gives him the specifics of what he wants him to do.
“Go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.”
Suddenly Moses is filled with doubt and insecurity.
“Who am I that I should go?”
Moses had attempted to help the Israelites years before and had failed terribly. He ended up murdering an Egyptian, his own Israelite people mocked him and didn’t want to listen to him, and he ended up having to flee for his life. At this point he’s been shepherding in the wilderness for 40 years.
In light of all this, you can understand why he might be thinking: ‘I don’t think I’ll be very good at this.’
This resonates with me quite a lot. In some ways, it is easy to read the bible and pray ‘here I am God, use me’. However, when God gives you a specific task, suddenly you can be filled with doubts.
He might say something simple like, ‘go and speak to the stranger at the back of the hall’.
Instantly I’ll be thinking, “Really? But I’m awkward and I might put them off coming back, someone else would be better”.
Or it might be a more daunting task, like “Home educate your children”. Suddenly I’m thinking, I had a pretty sketchy education in a dodgy comprehensive school. My general knowledge is poor, my spelling is dreadful, and my patience is minimal. At this stage in home educating, I also have memories of all the times I’ve failed to teach well. Like Moses I often think, who am I to be taking this on?
So how does God respond to Moses?
What is interesting to note, is how he does not respond.
God doesn’t reply by trying to bolster Moses’ self-confidence. He could have said “Moses, you are an Israelite by birth and yet were brought up in Pharoah’s palace. You are the perfect mediator between the two. You are brave, rescuing your fellow Israelite, and those women at the well, and you’ve navigated the wilderness already for 40 years. You are the perfect man for the job.”
Isn’t that how we often respond when people share their insecurities? We try to comfort them by listing their strengths.
But God doesn’t do this. So what does God say?
He simply says, “I will be with you.”
Moses’ strengths and weaknesses didn’t really matter because the outcome didn’t depend on Moses. It depended on God. God was going to bring it about.
The same is true for us. Our children’s future does not depend on the sum of our strengths and weaknesses. It depends on God.
So who is this God, on whom so much depends?
That is Moses’ next question to God, and God is happy to engage with Moses. He listens to his doubts and questions and provides him with answers. Similarly, we can bring all our doubts and questions to him.
Going back to Moses’ question.
This is where God responds, “I AM WHO I AM.”
It’s quite an unusual name to get our heads around, but I’d like to share four things I think this name reveals to us.
Firstly, I AM is self-sufficient. We are because our parents bore us. We are a product of our environment and dependant on many people. God is not. He is the self-sustaining, sustainer of all creation. He needs nothing to exist and does not need to rely on anyone to bring about his purposes. He didn’t need Moses to free the Israelites. Rather he chose to work with Moses. Equally, God doesn’t need us to bring about good in the lives of our children. However, he has chosen us to be a part of his plan for them.
Secondly I AM is superabundant. He is unlimited. He is not just the God of freedom from slavery, nor just the God of the weather, or the God of health. He is able to help in all situations. Whatever our struggles we can take them to him, whether it is curriculum choices, financial challenges, illness or anything else.
Thirdly, I AM is sovereign. It is a similar construction to ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.’ Our God promises us his presence, he is committed to us and cares for us. However, he is not at our unfettered disposal. We cannot bend him to our will, we must bend to his. That may mean we have to face challenges we wouldn’t choose for ourselves. Moses looked like he was going to fail over and over, and things got worse before they got better. It may mean that the lives of our children don’t pan out in the way we would have planned them, in terms of their grades or careers. But we can trust that the outcome will be good, because God is good.
So I AM is self-sufficient, superabundant, sovereign and finally, I am is Jesus. When Jesus came he referred to himself by this name.
“Before Abraham was I AM’’.
This is a God who left his throne room in heaven to become a human and live among us. He even gave up his life for us, all so he can have an intimate relationship with us. That is how much he loves us. That is how much he loves our children.
This God, who loves our children more than we could ever comprehend, who made them and knows everything they need, is the same God who gave them you as their mother.
So let’s keep walking faithfully with God and trust him for the outcome.
Going Forward
Finally, after a time of prayer, we discussed the possibility of starting a book-share Whatsapp group. The idea being, if someone needs a book on a particular topic, that they are unable to get from their local library, they can put a message in the Whatsapp group to see if anyone in the group has a copy they are able to lend out. To create a community of trust, only those that have attended CHEN groups in person would be able to join. If this is of interest, please let me know and I will look into setting something up.
If you have got this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I wish you every blessing this academic year!