Their Best Chance

Why Did We Move from Home Schooling to a School Setting?

When we came to the field with school age children in 2009, I realized we would need to home school. William was the only student at the time. We jumped into first grade while I learned language. It was not too bad to juggle. First grade did not have too much to do and we could just do the basics. The next year was a little more challenging with a second grader and kindergartner and infant in my lap, but it still worked toward the end of my language learning.

Last year, as we began to look to a new direction in ministry, we began by praying about places where we could still use the languages we already have, with little to no additional language study. However, the Lord had other plans.

As we began hearing about this other position, it was obvious more language study would be needed. I had taken French classes growing up, but I am quite rusty, in spite of living in a French speaking country. Rich has never had French classes. The country to which we are going is a French speaking country, with neither one of our current people group languages being prevalent there. French would be our first language to learn in going there, and some time down the road, we will learn another people group language. Despite our hopes that we would be able to avoid a lot of language study, the Lord had other plans.

Last month before the holidays, we were given approval for our new position, however it was difficult to get the lessons up and going. We had talked with all the language coaches, who were encouraging of us to learn French as a family, offering our children the opportunity to learn how to communicate and thus make friends in our new location. With the beginning of the new year, we were all searching for a language helper who could work with us as a family. Living in a French speaking country should make it easy to find someone who can teach us French.  The challenge comes in finding someone who can teach French but does not speak either of the people group languages that we speak, because that would create temptation to speak in a language other than French.

Last week, Tuesday I believe, an email was sent out that a local French language learning program has openings for three students. Our language coach got a call Wednesday morning from the prospective teacher for us turning down the position. Our coach here quickly reserved two spots in the other program in case. Wednesday afternoon, we skyped with our language coach in our new place. We talked through the many options. We could continue to look for someone to teach our family as a whole and be able to arrive there in April, go ahead and move there in February and then do language there, or attend this other language learning program and move there some time in July. All of these options had their pros and cons. So we said we would pray about the options for the next two days.

One of my best friends has a special ringtone for her husband on her cell phone. She always knows when it is him calling her. The ringtone is the song, "It takes two to make a thing go right." That is so true. It takes both Rich and I to make things go right. He has said in the past that he sees which way to go and moves but that I take more time and hesitate. I used to take offense to that, because I thought it somehow meant a lack of faith on my part. Over the last few months, I have come to realize it is true, but both are good and necessary. He can see which way to steer us, but I read the map on how to get there.

Thursday morning, we met with our supervisors here to have our end of the year review. We talked a lot about the past year as well as the year to come. We came to the agreement that we should go to this new language learning program, but we had an idea of how to go about getting schooling for our children taken care of as well. That afternoon, we heard from the supervisors in our new location that they really wanted us to stay here for this other language learning program.

That being decided, I contacted our TCK consultant to run the idea we had for the kids schooling by her. She instead was very encouraging to send the children to the school here, particularly since we would be here the rest of the the school year and the new semester would begin in just days. She emphasized that I would better be able to focus on language study if they were in school. In light of the fact that we have lots more language study ahead of us, it seemed prudent to go this way.

So Friday morning, our supervisors here checked with the school on what we needed to do to get the kids enrolled. Rich subsequently spent the rest of the day filling out applications for each child. Saturday I spent catching up on grading and recording grades so that the school would have an idea where our kids are at educationally. We all rested on Sunday. Monday morning, we were at the school to interview, which was less of an interview and more of an orientation of sorts.

Amidst all of this, I was reading a book called The Dreambuilders: The Story of the Forts of Africa. In addition to recounting the medical ministry of the Forts, it also recounts their family life. This couple sent their eldest children ages 11 and 9 to boarding school 250 miles away. Knowing the caliber of these children as adults, I found comfort in knowing my own children would be okay in this new setting. God loves them even more than I do. This is a great opportunity for them to learn and for me to get the language I will need.

Overseas, education can look very different, from child to child and year to year. As one of our favorite shows says, we want to give them their best chance, whatever that means.