Part One of a Series by Kathy Lowers, Founder of Considering Homeschooling

If you are like me, you are in recovery mode from this painful election.  To see voters, including so many Christians, not care that their candidate intends to "spread the wealth around" or more likely they could not recognize communist rhetoric when it was slapping them in the face... is disturbing. 

To watch voters not blink an eye that their guy had his career launched by someone who had bombed the Pentagon or maybe they just were not tuned in to the tiny sliver of the media that actually reported this... is disconcerting. 

To observe that half the nation did not hold it against their candidate that he is so pro-abortion that he is off the charts or perhaps they got so excited about "making history" they forgot that murder is wrong... is disheartening.

Further, to see that these voters did not mind that their candidate opposed efforts to stop the perversion of marriage by homosexuals or very likely they believed his rhetoric about being Christian... is alarming. 

And, to realize that all these voters did not seem bothered in the least that he was endorsed by a top Hamas leader, Fidel Castro, and other horrifying figures or obviously his Hollywood endorsements were all that mattered... invites commentary.

As for those of us who have been given children by God at this time in history, it also invites serious thought on how we can raise up Christian voters who understand, with unshakable conviction, what type of economic system and moral laws are in line with God's Word.  We need to train our children to screen candidates for biblical values rather than be swayed by the utopian visions of man-made messiahs. 

This election highlighted that the view held by many American churches that evangelism alone will transform the culture is not true.  The people in the churches, including some self-appointed leaders in Christianity, are messed up voters, too.  Masses of Christians voted for the most pro-abortion, most pro-homosexual, most openly socialist president in U.S. history.  What in the rearing of these voters, in the discipleship of these Christians, guided them to vote for image, race or getting something free from the government over biblical values?

The fact is, there is something seriously wrong in the upbringing of Christian children, as quite a lot of them grow up to vote like pagans.  Could it be that the two main sources of training for most American Christian minds are the public schools and the media -- instead of their parents and the church?  Those families that remove the grip of the media from their children's lives by cutting out TV are doing a noble deed.  But getting rid of the TV, as hard as that is for the average Joe Christian, is still a lot easier than giving up his dependence on freebie government schools.

Having many kids and making sure they have a rigorous Christian education is a tough sacrifice.  Yet if Christians had (or adopted) more children and gave them a solid Christian upbringing, the result of future elections would be much different than what we just encountered.  I know most Christians either cannot afford Christian school or they live in an area devoid of solid Christian schools.  That leaves homeschooling as the most viable option in Christian education for families who can create a safe, loving, educational, Christ-centered home.  But most people do not homeschool because, quite frankly, it is the uphill path.  So why take that path?  We believe, based on the fruit we see in others' lives, that homeschooling in the Lord will give us a better chance at having children who will be loyal to Jesus.

Taking the public school route is free and easy -- at least in the short run.  But, you get what you pay for, so to speak, and the jails, abortion clinics, and political positions in our communities are filled with the natural consequences of secular schooling.

Weekday mornings are seen as time of deliverance for the moms in most neighborhoods around the country.  You can almost hear a collective sigh of relief at 8am or so, as the state takes on the expense and the bother of the children all day.  But at the same time in the morning as most mothers are being relieved of their responsibility, homeschoolers like me are just rolling up our sleeves and getting to work at educating our children.  With four young kids and two toddlers in my house, that is an energetic undertaking.  The typical mom and I are worlds apart regarding what happens in our day during those next six hours (or longer, if they sign up for after school care).  I don't get to go to the mall, spa, watch TV or make money at a job.  Homeschooling six children on a shoe string is a juggling act -- a really interesting, fun challenge most of the time, but a struggle at other times.  But, I know I am sowing towards the future -- that is what keeps me optimistic, keeps me chugging on despite whatever roadblocks Satan throws in family's way.  We know God would have us bring up the children this way. What God has ordained, what His will is, no man or circumstance can stop.

I was convinced to homeschool before I ever even met my husband.  And, he was sure he would homeschool before he ever met me.  Active in the pro-life movement, I met all these wonderful children and teens who were homeschooled.  They were polite, sincerely pro-life, and really seemed to know the Lord.  Nothing wins over people to home education more effectively than the living testimony of well-raised homeschooled children.

I cannot tell you how many dear Christian friends I have known over the years in pro-family grass roots activism who have been shipwrecked from letting their children learn from the world's schools.  To picket Planned Parenthood for years and then to discover their own children frequent the place, is so devastating for them.   The image became clear to me -- did I want a child who one day would try to save babies as a teen or a teen who would be a client of Planned Parenthood?  I know that homeschooled children sometimes choose the world too, but statistically, it is much less than the public school children.  And that makes sense -- the teacher that spends the most time with the student... well, Jesus said it best:  "A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher." (Luke 6:40)

Whoever schools your children sets the stage for what your kids do when they get old enough to "dis" you.  And whoever schools your children controls their vote because they teach them in what manner to think.  Trying to undo the damage every night, like some Christians think they can, is nearly impossible.  There is too much homework to do and too many activities to establish yourself as a force greater than the teachers in their life.  Parents with children in any school really are giving up much more sway with their youngsters than they realize.  Your nights and weekends with your child cannot counteract what they have learned from secular sources the bulk of the week.

I know so many beautiful Christian sisters who tell me they pray for their children who are enrolled in public school, that they tell them to witness to their friends, etc.  But, ultimately, as the Lord says, the student is not above his teacher.  The child was placed by the parent under the authority of those teachers, to get wisdom.  But the false wisdom of the world is in direct conflict with the real wisdom of God.  The child, in his heart, is forced to make the ultimate choice between the false gods and way of thinking of his or her teachers and the true God and way of thinking of his or her parents.

I believe that if you are a God-fearing parent who can create a safe, loving learning environment for children in your home, that you should be considering homeschooling right now if you aren't already homeschooling.  Homeschooling your child is not a guarantee they will not forsake the values you have instilled, but they have a fighting chance at comprehending the significance of having godly leaders, not to mention they will have a better chance at receiving and following the Lord Jesus.

While this election shocked me, I have to say I have more hope than I have ever had for our country, in part because of what God is doing through homeschooling.  Look at how homeschoolers, still a small fraction of total students in this country, have already been recognized as a political force in several notable local and state elections.  Just imagine if a thousands, tens of thousands, millions more Christian families homeschooled.

The thought I will leave you with is this... whoever schools the children impacts the future.  If every Christian child received a sold Christian education, there would be real change in the course this country is taking.  And since the United States is still the most powerful country in the world, whoever schools the children ultimately influences a lot in the world, too.  Sacrificing to homeschool holds such hope in these trying times... consider making that sacrifice.

What's a 16-year-old public school girl supposed to do to find love?  That's right, get a 24-year-old homeless guy to impregnate you.  Well, everyone is doing it!

Evidently, everyone is doing it at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts.  Sixteen girls have confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and succeeded.

The local liberals want to distribute contraceptives at the high school without parental consent, to stem the tide of the four fold increase in teen pregnancy.  This is a ridiculous reaction, of course, considering the nature of the increase.

One teen parent put it succinctly, "they're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally."

Does anyone really think this type of nonsense would occur if these girls had been loved enough by their parents?  Seen the gospel of Jesus Christ lived out in the lives of the adults around them?  Protected from the absurdities of popular culture driven peer group influences by being homeschooled?

Here is the article from Time:

As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal says, shaking his head.

The question of what to do next has divided this fiercely Catholic enclave. Even with national data showing a 3% rise in teen pregnancies in 2006—the first increase in 15 years—Gloucester isn't sure it wants to provide easier access to birth control. In any case, many residents worry that the problem goes much deeper. The past decade has been difficult for this mostly white, mostly blue-collar city (pop. 30,000). In Gloucester, perched on scenic Cape Ann, the economy has always depended on a strong fishing industry. But in recent years, such jobs have all but disappeared overseas, and with them much of the community's wherewithal. "Families are broken," says school superintendent Christopher Farmer. "Many of our young people are growing up directionless."

The girls who made the pregnancy pact—some of whom, according to Sullivan, reacted to the news that they were expecting with high fives and plans for baby showers—declined to be interviewed. So did their parents. But Amanda Ireland, who graduated from Gloucester High on June 8, thinks she knows why these girls wanted to get pregnant. Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. "They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," Ireland says. "I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m."

The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. "We're proud to help the mothers stay in school," says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center.

But by May, after nurse practitioner Kim Daly had administered some 150 pregnancy tests at Gloucester High's student clinic, she and the clinic's medical director, Dr. Brian Orr, a local pediatrician, began to advocate prescribing contraceptives regardless of parental consent, a practice at about 15 public high schools in Massachusetts. Currently Gloucester teens must travel about 20 miles (30 km) to reach the nearest women's health clinic; younger girls have to get a ride or take the train and walk. But the notion of a school handing out birth control pills has met with hostility. Says Mayor Carolyn Kirk: "Dr. Orr and Ms. Daly have no right to decide this for our children." The pair resigned in protest on May 30.

Gloucester's elected school committee plans to vote later this summer on whether to provide contraceptives. But that won't do much to solve the issue of teens wanting to get pregnant. Says rising junior Kacia Lowe, who is a classmate of the pactmakers': "No one's offered them a better option." And better options may be a tall order in a city so uncertain of its future.

From Considering Homeschooling.

My husband and I were blessed to see the new Ben Stein move, Expelled, this week.  The part of the movie that moved me the most was when a few professors described how they became evolutionists and how any belief in God was simultaneously extinguished in their lives.  As one professor detailed, it happened when his biology teacher turned him on to evolution and by the end of the course, he was both an atheist and evolutionist. 

I have heard this same story over and over again in the lives of everyday Christian parents.  For example, I used to tutor this very smart boy who took several honors classes – honors physics, honors English, etc.  But I told his Christian mother that I was worried that she was going to send him to a liberal ivy league college as he already had been exposed to so much secular humanism in this public school high school and he had little grasp of a Christian worldview.
 
She dismissed such thoughts, telling me he was the head of the children’s ministry in their church and was active in other church work.  Sure enough, after one semester of college biology in which the professor bulldozed Darwinism into the students, this ignorant and unprepared teen declared to his shocked parents that he was now an atheist. 

You need to homeschool to make sure your children understand Dawinism thoroughly before encountering it from the elites in academia.  And they need to study the vast evidence for God as the creator, the infinitely intelligent designer of the universe. Otherwise, a child weakened by a public school education will likely be seduced by the fantasy of evolution and overwhelmed by the peer pressure to adopt an atheist view of the world.

Proverbs 24:11 says "rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter."

If you are considering homeschooling or already educating your children at home, I want to challenge you to observe the 35th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision this week by trying to save a life of a baby.  Make it a family project – get some literature from the nearest pro-life group or pro-life pregnancy center and hand it out as a family while you stand on the sidewalk outside the local abortion clinic.

Or have your family prayer time there.  And why not practice reading out loud by reading the Word of God as a family on the sidewalk outside the local Planned Parenthood, the largest baby killing machine in the country? 

In fact, why not make it a homeschool "assignment" for your family to try to save the life of at least one unborn child in 2008?  I know that so many mothers of young children have a past – a past that includes one or more abortions.  Now that you are walking with Jesus Christ, now that He has given you a chance to instruct the next generation, why not train your children to be "life savers"?  Homeschooling them does not guarantee they won’t get an abortion; they need to know what God says about hurting the innocent and they need to be part of His life saving work. 

If you really want pro-life children, I mean children who not only will protect your future grandkids from abortion, but also vote pro-life and work to end abortion in the land, get them involved in peacefully praying, saving lives and witnessing on the sidewalk of an abortion clinic.  It was, in fact, the many homeschool families I met in pro-life that convinced me homeschooling was the way to go ( my husband was convinced a long time ago to homeschool by having gone to public school) .

Seeing the homeschooled children fearlessly standing for the least of these really touched my heart in a way I will never forget.  It is so cool to be a homeschool mom now and see my kids being part of that legacy. 

Having been a pro-life sidewalk counselor for 21 years, I can tell you sidewalk counseling is easier to do than most people think.  My husband and I have trained sidewalk counselors in the past and we can tell you that it is not really what you say that counts as much as how much you pray.  Some of the most effective sidewalk counselors quietly pray, and just politely hand out the literature to the women entering the abortion mill.

If you need information on sidewalk counseling, check out the resources at www.sidewalkcounseling.com and if you live in Southern California, they will be having a sidewalk counseling training session on March 1 with the theme "Save a Life in 2008".

The Herald Tribune is reporting that "Aqua Dots" Chinese-made children's toys contain the 'date rape' drug.

Scientists say a chemical coating on the beads, when ingested, metabolizes into the so-called date rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate. When eaten, the compound — made from common and easily available ingredients — can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

Could this Chinese toy thing get any stranger?  Lead, asbestos, gamma hydroxy butyrate... could they try any harder to make this look like a sinister communist plot to kill American children?

We have long boycotted Chinese made products -- yes, it is possible.  It takes more time shopping and sometimes we go home empty handed.  But, like most Americans, who needs more stuff?  As someone who loves toys, those three little words - Made in China - sure help us save a lot of money.  Try it; just put the stuff back on the shelf.

Our little family is like a chorus going through a toy store: "Made in China", "Made in China", "Made in China".  I believe those are the first words most of our children learned to read -- dad's homeschool of consumer awareness. 

Our little boycott started, not because of consumer safety reasons, but because the communists represent real evil in this world.  Christians are persecuted in China.  Political freedom is suppressed.  Individual expression is punished.  Information is controlled by the state.  Every industry profits from slave labor (through forced labor of political prisoners in energy and mining).  And, women are forced to have abortions.

Also, a portion of every dollar that goes to China gets invested into the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army), China's military, which is engaged in a great strategic expansion in anticipation of the coming conflict with the United States.  Historically, China views the United States as an enemy.  All of their military build-up is targeted at countering the United States -- anti-satellite weapons to target our communications, blue water navy and submarines to counter our aircraft carriers, hacking to disrupt our information infrastructure, anti-surface missiles to counter our navy, short and medium range missiles to target Taiwan and US bases in Asia, ICBM's to target American cities.

Please pray that this coming conflict does not come to pass.  Pray that the communist government of China would be destroyed and freedom would come to the Chinese people.  Too long have they suffered under the suppression of totalitarian government (at key historical points reinforced by western powers). 

In 1989 brave individuals stood up for political reform in China, the result was death and prison for thousands.  The west largely ignored these tyrannical acts and expanded trade relations with China.  Trade has done little since then to give the Chinese people political freedom.  Instead, the power of the communist dictators has been reinforced and strengthened by the influx of western cash.

Please stop giving your cash to China; instead give them your prayers and determination to see them free to worship Christ as you do.  Don't you think that is a better lesson for your children then that plastic (and perhaps lead painted) toy?