What a week!

This week has been just plain rough. After last weeks revelations and questions, I'm trying to ensure my priorities are in order. It seems I'm over tasked with school because I'm now a week behind in the work. I keep telling myself I'd rather get a C in school and an A in family/husbandry (I really don't think that's a word). With God's grace, I'll be successful and bring God more glory by it.

We got the home school curriculum and Candi is doing an amazing job as always. I just don't know that I would ever do as well as she does in planning and completing plans for our kids. i don't care what anyone in the world says - Candi has the most important job in the world and she is an absolute success at it. I hope to give her a raise soon (depending on how our stock goes this quarter :) ). We're going to teach the kids year round so we're not actually doing a daily-planned lesson. We (by that I mean Candi) just work on a little bit each day and the kids really enjoy it. Nori is happy as a clam being home schooled; Bubba is taking some adjusting. He really likes the social time, a lot. Candi's just making a big effort to invite his friends from school over and getting out during the day to visit other friends.

The only real "stressor" right now is that I'm getting to the final assignments of the Evangelism class, which means I am going to have to go witness to someone. I don't think I'm going start with a stranger. I know some folks at works that I really care about and would probably find it "fun" to be the guinea pig for my assignment. I truly believe I should be able and willing to witness at any time, any place because I believe the saving gospel is the most important message and is meant for everyone in the world. I just need practice and experience so I'm starting small. Here's a question - should Christian's do the door-to-door witnessing that a lot of other religions do? Is it effective and is it biblical (in that there is a biblical precedent for it)?

Cup is Half Full (of what, I'm just not sure)

This week I am 50% done with the two courses I'm taking. It has been very hard. I'm pretty sure I'm a workaholic (so is my wife!) and so a few years ago I decided I would make my focus to be a bit of a slacker at work (at least, as much as the AF will let me). It's been very good for me to realize I don't have to do everything. During that time, God helped me to rearrange my priorities a bit.

At the same time, my desire to get some college learnin' about God and the bible has remained strong (though I don't know what God wants me to do with it), thus the classes I'm in now.

On top of that, I decided that it was time for me to help out where I can in our church (check it out, it rocks! - Beginnings church), so I've been playing guitar with the band twice a month. That is also something I really love to do.

So with all this stuff, our three kids, a marriage to give top priority to, and a house to fix here and there I've managed to once again overload myself to the point that Candi feels like she's the bottom of the totum pole. So I'm once again praying for God's wisdom to get it right. Any advice is welcome.

To home school or not to home school

The kids have been in school at the Academy of Tucson since mid-August; even though it's a good school my wife and I are praying about home schooling them again beginning in December. We've scoped out the program we want to use. It's called LifePac. They basically publish each chapter in a text book separately. It makes things really easy for planning the lessons and course work. Of course, Candi is the one doing the majority of the schooling (I'm there for a solid .5 to 1% of effort). I'm just excited because I love what home schooling did for our family last year. I believe that if a family can make the sacrifices to live on basically one income, it is well worth it! My family as a whole and kids are much happier when home schooled.
There seems to be a lot of factors that determine if a family will be successful or not at it. The biggest one to Candi is whether or not she has a support group. I can totally understand what she's saying. I guess it's kind of like the old rule that says we're afraid of what we don't understand. It seems the consensus from the world at large is that kids come out of home schooling unable to adapt and succeed in life because they haven't had the relational interaction necessary to cope with day-to-day real life. I can see that point, seriously. Why even today my daughter learned something extremely valuable. At school she has a "reading buddy." That's someone from an older grade that reads with you each week. Well, evidently Nori's reading buddy hits her, calls her stupid, and says that another boy Nori talks to is dumb. I can only thank the public school system that she learned that lesson before she got much further in life. How could Candi and I ever ensure at home that she's receiving all that important wisdom and experience?! (Did I lay the sarcasm on too thick?)
Anyway, any comments? Are we nuts for teaching them at home? Are we the best parents in the world? We'll see. Maybe they'll be 25 and blaming me for not knowing how to deal with someone at work hitting them.
God bless you all!