[Sis Jo Echon is a good family friend we met in China in one of our Filipino gatherings there. Since then she has become our motivator and inspiration to homeschool our son. Now, whether we will succeed and be blessed with our own plans remains to be seen, her life testimony about homeschooling simply overwhelms whatever apprehensions we are having about this. Congratulations to Jopoy and his siblings and to Bro. Sani and Sis Jo for their love and dedication to each other. Please read on and be inspired.]
My Dear Relatives and Friends,
My Dear Relatives and Friends,
I'm now the happiest Mom on earth. My son Jopoy passed the Accreditation and Equivalency Test! Out of 97,756 only 22,430 passed the test nationwide and he's one of them. Great! It means, he is accelerated and don't have to go through all level of high school formally and he can now go straight to college. Whew no sweat! the beauty of homeschool he he Grabe laki ng savings ng Daddy! ha ha ha.
I consider this a major feat of our homeschool journey. I only enrolled him on his 1st yr in San Juan de Letran Home Study Program and the next 2 yrs bravely, we go independent. It means i didn't enrol him but still keeps on homeschooling him. I borrowed old books from friends and relatives. And not only high school books but even college materials. He told me that he wanted to take up Culinary or IT in college so i bought books in that fields so that he may have the "feel" if he really is into that courses. Since we are homeschool the world is our classroom. They are not bounded by curriculum that we are using but by anything that they put their interest into.
If you can only read my thoughts the last 2 days i was singing a different tune. I was so depress and thinking deeply about our homeschooling. You know, in regular school, when school year is over everyone is in vacation mood. But in homeschool, it's an ideal time to fill in all the learning gaps. So I gave Jopoy and Shan a diagnostic test to find out their learning gaps. The result didn't please me. I end up re assessing our choices. Is homeschooling really for our family? Are we bringing out the best in our children through homeschooling? Are we not depriving them of anything that they should be enjoying as children? Are they learning the things that they needed to be learn? Are we teaching and modelling them the christian values that are expected from homeschool families? Are we molding our children the way God wants us to be? A lot of questions flooded my mind that i cannot answer logically because i am involve. I prayed so hard. I had an intimate spiritual experience with God for 2 days. I ask Him to refresh me, comfort me, show me His ways, to tell me if this is still His plan for our family. I was reminded that homeschooling is the product of our ardent prayer to God when we ask Him to allow us to spend more time with Sani while he's abroad. When we get to know the principle of homeschooling we realize that it embodied our values as family. As i ask God to give me a grace of discernment to know His will for our family, He answered my prayers with a big bang! Last night my sister e-mailed me the web site to access the result of Jopoy's test which was taken last Oct. At almost midnight we are in jubilation. God in a very special way reassured me that He is still leading us to homeschool our children.
I know homeschooling is not for everyone. We are aware that we causes worries and alarm to our families and friends who doesn't totally understand and can't accept the concept of homeschooling. We appreciate their genuine concern for us and we thank them for that. I once learned that there are 3 topics that causes arguments. Money, Religion and Politics. I'll add one, Homeschooling ha ha ha. Right now i can't say until when we are going to homeschool our children or if it will work to all of them. In every steps of they way we ask God's guidance and blessings. We know that the peace and joy we felt in our heart is the fruits of our obedience to God. Our children's mature disposition, deep spirituality and our level of friendship is an assurance that they are really a homegrown kids. After all when my time comes to face my Creator i believe He'll be more concern to ask me about the character of my children than the honors and reward that they are going to gather. Indeed homeschooling is God's gift to our family. With renewed faith and trust in Him i am now ready again to embark in another year of homeschooling.
As my heart swell in joy, please join me in thanking God for His boundless blessings to our family. The financial resources He has been providing us to be able to live comfortably without me having to work just to meet both ends, Catholic Filipino Academy, my children's school and other homeschool families whose personalities and experiences inspired me and assured me that my family is not eccentric but only a family with different values, our family and friends whose concerns motivated us to to do better because our failure will hurt them too, to Sani my dear husband for supporting me in my devotion to our children and understanding my passion for homeschooling, for his bosses whose generosity allows us to travel that makes our "classroom" bigger, wider and fun, for my children for allowing us to mold them and for teaching us virtuous which we never thought we're capable of adapting and to God whose love is awesome and never fail to inspire us to become a better person.
By choosing this less travelled road we know that we'll be facing lots of trials. We'll be hunted by a never ending confusions, frustrations depressions at marami pang "sions" he he he. But my favorite verse and song since high school still holds true, "Seek ye the first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all of these things shall be added unto you Alleluia!".
To God be the Glory!!!
Signing in from Bayan ng mga Singkit,
Jo Echon
