Week 18

Week 18 wasn't the best week.  I wasn't sure whether or not to share this, but it's something we could use prayer for, and this is supposed to be our family's journal...the good times and the hard...

Upon several occasions since our arrival here, we have received unsolicited advice, thoughts and opinions regarding our educational choice.  Never before have we encountered so many people who are adamantly opposed homeschooling.  Now, it is Europe, where socialism is prevalent in many governments and people don't have the freedoms we are accustomed to, so the idea that parents would be allowed or qualified to be the main teacher in their children's lives is totally foreign.

However, it's actually other Amer citizens who have been giving us such grief.  (Due to the hubs' job, the locals have no authority over our schooling, but the US people...)  We've gotten so much grief, with dangerous words thrown around like, "Abuse," that no matter how unfounded their use of the term many be, when people in positions of educational "authority" at the local Amer school start saying those things, we end up having to call our lawyers.  No one has shown up at our door, or filed an official grievance against our family, but their voices are loud and they persist at calling and "checking in."

So, our prayer requests for this situation would be:

• That, above all, we never have our children removed from our care; That the truth that we love our kids and are not in any way harming them would be very clear to all.
• For our lawyers to respond to our report with accurate information about our rights and the mil laws that affect us.
• That people who hold such opposing views to homeschooling would simply back off and stop harassing us...without having to be contacted by our lawyers.
• That we would not be afraid to be around the other Amer families here because honestly, I have great anxiety about it at this point.
• That when we do interact with others, we'd be a light in the darkness and a good representation of how successful homeschooling can be.  We don't expect that we're going to change people's political views, but that at least they'd see its not abusive; It's incredibly loving and has oodles of positives.