Being involved in your Community

As a homeschooling mother of 5 kids, you can imagine that life is busy, trying to get all the kids educated and the house cleaned and the laundry done and dinner cooked every day. Not to mention driving the kids to and from piano lessons, choir, play practice, basketball practice, and outside classes. And of course there are church responsibilities....I am the Superintendent of the K-8 Sunday school, plus teach the middle school class, and sing in the choir and participate in the book club. So it is hard to fit anymore into my schedule. But my husband and I have decided that it is also important to be involved in our small community. He is a local attorney and as such needs to be involved to get his name out there and let people know that he cares about our town. He is on the Board of the local Chamber of Commerce. He just finished a 3-year term on the Board of the local food bank. I and the kids have participated in 4 productions with our community theatre troupe. Because of my involvement with the theatre group, and because people know my husband, I was asked to be on the Board of the Arts Commission, to which I answered yes! As homeschoolers, it is so easy to insulate ourselves from the world around us and just hang out with other homeschoolers. But I think it is important for non-homeschoolers to be able to see that we do not just care about the education of our kids but also care about our community. Our communities need to see what homeschooling looks like from real people like us, not from stereotypes they hear b/c they've never met a homeschooler.

So tonight my husband and I are going to the annual Chamber of Commerce dinner, which brings up that perpetual question, "What do I wear?" As you can imagine, going to "fancy" dinners means I need to wear more than the typical jeans-and-sweater I wear in winter and shorts-and-tshirt I wear in summer. This is the third community event I've gone to in as many weeks, so I am running out of choices! I will see a lot of the same people I have seen at the other two events, so I can't re-use an outfit. Maybe I will need to go shopping to enhance my wardrobe, if I plan on being involved in my community! Just one of the many perks. :)

How many children?

My husband and I were at an after-Christmas party with friends last week. It was good to see everyone. These are friends he's known since high school. Surprisingly, most of the couples still live in the area, though with everyone's busy schedules, it is hard to make time to see each other. At the end of the night, conversation turned towards the number of kids people have, as one of the couples present are a new aunt and uncle to his brother's 8th child. The comment was, "Man, how do you have a life [with so many kids]? Well, I REALLY wanted to say something to that, but I didn't want to start anything, and I didn't want to embarrass my husband. Here are the things that came to mind when he said that....

1) No where in the Bible does it talk about people being able to "have a life" aka have a bunch of fun in life. To the contrary, life is to be lived in service to God and others. To not have children because you "want to have a life" is such a selfish reason!

2) There are many Bible passages that talk about "being fruitful and multiplying" (Genesis 1:28) and "children being a reward from God" (Psalm 127:3) etc.

3)People today are having a lot less children than in the past and some countries are worried about extinction b/c their inhabitants won't have children.

4) It's not his business (or anyone else's) how many children a family has. That is between God and the family.

But, I didn't say anything. Maybe I should have. Would you have?

I'm sure there is more to say about this, but those were the thoughts that came to mind.

Ice Festival Ball 2012

Save Friday evening, January 13! And buy a ticket to the 1st Annual Ice Festival Ball, to benefit the Rockford Area Arts Commission. The $100/couple ticket gets you a great date night of dinner, dancing, babysitting (at Wolverine Worldwide YMCA) and good music, all at the beautiful and chic Blythefield Country Club. What fun to dress up in the middle of winter and dance the night away with your spouse! Or bring a friend and people watch. You probably don't even realize all the things that RAAC does for the city of Rockford....they sponsor the community band, choir, orchestra, and children's choir, as well as the Rogue River Community Theatre (with which I have acted) and the Rogue River Artists Association. Not to mention events like Art Capsule, Art in the Park and the Summer Arts Camp. And we need your support to continue the work! Tickets can be bought at Rockford City Hall or online at artsrockford.org. Check out the whole Ice Festival at rockfordicefestival.com.