Starting Earlier Than I Planned

Our tradition is to begin school after this little dude's birthday at the end of August:

 He'll be four this year.  I love using his birthday as a marker of a new beginning and I love holding off on school until we've celebrated one more important day.

I was also looking forward to a couple more weeks of summer to finish all the projects I said I'd get to and haven't finished yet.  I was looking forward to a couple weeks of no running around.  I wanted to set up some coffee dates with various ladies in my life.  But, B & S have both said, "We want to start school NOW!"  I know enough to realize that in two weeks, reality will set in and B will tire of school. But I also know that if they are enthused I should go with that momentum.

So, we're beginning on Wednesday. 

Here's the plan:
Fun (Shhh, actually "review") Days:  August 18-20th & August 23rd-25th.










Plus: 

• Games:  I'll bring out Games for Learning: Ten Minutes a Day to Help Your Child Do Well in School-From Kindergarten to Third Grade and Games With Books: Twenty-eight of the Best Children's books and How to Use Them to Help Your Child Learn-From Preschool to Third Grade to add some activity to our days.  There's a lot of ways to use games that we already have so we'll pull them out.

• Notebook Review:  We'll also go through B's notebook from last year and skim it again (because he says he doesn't remember anything.  *sigh*) and I'm thinking we'll pick an activity/game/craft to do in relation to what he learned last year. 

• Phoneme Cards:  I went to a great workshop this summer and learned a basic way of re-enforcing phonemes to my struggling reader while teaching them to my preschooler for the first time.

Hopefully they'll love these first six days and then we'll move into our first unit of study with just as much enthusiasm.  Hopefully.  But, you know...

Your Obedience Affects Me

Today the Terpstra's left the continent to follow God's leading to work in Africa.  They wanted to leave a year ago --  raising support takes time though. But at least two years ago they took the first step to say, "O.K., God.  We'll go."  And with that step of obedience our stories began to intertwine; we eventually became the ones to take their place of service at TNL, and God's great silence in our lives lifted.

It's amazing how your obedience will affect someone else's life; someone you never expected.  I have to wonder how many times did my obedience begin a domino effect in someone else's life?  Did my leaving that one place create a space for someone else to find purpose there?  Did my going to that other place for a short time mean something to someone even though it made no sense to me?  When I said that phrase, gave that gift, followed that urging, what changed?

We may never know how our obedience affects others, at least not fully.  But it's mysterious to think about it.  And it's certainly more peace-giving to consider this than to only consider how our obedience changes only our own lives.  Because it doesn't.  We are all connected.

"If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another."  -- Mother Teresa

Thank you, Father, for speaking.  Help me to listen and obey more and more.