MACHE Conference April 15-17

Joel and Renee attended the Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators Annual Conference last week. It was refreshing, insightful, and so great!
Here is a recap of our time there:

This is the arena area in the Civic Center:

Yes, that is dirt, and yes the speaker is riding a horse. Joel attended this "workshop". This specific speaker (we'll call him Mr. Speaker) was teaching on boundaries and winning our children's hearts. The horse that the rider is on, is a trained horse. A little while later he brings in an unbroken (untrained) mare. The mare is frightened and skittish. She is afraid of a specific blue tarp that Mr. Speaker has in his hand. He continues to teach and quote Bible verses and he eventually, by the end of 45 minutes, has trained this mare to walk across a board covered in the said blue tarp. His point? The point of training wasn't to get the horse to walk across the blue tarp and thus not be frightened by it. No, the point was to trust Mr. Speaker. So likewise, with our children, our point of parenting is to have our children trust us, to have their hearts and they have our hearts. A relationship of trust.

The whole conference was filled with workshops like this (as in, good teaching, not horses). Joel and I learned so much about homeschooling and how to support each other through that lifestyle. We browsed through the Used Curriculum Fair and the Exhibit Hall where all the curriculum vendors were. We ordered our curriculum (it should be here this week some time!). And now I am so excited to "begin". Don't worry, I am taking this slow. I know the burn out rate is high. I have a very supportive, helpful husband, I have The Lord who has given me inspiration, conviction, and wisdom, I have friends who are supporting me, and I have a son who is just aching to "start"!


Joel and I were also able to do some visiting! Our Lord allowed us to visit with Ryan and Emily (Renee's brother and his wife) in Minneapolis; we were able to meet Emily's sister, Andrea and her two girls; we spent some time with Alfie and Maria celebrating Joel's birthday; and we even got to see Patty at the conference (there were 5,000 people there!).

So all in all, it was a refreshing weekend with sunshine, warm weather, good teaching and no children.