Homeschool Schedule Part III

June 27th, 2008

(Read the other two people!)

So, it was almost the minute we picked up the clue phone, said we missed it, asked for help, took responsibility for how we had gone wrong and were willing to make drastic changes in order to be obedient, the cloud began to lift. Mike and I could almost feel it. It was if we were back in the flow of God’s good graces, and the wreckage around us wasn’t a big deal. We knew, somehow God had good plans for us, and that doesn’t necessarily mean a positive checking account. Nothing changed with our finances. But we stopped trying to make it all work. We just said, this doesn’t work and what ever it takes Amber is staying home and pouring into our children. Heck - homeschooling wasn’t nearly as scary as possible bankruptcy. I called our Montessori school and said, we wont be back. They were gracious enough to work a payment plan out with us. This was in Feb. I had three months to start working out what the heck I was going to do with homeschool that was authentic to us and our story. (a VERY important part for any homeschooling family). We put the Mercedes up on a lease trader site and waited to see if anyone else would take it off or our hands.

I was praying one day and I just got this impression that within the week the Mercedes would be gone. I told Mike at lunch and he said, “You know it is funny, but I got the same thing today.” Later that day we got a call and within a week it was gone. I had to pay them 4k to take it off of our hands, but trust me I was happy to do it! Mike and I tease and call it blood money. The clouds were lifting and all I could think was “IT IS SO GOOD TO OBEY!” No matter what obey people it always ends up right.

Our other town home was still rented, and leaking, the kids were out of school so we now longer had that payment we did not have the Mercedes any longer. Our budget was starting to come into alignment but we were still leaking and upside down everywhere. But I started to school our kids in May. It was then that we met our Realtor who gave us the tough news about the reality of this market and what stood ahead of us. She was the one who taught us about short saleing, why we needed to think about it and why holding it as a rental was a bad idea. We drastically reduced the price and within a few weeks had an offer that the bank accepted and we were able to get rid of that part of our budget.

We still had the debt but at this point Mike got a raise and we were happy to only have the 36k in debt and nothing else. We were starting to be able to breath and for the first time in almost a year we were living within our budget and not leaking onto a credit card. In the midst of all of this, whenever I got stressed about where we were at, I would think, “This isn’t my job.God said he was rescuing me. He will do it.”

For the previous 18 months, I was rarely present with our children. And previous to that, I was too infant/pregnant tired to be available to anyone. I was always somewhere else, talking to someone else, doing something else other then being with them. I was there in body, but never in mind, or heart. I was ether striving or trying to escape. They felt it too. I was too stressed to enjoy them. No matter what, I was going to be with them and no where else. When Mike and I went into “ministry” we made a conscious decision to never put our kids on the alter of “ministry” and after this whole episode I was now convinced that I would never put them on the alter of building a business ether. They are our kids and our most precious resource and I wont hand them over to any else to shape or mold them and I wont do anything that doens’t allow me to be present enough to observe what they need. No matter what.

So it was then that we decided, in order to balance our debt load that we accumulated over the previous 18 months, we liquidated our kids college funds in order pay off half of the balance. It was one of the hardest and most freeing things we have ever done. We skrimped and saved pennies to put into those funds, and it was now, that we realized, God will cover them every day of their lives. They will be okay and when we need money for college it will be there. Right now, we needed to get rid of this debt so that we may pay it off in 5 years instead of 10. That brought our debt down drastically, our budget was solid and in the black and I was learning every month how to weed out bad parenting habits that crept in over our time in the barrel, and how to build a little home school that nurtured what God was doing in our family.

So at the beginning of this year we were down to 16k in debt, only a few months left of paying off our van and living within our budget for several months. A strong pattern of financial discipline was forming. One of the things that happens when you are that far gone in debt with no way out, you tend to not care at all. The thinking being oh well what is another 100 bucks on top of mount everest. Now, we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We still live in a townhome that we bought at the hight and it has now dropped 150K from what we purchased it for, but we are a step closer to getting out of debt, and then God surprised us again.

Honestly, tomorrow I will put up a schedule. I am on a roll now!

Entry Filed under: Homeschool, Life