Many people want to believe that if their children attend a public school they will receive a “neutral education.” Unfortunately, they fail to realize that education is NEVER neutral. All education is indoctrination. All education is discipleship. It’s just a matter of what worldview is being promoted, what values are being taught, who is discipling your children, and what they believe.
So I ask you, who is indoctrinating YOUR children?
In the past few days, three very stark examples of religious indoctrination in public schools have come to light, so I want to share them here. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking these same worldview aren’t being taught in your local schools, because they are.
Religion is prominent in schools, with one exception: Christianity.
As a side note, before I get to the examples of the past few days, I have to address “secular” education, because I constantly hear objections to Christian education and Christian Home Education from “secular homeschoolers”. One must realize that atheism, secularism, and secular humanism ARE religious worldviews. Secularism IS religion. Atheism IS religion. They just replace the God of the Bible or the gods of mens’ imaginations with SELF as god. Even agnosticism IS religion, but it replaces God with a self who is unconvinced. I am aware of the simplicity of these statements, but no further explanation or justification is required when a statement is self-evident.
Even secularists MUST be aware of the level of religious indoctrination occurring in public schools, and secularists MUST consider the consequences of a fully-implemented secular worldview. I strongly doubt that ANY secular parent would want all (if any) of the philosophies I have outlined below to be adopted by their children.
Story 1, MUSLIM INDOCTRINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
“Charles County Public Schools released a statement after the Supreme Court’s denial saying, ‘The decision reaffirms a favorable U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruling earlier this year that the school did not ‘impermissibly endorse any religion and did not compel Wood to profess any belief.'”
“One Muslim scholar strongly disagrees. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said: ‘They made this the student recite the Islamic call to call of witness a prayer, which makes her a Muslim. That’s absurd.'” – Lauren Green, Fox News
Story 2, BUDDHIST INDOCTRINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
“While the controversial program claims to be a “secularized” version of Buddhist practices that have traditionally been viewed as occult and dangerous by Christians, critics are nevertheless sounding the alarm. And despite claims of being “secular,” it does not take much digging beneath the surface to detect the obvious anti-Christian nature of the “mindfulness education” schemes.” Alex Newman, Freedom Project Media
Story 2, SATANIC INDOCTRINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
At Grant Lee school outside Richard’s Bay,in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, a parent is shocked and heartbroken to find a sprawling “art” display featuring torn up Bibles, paintings and sculptures of Satan and demons, paintings and drawings of Christ in compromised interactions with Satan, and paintings depicting Jesus Christ and his disciples as clowns. I urge you to watch the whole video and share this post, as it is so shocking, it is likely to even offend staunch secularists.
Grant Lee School Satanism – South Africa
While this is a school in South Africa, don’t be deceived. This is the true spirit of government schools being exposed. This same spirit governs the public schools in the United States and the rest of the world.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard parents say things like “I know that –insert evil practice or message here– is going on in some schools, but that’s not happening in my kids’ school.”, “We have a great school.”, “Our school is a blue ribbon school (or whatever other silly, made up award).”, or “My daughter’s teacher (or principal) is a Christian.” WAKE UP!!! THIS IS THE SPIRIT THAT GOVERNS YOUR KID’S SCHOOL. If your kids are in public school this is what they are being taught, whether or not they have a christian teacher or principal:
1) There is no God and everything, including you, came about by blind chance, therefore NOTHING has any ultimate value or meaning.
2) Homosexuality, transgenderism, gay marriage, and ANY other deviant sexual practice that makes you “happy” are valid and good and should be explored, with no restraint, whenever you feel “ready”. To say or believe anything else is HATRED and BIGOTRY and must be silenced, punished, and ultimately corrected, as those who espouse these hateful beliefs are forced to become “allies” who approve and endorse these behaviors themselves.
3) Socialism is fair and good.
4) America and her representative republican form of Government are evil and oppressive.
5) Capitalism, corporations, and “the rich” are evil.
6) Religion (specifically Christianity) should be stripped from every public place, practice, and institution, UNLESS that religion is Islam, which is a religion of peace and should be defended and taught as true and virtuous.
7) There are no absolutes. You determine what is right for you (and almost nothing is truly wrong), but your determination of right and wrong has no bearing on my values, unless you disapprove of something I do or think, in which case you are a hater and a bigot and must be silenced.
8) Race, gender (whether biological or imagined), sexual identity, and economic status matter much more than merit, knowledge, beliefs, values, or skills when determining EVERYTHING about your life. Anyone who disagrees is a racist/homophobe/misogynist/privileged white male/or some other acceptable scapegoat for personal responsibility and reasonable response.
9) The CLIMATE is the most important issue EVER, and WE MUST do whatever we can (including sterilizing and killing giant portions of the population, regulating childbearing, and demanding that people eat what the UN, “scientists”, and government deem to be the least impactful foods (namely NO MEAT).
10) Human lives have no value. It is a greater virtue to KILL a baby in the womb than to allow that baby to possibly face any suffering (including poverty, single parenthood, physical or mental problems, or being “unwanted”).
11) Some human lives have less value than others (even though none really have any value because they are all products of chance anyway).
12) Parents are not qualified to teach their children. Teachers must be educated and licensed, and instruction should only happen in age-segregated groups.
13) Parents are not able to feed their children. Children must have access to THREE school meals a day.
14) Parents are CERTAINLY not qualified to teach their kids about sex, reproduction, or “gender”, and these classes should be provided by and taught be the loving specialists at Planned Parenthood (under other creative names, of course).
15) Parents are not qualified to handle the health needs of their children. If a child notifies a teacher, administrator, school nurse of any of a plethora of “sensitive” health or psychological issues the school WILL perform the necessary treatment or refer the child to a “qualified” expert for treatment, without the approval or knowledge of the parent.
The list goes on…
Do you doubt any of the above examples? PLEASE do the research. I promise, all of these are true, going on in your district, and easily researched. Need some help getting started, just Google “Comprehensive Sex Ed” and take a trip down a very dark rabbit hole. Want to get closer to home, just add your state’s name to the search. I promise you, just this subject will be enough to convince you that the public schools IN YOUR DISTRICT have an agenda that is dangerous for students, for families, and for culture.
TAKE ACTION!!! PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN! Contrary to the beliefs of school administrators, teachers, Planned Parenthood, and government officials (and what you have likely been convinced of) THEY ARE YOUR CHILDREN. You have other options, and if your ONLY option truly is public school, you must spend considerable effort learning what your children are being taught and UNDOING THE DAMAGE at the end of every day. OPT OUT of comprehensive Sex Ed. DON’T CONSENT to any medical treatments without your approval – you will find this is impossible – so talk with your kids and tell them what to expect and who to talk to when they have issues.
Finally, spread the word. SHARE THIS POST and watch the news and social media for more posts like this. Share those too.
Jessica is a homeschooling mom of two and the founder of Option-Adoption.com, which offers hope to the abortion-minded by offering them the love of Jesus Christ and support to make one of he most important decisions of their life.
Her passion is helping her husband and kids fulfill their God-given purposes and being on the frontlines serving Jesus in the areas of pro-life rescue ministry, adoption advocacy, sex trafficking ministry, and foreign missions. She speaks to audiences nationally and internationally about topics such as adoption, abortion, and homeschooling, so others are encouraged to go from the sidelines to the frontlines.
Jessica, welcome. Tell us about your family.
Listen to Jessica on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast (5/20/2019 episode).
Jessica: Well, we have two kids. We have a son who’s 13 and a daughter who’s eight. We are a homeschool family who is just doing day to day life and trying to serve Jesus in some places that can be difficult, but pretty amazing when he asked you to show up. We’re doing life with our kids, and it’s been an exciting journey.
Yvette: Well, you’ve got a really neat ministry. I first heard of your ministry about a year and a half ago. We were at a home business conference with Rhea Perry together, and I heard of a Option Adoption, which is your ministry. It’s an incredible thing that God has called your family to. You guys are just soaring with this. I would love for you to tell us a little bit about Option Adoption and what it is that you do through this ministry.
Jessica: Sure. Option Adoption is a ministry that we started after we adopted our daughter. She’s really the inspiration for why we started it. We were all on the sidewalks in front of abortion clinics, and realized that most of these women and men just don’t see adoption as an option for them. We knew her story. We knew that her mom had chosen life for her against the odds, and then placed her into our family through adoption. This happens only about 2% of the time – where a woman will choose life and the adoption over death, abortion. We were just burdened.
We sought out another ministry that was doing something similar to what God had placed on our heart, but we couldn’t find anybody who was doing it front lines here in the US. The funny thing is, we had just decided to homeschool. We had just adopted this baby recently, and then I thought, “Oh my goodness, is the Lord calling us to start a ministry?” It was a big leap of faith for us, but we knew that somebody had to stand in the gap and this is such an important piece of ending abortion. We wanted to make sure that God was going to be honored by the church being able to give these moms and dads the true other option other than parenting.
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Yvette: I want to go back to the adoption story – your adoption story in particular. I love your story about homeschooling and how that came to be.
Jessica: My husband was pretty opposed to homeschooling because he had gone to school to get his Master’s degree in Education for public education. He had some pretty strong opinions about how our kids should be educated. To be honest, I didn’t really hear about homeschooling growing up. I didn’t know anyone who was homeschooled. It didn’t bother me that he was thinking more along the lines of traditional school. Somebody gave us the DVD series by James Dobson called Bringing Up Boys. We watched some footage in there and my husband’s heart was really stirred. He came to me and said, “I just don’t think we’re going to be able to put Rhett in public school.” I remember thinking this, I already knew that we were going to homeschool. God had already pretty much given me that piece of information, it was just waiting for my husband.
I laughed and thought, “Well wait a minute, you’re the one with the education degree.” I don’t know how this is going to work. I felt very ill equipped to be a homeschool mom, to be honest with you. I came out of corporate America. That was the domain I was used to. It was a real leap of faith for us. It’s been, it’s been an amazing ride. I wouldn’t change it. That’s how we got started into homeschooling.
Yvette: Your oldest is 13 so you’ve been homeschooling now for what, around eight years, right?
Jessica: Yes.
Yvette: Okay, because I love your kids and my kids are exactly the same age except you have a boy and a girl and I have two girls. You have an eight year old and a 13 year old just like me. We hear over and over again that moms feel like they’re ill-equipped. It doesn’t matter what their educational background is. It does not matter what they’ve done in their career. Pretty much every mom goes into it with the realization that “My child’s whole life education is in my hands.” If you think about it, their whole life is in your hands. God has given them to you for such a short time. He equips us to do everything that he’s called us to do.
Jessica: That’s right.
Yvette: With you adopting and starting to homeschool and starting this ministry all at the same time, God has clearly equipped you to be able to do what he’s called you to do. I love that so much. Your story of adoption and your ministry is very near and dear to my heart. I’ve mentioned probably on the podcast a few times that we were married for almost 11 years before we had our first daughter. I don’t talk a lot about the struggle that we had know. We tried for a really long time. We got married very young, and all I ever wanted was to be a wife and a mom, and so we got married. We had just turned 20 and I just thought, “Well, no one in my family had a problem getting pregnant. Why would I?”
For it to take so long for us to actually get pregnant was just, it was devastating. We had our first finally, I mean, and the interesting thing is, and I’m sure you’ve heard this story many times we had started looking into adoption because we couldn’t get pregnant. I just thought, “Well, you know what, my heart is to be a mom.” I mean, even though I wanted to feel that life inside of me, I really want it to be a mom. I thought, “If the Lord chooses to give us children through adoption, that’s just as exciting as pregnancy, and then I don’t have to go through labor and delivery.” We started looking into adoption, and sure enough ended up getting pregnant, I mean just within probably a couple of months.
Perhaps we should have started looking into adoption years earlier. It was really exciting when I finally did get pregnant. Then took us another almost five years to have our second daughter. We lost a couple in between there. God’s timing is perfect. I remember you spoke awhile back at an event. It was called Day of Mourning with Elizabeth Johnston and Heidi St John, and the [Bennen 00:07:04] brothers, and a bunch of other amazing people. One of the things that you said really struck me, and you talked about how there are two moms often times and you’ve got the mom who’s crying because she can’t have a baby and she desperately wants to have children, and then, and she just can’t for whatever reason, and then you’ve got another mom on the other side who’s crying because she has found herself pregnant and she simply doesn’t know what to do.
She knows that she can’t handle a child, and being a mom. I love that your ministry gives these moms and option. Like you said, I mean it’s so shocking I think when we hear the statistics of how many of these moms choose abortion over adoption, when there are so many parents who desperately want to have children and they can’t. I mean it when I hear of the list of parents who are waiting to adopt a baby, and they’re waiting for sometimes years, and then there’s thousands who are being murdered every day, that has to shift. I mean that paradigm just absolutely has to shift somehow. God has really given you and your family a platform and you get to do it together because-
Jessica: that’s right, we homeschool.
Yvette: … because you homeschool.
Jessica: That’s right.
Yvette: We love that part because our kids have always been able to be right beside of us whenever we’re ministering. It’s been really special to make it about that ability. I can’t imagine it any other way because obviously our daughter is very powerful in what we do. She does come to the sidewalks with us, so does our son. They’re both heavily involved in pro-life rescue ministry. It’s just a really special thing to be able to share with our kids.
That’s so cool. Maybe take us through what it would look like, because for many people it sounds really scary to be part of something like this, to go and actually confront the other side of it. What does it look like for you as a family when you maybe go to an abortion clinic or a pro-life center and you how you get to talk with these moms?
Jessica: My husband is really a huge prayer warrior, so he has the prayer component, and I am more of the sidewalk counselor. When I’m there, pretty much calling out to the men and women as they’re going in. A lot of times we’re on a microphone, we’re able to give the Gospel. So many times we hear them say, “I can hear you from inside the building. I’ve heard what you said.” Most of the time, it’s not the words that we’re speaking from our hearts, it’s the words from the word of God that just pierce their heart in those moments. We’ve had women come out who are almost just moments away from having an abortion saying that they’ve heard us, and then come on board.
We work with a local ministry that is a pregnancy resource center out of Monroe, North Carolina called HELP, and they actually use their mobile ultrasound unit in front of the abortion clinic and allow us to go on board and council these women while they’re also having the ultrasound, and so it’s really powerful. They also give free pregnancy tests, so it’s an opportunity for us to allow that woman a little bit of time to slow down and just breathe for a few moments and think about what she’s doing. That’s really what it looks like in our kids are there with us. My son a lot of times is there helping with whatever it needs to be done, whether it means holding a sign or helping with something else.
My daughter is a huge component because she’s a living example of what choosing life looks like. It’s undeniable the power that she has when she’s there. I’ve seen grown men who are driving even their wives to the clinic. She and I have been able to stop their car in the middle of the road before they went into the clinic and talk to them. She has been able to tell her testimony, and the men are weeping and realizing exactly what they’re doing. There is something very powerful that God has done, I believe with the children who were spared from the atrocity of abortion. He is raising them up and using them as a voice for the voiceless.
Yvette: Yeah, that’s so amazing. We recently have learned about something similar to your mobile unit that you work with called Save the Storks. It’s a neat ministry, that’s all. I mean, they’re all over the country, and they’re growing more and more. They say when those moms go onto the bus and they get to hear, see the ultrasound, they get to see their baby and here that baby’s heartbeat, four out of five moms choose life for their baby, which is just absolutely incredible. Tell your story about how you ended up adopting because your son is, he’s your biological son.
Jessica: That’s right.
Yvette: How did you end up adopting your, your daughter?
Jessica: Well, we had our son and I always tell everybody, it was probably one of the easiest things that we’d ever done. We kind of sat down and said, “We think it’s time to start a family”, and two weeks later I was pregnant, and I was young, I was really naive. None of my girlfriends had experienced any losses at that point in time. I just really felt like that’s the way it went for everyone. Rhett was about a year old, I think when Reggie and I said, “Okay, it’s time, let’s grow our family some more and start trying.” We tried and we tried in a year went by ,and we finally said, “Something’s just not right because it was so easy the first time. Let’s go seek some counsel from an infertility specialist.” We were told as our two year old son was sitting on my lap, my husband was on the side of me and the doctor looked and said, “Your son is an absolute miracle by the test results.”
“He really shouldn’t be here.” It just was such a shock for me. I was not prepared for that. I don’t know what I was prepared for. I just never thought I would be told that there’s little chance that I’d ever have children again, from my womb, at least. I walked out that day, we went to lunch and I just felt so defeated and so broken, but my husband didn’t. He had a different take on it. I’ll just never forget him saying, “Jessica, have you ever thought, God may have a different plan for our family?”
Just to be real with you and your readers, because that’s the only way I believe are being, I wasn’t on board with adoption right away. It was something that was really hard for me. It was like I was dying to this dream I had in my mind of having little stair step children who look like us, who had our talents and different things. It took me a while to die to that, and once I did, I opened my heart up to the possibilities that God would have.
It’s also important that everyone know for us, at least for me, it was still a scary process. Sometimes adoption, we see, we see certain things on Facebook and we don’t always see the whole, the whole picture. It’s important for the audience to know that sometimes God calls you out onto the water, and you just have to take one step at a time, no matter how scared you are. I’m sure we’ll get into it in a few minutes, but as I tell you more about our story, you’ll see that God totally blew my mind with the dreams that I had for myself, compared to what he had for us. It’s exciting. I want everyone to know that, that if you are in the midst of something and fear has gripped you, hand it to him because chances are once you hand it over, he’s getting ready to bless you beyond measure.
So after I opened my heart to adoption, and my husband was so sweet and kind during that process. He Never pushed me. He never told me how I should feel, or what I should think. All he did was look at me and said, “I’d pray for you. I’ll just keep praying for you”, and he did. One day, I let go of that fear. For us it led us to a private adoption lawyer. We were really excited because he said, our wait would be about six months. We were like, “Okay, this is wonderful.” We actually did get placed with a little girl, but the adoption did not end up going through. For a couple who has experienced loss already, it was very similar to losing a child again.
It was heartbreaking. We couldn’t figure out why this was happening. We just thought “We stepped out on the water, Lord, why would this be happening?” We, through a series of circumstances, we did not feel led to continue on with this lawyer. God led us to an adoption agency. I just will never forget the timing. It is so God. I love telling this story, because he gets all the glory. With this agency, they only accept a certain number of couples per year. The day that I had called, I believe they were having, it was like the week later they were having it’s kind of like you had to go to a conference and learn about what it meant to be an adoptive family. It’s like a two day thing. They had space for one more couple. That couple was us.
Yvette: Wow.
Jessica: We ended up going, and God really stretched me in the process, because they ask you so many questions. You really get to see what your heart is made of, and you get to see what’s in there and maybe what doesn’t need to be there. I remember our social worker looked at me and said, “Are you going to allow God to stretch you in this process?” Of course I told her “Yes”, but I wasn’t really thinking anything major would happen. Well, we were told that we would wait anywhere from a year to two years or maybe more for a baby. After we got our name on a list and got our books and into the agency, I believe it was only about two or three days before we got a call that an adoptive mom and her parents had chosen Reggie and I, and would like to meet with us, and that was really exciting. It was very fast.
Yvette: Yeah, that is fast, that’s amazing. How old was her biological mom?
Jessica: She was 19.
Yvette: Okay.
Jessica: She was younger. Yeah, she was in college and younger. She was just a brave young girl who knew she couldn’t give life the life that she wanted for her with two parents. She and her mom and dad made a really hard decision and as a family, that’s how they came across our profile through the agency. They interviewed us, and it was neat because she actually was homeschooled for a portion of her schooling. We had just decided a few days earlier to homeschool Rhett. It came up during our interview.
Yvette: That is amazing timing. What an incredible story of your adoption of Blythe, and then how God has used that to impact the lives of so many other people. He’s just used your family, and all you’ve done is said yes, and been willing to just obey and do what God’s asked. I think so oftentimes we don’t realize that it just takes a yes, and like you said, it’s just steps. You just take one step at a time. It’s not like end up deep in the middle of this ministry over night. You just take one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, and God just opens the doors and does what he does. We just have to be willing to, to surrender and to obey.
Yvette: Talk about homeschooling and not so much like what it looks like on a day-to-day basis, but you said your husband was a public school educator, has his master’s degree in public education. How has that transformed your family?
Jessica: Well, the homeschooling in general, I can’t get over how you get to share your life with your kids. One of the most impactful things for us as parents has been that we know their hearts so well. We know their sin bins, we know what God has gifted them with. I think it’s so special to be able to do life with them on a daily basis all during the day, and just have time with them. I really don’t know how I can know them at such a deep level if I wasn’t given that privilege. We’re just so thankful. I’m thankful to my husband that he works so hard to make it a possibility for me to be home with them, and that we just have just shared life with them.
Yvette: Does your husband still work in public education?
Jessica: No, he’s not. He’s in cyber security. He works from home too, so we’re all here together.
Yvette: Yes, us too. We’re the same. We love it. That’s so great. I ask because we’ve actually interviewed several people who are public school teachers or work in the public school world, and they always homeschool their kids. Not that every public school educator homeschools, but the ones we’ve talked to and, and it’s usually because they’re on the inside, they see what’s going on, and they say, “Not for my kids. I’ll go be salt and light and I will be a witness to these kids, but I will not put my children in in this type of atmosphere.”
I would love for you to talk a little bit about working from home, because you have this ministry now and I never planned to be a work from home homeschool mom. I actually never planned to be a homeschool mom, and then and God had a better plan than I did as he always does. Then I never planned to work in the midst of it, and God has called her family to film this documentary on homeschooling. I also get to work side by side with my husband, and that brings a whole new level of homeschooling, because you then have to learn to kind of juggle ministry and homeschooling and family and all of that stuff. What does that look like for your family and for you?
Jessica: It definitely takes some planning on my part because of the type of work that I do. I can get calls at 3:00 AM, or I can get calls at noon. My family has been so gracious when they have to share me. Just recently, a few weeks ago, they had to share me for about two or three the full days where I was a labor and delivery partner for a young woman who chose life and wanted to place for adoption, and that meant that, I was away from the home. My husband really stepped in. I would say for us, it’s just working as team. I’m very blessed to have a husband who just really sees that there are some parts of this ministry that only I can do as a female. He’s been gracious to be able to step in with homeschooling, whether that means taking them to, they’re in the speech and debate club for instance, or it means stepping in and helping teach some of the subjects when I’m not able to.
Then my kids are just amazing. I couldn’t ask for anything more. When it comes to them, they understand that our family has a call that most families don’t have. I’ll give you a for instance, I’ll brag a little bit on them. My son especially, he’s 13 ,and so when the Day of Mourning event that you mentioned earlier in the podcast came about, Elizabeth and I sat down and talked about what was God really calling us to do. Baseball season was getting ready to start, and Rhett and I sat down with his dad and we talked a little bit and he was willing to give up a sport that he really loves, and he’s actually a really good player. He saw this vision that God had put our family on phone the front lines of something, and this is where we needed to be. That’s pretty special when you see that they have a heart for ministry, and that they’re willing to give up some things that are really important to them.
Yvette: Yeah, that’s incredible. There’s nothing better and know better training for our kids spiritually, than to do ministry together as a family. It’s so important because we can take them to church on Sundays and we can read the Bible with them and we can say, “This is what you should do.” If they don’t actually see us doing it, and they’re not doing it with us, they’re not experiencing the life that God has called them to. God calls some families to do big ministries like what you’re doing. and then he calls some to, whisper scripture into their ears of their babies as they’re changing diapers and as they’re reading to them and reading God’s word to them. I mean, it doesn’t matter how big or small your platform is, God’s given every single one of us a platform and a purpose, and so bringing our kids alongside and doing that. I mean, it could be going to the park and just seeing a mom who’s maybe there alone with her kids and going up and meeting her and to just befriending her.
There just are so many ways to minister, because we live in a hurting world who desperately needs Jesus. They need to see and hear and feel the love of Jesus through us and through our children and our families to where it just becomes second nature. Our kids don’t know any different than to just do ministry. I remember several years ago, my husband, and I went to a parenting class and one of our pastors who was teaching it, he, he also loved baseball. He said, “I fully expect that my sons will grow up to love baseball, because I love baseball and we play baseball together and we watch baseball together and we talk about baseball.”
“I expect them to grow up understanding and knowing and loving baseball”, he said, “Just like my kids know that I love Jesus, and we learn about Jesus and we follow Jesus and we do Jesus together.” That’s exactly how it should be. When you, when you’re putting your kids in in school for 35 or 40 hours a week and doing ministry by yourself, apart from them, they’re not getting to experience that with you.
Jessica: That’s true.
Yvette: It’s just such a beautiful way to raise our kids. We talk a lot on the podcast about how homeschooling is so much more than the academics. I mean, I feel like the academics are such a small part actually of homeschooling. I mean, they’re necessary and important, but we’re preparing them for life. We want to prepare our kids for a life of serving Jesus, just like you are with your kids.
How can you encourage the mom who, who’s homeschooling? Maybe she’s thinking about going through adoption and I shouldn’t even say homeschooling. It could be a mom who’s not homeschooling, and maybe I’m just listening to this podcast, but who’s maybe considering adoption. Maybe she’s having a hard time getting pregnant or maybe she just feels like the Lord has put adoption on her heart. How would you encourage that mom?
Jessica: I would say, if you feel that prompting from the Lord, then chances are it’s something he’s leading you into. It’s not something to be taken lightly. We don’t always hear that message, but I’m a firm believer that not everyone is called to adopt, but we are all called to be part of the process. Some are called to bring a child into their family. Some are called to finance the the funding of an adoption. Some are called to pray. We are all called to be part of it, because it is the heart of God. It’s exactly what he did for us. He adopted us into his family. It’s a beautiful picture of the Gospel. I would just say if that prompting is there, then chances are it is from the Lord, and to enter into fervent prayer about it because it is such a special and sacred thing that you can do. It’s totally different than parenting a biological child.
I’ll just be real because there’s so much that comes with it, and there’s a whole another family or possibly two families that you are going to be involved with. In our case, we have an open adoption, and we have a relationship with Blythe’s birth, mother’s side of the family, grandparents, the aunts, the uncles, and of course the birth mom. Those are all things to consider. It’s a huge blessing. One of the things that doesn’t get talked about a lot that I would just love to share is I think that people are fearful of adoption. I get a lot of calls. I believe in being real. I was fearful too. One of my fears was would I love my daughter as much as my son because he was biological. How could it even be possible is what my mind was telling me.
I just want to say the bonding process did take a little longer for me than it did with my son. Honestly, in my heart, I don’t see any difference between my children. You’d have to remind me which one is adopted, that’s really how I feel at this point. And that such a fear. I just want to share that with you and your audience, because that’s something that doesn’t get talked about because I think people don’t want to ever seem as if adoption is something that would ever be a negative. It’s not a negative, it’s a growth process. I always tell everyone that I feel absolutely privileged, that God shows us to learn how deeply he loves us in the respect of adopting us into his family. He allowed me to see that through an actual adoption in my own life. I do feel very privileged. I wish that everyone could have that experience, whether it’s through adoption themselves or through walking with a family that has adopted.
Yvette: Yeah. Oh, I love that encouragement so much. In reality, every single one of our children belong to the Lord Anyway, they don’t belong to us. They’re just on loan to us for a little while.
Jessica: An adopted child just comes through a different avenue.
Yvette: That’s right.
Jessica: I firmly believe that our daughter was chosen for our family from the beginning of time. It was just a brave young girl who was used as the vehicle to bring her into the world and share her with us.
Yvette: Yeah, that is amazing. I love that so much. Thank you so much Jessica for your encouragement. Thank you for sharing your story and just opening up your heart and your family to us. I hope that that this will encourage others to just take action. A love that you talk about even if God’s not calling you specifically to adoption, he’s calling us all to do something. Even if it’s supporting an adoptive mom, just by loving her and loving her family or her family who’s going through it, I think everybody knows somebody who is somehow touched by adoption. I love the encouragement of just being able to be out there, to encourage that so much. Thank you again. I love what you guys are doing. You’re a blessing. We appreciate having you on this show so much.
Jessica: Thank you for having me. I so appreciate you being able to allow me to share my testimony. I think it’s something that only God could write.
Yvette: Yes.
Jessica: I’m not the same girl that I was 13, 14 years ago when we started the journey of parenting. He’s done a work in me and is continuing to do it.
Yvette: Yeah, that’s amazing. Well, I can’t wait to see what he continues to do and how he continues to grow your ministry. Where can people find you?
Jessica: Well the website is a great place to go. So it’s Option-Adoption.com. If you ever need a resource for someone that you come across that may be abortion minded or maybe a family that wants to learn more about adoption, you can find those things on our website.
Yvette: Perfect. I hope this conversation has been an encouragement to you. Go encourage a mom somewhere somehow.
“Why do I homeschool? Because today my children will be at home with me, learning about the catastrophic events that happened in New York. About the evil that happens when we deviate from God’s design. And about how we have a God that mourns because he loves his people. They will be home with me, praying for the preborn babies, rather than in a public school system that tells them they get to choose for themselves what is good and evil, rather than looking to God for truth.” – Aby Rinella
What does the Bible say about training the hearts of our children?
In this interview, for the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, Yvette Hampton and Aby Rinella discuss what the Bible calls us to as parents, especially concerning the day-to-day education of our children.
Yvette Hampton: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I am loving my guest today. We have been sitting here chit chatting for a few minutes, and you are going to love getting to know her. Her name is Aby Rinella, and she is in Idaho right now where it is snowing, and I am in Georgia where it is not. So we’re talking about the difference in weather, but you are going to love her. She is a sweet, sweet friend of mine who strangely, we have never actually met in person.
Aby: That’s crazy.
Aby Rinella is, above all, a follower of Jesus. She is also the director of her local homeschool co-op, director of women’s ministry at her church, wife, mom and teacher to the Rinella children. She writes and speaks on homeschool, motherhood, parental rights, the culture war and more and has a passion for encouraging and inspiring women to live the life they were designed to live. Aby and her husband also write for the outdoor industry about their adventures together, showing their kids the Creator by spending time in His creation. You can find all of Aby’s published work at CalledToTheTop.com
Yvette: But we have talked a whole lot on the phone, and FaceTime, and just really gotten to know each other over the past couple of months and she has been an incredible blessing to me and my family and I know she’s going to be great blessing to you. So Aby, I am so excited to have you on. Welcome to the show.
Aby: Thanks Yvette, thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Yvette: Yeah, tell us about your family, the Rinella family.
Aby: I am the wife of Jesse Rinella, and we have three little ones. We have fifth grade, second grade, you know how homeschool is, what grade are we in, it depends. Do you wanna know math or language?
Yvette: Right.
Aby: So I have a 10, eight and four. Yeah, and we’ve been homeschooling from the very beginning.
Yvette: I love it, love it. And you’re a hunting family.
Aby: We are a hunting family.
Yvette: That’s a big part of who you are.
Aby: It is. It’s something that we love to do, it’s something we’ve always loved to do and we get our kids out with us and it’s really an awesome way to show a creator, through being in his creation to our kids and let them see just how awesome God is by being out in his creation.
Yvette: Oh, so great.
Aby: Yeah.
Yvette: So, several months ago, it’s been quite some time now we got this email from you. And we get a lot of emails from different people who just reach out for various reasons, but yours was a little different in that you reached out to us and you just said, “I’m Aby, I’m a homeschool mom, I am in Idaho and how can I help?” And the ones where people just say, “How can I help and how can I pray?” Or, “I’m praying for you.” Are the most amazing messages we can get, especially from people that we don’t know because that just means that the Lord has laid that on your heart. And so you have been just a great encouragement to our family over the past many months as we continue on with production of Schoolhouse Rocked and you’ve connected us with the homeschool Idaho organization, and they’ve been great and encouraging. And you and I have had some really great conversations about homeschooling.
And I want to talk today about, “why homeschool?” And it’s a question that so many people ask, and oftentimes we say, “If you don’t know your why’s.” I talked with Leslie Nunnery from Teach Them Diligently about this the other day, and if people don’t know their why of homeschooling, it’s very likely that they’re going to give up.
Aby: Exactly.
Yvette: And they’re gonna just say, “This just isn’t for me.” And so, let’s talk about your why. I want to hear your story of why you chose to homeschool your kids, and then why you continue to do so.
Aby: Okay, and to expand on what you said, I think we need to know our why but at the same time, it needs to be the right why, because there’s a lot of reasons that people homeschool that don’t hold, that aren’t the foundation that’s going to hold strong when the winds come because they’re going to.
Yvette: Right.
Aby: The tough times are gonna come.
Yvette: They are.
Aby: And that big yellow bus is going to look so good. So I think it’s about having a why and also having the right why. So my story is, I was a public school teacher and I came from a line of public school teachers, and I loved teaching public school and then when I got pregnant with my first, it just was a no-brainer that I was going to stay home with my baby. It wasn’t even like something we really prayed about, it just was something we knew that that’s how God designed it. And my husband actually said to me, “God didn’t give us these kids to give to someone else to raise.” And when he said that, it just it was a no-brainer and through a lot of just seeing God’s hand and God’s miracle in our life, I was able to quit my teaching job and stay home and it was only by the hand of God.
So we made that decision and then it just was never a huge thought of homeschool. I never really thought of it and in fact, back in my early days when I was going to college to be an educator, I remember sitting in the living room with my mother in law, or in the dining room in the kitchen and arguing with her over how silly I thought homeschool was and actually how wrong I thought it was. But she is such a godly, gracious woman, she just beared with me and probably prayed that her husband would ditch me or son, I’m sorry, son. But anyway, she held on and my husband was homeschooled for a while so. God changed my heart. What it came down to is, again, God didn’t give me these kids to let someone else raise. So when it came time to schooling them, it was not a question, they were to be home with me.
And so my why, you asked my why, it started with a lot of why’s. It started with I was a teacher so why would I teach other people’s kids when I can teach my own, and then it went to how awesome of relationships we could have to have the kids at home and then it went through looking at the statistics that academically homeschool students do so much better. And really, all of those are awesome blessings of homeschool, they’re awesome results of homeschool, but they weren’t enough of a why. And for everything that my husband and I do, we go to the Word of God and we say, “What does God say.” Because our emotions can change. On good days we want to be home, on bad days we might not.
So we really just went to the Word of God and we said, “What does God say about this? What is the word of God tell us when it comes to where our children should be and what they should be taught, and who should be teaching them. So, in that, and we can discuss more what we discovered in looking to God’s word for that, but that ended up being our why. Our why became because this is how God designed it, because this is God’s best and this is what He wants us to do. And that why has held us through really hard days where academically we aren’t succeeding above the rest, and where it really isn’t that fun. And so that’s become a really important foundation for our family, is knowing that we’re doing the will of God.
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Yvette: And there’s so much joy in knowing that God has given our children to us. Like you said, he didn’t give them to us to then hand them off to someone else. That’s one of my favorite parts of the interviews that we’ve done for the movie, is we interviewed Sam Sorbo, and she said, “What is it that society tells us once your kids turn five, I mean they’re your responsibility until they’re five and then all of a sudden it’s your job to hand them over to someone else and let someone else raise them.”
Aby: Absolutely.
Yvette: And that is not.
Aby: No, and logically it doesn’t make sense. I think when we’re pregnant … I mean think how many books you read when you were pregnant. You made sure you took the folic acid, and you make sure you didn’t eat the raw fish, because we have this innate, as women, as parents we have this thing that’s in us that wants to protect our children.
Yvette: Right.
Aby: We want to protect our kids and we do it when we’re pregnant with them. We’re so careful when we’re pregnant with them to make sure that we’re eating right and taking the right things and going to our checkups. And then when they’re infants, and when they’re toddlers, “I got to make sure my car seat’s the right thing.” And they’re wearing the right helmets and we’re naturally protectors and we want to protect our kids. And then all a sudden, they turn five and we forget that we have an enemy that’s there to steal, kill and destroy our kids.
Yvette: That’s true, yeah.
Aby: And we’re to protect them from that, and I always think breaking their leg, they’re going to heal from that quicker than they’re going to heal from exposure to Satan’s attacks. And it is our responsibility and our job to protect our kids and that doesn’t end at five years old.
Yvette: Right. No, it doesn’t. And it is our responsibility to do that and it is a great blessing. I mean, the Bible tells us children are our heritage from the Lord. They are such a blessing and society tells us, “Oh, it’s so great, once they turn five you get to put them on a bus and ship them out to school.”
Aby: Yeah.
Yvette: “And you could have all this free time and you’re going to be free.”
Aby: Right.
Yvette: I remember one of my neighbors once who lived right next door, she was I think probably eight at the time. And she said, “Why do you homeschool?” And I told her, “Because I love being with my girls. I love being able to teach them and spend the days with them.” And she goes, “But you know, if you didn’t homeschool and you sent them to school, you would have time to go to lunch with your friends.” This is like an eight year old girl. She goes, “You could go to the movies and go to lunch with your friends during the day.” And I was like, “That’s true.”
Aby: That is true.
Yvette: And some days that sounds really appealing. And some days I need that.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: Which again, that’s why we need community and that’s another whole topic.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: But I love being the one that gets to train the hearts of my children. Yesterday morning, as a matter of fact, my little one she had done something. She’s my super strong-willed one, and she really has very strong opinions about things. All the way to what kind of sock she’s wearing.
Aby: Oh my goodness. That’s hilarious.
Yvette: And I forget what it was, but there was some kind of little debate with her and she wanted to do one thing and I said, “No, that’s not what you’re going to do, you’re going to do this.” And so she got upset and so we had this opportunity, and we sat and talked for probably 20 minutes, just the two of us. She’s eight years old, and I said, “God made you on purpose and for a purpose, and he has blessed you with this amazing and strong personality on purpose.”
Aby: Yeah.
Yvette: “But it’s mommy’s job and daddy’s job to help you direct your strong will in a way that honors and pleases the Lord.”
Aby: Absolutely.
Yvette: And we talked about it for a long time and she was crying and finally she just … I could see it in her eyes that it kind of clicked in her like, “Oh, yeah. I do have a purpose in this life.” And I was able at the end to say, “You know honey, if you were in school all day, I wouldn’t have this opportunity right now, today, to sit and talk to you about this.” Now that doesn’t mean that kids who are in school and separated from their parents, that their parents don’t have opportunities to direct them towards Christ.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: Certainly they do, but they don’t have the opportunity to do it day-in and day-out all day long. There’s so many missed opportunities.
Aby: Yes.
Yvette: And Deuteronomy six, six and seven is a verse obviously that constantly over and over again you hear homeschooling parents talk about, “And these words I command to you that they should be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.” And when we leave that to someone else to do all day long, we give up that opportunity to be able to teach the ways of the Lord to our children.
Aby: Yes, and we do and in Matthew 18, six it says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, better to have a millstone hung around his neck and drowned.” And that’s not as quite as an uplifting one as the Deuteronomy.
Yvette: Right.
Aby: But I often think to send our kids into a place where at the very best, they have to stay silent about the existence of a God. I mean, I understand that not every school is teaching the transgender movement, and the abortion. I understand they’re not all doing that, but at the very best case scenario, they’re staying silent about a creator and they’re staying silent about a God. And they’re not able to tell kids, “You were created on purpose, for a purpose and God has a design for you.” And to me, the thought of my child, all day long, learning things void of God’s word Would be leading them to stumble. It really felt like I wasn’t protecting them the way that God required me to, because it would be leading them to stumble and then I’d be spending all my time unteaching.
Yvette: Right.
Aby: What they were being taught and having to reteach truth, and I didn’t want to spend all my time with my kids having to unteach. I wanted to, through our daily living, teach them and not even I wanted to, but God tells us to in these verses and I wanted to be obedient to God.
Yvette: Right.
Aby: And, he says, “All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training up in righteousness.” So that our kids are equipped for every good work and that verse is saying that we’re to use scripture in everything. In math, in language and that’s not being done if I send them out to where they have to stay silent about God. And so, to me those verses read this is my job, this isn’t just about what I want to do and that I’m wired this way, and that I enjoy teaching because I, it’s really just, this is God’s command to me and I know that when we’re obedient to God, there’s incredible blessing.
Yvette: Oh yeah. There are so many blessings. I’ve said it so many times on the podcast, because we say it to our girls all the time that, “Obedience brings blessings, but sin causes pain.”
Aby: Yes.
Yvette: And when we do obey God and we take seriously the role that he’s given us as parents to train up our children in the way that they should go, we will reap the benefits and blessings of that. And not that we will, I should take our children will.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: And again, it’s not that parents can’t teach their kids things, but like you said when they’re in a public school setting, and they’re being taught everything that’s contrary to God’s word.
Aby: Yes, yes.
Yvette: You talk about undoing it and we’ve talked a lot about that on the podcast. We talked with Brian Osborne from Answers in Genesis a few weeks ago, and he was a public school teacher for 13 years and he said the same thing, “You better be prepared to undo what your kids are being taught.” But I don’t know how possible and practical that is, because if you’re not in the classroom with them, you really don’t know everything that they’re being taught. You don’t know what they’re hearing on the playground.
Aby: Exactly.
Yvette: You don’t know what’s being said in the locker room, and not even the things that are said but things that are done. We’re from California, and I know everybody across the country kind of looks at California it’s like, “Oh, California. They have so many crazy laws and stuff.” And they do, but it’s not just in California. It is quickly spreading throughout all parts of the country, and I think oftentimes people will say, and people have said this to me, and I’m sure they’ve said it to you, “But the public schools in my area are really good.” Okay, well that means they’re just doing a better job of teaching your kids everything that’s contrary to the Word of God.
Aby: Exactly.
Yvette: And it’s a very scary thing for me to think about, because in California right now it’s not just the educational agenda that they have. It is a cultural agenda that they have. Kids in public schools right now in California, if a little girl decides that she wants to be a boy now any age, I mean it could be kindergarten through 12th grade, if she decides that she wants to be a boy for the day, they have to by law respect her wishes and her desire to be another gender, and they have to give her all the privileges of that gender. And the same obviously with a little boy. If a 14-year-old boy says, “I want to be a girl today.” They have to give him access to the girls bathroom and the girls locker room, and they can’t tell his parents. They are not allowed by law to tell his parents. Girls can go, and I say California only because I’m most familiar with it because that’s home.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: But they will take a little girl at 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old little girl, to have an abortion to murder her baby. And by law they are not allowed to tell her parents.
Aby: And if that’s not causing our little ones to stumble, I don’t know what is because that is leading them right into temptation. And even though we don’t believe that, and we’re not teaching that at home, if we’re sending them into a system every single day that sets that foundation, and I just I go back to Ephesians four that says, “Do not exasperate your children, instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” And for me, not for me, for all of us, for Bible believing Christians we are called to set a foundation for our children in Christ.
And when we send to them more hours a day, or any hours a day actually, to a system that says it’s okay to murder babies, it’s okay to be something that you’re not, then you’re giving them that. Or even, there is no creator. This earth happened by chance, they’re building a foundation all day long. And then they come home and then you’re giving them a different foundation and essentially these young children who are so moldable, they’re building this up and then you’re taking the bricks down at home and putting new bricks in, and then they go back to school and they’re tearing the bricks down of what you’re teaching at home. And it’s just this vicious cycle, and we’re stunting our children’s spiritual growth, because they’re hearing two polar opposite things.
Yvette: Right.
Aby: And to me, if I was a child, which I was in the public school, that led to exasperation.
Yvette: Sure.
Aby: And it says, “Do not. Do not exasperate your children.” And how can that not exasperate a child to have to go fill in a bubble on a test that says, “Yes, I believe that a boy can be a girl and the girl can be a boy. Or yes, I believe that there is no God and that this earth was created by chance, or that there is no creator.” And I would ask my children to say that during the day and then I’d come home and tell them to be bold and stand up for Christ and these little kids are getting such an incredibly mixed message. And then we end up with at the worst kids walking away, and at the very best they end up with a watered down Christianity because they’ve had two foundations being built.
Yvette: Right. It’s very confusing for them.
Aby: Yes.
Yvette: And they need to have that solid foundation. That’s again, exactly what Brian Osborne and I talked about is, they have to have that solid foundation set for them of knowing what they believe and why they believe what they believe.
Aby: Absolutely.
Yvette: And when you’re putting them in an institution with teachers who oftentimes really love these kids.
Aby: Yeah.
Yvette: I mean, you have public school teacher, you loved kids I’m sure.
Aby: And I loved those kids. And you know why I was silenced, and I’m the personality and temperament, I couldn’t. I could not spend all day with those kids and not tell them the truth.
Yvette: Right, yeah. But not all teachers are like that. And not all teachers, obviously believe in the truth. And so when you’re sending your kids into that environment you’re telling them, “Your teacher is right. Believe what they say. Obviously believe in the history, believe in the science, believe in the math, believe in the English Lit. Believe in everything that they’re teaching you.” Just simply by sending them there.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: When we go to church, we go sit in church and we worship and we are taught by our pastor because we want to learn from them. We’re students, we’re disciples of them. Because we trust them.
Aby: And we trust what they’re telling us.
Yvette: That’s truth. That’s right. And when we send our kids to Sunday school or to youth group or anywhere where they’re receiving instruction, the simple fact of sending our kids there is saying, “We believe what this person is teaching you is true.”
Aby: Yes.
Yvette: And so then for you to bring them home and say, “I’m just kidding, that part was-”
Aby: That’s actually a lie.
Yvette: This is true but that’s not true, but this is true but that’s not true.
Aby: Yup.
Yvette: That’s very confusing to kids.
Aby: Yes. And then to tell kids they’re lying to you every day, but you need to respect them. And then to tell them, “You need to stand up for what’s true, but you need to take the test and say what they want you to say rather than the truth.” That’s not protecting our children. And I think there is an innate fierceness in moms to protect our kids. That whole mama bear thing, that whole, anybody tries to mess with my kids, and I want to encourage moms not to lose that. Don’t lose that when it comes to their … We want to protect our kids from stranger danger, and we want to protect our kids if they’re walking in the middle of the road, we would put our life on the line to throw them out of the road and we would put our own life in danger.
And yet, why are we losing this when it comes to their spirits? When it comes to their minds and their hearts, when we know that there’s an enemy that’s after them. We need to have that same fierceness in protecting and defending our children’s innocence. The way that we do from the very beginning. It’s not optional, it’s commanded by God.
Yvette: Yeah. Amen. I agree completely.
So we’re talking about protection. I remember years ago, Garrett and I, I might have told this story before on the podcast, I can’t remember. But Garett and I were at a parenting conference, and our oldest was really, really little if she was even born yet. And he said, “If someone were to break into your house and your children were in danger, you would not as a parent go curl up in the closet and be like okay kids, good luck.”
Aby: Best of luck.
Yvette: Good luck with that. I’ll be in the closet hiding. I’ll pray for you.
Aby: Yes, yes.
Yvette: And when the intruder is gone I’ll tell you what you should have done.
We wouldn’t do that. I mean, our job is like you said, to protect our children, to protect their hearts. Not just to protect them physically and actually, and I’ve told this story for sure. When we first started homeschooling, it was a physical protection thing for us. The school that Brooklyn would’ve gone to, it would not have been physically safe for her to go.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: And that was the whole reason why we started homeschooling. At that point it wasn’t because we had this great revelation from God and that it wasn’t the spiritual stuff. I don’t know, we were just very much against homeschooling, and you and I can talk about that in a minute. But we had so many misconceptions about it, and then it came down to the physical safety of our daughter. And we said, “Okay, we have no other choice. We have to homeschool her.”
Aby: Right.
Yvette: And I’m so thankful that we did. But we quickly recognized that it was not just a physical protection.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: It was a spiritual and emotional protection that we needed to cover her with as well.
Aby: And no one would question you if you said I’m physically protecting my child, and no one would question what a great decision that was. But when it comes to spiritually protecting our kids all of the sudden people think we’re crazy.
Yvette: Yes. Yeah, that’s right. So one of the reasons that we said we’d never homeschool was because we had so many misconceptions about homeschooling.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: And there’s all the negative stereotypes and stuff. What have you come across with that? Because I know that you talk to a lot of homeschool moms.
Aby: Yes.
Yvette: What are some of those misconceptions that you get from them and how do you help to debunk those?
Aby: There are a lot. It’s an interesting generation that we’re in, because when I talked to the homeschoolers that have gone ahead of us, a lot of them say, “Oh people would say we’d never want to homeschool.” And I actually feel like I’m hearing a lot of parents say, “Oh, we’d love to, but.” And I think that’s an interesting shift I don’t get.
Yvette: Yes.
Aby: I feel like I don’t get a lot of people go, “I can’t believe you do that, that’s so bad.” Actually, I more hear parents say, “I think that what you’re doing is great. I think it’s awesome for your kids. I just couldn’t.” And then they get out their list and, which is a step in the right direction. At least they’re feeling that pull. But I think probably the number one is maybe moms with careers that, “I couldn’t give up my career.” And probably the number one is finances. And that was the first panic that my husband and I had is well what about, well I had. He was like, “God provides I can’t even believe you’re thinking about this.”
But I just go back to when a mom says that first of all, we have to validate that. It is scary, but when we know that God has called us to do something, we also know that he’s going to give us everything we need to do it. And that just goes hand-in-hand. But I always think of Second Chronicles when King Judah was prepping for a war and he paid, the Bible says 100 talents and I looked that up, and that’s a lot of money. Like it’s debatable how much it was, but tons and tons, more than I’ll ever see in my life. But he paid 100 talents of silver for men that God would not have approved of him using. And when a wise man, a godly man came and said, “You need to get rid of these people.” He said, “But what about the money I paid, but what about my money, but what about the finances?”
And I think that’s what we tend to say. But what about the finances? I can’t afford to stay home and homeschool my kids. And in that story in Second Chronicles, the godly man replies, “The Lord can give you much more than that.” And God doesn’t just say things in the Bible and then forget about us in 2019. It’s the same message to us today. When we obey God he can give us so much more than we can do. I have a little quote on my wall that says, ‘God can do more with our obedience than we can do with our compromise.’ And so that’s probably the first one that people panic is, but what about the money?
And the second one I hear a lot is, “But my kid’s supposed to be salt and light.” And you just did an incredible podcast with Misty Bailey, so if anybody gets that, what about salt and light? Go back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast and listen to that one, because that one is debunked very quickly through scripture, honestly.
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: Which all these are. It’s all God’s word. What does God’s word tell us? It doesn’t matter what Yvette, or myself tells you.
Yvette: Right.
Aby: What is God saying in His Word? And he’s got all the answers there. I think a lot of it is fear, a lot of moms, one of the other big ones is fear. Just, “I’m not equipped.” I hear so often, “Well yeah Aby, you did it because you were a public school teacher. You were a teacher, you were trained to be a teacher.” And I honestly, that is probably my biggest challenge to overcome, is the fact that I was trained to be a teacher in the system.
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: It took me years to overcome that. But you know God, He tells us in Isaiah 40 that He will gently lead those with young. He will lead, so if we follow Him then we are equipped.
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: I wasn’t equipped when I got pregnant with my first daughter. I had no idea what I was going to do. Nothing. I remember looking at that blue nose sucker going, “What is this thing even for?” And I’m supposed to save her life with this thing? Talk about not equipped, and yet God gave her to me. And then He quipped me to raise her. And so He did the same thing with school, and He will do the same thing with every mom when we answer the call to teach and train our kids and His righteousness. He will equipped us, and that we’re to trust in the Lord, not our own understanding. I don’t understand half the math I teach my kids. But I trust in the Lord and they’re learning it.
Yvette: Yup.
Aby: And He tells us we can do all things through Him, and I think that’s the big one is we’ve got to stop thinking that we need to do it on our own.
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: And if we can’t do it on our own then we might as well send them to the experts. Because the reality is, is we are the experts in our own children’s lives. He made them for us, and He made us for them, and so we just became the expert the day that you conceived that child. He quipped you and you just became the expert.
Yvette: That’s right.
Aby: So you can do it, moms. You can. You can do it through Him. His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in your weakness.
Yvette: Yep. Seek first the kingdom of God. We were just talking about that with Karen DeBeus, and He will give us everything we need. And it’s scary.
Aby: He does.
Yvette: One of the best things I have ever read about homeschooling is, do it scared.
Aby: Do it scared. That’s awesome, I love that.
Yvette: Do it scared. It’s okay to be scared to do something.
Aby: Yes.
Yvette: ‘Cause anything worth doing is scary sometimes.
Aby: Absolutely.
Yvette: Like you said, it’s scary when the doctor puts this baby in your arms and you’re like.
Aby: Yup. I’m supposed to do what?
Yvette: Yeah. Literally their whole life is in your hands.
Aby: Exactly.
Yvette: But let me rephrase that. They’re not in our hands, there in the Lord’s hands.
Aby: They are in the Lord’s hands. And He gave them to us because He knows that He can do it.
Yvette: Right.
Aby: And He knows that our weakness is when we rely on Him and when we are terrified out of our mind, that’s when we go to Him.
Yvette: Right. But praise God that we get to lean on Him to help us do this.
Aby: Absolutely.
Yvette: Because if we had to do it on our own, oh goodness I know for myself, I’d be an absolute disaster.
Aby: Right.
Yvette: If I had to rely on myself to figure out this parenting thing, and this homeschooling thing and this marriage thing. I would destroy it to pieces.
Aby: Yeah, absolutely. And I think about marriage and I think back to the why. I think if my husband, if you’d asked him why he married me, his answer would have been 20 years ago when we met, if it would have been like, “Well, I thought she was cute we had fun together.” He’d be singing probably a very different tune right now.
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: And it probably wouldn’t have sustained our marriage, but when you did ask him he would say, “Because I made a commitment to the Lord. I made a commitment to God, and God’s word says and describes marriage.” And that’s what gets you though the hard times is your why. If your why is we laugh together, then what about those days that you don’t.
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: But if your why is, “Because God has ordained this marriage.” Then you get through it all, and it’s the same with homeschool. If your why is, “Because my kids are so fun to be with.” Well, for crying out loud I tell you, you better get a new why real quick. ‘Cause there’s gonna be days when they’re not.
Yvette: No, your kids aren’t fun every single day like mine?
Aby: No. 90% of the time but on the 10%. But if your why is, “Because God called me to do this.”
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: Then you can get through anything, and because He can get you through anything.
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: And one of the other ones I get a lot that cracks me up of, this one I probably hear more than any, “I love what you’re doing but I would never have the patience to do it.”
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: I get that one all the time. “I wouldn’t have the patience.” Or, “It’s not my thing.” You know, it’s not my thing. And I think, “Well, I don’t have the patience to do this either.”
Yvette: No.
Aby: But we’re doing it because … And it isn’t about being someone’s thing. It became your thing the day you brought that child home from the hospital.
Yvette: Yeah.
Aby: It became your thing, because He made you a mom, and He called you to be a mom and that child’s walk is … Not their walk is dependent on you, but what you teach them and train them now will forever affect what foundation they have in the future. So it might not be your thing, but it needs to become your thing because it’s His thing.
Yvette: Yeah. And it’s a great thing.
Aby: And it’s a great thing. It is so amazing, and if you don’t have the patience to do it there is nothing that will teach you patience faster. Oh, God will refine you in it. And honestly, it’s a blessing. It’s like you said that you tell your kids, I love that. I use that ever since I heard you say that I use that all the time. They’re like, “Yvette.” They say that. But with obedience comes blessing, and we could do a whole episode on the blessings of homeschool. It is truly, for me one of the greatest blessings I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Yvette: Yeah, well hey. Let’s do this. We are out of time for the podcast. And so we need to close this up, I want you to just encourage those mamas at the end of this, but for Backstage Pass members, we are going to continue this conversation so let’s continue it. Let’s talk about the blessings of it. But thank you for being on the podcast.
Aby: Yes, thank you. And if you’re not a Backstage Pass member, guess what you can become one right now. (and you can save 10% on any paid membership by using the coupon code, “Podcast10“)
Yvette: And Aby’s one, right?
Aby: I am, so come hang out with me!
Yvette: Backstage pass membership is great. For those who don’t know what it is, if you might be listening to this for the first time, we have the Schoolhouse Rocked backstage pass membership site. And what that is we have all kinds of videos like the one that, Aby and I are doing right now. We extend a lot of our podcasts into an extra kind of bonus section and continue discussing what it was that we’re discussing. So those are up, but we also have, as we filmed for the movie Schoolhouse Rocked, we have a ton of footage from the movie. And so we obviously can’t get it all in an hour and a half long documentary, and so we’re taking all of those full interviews, uncut interviews and putting them up on the backstage pass membership site so you can get the entire interview instead of just the 15 minutes or 10 minutes of each person that’s going to make up the movie itself. And lots of bonus stuff. We are adding stuff to it weekly.
Yvette: So, it is a great resource. And it’s a great way to support Schoolhouse Rocked as we continue working through production stuff, every membership sign up that we get, that money goes directly to production on the movie. So you’re supporting the movie.
Aby: That’s awesome.
Yvette: You’re getting something great in return and Aby’s there so you can hang out with her. So, really quickly, I would love for you to just give an encouragement to those moms, the moms I want you to encourage today, are those who are in the thick of it right now, and they’re tired, and they just are ready to give up. And they’re just saying, “I can’t do this anymore. And I need to find something else besides this homeschool gig, because it’s not working for me.” How would you encourage that mom?
Aby: The first thing I would say is, “You’re not the first one to feel that and think that. Every veteran homeschool mom has felt that feeling.” So that does not mean that you’re not equipped, it doesn’t mean that they all have something that you don’t to be successful. We’ve all felt it, because that’s the enemy and the enemy wants to attack us when we’re doing God’s work.
The second thing I would say is what Second Peter tells us is that God gives us everything we need. If you try to do it on your own, it’s not gonna work. But God will give it to you. That’s a promise. That’s not a suggestion that’s not a, “Hey, try this.” That is a promise that God will. You were made for this. The day He gave you that child is the day He called you to raise that child in truth, and in righteousness, and so He’s going to stand by your side and He’s gonna fight the fight with you. And He will equipped you, He will, He will do that He promises.
And the last thing I would say is not just know your why, but you need to make God’s word your why. Because God’s word is our rock and we can stand on his word so on the days that all the other why’s aren’t enough, God’s word is always sufficient. So when His word and His command to us become our why, then there’s nothing that’s going to shake us. So that would be my encouragement, and get a group of moms that feel … Community is huge. God gave us the church, God gave us community for a reason.
Yvette: Yeah, love it beautifully said. Really quickly, where can people find you?
Aby: People can find me.
Yvette: Besides in your living room.
Aby: I’m right here in my living room, and I’m usually in the mountains or sometimes I’m in the bathroom hiding. But no, people can find me at CalledToTheTop.com. And that’s not really a blog, but it’s just where all of my husband and I published articles. We write for many different organizations, and all of our articles are just, that’s kind of their housing. So if you want to read any of the stuff that we’ve put out there, we write on family and the culture war, and family values, homeschool, and we also write a lot on hunting and outdoor industry.
Yvette: I love it so much. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Aby: Thank you so much.
Yvette: Aby, you are a huge blessing.
Aby: Thank you.
Yvette: And thank you for how you have encouraged and supported us as well.
Yvette Hampton, host of The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, had the opportunity to interview Elizabeth Johnston, The Activist Mommy, for the podcast. In this episode (airing February 18th) Yvette and Elizabeth discuss the importance of impacting our culture for Christ through the advantages we have as homeschoolers. They also discuss the upcoming Day of Mourning, a pro-life rally taking place in Albany, NY on Saturday, February 23, 2019.
Elizabeth Johnston is known as The Activist Mommy. She is an activist vlogger, speaker, and author who educates and inspires the public on the burning social and moral issues of the day that are important to families. She and her husband Patrick, who is a medical doctor, author, and movie producer, have been pro-life ministry leaders for many years and home educate their 10 beautiful children. The growing threat to America’s children and the vicious attack on religious liberty is what dynamited Elizabeth out of her comfort zone to inspire a nation of belittled conservatives and Christians to “come out of their closets” and boldly take their country back. Elizabeth daily triggers the left by confronting the lies of abortion, feminism, Islam, and the homosexual agenda with wit and snark like only she can, and she regularly posts viral commentary videos which have netted over 70 million views. Elizabeth has been featured on many major media outlets, such as Fox & Friends, The New York Times, The Blaze and Christian Broadcasting Network, as she has become a thought leader on topics of importance to families. The pulse behind all her activism and cultural commentary is her love for her family and her Savior, Jesus Christ.
[Yvette Hampton] – Elizabeth Johnston is The Activist Mommy. I know many of you are already familiar with her. If you’re not, you will be after this interview. I’ve actually had you on my list, and Garritt and I have talked a lot about bringing you on the podcast, and then last week, you came out with something called Day of Mourning, or last week was actually the first time I heard about it, and I said, we need to have her on now, because I want people to know about what you’re doing. Tell us a little bit about you and your family and then let’s talk about what it is that God is doing through you guys.
– Sure, we have, my husband and I, we have 10 children, 10 living children. We lost six through miscarriage, and my husband is a medical doctor. He is a family practitioner, sees all ages, and we really knew before we were married that we wanted to have a large family, and homeschool our children, so we were very blessed to already be in alignment with those things before we got married, and we have always been very active in pro-life work. My husband used to actually speak at homeschool conferences and kind of recently, in the last couple of years, pulled back from that a little bit, but he would speak a lot, actually, on the subject of vaccinations at homeschool conferences, warning about the vaccinations that are made from aborted fetal tissue.
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[Elizabeth] – And warning people that we have a moral obligation to avoid those and my husband has actually always been the speaker and I’ve been carrying the diaper bag, following him around to speaking engagements. A lot of people don’t realize that and he was the preacher and the speaker and I was busy having children. I’ve always been very adamant about, and really encouraged a lot of moms to say no, to a lot of outside things and focus on discipling and training your children. Especially during those younger years. Not getting yourself too stretched out in too many places, even when they’re ministry related, and great things, they can steal a lot of your time and a lot of the focus that needs to be on your children and your husband. And that’s what I did for 20-years. I really poured every ounce of myself into my kids and my husband and then something very organic happened to me. two years ago that I never dreamed, never planned on being a public figure and it’s just opened doors that I have been walking through, trusting God to use me along the way, and I know you’ll probably have more questions about that but that’s just kind of a background on our family, and my kids are amazing, super-supportive. We are homeschool parents, obviously, and they’re up there, hopefully doing a little bit of homeschool right now upstairs. I’m in the basement right now so that’s the great thing about this platform, is that most of what I do, I do right from my house. When I started filming videos from my van, or bus as people like to call it, my 15 passenger van, that was something that I could do from my home and everything is right here on my iPhone, and I’m able to still keep my commitment to my family, but also influence culture, so it’s really neat in the social media age that we live in.
Get Elizabeth’s new book, Not on My Watch today.
[Yvette] – Yeah, well you are certainly having a huge influence in culture. God has given you a platform that, like you said, you never planned to have. He literally just put you there, and you’ve run with it. And your family has run with it along side of you. I know that your family works with you and you guys are doing a lot of things. Let me say this real quick. One of the verses that just over and over again, and I’m certain with you, has just gone through my mind, time and time again over the past several years, but really over the past couple of weeks with this whole decision in New York, is 2 Chronicles 7:14 and it says, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” And we are in a land who is desperately in need of healing right now. We are feeling the pains of our sin and the decisions that are being made by people and so God has put you in a position where he has given you a voice to speak loud because there are those who are speaking very loudly, and we need to speak louder, and so I’d love for you to talk about some of the things that you are doing, that is really impacting culture. I know one of them is you’ve got coming up in the next couple weeks what’s called the Day of Mourning. Will you talk about that first and give us a glimpse of what that’s going to look like?
[Elizabeth] – Sure. When the gruesome New York law was passed, of what was that, it’s been a whirlwind, it’s that a week and a half ago?
Two weeks ago. My inboxes were all just absolutely slammed. Something happened when that law was passed, that just incited such righteous anger in God’s people, and just everyday American citizens, and they were begging me, when are you going to New York, and what are we going to do about this? Is there a response being planned? And you know I am one mom who has 10 kids. I’ve got a bunch of kids here in my house to homeschool, and I’ve only got one child out of the house. And I do not have a staff. I am not well-funded. I make a little bit of money doing what I’m doing. I’m sitting around waiting for one of the big pro-life organizations to mount some organized response to this, or resistance to this and I just haven’t seen anything and so, I strategized with some pro-life leaders who are friends of mine and said, let’s get our heads together and let’s seek our heavenly Father and see what we come up with and we landed on a Day of Mourning because really, our solution here ultimately is not going to be a horizontal solution. It is going to be a vertical solution, with our Heavenly Father. It is going to be repentance and mourning over our sin. It is going to be God healing our land. It is going to be God granting us repentance and nationwide revival that will cause bars to empty and strip clubs to empty and abortion clinics to empty. This is something that only our Creator God, himself can cause to happen, and it has happened multiple times in our nation. People do not know their history. They do not know their revival history, and they don’t understand that, yes, it is dark right now, but there are ways in which our nation, it was in darker times, was in times morally that were even more disturbing than now, when mock bible-burning services were taking place, mock communion services, when you literally could not find one Christian on a campus like Princeton or Harvard, back in the 1800’s, when if you were a Christian, and you wanted to meet with fellow Christians, do you know, they were in hiding in these universities. They were meeting in secret. Now, that’s worse than it is today. And God swept through our nation through men like Charles Finney, and others, and brought a new Azusa Street revival, different revivals in our nation, that completely transformed our culture in such a powerful way that you and I now are still benefiting from the light of those revivals that took place in our land. That is what we need to see and it starts with repentance and prayer, and weeping and mourning over our sin. And so we landed on a Day of Mourning. We believe God has given us this vision, and He has powerfully and tangibly confirmed it over the last week to us. I was amazed to learn just two days ago that there is an event on February the 23rd happening in Orlando, Florida where 60,000 people are going to be gathered in a convention center in Orlando, part of praying for revival and repenting over this so, I mean I didn’t even know. We had already planned the Day of Mourning and I had no idea this was taking place. Another woman got a vision from God and called for a three-day fast that just ended yesterday. Do you know what she named it? A Time for Mourning.
[Yvette] – Wow.
[Elizabeth] – And ours is a Day of Mourning. God is speaking to his people. All across the world, and all across our nation, here in America, and the theme is, you better repent. You better mourn. And so, that is our response. We are calling for a nationwide time of mourning, whether you live in New York, or not. And the way you can participate is with four things: on that day, February 23rd, we are asking that everyone wear black. Do not shop. Close down your businesses, if you have a business of any type. If you cannot close down your business, we’re asking you to pray about taking your paycheck for that day and donate it to a pro-life ministry that you trust. And lastly, repent for the sin of abortion. Gather in a church. We’re asking pastors to open up your church doors, and have your church available for prayer, or call a special service on the 23rd for prayer, which is on a Saturday, and a special meeting of prayer. We have on our website dayofmourning.org, a place where you can donate, because we have expenses that are accruing fast. We have a place where you can print out the sign to place on your door, that explains why you are closed on the 23rd. But on top of the nationwide call, we are heading straight into the devil’s den, to where this law was passed in Albany, New York and would you believe that God has given us as a venue for our event, we are literally going to be in the convention center underneath where the state house is, where the legislation was signed and celebrated, and I’ll tell you, it’s as if God is saying, Satan thought he crushed you, but he didn’t understand you are seeds. We are going to be seeds underneath the ground, that although we have been crushed, and feel defeated by this legislation, and it feels like we’re moving backward, not forward, with the pro-life agenda, we are seeds underneath the ground that are, yes, crushed, but we’re gonna grow. We’re gonna rise out of this, and I believe we are gonna see finally, an end of abortion as a result of this very devastating law that was signed in New York.
[Yvette] – Yeah, I think so, too. Garritt and I have been talking a lot about how it’s just gone too far. And I think for those who are making these decisions, and making this legislation, they’ve taken it just one step too far, to where now, like you said, it’s not just Christians and conservatives who are saying, wait, enough is enough, but there are a whole lot of people who are taking notice of this and saying whoa, wait a minute, you’re talking about full-term babies here? I mean, there’s no question whether or not that is moral or immoral, and so I think they’ve taken it too far. I mean, it was already taken too far, obviously. Roe v. Wade and the murder of any baby at any stage, but now people are starting to wake up and they’re starting to open their eyes, and they’re starting to say, whoa, wait a minute, maybe it’s not just about women’s choice and it’s not about, this is my body and I can do whatever I want with it. There’s so much more to it than that. You know, you talk about revival and we often talk about revival, and our nation needs revival and I think we’re heading in that direction. I mean, it’s one of the reasons we’re filming this documentary. It’s called Schoolhouse Rocked-The Homeschool Revolution. That’s the full title of the movie, because we feel like homeschooling is so much a part of that revival. It’s not the only part of it and it’s not the only answer. Jesus is the answer, homeschooling is not. But homeschooling is certainly part of that because homeschooling gives us the opportunity to bring revival into our own families and then send our kids out to then impact the world that God has put them in, and he’s put them here for such a time as this. They are here for a reason, on purpose because God has a plan for their lives to impact his kingdom, and I think homeschooling provides just a beautiful way for us to do that with them.
– Absolutely.
[Yvette] – Another verse that continues to come to my mind, that I’ve been reading through, I’ve been reading through Ephesians, and Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good work, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” And, it is absolutely time for us to get on our knees and to pray, and to plead with God to have mercy on our country, and on those who are leading this country, and making these horrific decisions. How can we as homeschoolers go about, and obviously, people who are not homeschooling can have an impact and make a difference, as well. But I think, with homeschooling, it gives us a different opportunity because we’re with our kids all day, and we have more time as a family to do things, so how can we do that? How can we really impact culture for God’s truth, and come alongside of you, and help you with what you’re doing?
Want to hear more about the influence of public schools? Listen to Yvette discuss the “salt and light” argument with Misty Bailey on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast.
[Elizabeth] – Well, first of all let me just say that I wholeheartedly agree that the homeschool movement is, in and of itself, part of the solution, and part of what will bring revival to our nation. Homeschooling is very counterculture, and it is very necessary in this day and age when children are trying to be good little cultural Marxists in school, and their minds are perverted by graphic sexual education, and things such as that, so no question, you have to get your kids out of the public school system. I mean, you have to ask God to help you find a way to get your kids out, and to provide, and meet your needs, and make sacrifices in order to protect your children from those who do not wish their best. I’m not talking about the teachers in the classroom, necessarily. They’re wonderful Godly teachers. There is an agenda that is so much bigger than the teachers, that the teachers cannot overcome. They’re not able to overcome. And that agenda is after each and every one of our kids, and wants to steal their faith, steal the faith that you have passed to them. And I just want to give a hearty amen to that, so there’s no question in my mind, in anyone’s mind that that’s where I stand. And then, as far as getting involved in the culture, that is something that is definitely lacking amongst the homeschool movement. I think that too often we feel as homeschool parents that we’re okay, and that our kids are okay, and safe, because we are properly protecting them from the negative forces outside, and so it’s easy to just focus on ourselves, our family, our homeschool friends, and leave it at that, because we are all busy, and we feel like we maybe can’t take on more, but it is very concerning if you think about, for instance, the fact that all of the millions of people who are not choosing to homeschool, and unfortunately they’re not going to, we’re gonna try to convince as many as we can, but there are going to be millions of people who don’t choose to homeschool. And for those individuals, they are tomorrow’s doctors, and leaders. They are tomorrow’s judges, tomorrow’s educators. Just think about that for a minute. Think about how that affects all of us. So if we completely pull away into a corner, and we’re not still influencing what’s taking place, even in the school systems, we are really dooming our culture. And so that is why, for instance, I have been so active as a homeschool mom, whose never had a child set a foot on a yellow school bus, never had a child set foot inside a public school, I have aggressively fought the graphic sexual education, and the LGBT sexual education in the schools, because I realize there’s no hiding from this, filtering down, and affecting all of us, ultimately. And so that is important. I want to say for our family, personally, a major part of how we’ve raised our children is to let them crash with the culture, let them crash heads, if you will, with the culture. We have from the very beginning, our kids’ infancy, taken them for instance, out to abortion clinics where we pray right there on the front lines as women are driving in to execute their babies, and pay to execute their babies. Our kids have been right there with us, outside on the front lines of these abortion clinics, watching Mommy and Daddy save babies, watching Mommy and Daddy love women, watching Mommy and Daddy throw baby showers for these women when they choose life. Watching Mommy and Daddy rebuke sin, and rebuke the men and women who are getting paid to kill these babies in cold-blooded murder. That has forever changed our children. That will always, never leave our children, and always affect who they are as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, because they know that for Mommy and Daddy, this is not something that we do on Sunday, and then we don’t do anything else with it. This is something that we live everyday, and that is important enough for us to actually go out, and be the hands and feet of Jesus to others, and so, that is a great way that people can get involved. Get involved in your local crisis pregnancy center on this abortion issue. Take your kids out and pray in front of an abortion clinic. There is an abortion clinic 30 minutes to an hour from almost every person within the sound of my voice on this podcast right now, and you can make an effort even if it’s once a month. That is life-changing for your family.
[Yvette] – Yep, and that’s something you can do during the week, when other people are in school, learning everything contrary to what God has said is true.
[Elizabeth] – Yes.
[Yvette] – And what a beautiful opportunity to be able to show your kids, look at the impact we can make in God’s world.
[Elizabeth] – Our kids beg us.
[Yvette] – cause He’s given us the time
[Elizabeth] – They are disappointed when, just this last Saturday my husband has just been working some grueling hours, and then I’ve been really swamped with this event that we’re planning, Day of Mourning, and we did not go out when we normally go out on Saturday morning, and the kids are so disappointed. One of my teenagers headed out anyway, and she’ll grab a couple of the kids and go anyway, but it just becomes their passion. Instead of Xbox and Minecraft and the garbage that kids are addicted to now, our kids are kind of addicted to ministry. They’re kind of addicted to reaching out to others, because they know what it feels like to be used of God. Don’t you want your children to know what it feels like, to see a life saved, a life transformed. Once you feel that, and experience that, what is Minecraft?
[Yvette] – Yeah, cause they realize there is something bigger than them in this world, and there are things that are worth standing up for, and sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s scary, but do it scared.
[Elizabeth] – Yeah, courage requires some risks, and nothing that anybody’s done that was nation-shaking or brought about revival, was ever easy. Imagine being William Wilberforce, fighting slavery, not just for five years, not just for ten years, this man went at it for just the longest time, and had so many set-backs, and so discouraging and his own people turning against him, and he stayed the course, he was faithful, and he always came back and pushed again, and pushed again and he finally saw the end of slavery and we’ve got to catch a vision for seeing an end to this bloodshed. Our country is resting under the judgment of God right now, because we take our babies and we sacrifice them to a God called convenience. He may not be technically the god of Moab, but we are no better than the savage Mayans and Aztecs that your homeschoolers are reading about in their history. We are no different. We are just as guilty, and just as their cultures have been destroyed, God will destroy ours if we do not get serious about repenting and about being the salt and light of the world and the hands and feet of Jesus to our culture.
[Yvette] – That’s right. That’s absolutely right. I would love for you to talk really quickly about, you have a new book that’s coming out right now, as a matter of fact, I think when this airs, I think it’s going to air in February 18th, your book will have just come out, and it’s called “Not on my Watch: How to Win the Fight for Family, Faith and Freedom.” Talk real quickly about your book.
[Elizabeth] – I’m really proud of it. I really think it’s gonna inspire a whole lot of people. It’s written in story form, so you’re gonna hear a lot of background, and a lot of story, and a lot of things that I’ve done, that maybe people didn’t know we’ve done, like how we’ve shut down sex brothels, and really given Teen Vogue the black eye
[Yvette] – I love that story.
[Elizabeth] – And ways that I was involved with the Kim Davis situation, the lady that wouldn’t sign the homosexual marriage license in Kentucky. So many different stories, but we teach so many principles as we tell these stories, but I really believe it’s going to be inspirational. Mostly, just to let people see how somebody who’s just a simple homeschool mom, 70 million video views later, and just so many different things that we have done. Seriously, it’s not been because of money, and it’s not been because of anything, but just, I believe, stepping out in faith, and when you kill that lion and that bear, like David did, God will give you bigger things to slay, like Goliaths. And this is something that we can all do, and so I think that people will be encouraged that all the Little ‘Ole Mes out there, that are reading and watching, that God can use you mightily, too. People need inspiration right now. People are scared to speak up, and I think that they’ll find that inspiration in this book.
[Yvette] – Well, I appreciate that you have been obedient to the call that God has put upon you and your family, to be able to do that, because oftentimes He calls us to do something, and we’re scared, so we choose not to do it. And we serve in other ways, but we choose not to step out and do the hard thing. Because it’s hard.
[Elizabeth] – It is.
[Yvette] – And we want our life to be comfortable, and we want our kids to be comfortable and safe, and you’ve really put yourself out there. And I love that about you. I love, just your passion for life, for Jesus, and for impacting this world. So thank you so much for what you’re doing. I want you to share two things, then I actually want to read a quote. How can people find you, and then how can people support you financially in what you’re doing?
[Elizabeth] – Activistmommy.com has all of my blog articles, and my videos, and it has a place where you can donate and subscribe to get my emails. And then please though, more than anything, this is not about me. I want to take this opportunity to say please go to dayofmourning.org. We have got to pray and repent. We’ve got to end abortion, and we have expenses on this rally. We need to raise 20,000 dollars to pull off this rally, and it needs to happen fast.
[Yvette] – Okay, well so for those of you who are wondering what you can do, and how you can impact lives, that is a great way to do that, right now. We will put the links in the show notes
[Elizabeth] – Thank you.
[Yvette] – For people to be able to do that, and to support you financially. I think people so often don’t realize, even if it’s a dollar, if you have no money, if you have a dollar, or five dollars, or ten dollars, that adds up so quickly. And so often people think, well, you know, I don’t have a hundred dollars, or fifty dollars, or a thousand dollars. It doesn’t matter. You support this with whatever God has blessed you with, and puts on your heart and he will multiply it, and then pray. So we’re just calling all of you in the homeschool community to pray. Step out in faith. Step out and do what God has called you to do, whether it’s through this ministry, or fighting abortion, human trafficking, whatever it is, whatever God’s put on your heart. Take a stand and do something, and do it with your kids. It is the beauty of homeschooling. We have time, and we have the ability to do that. Really quickly, I just want to read a quote, and I actually put this up on my Facebook a couple of weeks ago, and this is by my really, really good friend, Aby Rinella. This was when the whole legislation was signed in New York a few weeks ago, and she sent me this text and she said, “Why do I homeschool? Because today my children will be at home with me, learning about the catastrophic events that happened in New York. About the evil that happens when we deviate from God’s design. And about how we have a God that mourns because he loves his people. They will be home with me, praying for the preborn babies, rather than in a public school system that tells them they get to choose for themselves what is good and evil, rather than looking to God for truth.” And that is what we get to do with homeschooling. We get to speak truth into the hearts of our children. We may not perfectly teach them math, or English. They may never know how to parse a sentence. I’m pretty certain my girls will never learn how to diagram a sentence, because I really don’t want to teach them that. I don’t know how to do it myself. And that’s okay because when they come face to face with their creator, He is not going to ask them how well they could diagram a sentence. He’s gonna say, what did you do with your time on Earth, and I want him to welcome my girls into his glorious Heaven because they took a stand, and they surrendered their whole lives, and their whole hearts to Christ, and done something to impact His world. So thank you again, Elizabeth. I am so grateful for you. Thank you for what you’re doing. We will be praying for you.
[Elizabeth] – Thank you.
[Yvette] – Keep doing what you’re doing.
[Elizabeth] – That means the world to me. We really do need a canopy of prayer around us right now.
Yvette Hampton:
Jessica: Sure. Option Adoption is a ministry that we started after we adopted our daughter. She’s really the inspiration for why we started it. We were all on the sidewalks in front of abortion clinics, and realized that most of these women and men just don’t see adoption as an option for them. We knew her story. We knew that her mom had chosen life for her against the odds, and then placed her into our family through adoption. This happens only about 2% of the time – where a woman will choose life and the adoption over death, abortion. We were just burdened.
For it to take so long for us to actually get pregnant was just, it was devastating. We had our first finally, I mean, and the interesting thing is, and I’m sure you’ve heard this story many times we had started looking into adoption because we couldn’t get pregnant. I just thought, “Well, you know what, my heart is to be a mom.” I mean, even though I wanted to feel that life inside of me, I really want it to be a mom. I thought, “If the Lord chooses to give us children through adoption, that’s just as exciting as pregnancy, and then I don’t have to go through labor and delivery.” We started looking into adoption, and sure enough ended up getting pregnant, I mean just within probably a couple of months.
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