Embracing Your Purpose: Insights from A Working Homeschool Mom

I recently sat down for an insightful conversation with Katie Hornor, a working homeschool mom with a unique journey and inspiring perspective on finding God’s purpose in work. Hornor shares her experiences as a mom, wife, missionary, entrepreneur, and creator of a Spanish homeschool curriculum. Through her stories, she encourages mothers to trust in God’s timing, embrace their gifts, and find joy in the work they’ve been called to do.

Embracing God’s Unique Timing and Purpose:

“God had a specific purpose for our family in Mexico, but it wasn’t exactly what we had expected. He used our gifts and talents in ways we couldn’t have anticipated.”

Katie Hornor

One of the recurring themes in Hornor’s journey is the recognition of God’s unique timing and purpose. Hornor recounts how her family’s move to Mexico aligned with her own long-held desire to be a missionary overseas. She emphasizes, “God had a specific purpose for our family in Mexico, but it wasn’t exactly what we had expected. He used our gifts and talents in ways we couldn’t have anticipated.” This reminder of God’s sovereignty serves as a powerful encouragement to trust in His plans, even when they differ from our own expectations.

Discovering God-Given Gifts and Meeting Needs:

From her own experiences, Hornor believes that everyone has been given gifts and talents for a purpose. She encourages parents, especially moms seeking to work outside of motherhood, to take time to understand what they have been uniquely created for. Hornor explains, “Finding your calling is a combination of what you enjoy, what you’re good at, and what people ask of you.” Drawing from her own journey, she shares how she discovered a need for Spanish homeschool curriculum and, with the blessing of an American company, developed her own literature-based curriculum for the Spanish-speaking community.

Finding Joy in Work:

“God created work even before sin entered the world. It is an expression of worship and an opportunity to glorify God.”

Hornor firmly believes that work, when aligned with one’s purpose and gifts, can be a source of joy and worship. She challenges the prevailing notion that work is something negative, emphasizing, “God created work even before sin entered the world. It is an expression of worship and an opportunity to glorify God.” Reflecting on her personal experience, she further explains, “Our work doesn’t have to be something big to matter. Even the small, behind-the-scenes work, such as serving our own families, is significant in God’s eyes.” This perspective shift encourages listeners to appreciate the work they do daily, whether big or small.

Flexible Homeschooling:

Working homeschool moms face unique challenges. Balancing the responsibilities of motherhood, homemaking, loving your husband, and teaching your children can seem like an impossible balancing act. To this point, Katie reminds us that homeschooling does not have to consume excessive amounts of time to be effective. In fact, many times simple and short is the best path to success! She recommends Durenda Wilson’s book, “The Four Hour School Day,” challenges the notion that homeschooling requires a rigid schedule and countless hours. The book encourages moms to prioritize relationships, simplicity, and efficiency in their homeschooling journey. By embracing a flexible approach, you can create a balance that allows for both work and education.

Involving Family and Supportive Spouses:

Hornor underscores the importance of involving one’s spouse and seeking their support, especially in pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors. She advises, “If your husband is not supportive, it’s essential to prioritize your marriage and honor your husband’s leadership.” She shares her personal experience of involving her husband in decision-making processes and highlights the positive impact it has had on their journey. To provide support for single moms or those without supportive spouses, Hornor suggests seeking guidance and accountability from godly friends. family members, or church members.

“When we align ourselves with God’s purpose and use the gifts He has given us, we can experience true joy and fulfillment in our work.”

Katie journey as a working homeschool mom reveals valuable insights into embracing God’s unique purpose, finding joy in work, and involving loved ones in our pursuits. We should be encouraged to trust in God’s timing, explore our gifts, and embrace the work we have been called to do. Whether it’s serving our families, starting a business, or pursuing a career, Hornor reminds us that every aspect of our lives can be an expression of worship and a way to make a positive impact on the world.

As she aptly puts it, “When we align ourselves with God’s purpose and use the gifts He has given us, we can experience true joy and fulfillment in our work.” So let us embark on this journey of discovering our God-given purpose and finding joy in the work that we’re called to do. For in it, we may find not only personal fulfillment, but also the opportunity to make a significant impact on the lives of others.

Recommended Resources: 

Flamingo Advantage “Finding Joy in the Journey” Christian Marketing Retreat – Save $10 with this link

Katie Hornor’s YouTube Channel

📚📖 Ready to start homeschooling? Download your free Homeschool Survival Kit today!

🍿🍿🍿 Stream Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution for FREE today!

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ Are you in need of a fresh vision for your homeschool? Join us for 4 days of Homeschool Encouragement at the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. Use the coupon code PODCAST to save 25% on registration today! 

How to Homeschool: A Step-by-Step Guide with Kristi Clover

Getting Started in Homeschooling – Israel Wayne on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Have you ever experienced a setback or unexpected change in your career or ministry? How did you handle it, and did it ultimately lead to new opportunities or growth?
  2. How do you personally view the concept of work? Do you see it as a means to an end, or do you find enjoyment and purpose in what you do?
  3. Do you believe that everyone has a unique purpose and set of gifts that they can use to meet needs and make a positive impact on the world? Why or why not?
  4. How have you navigated the tension between your responsibilities as a parent and your desire to pursue work or other interests outside of motherhood/fatherhood?
  5. Are there any particular skills or talents that you possess that you feel could be used to serve others and bring in extra income? How might you go about discovering and developing those gifts?
  6. What strategies or techniques have you found helpful for maintaining a positive attitude and finding joy in the everyday responsibilities and tasks of life, particularly in the context of motherhood/fatherhood?
  7. How do you personally define success in work and in life? Is it solely about achievements and accomplishments, or is there a deeper significance that you strive for?
  8. How do you involve your spouse in your career or business decisions? How important do you think their support and involvement is for your success and fulfillment?
  9. Have you experienced any cultural or societal messages that have discouraged you from embracing your uniqueness or pursuing your passions? How have you worked to overcome or challenge those messages?
  10. How do you pass on the idea of work as worship to your children or the younger generation? What strategies or approaches have you found effective in helping them develop a positive attitude towards work and finding purpose in what they do?

Read the full transcript:

Yvette Hampton:

Hey everyone, this is Yvette Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I am so glad you are with us this week. We are talking this week about a topic that we get asked about constantly. We have you guys write in about it, we have you talk to us about it at different events. And that question is how can moms work and homeschool at the same time? And I know many of us today need to do that because of just where we are in the world. Or maybe some of you have taken your kids out of public school or private school and you want to homeschool them but you have to work and you’re not exactly sure how to balance those things and it can be tricky. I work some from home. Of course I do the podcast. It doesn’t just happen by itself. Truth be told, my husband does the way majority of the work for the podcast. I get to just sit and have conversations with people. But I do work from home and it is a blessing to my family that I get to do that and I love working with my husband. But some of you need to work maybe full time from home, whatever that.

Katie Hornor:

Might look like for you.

Yvette Hampton:

Katie Hornor is with us this week. She’s a new guest and she is kind of the expert at this. She’s a homeschool mom. She works from home and she’s going to give some really good practical advice and pointers on how you can tie those two things together and help bring financial support to your family. Well, Katie Hornor, welcome to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. It is such a pleasure to meet you. Tell us a little bit about you and your ministry.

Katie Hornor:

Yvette, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here and share with your audience today. My husband Tap and I moved to Mexico 16 years ago to be in ministry full time. We never planned to work from home as you’re describing it, but that was to be in the Lord’s plans for us. And the first step was getting us to Mexico where we have lived for the last 16 years. And then the second step was for us to go through a series of different changes in ministry opportunities that left us in dire need of funds and what does a mama do when you need money is think how do I make this money? And so God started working in our hearts with this desire to start a business and we said but we don’t have business background. My husband went to school for electric and carpentry and was going to go to Mexico as a missionary and skipped the last year which was the business know and I grew up in an entrepreneurial family but Katie was never going to be in business so she didn’t get the training. Long story short, we did start the business because God said to, and we pioneered a homeschool curriculum. Then we took what we learned with that business and started a coaching business, which we’re still doing today under the Flamingo Advantage brand. And I know we’ll get into that and other things, but along the way, those five children still have to be educated. And it’s just been a fabulous journey of learning to blend all that we do into the life that God has given and be able to use it for his purposes.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah. Amen. Talk a little bit about your homeschooling in Mexico because I imagine that this is quite different in a lot of ways than what it looks like for us here in the States. What made you decide to homeschool, and what does that look like for you and your family?

Katie Hornor:

Well, depending on where you live in Mexico, you may have different things available to you. There are multiple thousands of homeschoolers in Mexico, and now way more than there were 16 years ago. However, depending on where you live, resources are different and things like that. But in Mexico right now, homeschooling is not protected by law. It’s also not prohibited by law. And so as a Mexican citizen, there are certain avenues that you would take. But as an expat living here, our children can also claim U. S. Citizenship, which gives us a little more freedom in that area. And so we pretty much can homeschool our children as if they were enrolled in a school in the United States. Under that, we can create a transcript for our homeschool just as if we lived in North Carolina or South Dakota or wherever, and then we can create our own sort of graduation certificate along those lines. Following those guidelines, if you’re in a Mexican family, the regulations are a little different, and they’re changing in the next few months. There’s actually a government meeting around. What are we going to do with this and how are we going to move forward as a country in regards to homeschooling? Because it has become so much more popular, especially post pandemic. But for us, we have a lot of liberty with what we get to do, and it’s been a fun journey.

Yvette Hampton:

Are there very many people in your area who homeschool in your neighborhood? Are you able to do like a homeschool co op or anything like that? What does that look like for you?

Katie Hornor:

We have a small group of families in our city, and in the next bigger city close to us, about an hour and a half away, there’s probably 30 or 40 families, not necessarily all faith based. It’s a mix. So there are activities there that we can participate in if we want to. And then this local group of three or four families that get together probably quarterly for an activity or a get together of some kind. So it’s not a lot of people where we are, but it’s a smaller city as well.

Yvette Hampton:

That’s so cool. You talked about how it became necessary for your family to start bringing in some income. You were there as missionaries, which I’m assuming that since you began your journey in Mexico as a missionary, you had support from other people. But it sounds to me like you came to a point where you needed to actually bring in some extra income for your family. What did that look like? How did you get started? Because I know that so many moms and even dads sometimes stay at home dads. They’re looking for ways to bring in income, but they don’t even know where to start. I’ve even seen people post on social media, I need to make money from home. What do I do? How do I start? What did that look like for your family?

Katie Hornor:

Well, for us, we’d had a series of ministry changes, so the people who had pledged to support us financially in the one know may not have carried over to the next thing. And so and so and so we were at a point where it was either like, go back to the states, which we knew we weren’t called to do, or find a way to support ourselves. And we started looking like, what could we do? And it’s that question not I can’t do this or I can’t, whatever, but what would it look like if we could find a way to earn income here? And what’s the need? We were just starting to homeschool our oldest at that point, we had four under the age of seven, I think, around that time. A fifth one came a little bit later, but at that .4 little ones, just starting to homeschool ourselves, looking at the curriculum we were using, which was a literature based homeschool curriculum at the time, and thinking, what could we do? And I started researching, like, what’s available for spanish speakers? Who homeschool? And I realized that at that point in history, there was only two or three homeschool curriculums for them to choose from in the Spanish language, and out of those, you had to speak english to order two of them. Right? And so this is a big hurdle for somebody who wants to educate their children but doesn’t speak English, doesn’t know where to get the material, and there is no such thing in the Spanish world yet as a literature based curriculum, which we loved. Because I was a big children’s literature buff. I had a degree in elementary education and curriculum development. And so this was where we saw the need, we could do something, we could fix this, we could provide this, we could make this better. And I think seeing the need is part of knowing where to start and then researching and what would it look like and what’s the first step and what resources do we have, who do we know? And in our case, we were able to reach out to an american company that provided an English based, literature based education and say, hey, the Spanish world needs what you have. Would you let us help you translate your teacher’s guides and things and create one? Or would you be okay if we did it ourselves? Because we really feel strongly God is pushing us in this direction. And so those conversations went on for about a year and a half and eventually that company decided, we love what you’re doing, we don’t think we need to take on the Spanish at this point, so have our blessing, go and do what God is leading you to do. And so at that point we went ahead and started working on first kindergarten level and the a first grade level. Eventually we had preschool all the way through 6th grade of this literature based curriculum, where we were finding books that were already in print in Spanish, books about history, biographies, all the things, and then writing the teacher’s guide with which you could teach that grade level material from those actual books. A little bit Charlotte Mason, a little bit Montessori, a little bit literature based, but all hands on and discussion and proving what you’ve learned by being able to reteach it, and just a really fun curriculum based on literature. And so that’s what we did and we pioneered that then for about the next twelve years in the Spanish community.

Yvette Hampton:

I love that. So what’s interesting is that you took basically what God had given you, right? The gifts and talents and abilities that he had given you. You figured out where there was a need that needed to be met and you said, let’s figure out how to meet this need. And it’s interesting that you say it took a year and a half for you to do that because I think oftentimes people think we have to do this right away, we need to do this and it needs to be in works by next week or by next month. And oftentimes God doesn’t work that way, right? The timing is always very unique and different to every situation. I’m thinking of Ephesians 210 and actually was reading this before we came on today, and it says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. And so just seeing that God created you and your husband and your family for this specific work and that he took you to Mexico for a specific reason, but then he ended up using you in other ways as well to meet the needs of the homeschool community in Mexico. Well, and I would say probably around the world, because it’s a Spanish curriculum that can be used in all sorts of other know Latin countries as well. And so what a blessing that you have been obedient to use the gifts that God’s given you to steward them for his kingdom, right? I mean, you’ve used what he has blessed you with. So talk on that for a minute because oftentimes I think moms are like, I don’t know what my gift is, I don’t know what my passions are. Especially, I think when our kids are really young, we feel like all of us is going into our kids. All of us is going into preparing meals and grocery shopping and doctor’s appointments and changing diapers and trying to get our kids to learn how to read. And sometimes moms can get a little bit lost in that and trying to figure out what is it that I want to do? What is it that God created me for in addition to this? Obviously, he created you to take care of your family. But how can moms, especially those who are looking to work outside of motherhood and bring in some extra income, how can they really figure out what God has created them for?

Katie Hornor:

I think it’s a cross, yvette, between what you enjoy and what you’re good at, as well as what people ask of you. Right. Because as a mom of littles who are starting to go to school, we got asked all the time, where are they going to school? Well, we’re home educating. How are you doing that? What does that mean? What does that look like? How would I do that? And so if somebody asks you a question three times, that’s a pretty good indication that you have an answer people are looking for. Right? And so what is it that you get asked all the time? Or what is it that comes easy to you that other people are like, oh my goodness, I could never do that? Right. That’s a really good indication that there’s a skill there that is sellable or that there is a talent there to be developed. But I also think it has to light you up. I am not happier than when I am teaching or talking or presenting. I love to see the light bulb come on, whether I’m talking to a four year old or a 45 year old. Right. It just thrills my heart to see someone get something so that they can take it out and put it into practice. I love the conversations with our teenagers around at the lunch table where we’re throwing out questions and the things are clicking and they’re finally like, oh wow, that’s what that means. And so for us, it was a natural crossover between what we enjoyed, the questions we were already answering on a regular basis with our friends and acquaintances, and where we saw a need and it didn’t happen overnight. And I am one of those people that there’s no grass growing under my feet. If I’m going to do it, it’s going to be done. And it was an exercise in patience. But I think one of the things that we have to recognize about timing, even with God’s provision, with God’s leading, with God’s developing, desires of our hearts is that patience really is the act of agreeing with God about the timing of this situation. Right. I can’t stop and get frustrated with a slow child if I’m agreeing with God about the timing in which this child needs to do something right. I can’t get frustrated at slow service when I’m out and about if I’m agreeing with God about the timing he has for this circumstance. And then secondly, is asking God, what is my purpose in this circumstance? Right? And always saying, like, what’s my job here in this conversation, in this day? Yes, service is slow. What does this person need from me as we wait, right? Or yes, this child is not responding or not producing or not growing as quickly, but what’s my job right now? What do they need from me in this moment? And taking our eyes off of the me and putting it on, what God is doing helps us to have that patience that we need and the persistence to be able to see it through with a much more calm attitude, because now it’s about God, it’s not about me.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah, absolutely. Talk about work as worship. I was recently having a conversation with both of my girls, actually, and we were talking about the idea of work and how work is a good thing. I think we as a society tend to think, oh, work, and we even pass that on to our kids sometimes, like, oh, I don’t want to do my chores. I don’t want to have to do all the things that take effort. Right? I mean, really, I would say a good portion of humans, if we could, we would just sit on the couch and watch movies all day long or read a book all day long. We don’t necessarily want to have to get up and know, exert our bodies into doing physical work. But we were talking about Adam and Eve, and even in the garden, even before the fall of man, before sin came into the world, adam and Eve worked the garden God gave them. That was like a blessing to them to be able to work in this beautiful, incredible garden that God had given them. Now, they probably didn’t have the scorching sun beating down on them, giving them sunburns know, being tortured by the things that hurt us in nature now. But still, it was a good thing, and so work is a good thing. So talk about work as worship and what that looks like and how you even have been able to pass that on to your kids.

Katie Hornor:

Well, it’s funny that you mentioned the Garden of Eden and work being there before it was hard work, right? Before there was sweat and thorns and all of that. Ecclesiastes 222 says that there’s nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his work. And the day that I came across that strict scripture, it struck me across the face because I had never heard anyone talk about that before. What do you mean we’re supposed to find enjoyment in our work? You mean work is good? Right. And then when I started studying Sabbath and I realized that God created rest not because he needed it, but because he knew we needed it. Because he knew we would be so dedicated and so into our work that if he didn’t command a rest, we would never rest. Right? And so I think it comes with alignment. When your work is in alignment with your purpose, when your work is in alignment with how God created you and what he’s gifted you to do, then work becomes a joy. Work becomes something that you do find enjoyment in, that you do want to keep doing. Right. And it’s our secular society, I think, the enemy’s strategy to try to make us think that work is bad or that it’s something to be dreaded. But no, God says you will find enjoyment in your work, that that is good. There was good work before there was sin in the world, right? And so the key is walking with God. The key is knowing who my God is, what he wants for me. Because if he’s created me to do this, then doing this is the best way I can worship Him. Right? When you think about the illustration I use a lot is that of a toy maker, right? If the toy maker makes a wind up toy and this wind up toy doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, we say, oh, it’s broken, it’s a failure, it’s malfunctioning. Right. It looks bad on the toy maker because it’s not doing what it was supposed to do. But if that toy does exactly what it’s supposed to do, that is the best thing it could do, both for Him, both for the toy and for the toy makers. And so when we do what we were created to do, that is our best worship. Scripture tells us not everyone is going to be a pastor or a teacher. We need people with all these different kinds of gifts. And if you were created with this gift, then doing that gift is your best worship. That is the best way to glorify your God, is by doing what he created you to do.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah. I think oftentimes too, we think that our work has to be something big in order for it to matter or count, right. We have to be doing something amazing that the whole world can see. And that’s not true at all. I mean, we could be doing something totally behind the scenes that nobody ever knows about and it could be serving our family only. I mean, that is work in itself. Motherhood is no joke. Being a wife is no joke. It takes a lot of work and a lot of intention and you cannot do it if you’re lazy homeschooling. Oh my goodness. That is not for the lazy. Right. It takes a lot of work and a lot of intention. And so whatever it is that God has called us to do in this world is totally worth it and he is worthy of us doing it with a great attitude. I remember years and years ago, I was at a Bible study and this lady was kind of confessing to our group. She said, I just have had such a bad attitude about home chores, doing dishes and doing laundry and doing cooking and all those things. And she said I really had to change my thinking pattern and realize that when I’m doing laundry I need to be grateful and say, Lord, thank you for giving us clothes, and when I’m cooking, say, Lord, thank you for giving us food. And when I’m doing dishes, Lord, thank you for giving us dishes that we can put our food on and that I have to wash. Because there are people in the world who don’t have these things and so, so much of it is changing our perspective. However, passing that on to our kids sometimes can be a bit of a challenge. So I want to talk about that. We were talking yesterday about work and about how work is worship and I love that idea. I think that’s something that is a little tricky to pass on to our kids and so I would love for you to talk about that for just a quick minute. Have you been successful? I find this difficult sometimes with my girls. My girls are not huge complainers, but I also don’t think that they’re like, yay work. And as we’re talking, I’m thinking to myself like, okay, we need to maybe work on that this year, maybe that character development. Have you been successful in figuring that out with your kids?

Katie Hornor:

Well, yvette, our kids are ages nine to 18 right now, so I think we’re at different points of success, who we’re talking about, and with all of us, right. It’s a daily choice to choose the attitude that we have towards the work that God has given us to do. And one of the things I remind our kids when it gets hard is that God has already promised to do what he’s called you to through you, right. One, thessalonians 524 faithful is he that calls you who also will do it. So if this is something God has called you to do for our children, obeying our parents, helping with family responsibilities as we get older, right. Your actual purpose and calling in life, your job, your career, your vocation, the way you’re going to impact people in the world, all of this he’s promised to do through us. So it’s not so much about us doing it as being willing and saying, yes, Lord, I’ll do this, help me, do it through me, because he’s promised to. And so with our kids. I think we’re at varying stages, very quick to say yes if they have specific instructions. We’re still working on the self motivated part of seeing what needs to be done. But it’s been a fun growing experience, especially now that most of the are in their teen years and developing their own opinions and conversations can be so much more enjoyable now.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah. I think one of the greatest things as a parent is when your kids start taking the initiative to do things without being asked. And my youngest did that recently, and my girls sometimes do that. We’ve actually, at times, worked that into our daily schedule, where I will actually put on their schedule initiative every day. You need to take initiative, but that’s not really taking initiative. If I’m telling them that they have to take initiative, but I’m trying to train them. And recently, my youngest daughter, it is a habit. It is a habit. And my youngest daughter, recently, she did a bunch of things, and I didn’t ask her. Like, she cleaned up the living room and I can’t remember what else she did some other things, and I was like, you just did those on your own. Like, I didn’t even ask you to do that. She was like, yes, I did.

Katie Hornor:

One of the ways that we’re doing this is actually with our curriculum. My oldest just graduated, but the next two are going into their junior year together.

Yvette Hampton:

Okay.

Katie Hornor:

Because they’re pretty close in age, and we found it helps for them to be accountability partners. And so we actually develop our school year plan, develop our lesson plan or whatever and give it to them. And then it’s up to them when they’re going to do the work. Right. Some of them think better in the morning. Some of them think better in the afternoon. Some of them have differing responsibilities around the house or as they start to look for jobs in the community and things like that. And so it’s up to them. And we check in periodically, daily if necessary, but definitely weekly with them. Where are you on your schoolwork? Are you going to be done by the end of the semester with what you’ve been given? But in terms of actually doing the work, doing the lessons, reading the books, doing the reports, things like that, that’s on them when they’re going to do that and check it off. And in that, we are instilling in them this independence, right. And this autonomy of, like, I’m not going to be able to follow them around to college classes and say, did you do that yet? And starting to train them for adult work. And that’s been working pretty well for the last couple of years.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah. Well, let’s back up to working from home. And I want to take us back to that mom who is saying, all right, I really need to bring in some income. Our family is just not making it, or we’re just scraping by. And she wants to be a blessing to her family and to her husband, like the proverbs 31 woman and she wants to do something. Right. And so we talked about how okay this mom, the first thing might be, figure out what you’re passionate about. What are you good at? Because if you’re not good at it and God has not gifted you in this area, you’re going to be miserable doing it, probably. You’re not going to have the best attitude. Now, of course, there are some things we have to do that we don’t necessarily love to do. But when it comes to working and doing something from home, we really want to do what God’s gifted us in doing. So that mom, maybe she’s just said, okay, I’ve got to do something. Here are the things that I enjoy doing here’s where I feel like I’m gifted. What would you say to that mom? You’re talking to her face to face. What advice would you give her on here’s? How to get started and get the ball rolling to help bring in some extra income.

Katie Hornor:

A lot of times we way overthink this. And so if I was sitting across the table with you, I would just say, what’s the fastest path to cash? Right? What is the easiest thing? Maybe you might call it the low hanging fruit, right? What’s the fastest way for you to actually generate some income? Forget getting an LLC or a business license. Forget figuring out a name. Forget creating a website. If you need cash, what’s the fastest way to get that? Can you sell cookies? Can you make a cake? Can you babysit? Can you dog sit with your kids? Maybe you can sew and so you can do repairs to clothing or I saw someone just yesterday selling headpieces on Facebook, matching mom and daughter or something. What could you do with the skills that you have to be able to put it out there? All you need is a way to take payment. People still write checks. There’s PayPal, there’s Venmo, there’s all these cash apps now, right? It’s not that difficult. You just need to put it out there.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah, that is a great starting point, and that’s such a good reminder of it doesn’t have to be so complicated. I think we try to overanalyze everything, right? Especially as moms and homeschool moms. We have to think through every single detail of every single thing to the point of where it paralyzes us and where we just don’t do anything at all because we’re so busy thinking about how to do it. There’s a local mom here in our town who she started out baking cookies in her kitchen, and it has turned into this huge business. She ended up bringing her husband home from work. He was working this job where he was working 60, 70 hours a week, and now they bake cookies. And cakes and all sorts of amazing things together. And they’re actually opening up a bakery now that’s going to have a kid area for them, for their kids. They’ve got five little girls, and so it’s going to have a little area for their kids to play and for other homeschool moms to go to or moms in general to go to and bring their kids. And it’s just amazing to see that it just started out with her literally baking cookies at home. And so God will do big things when it comes to trying to figure out how to do it. And prayer, I mean, I think that’s a huge part of it is just praying and seeking the Lord. Of course, that should be the number one thing, is, Lord, what is it that you want from me? How can I serve you? And it could be through baking cookies or baking bread, whatever, but how can I serve you? How can I serve Your kingdom and further whatever it is that You’ve called me to do? All right, Katie, let’s continue on with what are some other pointers that you have for moms who are looking to get started?

Katie Hornor:

I would say also, don’t limit yourself to what you know. Like we said, ask the Lord what you could do, right? Let him open that up. But think about things that other people in your area may or may not be doing. Are you good at writing Bible studies? Have you created amazing lesson plans for your homeschool kids that other people would love to pay to have and be able to use as well? You go shopping for your food once a week or more often. What if you were to shop for an elderly person at the same time, right? Just thinking outside the box, even asking your kids. You’d be amazed at what ideas kids have for like, hey, guys, if we had $20 today, what could we do with that $20 to turn it into 500 by next week, right? And just brainstorming and using that power of your kids, like lemonade stands are not out of reach, but your kids will have some really creative ideas, too. And maybe even maybe you’ve got skills in digital design or graphic design, and you could be someone’s virtual assistant. Maybe you know how to answer emails and send them for someone. There’s lots of people who need secretaries, and that can be done remotely. So don’t limit yourself to just what you know right now. Continue to ask those questions. How could we get other people involved in brainstorming and really seek the Lord for those things that come? And maybe your first idea is not the one, right? Maybe it’s going to take some time, but don’t quit with it either, because our God is faithful and he wants us to be faithful as well. If you seek Him, you will find Him. He has promised to provide what you need keep going after it.

Yvette Hampton:

What about failure? Because that’s a thing, right? I can see these moms who would try something and it just fails miserably, and that can be really discouraging. How would you encourage that, mom?

Katie Hornor:

I would say failure is perspective number one. Don’t look at it as failing. Look at it as a lesson to learn from, because now you’re not starting from nothing, you’re starting from experience. Right. I’d also say surround yourself with people who can support you. When we started in business and we made that very first offer, we were making an offer to maybe ten people on an email list, right. And nobody bought anything. And I thought I was a failure. Who do I think I am? I don’t know what I’m doing, all this other stuff. It wasn’t until I joined a community of other people who were regularly making offers that I got to learn what the statistics are. Do you know if you have a list of 100 people and two people say yes to your offer? That’s the average that’s normal in the digital marketing world. Right. And so surrounding yourself with people who know the business, understand the business, have up to date data to work with, can really help you with that perception of whether this was truly a failure or whether it’s just an indication that you need to keep going and try again.

Yvette Hampton:

What does it look like for your family? It’s a family business that you have. So your husband works with you. I’m assuming your kids do something, maybe with you, I’m not sure. What does your family dynamic look like?

Katie Hornor:

So I’m the face of the business with the flamingo advantage branding and the flower in my hair, and I do most of the teaching. Right. But my husband, we say he’s the president, so he’s behind all the decision making. He does a lot of behind the scenes logistics. I have a daughter who is a graphic design and video editor and has interned with people like Rachel Peterson and really upped her game even as a teenager and does a lot of work for us. Another one is an artist. My son is learning accounting, so he’s helping behind the scenes with some of those things on a regular basis. And we just work together and what needs to be done today and can you do this, or no, I’ll take that. Or who excels at what and being able to find the right way to do that and being able to compensate. Right. Like in your business. I’m not a CPA, so check with yours to get the specifics for your details and your state. But it’s my understanding, at least from my CPA, that we can pay our kids up to a certain amount of money per year through the business before it becomes taxable to them. And it’s things we would pay people to do anyway, so they may as well be learning those skills. It counts for school and educational experience. And they’re learning to manage their money and manage their workload and learn new skills, develop things that will be sellable later on. And so it’s really been a great blessing for us, but that’s how ours works is sort of a behind the scenes and in front of the scenes perspectives. And it’s just been a real blessing to be able to work together when we need to.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah, being able to count school credit for our kids to be part of our business is such an important thing. Just before you and I actually got on to record, my daughter and I were going through her high school transcript and we were looking at, okay, what are we still needing? What holes do we still need to fill in? It’s her senior year this year, and so she has on there filmmaking for her freshman and sophomore year because we were making a film as a family, we were traveling and filming a documentary. And so actually, when I spoke with HSLDA and I went through her whole transcript with them and I said, she hasn’t taken a film class, but we made a movie. And they were like, absolutely. That is business. It’s a class for her. And it’s so great that we can put those on our kids transcripts because that’s real life learning, right? I mean, the whole point of giving our kids a textbook or teaching them something is so that they can take it into their adult life. Because our kids don’t walk around with a textbook through their adult life asking questions and trying to find the answers in a textbook. We teach them things so that they can go out into the world, into their adult life and be prepared to live the life that God has given to them. And so it is such an advantage and a blessing, not just to us, but to our kids, for them to be able to learn alongside of us as we’re building a business for the kingdom together with the Lord.

Katie Hornor:

Our littles have helped as well. When we do events, they’re behind the scenes, setting up the stage and helping. Some of them are making lunch for us while we’re for our quick breaks in between. My nine year old just did two commercial videos for our book that just came out and she did the voices for the little things and puppeted them and put the video together. It’s just amazing what they can do when you lean into that and give them an opportunity.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah, it’s so funny. You talk about them setting up food. I remember when we were filming for the documentary with Sam Sorbo, and Sam was already there with us. We were just getting ready to start filming and Kevin Sorbo came in. We were at this house in Florida where Kevin was filming a movie, and so he walked in and Brooklyn, my oldest, was setting up our craft services, so we had brought snacks and drinks and stuff for them. So she was setting that up, and Kevin walks in, and Brooklyn was you know, it was just so you know, we’ve since gotten to know their family, and they’re amazing, but it was just so funny that here she is serving this family and walks Kevin Sorbo. And she still remembers that time, and it was a really fun and special time for her. And he was so kind. He came in and he started talking to her know, asking her about the movie and all sorts of things. And so she thought that was really neat. He’s a really nice guy. The sorbells are great. We love their family. I want to ask you first about the flower in your hair. Every picture I’ve seen of you, you’ve got a flower in your hair and some really cool bling going on. Talk a little bit about that. How did this flower come to be?

Katie Hornor:

Yeah, so a lot of people do think the flower is just a branding piece, but it’s actually a big part of our story. When we first started our online business, it was the curriculum business. Then we started coaching. And so in this coaching business, when I started teaching online classes, it was a hot day in the tropics of Mexico. I had littles running around. It was behind schedule, right? And I’ve got to be live on camera in like, two minutes. And so I grabbed my daughter’s headband with a flower and stuck it in my hair. I was like, That’ll have to do, right? Turn on the camera. And here we go. Everybody was like, oh, I love the flower in your hair. And I didn’t think anything about it until the next week when I showed up without the flower. Like, Where’s your flower? That was so cool, right? So I started wearing the flower headband more often, and as I did, it was like the Lord was revitalizing in me, the piece of me that I had shouldered for so long. Back in some of our early ministry. When we first got married, we were told that anything that drew attention to ourselves drew away from the mission, drew away from the gospel that we were trying to share. And so it was discouraged to wear headpieces or earrings or nail polish or anything that would draw attention to you was frowned on. And so I complied. But I didn’t realize that when I did that, I was squashing the things that made me me. And so wearing the flower brought out to me like, I feel pretty with a flower in my hair. And it was like God was saying, yes, that’s how I designed you to love fun and color. And so it became this lesson to me. It’s my daily reminder that I get to show up and be me today. And God loves that. I love the fun and the color in my life. And then as he brought the flamingos into our business, and that became a mascot and a teaching tool for us that also like, you are on the inside what you are on the outside, and one cannot be separated from the other. And so it’s just become my thing that reminds me that this is what I get to be today.

Yvette Hampton:

I love that. Hold tight on the flamingo story because we’re going to talk about that the second half of this podcast. But before we get into talking about flamingos, talk about balance, talk about how can we balance working from home and homeschooling at the same time, how do you do that? What does your day look like?

Katie Hornor:

Well, first of all, I want to remind folks that God says, faithful is he that calls you who also will do it. And so if he’s called you to homeschool, he’s called you to do business, he’s called you to be a wife, he’s called you to all these roles. You don’t have to do it. He does it right. So there’s a calm down, mama moment right there. And just remember that God’s got this. Secondly, whatever he’s given you to do, he’s going to have time for. And so we don’t balance as much as we blend the things that we do and the roles that we have. And so blending for us some days means dedicated time just to business pursuits, like today, dedicated time for podcast. I’ve had three interviews back to back, right? This is a business time slot. But this evening when I walk out of my office and shut the door, it’s dedicated family time, where they know mama’s all on for them. And having those boundaries in your calendar and in your life and being able to honor the people that you’re present with in the moment is super important in learning to blend all of this together at the same time, even though this is a dedicated spot for business today. If one of my kids needed me, they know they can walk into my office because they’re more important, right? And so if there was an emergency, they’re absolutely welcome, and they know that. But if there’s not, they also know they need to wait because Mommy’s doing business. And they know that business benefits the family because we talk about it on a regular basis. It’s not just mom and Dad’s business. It’s what God’s doing for the family through the business. And so they feel like they have more of a part in it. The other thing that we do is my husband and I regularly have planning meetings. We try to get away, like not just at home, at the dining table or in the bedroom, but actually leave the house and go somewhere an overnight or at least a dinner or a bench in the park, somewhere that is neutral, somewhere that is more public so we can’t get angry with one another. Right. And that’s where we do our planning, at least on a quarterly basis so that we can have a day to get on the same page, what’s coming up, what goals do we have in our business, what goals do we have in our family, what trips or what activities are important right. And just being able to get on the same page with the planning and with the dreams and what God might be showing each of us so that we can come back and have a united front to the children. And to the business team and to the public audience that we serve of what is happening in the next, then every day we’re on the same page. Right. Every day there’s a check in that says, hey, what have you got today? Well, I’ve got three podcast interviews back to back. I’m going to need you to keep the kids quiet for that time. Right. Or, I’ve got to go do this errand, or my husband may need to run and help a neighbor fix something or he’s a baseball chaplain here in our city. Right. And so it’s just daily coordination as well with, remember, we’ve got this today, or we’ve got to braces appointment, or there’s that music lesson we got to get him to at 05:00. And just that daily communication that keeps us working as a team and being able to blend the responsibilities in a way that looks beautiful in the end instead of causing friction.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah. I think that one of the other things is for moms maybe who their husband isn’t home, he’s not part of their business, he’s working his job, and now you’re home and you really need to figure out what to do. Making your husband not necessarily part of your business, not as your business partner, but talking with him through whatever it is that you’re trying to do and having him pray with you and for you and taking his advice to heart. And if he’s not supportive of something and if you’re married and your husband’s not supportive of you doing a specific business, I would say, don’t do it. It’s more important to honor your husband and protect your marriage than it is to run with something super important yeah. Than you think is, this is what I want to do, and I’m going to do it no matter what. That can be a really dangerous place to go in your marriage. But if you don’t have a husband, if you’re someone who’s maybe you’re a single mom and you’re having to find a way to bring in some income, find somebody, whether it’s a pastor or maybe the women’s director at your church or your dad or your mom or a neighbor. Somebody who you trust, who you can say, this is what I’m thinking about. Will you pray through this with me? Will you hold me accountable? Will you help me in some way? And have other people in your world who can help walk with you through this journey. Don’t do it alone, because Katie and I, we get to work full time in ministry with our husbands, and it is the greatest blessing. But that’s rare. I mean, most people don’t have that opportunity. And so we’re definitely not the norm, but definitely have someone that you can pray with. I had a mom not too long ago. A few months ago she called me and she was wanting to do a type of business, and it was actually a home school kind of business. And she said, what do you think about this? And I said, Well, I think it sounds great. What does your husband say about it? She said, he doesn’t want me to do it. And I said, and don’t do it. It’s absolutely not worth doing what your husband doesn’t want you to know. Protect your family first. But the other thing I would say is, if you’ve not yet read Dorinda Wilson’s book, the Four Hour School Day. That’s an excellent book. School doesn’t have to take as long as what we think it needs to take. And so school is only take a few hours a day. So block out 4 hours a day or 5 hours a day or however long you need to block out for your kids and be committed to doing that. And then plan your business on the other end of it. School can take place in the evenings or even on the weekends. It does not have to take place Monday through Friday between the hours of eight and three. You can be really flexible with that. So I think that’s important to keep in mind as well. I don’t know how many of you know this about me and about Garrett, my husband of 28, almost 29 years, but we actually met on a mission trip to Mexico. It was my freshman year, in his sophomore year in high school. And we went on a short mission trip. I mean, it was like maybe a week, I think it was during Christmas break. And we went to an orphanage in somewhere near Tijuana, I think, and we got to serve in this orphanage, and that was the first time we ever met each other. I actually remember him sitting in the van as we were getting ready to leave and thinking, oh, he’s really cute. And many years later, six years later, we started dating and then got married quickly thereafter. But it’s funny to think back through the times in Mexico because, of course, we’re from California, and so I’ve been to many, many times, been on many mission trips there from the time I was pretty young. My mom started taking me when I was probably eight or nine, was my first mission trip. And I remember there was a dump, and these people lived near this trash dump, and it was really sad, but just having our eyes open to how other people lived and learning compassion for other people. When you live in modern America, we have this idea that this is how everybody in the world lives. And then you go outside of it sometimes you’re like, oh, that’s not at all. So anyway, Katie, how did you and your family end up in Mexico? I mean, of all the places to go, there’s lots of places to serve the Lord and ways to serve the Lord. What was it about Mexico? How did you end up there?

Katie Hornor:

Well, my husband’s family moved to Mexico when he was in high school. His dad and mom became church planting missionaries on the west side of Mexico. And then he came back to the States to college, which is where we met at some point. I had wanted to be a missionary overseas since I was in 9th grade and was know Spanish was on hand. It was the easiest thing to learn. If God takes me somewhere else, it’ll be easier to learn another language if I learn Spanish, that whole deal. I was already going to go somewhere in college. I was looking at different countries and visiting mission fields and just really searching for where God wanted me to go. And so once we met and married and decided we were going back to Mexico, initially we came to work at a Bible college and were there about two years. And then God moved us to an orphanage ministry on the other side of Mexico, which is where we are now. And just like context, location wise, we are in the part of Mexico that would be like Florida compared to Tijuana under California, which would be like Washington State in the United States, right? So that’s the distance where we are. But then after the orphanage ministry ended, we were helping some church plants and getting some local ministries going here and we were starting a church out of our home and coffee shop ministry when COVID hit and the Lord shut that down. Mexico was shut down much longer than the States was. And my husband is the chaplain for the local baseball team, the Campaign Pirates, and we get to minister to them. And a lot of our ministry is done actually through our coaching clients now ministering to the people that we get to coach in business and in life. And we are still very involved in the Spanish Homeschool movement as well, speaking and consulting there. So our business, I think, has given us a lot more ministry than we ever dreamed possible. I’ll never forget when we ran ads to an online Christian Women’s Bible Summit, right? And the fact that we could spend $100 in Facebook ads at that point and gather 300 women online when we couldn’t even get 20 locally to come to a location and meet with us, it just blew my mind at the potential there is for ministry around the world. When there are no borders because of what we can do on the internet and what an amazing tool that can be for the gospel.

Yvette Hampton:

I love that. Talk about the flamingo advantage. What exactly is that? You’ve mentioned it throughout the whole week. And I have your book. The Flamingo Advantage how to Leverage Unique, Stay Relevant and Change the World. Tell us about this ministry, because I know the book is Take off of the Ministry, but tell us about this ministry and how in the world did you come up with that name?

Katie Hornor:

Well, I always say the flamingos adopted was my family. And I decided to go see Flamingos in the Wild at one point several years ago, because there’s a place close to us here on the coast of Mexico where they migrate. And we thought, oh, well, that’ll make an amazing educational, field trip family experience. So we chartered a local fishing boat. It felt like a tin can on the water. And we took it out, our family and our guide, and went to go find these flamingos in the wild. And I don’t know what I was expecting, yvette, but when we rounded that bend in the river, all I could see was like the blue of the sky and the water and the jungle green on both sides of the river and in the middle, like pink fluffy clouds everywhere. It was such an amazing, unexpected sight. I will never get that picture out of my head. And I was in awe. I think my mouth literally dropped open. But as we got closer to them, I think I expected them to move away or to be scared or to fly off. They didn’t do any of that. The closer we got to them in this shallow river, they just stood there. They just continued to do what they were created to do. They weren’t scared about the tourists. They weren’t scared like we weren’t getting out of the boat because there was crocodiles in that river too, right. They weren’t scared by that either. And we got within several feet of them. And just to see how amazing and confident they were, just standing there doing what God made them to do today. And it was so impactful to me that I couldn’t get it out of my head. When we came home, I started researching flamingos, and the teacher in me was like, oh my goodness. And I could see all of these lessons that lined up for believers and for entrepreneurs especially, right? Like the Flamingo is pink all the way through. It’s colored by what it eats. The color from their food is what colors them. Well, the color from the diet we feed ourselves is what makes us look like we do on the outside, too, physically, emotionally, spiritually. What comes in is what goes out. Right? Feed negative, get negative. Feed positive, get positive. The Flamingo can’t separate himself from the pink. I can’t be who I am on the inside and not have it show on the outside. They can’t just wake up and say, I’m going to be blue today. Right? We can’t say, oh, I’m going to be a Christian this weekend, but not Monday when I go to work. It has to color everything we do. Flamingos don’t survive if they’re isolated. They thrive in community. They have to live in community for their own safety and for their health, right? And when we isolate ourselves from the people who can support us in our calling, we also find ourselves dying. We need to be surrounded by those that can love us and support us. So many of those lessons. So it eventually became a book, right? Because I’m an author too. And so faith, like flamingo, came out first. And that was a devotional book around all of these facts that I’d found out about flamingos and the lessons that it taught me about what it means to walk out your faith in bold color and the that took off. And suddenly clients are sending me flamingos and people are tagging me on social media saying, the flamingo made me think of you in your book. And I started using it more in my teaching and in my business trainings. And then I started thinking, okay, how do we apply this to business? How can we be a flamingo in business? How can we look like all the other people who are doing what we do in our niche and still have that unique voice that calls our people to us? Because flamingos can be just as pink as the next birds and hard for us to tell them apart, but they know each other because each one has a distinct voice, right? And so even if you look like 1000 other people in your niche, you doing what you do the way you do. It calls your people to you. And so that became the flamingo advantage. And the book and the lessons in the book then became the frameworks that we use to teach marketing and client experience to our people and really helping you hone in on that God given uniqueness that is yours. That was given to you to be able to change the world that you touch, to be able to call your people to you and have the impact God wants to make in their life through what he’s given you to do. And the rest is history.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah. Oh, that is such a great story. I love that. And I’m going to go look up more about flamingos. They stink, though. Was it smelly when you went to see them?

Katie Hornor:

Not in the wild, no.

Yvette Hampton:

Really?

Katie Hornor:

Not in the wild.

Yvette Hampton:

That’s so funny. Every time I go to the zoo, I love seeing the flamingos in the zoo. But it’s like you can smell them as you’re walking up to them before you can even see them. You’re like, we’re near the flamingos. They stink, but they are so beautiful. So that is a great story. I absolutely love that talk. Very quickly, we have just a minute left about your coaching business. What is it that you coach people in and how can people find out more? I know you’ve given your website, but give it again. How can people reach you and find out more about you and what you’ve got going?

Katie Hornor:

Well, the thing that we love to do most is our three day training that we host a couple of times a year. That is the Christian marketing retreat. And so for your Christians in your audience, especially if you’re thinking of starting a business, you’ve got a business you want to grow. Consider joining us at one of those. It’s virtual, you can attend from anywhere, but it’s three days of inspiration, of learning to know who your God is and what that means for business and what it means for you and your uniqueness as you market this business to the people God’s bringing to you. We do practical strategies. There’s implementation times, there’s networking times. It’s really a great way to find your flamboyance, find your flock of other flamingos in your network and be able to lean into what God has for you and growing your business. Theflamingoadvantage.com has got all the info about those events, about our coaching program, our mastermind, the books, the podcast, it’s all there.

Yvette Hampton:

Okay, well, thank you so much. It has been so much fun chatting with you this week. Katie, thank you for what you’re doing. Thank you for your encouragement this week. It’s been even an encouragement to me, and I know it has been to our guests as well. We are so grateful for you and appreciate all that you’ve done to grow your business, to serve the Lord and to help others do the same. So thank you for being with us.

Katie Hornor:

Thank you so much. It’s been an honor.

The School of Life

It usually doesn’t take new homeschooling parents long to realize that homeschooling doesn’t – and shouldn’t – look like traditional school. It is one of the greatest blessings of homeschooling that we are able to integrate education, training, discipleship, and even academics into every aspect of life.

Yvette Hampton and Danielle Papageorgiou recently sat down to talk about the freedom and effectiveness of Lifeschooling. In this conversation for The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, Yvette talks with Danielle about her passion for integrating education into every aspect of life, and about discovering our children’s gifts, so that they can thrive in the lives God has called them to.

This leads to an important discussion about the blessing of lifeschooling allowing us to continue to train our children even when we encounter unforeseen circumstances. Whether illness, a move to a new city, or a new baby in the home, lifeschooling allows us to continue to train our children while experiencing all aspects, challenges, changes, and blessings, of REAL LIFE.

Listen to Danielle on The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast (2/17 and 2/19/2020 episodes)

Yvette Hampton:           Hey, everyone, this is Yvette Hampton. Welcome back to The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I have one of my favorite homeschool people in all the world on with me today. She has been on the podcast before, so you may have heard her in the past. If not, you are in for a treat. Her name is Danielle Papageorgiou. Isn’t that a fun name to say? That’s why I’m friends with you, Danielle, because your name is just fun to say. Papageorgiou.

Danielle Papageorgiou: In high school, every girl wanted to marry my husband because they just wanted his last name.

Yvette:                         Probably not the best reason to find a husband.

Danielle:                       Probably not. Yeah, probably not.

Yvette:                         But you lucked out. God blessed you and you ended up with a really good guy. And you have a really great family. We love you guys. So tell us really quickly about your family.

Danielle:                       Okay. I have my husband John. We’ve been married for 20 years now, which I can’t believe. My oldest is 18, Connor. And then I have a girl who is almost 16, and then a little boy who is just a crazy whirlwind and he is eight. So that’s us.

Yvette:                         Yeah. You’ve been homeschooling for how many years?

Danielle:                       Well, I say right from the beginning because I think birth is day one of homeschooling, because we’re always teaching our kids, you know?

Yvette:                         That’s right.

Danielle:                       Right from the womb. And before the… I can’t talk tonight. Before the womb, people read to their kids in their wombs. So, I mean, I say 18 years.

Yvette:                         Yes. Yep. Well, you’ve done a great job of it and it’s always fun to be able to talk to moms who are really committed to discipling the hearts of their children and just pouring into them. We met you a couple of years ago when we attended your Lifeschooling Conference, and that was a new term to us. It was something that we really had done as a family. We just didn’t actually have a name for what we were doing. And so, you’ve got this conference. It’s called the Lifeschooling Conference. And your home ministry really is about how we incorporate schooling into life and life into schooling.

                                    And it’s all about bringing it together and making it just kind of one great big part of our family, because it’s not separate. It’s not like sending your kids to school.

Danielle:                       Exactly.

We are very grateful to have Danielle Papageorgiou as a speaker for the 2020 Homegrown Generation Family Expo. Register for this live, interactive, online homeschool conference today at HomegrownGenereration.com.

Yvette:                         Talk to us about lifeschooling a little bit, and then I actually want to get into talking a little bit about some unforeseen circumstances that might come into our homeschool, because I know you’ve dealt with some of those things. We’ve dealt with some of those things. And so, that will bring some encouragement to families who maybe things just aren’t going smoothly and their whole world is getting shaken up and they’re not exactly sure what to do. So, first, let’s talk about the lifeschooling thing.

Danielle:                       Right. It’s funny that you say you just didn’t have that term for it, because I hear that a lot. People are like, “Oh, well, I guess we’ve been life schoolers.” That was really my heart, is just to, I guess, rebrand the idea of homeschooling because I feel like over the years, it’s really become more and more schooly. And certainly you’ve always had that element because we do what we know. And so, that’s all people have known. They grew up going to school and having the different grade levels and everything’s sort of segmented like that.

                                    But it’s really not the best way, in my opinion. You really have to integrate all of education. I really think there’s a biblical basis for this because when you look at Deuteronomy, I think it’s Deuteronomy 6, and I always mix up if it’s 4 or 6. But anyway, you look at the verses there in that passage, which is very familiar to a lot of us as homeschoolers, and it talks about teaching our children as we walk, by the way, as we sit, and as we just go through life.

                                    And so, if that’s good enough for spiritual things, then why not the academics as well? It just should be this life-integrated approach. So lifeschooling, the official definition is the individualized process of discovering your child’s God-given gifts and talents that happen primarily within the context of your family’s unique situations and missions. And that’s all about our little tagline is emerging life with homeschooling. Because I really want moms to understand, and dads, that it’s okay when things don’t go the way you’ve planned because, typically, life doesn’t.

                                    I mean, in all other areas, how often does life go the way we plan it? It just doesn’t. And that is because God wants to stretch us. He wants to test our faith and he wants us really to rely on him and not on our own plans. A man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps, it says in Proverbs. And so, we need to be open to the Lord’s direction and His leading in our homeschooling. And so, that’s just really my heart, is to help parents just really relax and understand that all of these circumstances that happen are ordained by God and He uses them. And we just need to figure out how that learning can integrate with that, and how we can just make it all work.

Yvette:                         Yes. Yes. I love that you have a whole definition for it, which is really cool because you’ve really thought through this process. I know that you’ve really encouraged me along our homeschool journey over the past few years in that God really does have a purpose and a plan, and has gifted each one of our children in a specific way. I look at your family and your kids, you’re not one who sits down and “We’re going to do math from 7:00 to 7:30, and then we’re going to do science from 8:00 to 8:30, and then we’re going to do grammar. You don’t have your homeschool structured like that.

                                    But knowing your family and knowing your kids, God has really developed in them some incredible gifts. They’re artistic. I mean, your daughter is quite possibly the most amazing artist I’ve ever known of in my life. I’m just stunned by the things that she is capable of doing. They’ve written books. They’ve made movies. They’ve done all of these things. And what’s so cool about your homeschool style and parenting style that I think ties in well with what we really try to do with our girls, is trying to direct our kids to using those gifts and talents and abilities in a way that glorifies their creator because God created them to be able to use those things for His glory, not for ours, but for His glory. And so, lifeschooling allows you to do that.

                                    Then there’s just the practical side of lifeschooling as well. That’s just life. It’s grocery shopping. It’s doctor’s appointments. It’s house cleaning. It’s organization of our home and of our day and trying to just navigate through this life because it doesn’t really come… I mean, some things come easily, but not all of it does. And so, what a privilege we have as homeschool parents to be able to come alongside our kids and help them navigate through the murky waters of life, and at the same time be able to depend on the Lord to help them figure that out.

Danielle:                       Exactly. Well, and it’s funny because we could think all these things are going to just kind of come naturally to our kids, like how to clean the toilet or cooking and all of these things. But they don’t. I remember when I got to where I was about to graduate college and my mom’s like, “Okay, it’s time to learn how to cook.” And I’m like, “I can cook.” I always laugh because my poor husband, when we got married, I didn’t know how to cook. I mean, I made chicken and I’m thinking, “Well, if you just turn the heat up really high, it’ll get done faster.” So he cuts into this chicken that’s burned on the outside and it’s a raw in the middle.

Yvette:                         Oh no.

Danielle:                       And he’s like, “Next time just put it in the trash.” Oh, it was bad. It was bad. And so, all these things are very practical. They’re a part of life and they’re just as important. If not, I think sometimes more important than some of the academics that we think our kids have to know. Like they have to take physics and they have to take chemistry in high school. Well, maybe not. I mean, if that’s not their gifting, God put into them gifts and things that they’re passionate about. And so, we need to really let them do that.

                                    And all the academics… I think of the verse, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Oh, I mean, that’s a promise. And so, I just believe that as you’re seeking God’s kingdom and you’re teaching your kids to seek God’s kingdom and His glory, with the gifts that He has put in them, particularly for them, then all these things are going to be added, and all the academics come in so naturally.

Danielle:                       Studies have shown that when you learn things in this way, they stick much better through this real life, practical type of learning. And so, it’s just very practical. It just makes things a lot easier. Like I said before, when life doesn’t go according to the plan because we know that it doesn’t.

Yvette:                         Yeah, Nope. It almost never does. 

                                    We are talking about lifeschooling and how to integrate that into our homeschooling. And so, we were talking about God-given gifts and how we have the opportunity as homeschoolers and as life schoolers to be able to take notice of those things in our kids. I would love to know just how practically you have done that with your children. How have you recognized and discovered those gifts in them? And then, how have you gone about fostering those gifts in them in order for them to be able to use those for God’s glory?

Danielle:                       Well, it’s a funny thing because a lot of moms will say that to me, like, “How do I find my kid’s gifts?” Or, “I don’t know what they are.” They don’t seem to have any gifts or they just want to play computer games all day long. First of all, and this might be a bit of a tangent, but get rid of the computer games or at least cut them way back. You’ve got to have limits on that because it really stifles their imagination and it really prevents them from being creative and figuring out who it is God created them to be. But besides that, I think it’s really a funny thing because they will just sort of come to the surface. There’s no real magic formula as with anything in life really.

                                    There’s no magic formula that, okay, step one, you do this. Step two. And again, that’s because it’s a faith walk and the Lord wants us to trust in Him. And so, you just have to pay attention to your kids. One of the things that I recently created, that I really love, I use it myself, is a Who Is This Child journal. And so, every day I can write down the little things that I notice, the questions that… Right now, it’s Corbin. He’s my youngest. My older two, they’ve kind of got their path and their direction. And I see gifts in my youngest one already, but it’s been really fun to write down the different questions he’ll ask during the day.

                                    Then there’s another section for what I call sparks, so anything that I notice that really captures his attention. I’ll just write that down and that, this is something that maybe we need to explore a little more. So that’s been a lot of fun in that the bottom, I just have a place where you can write a prayer. So every day you just write out this prayer of just, I don’t know, just whatever comes to your heart as a mom and as you’re watching your child develop. And so, it’s just been a really fun resource for me to learn more about my son because I think a lot of it does go back to simple observation.

                                    Sometimes we’re so caught up in the busy-ness of every day and checking off the boxes and doing all the things that we have to get done as moms and homeschooling moms and wives. And so, we can just forget to pay attention. And so, I just think it’s important to be intentional. And I know that’s a really popular word, but sometimes we really do have to just try to be more intentional about that. It is amazing. I remember my friend, Barbara, I don’t know, maybe four or five years ago was like, “I just don’t know what’s going to happen with my kids, what direction God’s really leading them, or how they’re going to use these guests, what He’s going to do with them.”

                                    And I’m like, “Barbara, it’s amazing because the Lord will just bring people into your path, and he’ll just open these doors that you never would have expected. And then, here we are, and her son, Matthew just finished up a movie, a short film that my kids were involved with. My son’s actually the lead in it, and it was accepted into the Christian worldview film festival as a contestant. And so, it’s just so cool to see that. And then, how the Lord used her daughter’s gift of sewing, because she was like, “I don’t know how that’s going to be used.” And so, she sewed all the costumes for it.

                                    When we just, again, just trust in Him and trust in the process, and don’t get so worried, because really, it’s not up to us. I think we carry that weight and it’s so needless because we’re not the homeschool teacher. God is. We’re just the teacher’s assistant. So we need to just trust that process and trust in Him because if we’re doing our best, how is He going to be unfaithful to that? He’s a faithful God and all He asks for is our best. And it’s usually very imperfect.

                                    I will be the first to tell you, I am the world’s worst at scheduling. And it’s always been a struggle for me. But the Lord still works through that somehow. And so, it always amazes me to see that.

Yvette:                         Yeah. I love that. And I love that you do talk about being intentional. And like you said, that’s a word that we kind of throw around

Danielle:                       Kind of a buzzword.

Yvette:                         Yeah. But it really is an issue of being intentional with our kids, and also being flexible in that when they’re not fitting into our idea of what we think that they should be, or how we think they should act, or what career they want to pursue, whatever that is, it’s not up to us. It is, what has God called them to do, not what do we want them to do. And so, I think it’s one of the great blessings of being a homeschool parent, is that we know our kids better than anyone else knows them.

                                    There are teachers all over the world who genuinely love their students. They really do. Most of them don’t teach because they make a ton of money. They teach because they love kids and they want to have some kind of influence in their lives. Unfortunately, many of them have a really terrible influence, but there are many who have a fantastic influence and who genuinely love the kids. But when you’ve got a classroom full of 20, 30, 40 kids, you cannot individually take each one of those children under your wing and nurture their talents and their abilities and their gifts that God has blessed them with and help them develop those things.

                                    And as homeschool parents and as lifeschooling parents, we have such a great opportunity to do that. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy. Sometimes it’s incredibly inconvenient. When my daughter wants to take out the glue gun and cardboard boxes and fabric and paints and make a big mess, I’m looking at that I’m like, “Okay, what are you going to do here?” Then she comes up with something amazing and beautiful. My oldest is very artistic, and she loves to paint. She loves to draw. But she also likes to create things. And so, she got these boxes for Christmas. She made for her little sister, as a Christmas gift, she made these little kind of… It’s hard to explain, but she made dollhouses out of them.

Danielle:                       How cute.

Yvette:                         But they open and close, and so they can travel with them. It was so cool and it was just such a special gift that she gave to her sister. And she worked for days and days, weeks, actually, on these two portable dollhouses. What a privilege. And so, she would go into her little craft area and she would listen to an audio book and she would make these creations, and what a joy. How fun it was for her to be able to do that. Danielle, we are out of time for this part of the podcast, but let’s come back on Wednesday and let’s talk more, because I want to talk about just how to deal with some of those unforeseen circumstances. We talked about that in the very beginning, and I want to jump on that bandwagon and talk a little bit about that.

Danielle:                       Absolutely. Sounds great.

Yvette:                         Yeah. Thank you, guys, for listening. Join us again on Wednesday. And I forgot to say this at the beginning, but Danielle, she is a special part of the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. And so, if you have not yet participated in that or signed up for that, you can watch it live, or you’ll be able to go back and watch replays of that. So she will be speaking about lifeschooling for that event. It’s going to be awesome. Thanks. We’ll see you guys back on Wednesday.

Danielle:                       Bye.

Yvette:                         I just said that and then I realized this is probably not going to air until after the expo.

Danielle:                       Oh, well, do you need to re-record a little snippet or…

Yvette:                         I’ll do it at the end.

Danielle:                       Okay.

Yvette:                         Okay. Where are we on time? All right. Let’s go another 20 minutes. You good?

Danielle:                       Yep. Let’s do it.

Yvette:                         I want to talk about something that not a lot of people really discuss in the homeschool world, but pretty much everybody that I know who homeschools deals with this in one way or another. And that’s how to deal with unforeseen circumstances. There are so many things. Danielle and I were talking about this earlier, and how there are so many things that disrupt our homeschooling.

                                    It could be illness. It could be just a short stint of illnesses, the flu making its way through your family. It could be chronic illness that you have to deal with day in and day out. It could be a move. It could be having a new baby. It could be having a mother or father-in-law, or grandparent, or somebody move in with you that you now have to care for. There are so many things that can derail us. And so, I want to talk about how to handle some of those things.

                                    Danielle, I would love for you to talk a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your family in the sense of this, because I know that there have been some really difficult things that your family has dealt with, but you and your husband, you’ve stayed the course. You have been faithful to what God has called you to do even through the really, really hard times, and you have trusted Him for the outcome. So talk with us a little bit about your story.

Danielle:                       Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to make the point, before I forget, that we have to always remember that at the heart of our homeschooling needs to be relationships. So, first of all, is the relationship that we have to the Lord, and that our children have to the Lord. And then, secondly, is our interpersonal family relationships. I think that if you really keep the main thing, the main thing, and focus on the fact that the relationships have to be the priority, everything else kind of falls into place.

                                    We have dealt with chronic illness in our family for just about our entire marriage. My husband got sick with Lyme disease. It was about two years after we were married. And so, that’s always been a struggle in our family. I’m thankful that he works from home and works in IT, which is something he could do in his sleep. I don’t know how. But God’s just really gifted him in that area. And so, that’s been a blessing that he could be home.

                                    And, of course, me being the homeschooling mom, it didn’t really affect our homeschooling all that much, really. It affected our family in the sense that we just really did not do a lot of family things. And still don’t. Going out to the grocery store is like a family event. If my husband goes and my daughter will be like, “Oh, I want to go.” And so, I think just cherishing those things too is important.

                                    One thing we have always done is had family movie night, and that’s almost sacred to my children. We can’t do anything outside the home on family movie night because that just doesn’t happen. So it’s special time with our family that the kids really treasure. So I think it’s important to have those types of things. But recently, really it was a steady decline for both my children. But first we noticed in my daughter, she would complain about not sleeping very well. And this went on for a number of years. But sometimes you just don’t really know how to help your kids. It’s like, well, take more calcium and magnesium and do this and that.

                                    It was just hard to figure out what was going on. And eventually, through series of circumstances, the Lord led me to do a little more research. She really had like a crash. I enrolled her in this camp and she’s like, “I just don’t think I can do it.” I’m like, “Well, just try to go for one day because we paid for it.” And by the end of the day, I literally almost had to carry her out to the car. She was just so exhausted, and I’m like, “Lord, what do I do?”

                                    And so, we got home and He just really led me to, I don’t even know why, but to research adrenal fatigue. And it turned out she checked off all of the boxes for adrenal fatigue. 

                                    So she’s been struggling with this for probably going on a year now, that we knew about. But it’s been much longer. And just thinking, it’s just really, really hard for her right now. Reading, huge challenge, even audio books, but she does a ton of artwork. And you’ve seen her art.

Yvette:                         Amazing.

Danielle:                       Just the things that the Lord is teaching her through this. And I just want to say something here too. It’s okay if your kids get behind, okay? Like maybe she won’t graduate on time, but what is that? That’s, that’s something that is imposed on us. And so, again, we just have to protect our children and if they can’t do something, we have to protect their health. If I force her to do things that she literally cannot do, the stress level goes up. The cortisol levels increase and it’s just this cycle. And she will literally have an adrenal burnout.

                                    Again, this is her health we’re talking about. What is more important? We have to protect our children. So it’s okay if they get behind. There is no behind in homeschooling. I just want to stress that. She does the things that she can do, and we’re okay with that.

Yvette:                         And you’re also talking about a girl who she does well on her state testing.

Danielle:                       Right. Right.

Yvette:                         The girl has written a book. I mean, she literally-

Danielle:                       She wrote a book, yes.

Yvette:                         … authored a book.

Danielle:                       She started at age nine.

Yvette:                         Which is incredible.

Danielle:                       So if you think of it in that sense, she was ahead and now she’s not as ahead. And she’ll catch up, because that mental capacity, it’s still there. Once she heals, she is going to skyrocket ahead to where she was, and I truly believe that. And so, it does not stress me. We just can’t let it stress us. We have to protect our children and their health.

                                    My son recently, you never expect to deal with these kinds of issues in your kids. But he’s sleeping more and more, and I’m thinking, “Well, he’s a teenage boy. He’s growing.” But then it was like all day long, he’s sleeping and he’s missing meals. So I’m like, “Something is wrong,” And praise the Lord, He led us to a wonderful natural doctor. He’s been helping both my kids now and my husband. But she did testing on him and his cells were not taking in nutrition. He’s really bad off.

                                    He’s graduated. And so, we don’t have that pressure. But it’s hard for a young 18-year-old guy who really wants to just jump into his IT career and really start doing life to be slowed down. But, again, I just see the lessons that the Lord is teaching him through this, and that he has to be patient and wait on the Lord and just learn to trust in Him, because my son is a planner. He when he was young, I mean, you can imagine two people like me and my son. I’m total not planner at all, and my son is super scheduled.

                                    So every night when I would tuck him in, from like three or four or five years old, he’s like, “Okay, what are we doing tomorrow? What’s the schedule?” And it used to drive me crazy. I’m like, “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.” And so, this has been good for him because he said, “I had learned to let go of all the details, but I still wanted God to give me this general direction of where I’m headed. And now, the Lord is just saying, “Nope, you’ve just got to trust me completely, and you don’t know what tomorrow brings, and you don’t know how you’re going to feel, and you just have to trust me.” Yeah. So it’s been an interesting journey for both of them.

Yvette:                         Yeah, it has. I want to just put this disclaimer in there for you, in that you are one of the most healthy people I know, in regards to how you prepare food for your family. And so, you talked about his cells not being able to take in nutrients. It’s not because of lack of them. It’s not that you’re not providing those for him. It’s just that his body is going through something difficult right now and you’re helping to try to figure out how to help him overcome that.

Danielle:                       Yeah. Right, right. And it’s just a testament that no matter how healthy you try to be, we can’t do everything perfectly in this fallen world no matter how hard we try.

Yvette:                         Yeah, oh, sure. I mean-

Danielle:                       Better trust in the Lord.

Yvette:                         We all know people who eat donuts and drink Pepsi all day long and they’re like the healthiest people we know.

Danielle:                       I know, or seem to be anyway.

Yvette:                         We were talking about how to deal with unforeseen circumstances in our lives. And she’s talking about how her family has dealt with some just different chronic illnesses. And we often, as homeschool parents, come face to face with things that are just hard, whether it’s a move or the loss of a job or a new baby. So in this last half, Danielle, I would love for you to really just offer some encouragement to parents who are dealing with that, who are on that side of it and they’re just like, “I don’t know what to do. I’m ready to put my kids back in school.” Not because they think that’s the best option for them, but because they feel like their whole life is just unraveling and their foundation has been shaken up so badly that they don’t know what to do. They don’t know what to cling to. So can you offer some advice and just hope and encouragement for those parents?

Danielle:                       Yeah. Well, there’s so many things that you can do. Again, I think it’s more the way you look at things and your perspective. We have to, first of all, like I’ve been saying, we have to have that perspective really of an eternal perspective, and what is truly most important. When your kids graduate someday, who is it that you want them to be? Not necessarily what is it you want them to learn. That’s important, but who is it that you want them to be because character has to come first.

                                    And so, how can you get them from point A to point B to be that person that you want them to be? I believe that God has equipped every parent to be the best person to instill that character and training into their child to help them develop into who God wants them to be. Then just, I would say, from a practical standpoint in this idea of learning to change your perspective, it’s great if… And this is another resource that I have is a lifeschooling vision planner. And one of the things in there that I really love is this backwards method of planning.

                                    It’s going through your day after the fact and writing down in all the different subject areas and categories, what your child learned that day and what they did. Because it’s very surprising. When you start to document those things, there’s a lot of academics that happens just in your day-to-day routine and going about life. It’s always surprising to me when my children will throw out all these science facts and I’m like, “Where did you learn that?” “Oh, Jonathan Park.” I don’t know if you’re familiar with that series.

Yvette:                         Oh yes.

Danielle:                       But yeah, they grew up on that, and we have all of the CDs and they listened to those and absorbed it. And they recall that stuff later. And so, I think audio books are excellent because it stimulates the imagination. You can pop them in any time. If you’ve just had a baby, just give your kids audio books, give them lots of audio books and lots of real books too because they’re going to absorb all of that stuff and they don’t need you hovering over them all the time to instill the information into them.

                                    We feel like we have to spoon feed our kids, and they’re natural learners. We just have to encourage that, encourage that natural learning and finding that spark and what excites them, and letting them run with it and learn all about that. Because, again, more academics come in to those different things they’re interested in. You’ll find that just all the different subject areas, how they naturally come in when they find something that they really love to do. So, from a practical standpoint, that’s one thing that we’ve really found beneficial.

Yvette:                         Yeah. Yeah. And I think just, we’ve talked a lot about this already, is just trusting the Lord, allowing Him to lead you to lead your families. When we read James chapter 1, it talks about asking for wisdom and it says if you ask for wisdom, the Lord will give it to you. And I think oftentimes we forget that. We forget to ask, Lord, what do you want me to do with this? How do you want me to proceed? How do you want us to move forward with this child who maybe they’re struggling with an illness or, again, maybe we’ve just had a big move and my child is having a really, really difficult time adjusting.

                                    In those times, it’s okay to step back and just say, “You know what? We just moved.” We have some good friends who are just going through a move right now and they’ve got six kids.

Danielle:                       Oh wow.

Yvette:                         That’s a huge, huge deal. And not all of their kids are going to handle it well. And so, you know what? It’s okay to just step back, take a break and just say, you know what? This is one of the reasons why we homeschool, because we have the freedom to be able to do what works best for our family. And in situations like that, they’re still learning. Like you said, they’re learning now how to organize a home. How do you move into a new home? How do you lay everything out? How do you put everything away and figure out where things are going to go in the kitchen, and in the bathroom, and you decorate the walls.

                                    I mean, there are so many life lessons and that’s why I love so much of your ministry, Danielle, because it’s all about lifeschooling. I’ve said this on the podcast many times before. We are raising adults. We are not raising children. We are raising them to become functional, responsible, Jesus-loving adults. It’s not about the academics. The academics are fantastic. They’re important because those are what point them to Jesus, but we’re really raising our kids to be able to go out into the world and function and have some sort of an impact in God’s kingdom. That’s what it’s all about.

                                    It’s not about, did they become valedictorian and get to give an amazing speech in front of 5,000 people at the end of the year? Who really cares about that staff? Honestly. When they come face to face with their savior, he’s not going to say, “Well, how was that speech you gave?” He’s going to say, “What did you do with the talents and abilities and gifts and the hardships that I put before you?” And we realize over and over again, we are so incapable of doing the things that God has called us to do without Him. And when we get to accomplish a thing, He gets all the glory for it. And so it ends up being-

Danielle:                       Exactly. Exactly.

Yvette:                         … such a beautiful thing.

Danielle:                       That’s one of the things that really has always bothered me because our culture does put such an emphasis on academics and intelligence and all of these things. And as Christians, that’s just not what we should be doing. It’s okay to learn a lot and to use those gifts if you’re academically inclined. I think that’s wonderful. But we have to be careful as parents that we don’t let that go to our heads and get prideful about valedictorian, all these things because really, in eternity, that’s not what really matters. God really doesn’t care about that. He cares about what we do with the gifts and the talents that he gives us and how we give glory to Him.

Yvette:                         Right. Right. And He wants us to do our best. We always tell our kids, “Work as unto the Lord. In everything we do, we should do for His glory.” And so, we should always do our best. You talked earlier actually about some kids are inclined to learn chemistry and physiology, but not every kid is. Some are created to be historians and some are created to be scientists. Some are created to be mathematicians. Some are created to be moms. Some are created to be pastors and truck drivers. I mean, there are a million business owners. There are a million different things that God can use us for. So, we have the opportunity to be able to foster that in our kids and encourage them in the way that God created them, even through the hardships and bumps that are thrown at us through life.

                                    We are out of time for the podcast. But Danielle, I appreciate you so much. I love your heart for families. I love your heart for homeschooling. And I am so grateful that you took the time to sit and chat with me today. Thank you so much.

Danielle:                       Thanks, Yvette. I love you guys too. It’s always good to talk with you.

Yvette:                         Thank you. Yeah. Where can people find out a little bit more about you?

Danielle:                       Well, you can go to lifeschoolingconference.com, and I’m actually rebranding, so lifeasalifeschooler.comwill also take you there. We’ve got a blog and lots of information on there and encouragement.

Yvette:                         Okay, sounds great. Well, thank you, guys, for listening. Have a great rest of your week and we will see you back next week. Bye.

Danielle:                       Bye.

Ready to take your children back? Stream Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution for free tonight and learn how. After you have watched the movie, download the Free Homeschool Survival Kit. This free 70+ page resource will give you the encouragement and tools you need to start strong and finish well. 

Photo by Rowan S on Unsplash – Child with Chickens

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash – Girl Running in Field

Photo by Jordan Rowland on Unsplash – Girl in Grapevines

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash – Boy with Dumptruck in Sand

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash – Child Playing with Leaves

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash – Girl in Field of Flowers