I saw this on Dominion Family's blog - an account of their school history. Thought it would be fun to write mine up:

     Kindergarten. We lived across the street from the big red brick schoolhouse. I loved my teacher, Miss Scoby who always had a smile and said "I'm proud of you". I loved kindergarten. I had friends there. My cousins & brother & I would go across the street and walk up the spiral fire escape and then slide down (not during school time).

     1st & 2nd grade. We moved to the country and went to Excelsior School. I must have learned to read here; I remember the teacher giving me some word cards to work on. I went down in the basement and spread them all out to work on them. Once when I was sharpening my pencil I looked out the window & saw a meadowlark. I thought, "Oh, that's the state bird of Kansas." My cousins also went to that school. We played hide 'n seek and darebase and other games outside. One time for our afternoon water break there was no water, so the teacher said, just swallow 3 times and you won't feel so thirsty. When I didn't have anything to do, there was a doll I could play with and put different outfits on her. This school was okay, but I really wanted to go on with my kindergarten friends.

     3rd-4th grades. My teacher was Miss Bauman. My mother remarried the spring before (my father had died when I was 3 1/2) and we moved to a different farmhouse, so went to the small town school. I didn't really like the teacher very much - she was teacher for both years.

     5th-6th grades. Mrs. Miller was 5th grade teacher and expecting a baby. No memerable memories. I must have learned something. Mr. Pollack was 6th grade teacher and not too organized. My baby brother was born in Dec. Mr. Pollack broke his leg in the spring rollerskating and quit & Mrs. Marti finished out the school year. I don't remember anything academically special in that year.

     7th-8th grades. Mr. Sheldon was our teacher. He was good and really liked Amer. History. I couldn't keep all those characters straight. He had me pitch on the girls softball team; all those times playing softball w/ my family must have helped.

     9th-12th grades. I liked typing, sewing in Home Ec., playing the trombone in band, going to football & basketball games. I can't think of any more of the classes I liked. I didn't mind essay questions because I could put a bunch of words down & he gave me a decent grade.

     There's my education in a small nutshell. Then I went to college & that's a whole other story.

Britain became the first "foreign" field for the many Irish Celtic missionaries, who burned with love for Christ, fearing no peril or hardship and went everywhere with the Gospel. The church in Britian would later become enmeshed in the Roman Catholic system, but it was the land of Britain that would centuries later provide the empetus for global evangelism of the 19th century.

The Celtic missionaries conducted a purer (than the Roman Catholics) form of missionary work. They would visit a country & found a missionary village, a church in the center and school-rooms and huts for the monks around it who were preachers and teachers. Outisde this were dwellings for students and their families and a wall enclosed all of it. Groups of 12 monks would go out and share the Gospel and the rest would stay to teach and learn the language of the people in order to translate the scripture for the people. The missionaries were free to marry or remain single. Gradually, they trained the local people to carry on the work of the Gospel and train them in handicrafts and languages and how to explain the Gospel to others. They delayed baptism until the convert was well grounded in the faith. This was all independent of Rome and the Roman Catholic church.

Columba was one of the most famous of these Celtic abbot-missionaries. He was born into an Irish family in 521 & brought up in the Christian faith. He entered a monastery & was ordained a deacon, then a priest. He established many churches & monasteries in Ireland.

He switched to "foreign" missions at age 42 because of his apparent hot temper and quarrels and got into war with King Diarmuid. A battle was fought in which 5000 men were killed. Columba fled from Ireland in 563 and resolved to convert as many souls as had fallen.

He established his headquarters just off the coast of Scotland on Iona and established a monastery, which provided training for evangelists. Columba is credited with having evangelized the Picts who livled in the Scottish highlands. Through his witness, King Brude, who reigned over the northern Picts, was converted.

Although Columba's missionary efforts were important, there were many other missionaries from Ireland and elsewhere doing evangelism in this area who were not associated with him. There was strong competition between Roman Catholic and Celtic missionaries and the Catholics eventually gained the upper hand. The initial work of evangelizing much of Britain & central Europe was accomplished by the energetic & faithful Celtic monks.

Patrick is Ireland's great 5th century missionary, but he was neither a Roman Catholic nor an Irishman. He was born into a Christian family in the Roman province of Britain about A.D. 389. His father was a "deacon" and his grandfather a priest in the Celtic church; most clergy were married at that time.

In Patrick's mid teens his town near the west coast of Britain was invaded by a band of Irish plunderesrs and Patrick among many young boys was carried away to be sold as slaves. Patrick was sold to a farmer of Slemish, where he herded swine for 6 years.

Patrick had no personal faith in God, but during this time, as he wrote, "The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelief, that, late as it was, I might remember my faults and turn to the Lord my God with all my heart; and He had regard to my low estate, and pitied my youth and ignorance, and kept guard over me even before I knew Him, and before I attained wisdom to distinguish good from evil; and He strengthened and comforted me as a father does his son."

He felt led to escape to the sea-coast and there was a ship that took him to the French Riviera, where he secluded himself in a monastery for a time. Later he went to his home where God called him back to Ireland. First he studied at a church in Gaul and became a deacon. After the age of forty he arrived in Ireland (in 432).

Most people in Ireland were pagans who worshiped the sun, moon, wind, water, fire & rocks. Patrick faced stiff opposition from the druids, but some were converted. There was the issue of "power encounter" which Patrick tried to prove himself a mightier druid than the pagan druids instead of relying on the power of the Christian message. This type of superstitious magic continued for centuries in Celtic Christianity.

Patrick convinced King Loigaire to grant religious toleration for Christians. The converted King's brother granted Patrick land for a church in his domain. By 447, after 15 years of preaching, much of Ireland had been evangelized. He wrote his Confession, which tells us much about his life and times.

Patrick's methods of evangelism:

1. win the political leader in hopes that his subjects would fall in behind him by giving lavish gifts on local rulers.

2. He  placed great emphasis on spiritual growth (unlike many Roman Catholilc missionaries).

Patrick planted some 200 churches and baptized about 100,000 converts and credited God with all his accomplishments.

Missionary to the Goths. Missionaries during the time of Emperor Constantine in 312 began to be sent out for political reasons of bringing outlying areas within the scope of Roman control. Ulfilas was one of these, but his motivation was the desire to spread the gospel.

He was born in 311 in present-day Romania and raised in the pagan environment of the Goths, a barbarian tribe outside the Roman empire. He did diplomatic service under Constantinople and came under the influence of Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia; he learned the Scriptures in Greek & Latin and served as a "reader."

At age 30 Ulfilas was consecrated Bishop to the Goths who lived north of the Danube. He worked among the Goths for 40 years successfully, but hampered by persecution. For safety, in 348, he moved his Gothic Christian community across the Danube into safer Roman territory. Some of these people later returned to their people to serve as missionaries.

Ulfilas translated the Bible into the Gothic native tongue, an unwritrten language for which he developed an alphabet. He was successful in rendering an almost word for word translation from the Greek without losing the Gothic idiom and the Goths & Vandals both carried it with them moving from place to place in Europe.

Ulfilas died at the age of 70 while on a mission to Constantinople for the Gothic king. The gospel continued to be preached by the Goths even throughout many military campaigns.

V. Raymond Edman said, "Their doctrine, perhaps, was defective; their hearts were not. They sought service, not security; comradeship in Christ, not a cathedral; discipleship, not domination."

doctrine - Ulfilas professed a mild form of Arianism, as he concluded that, though Christ was sinless and unchangeable and the Savior of mankind, he was essentially different from the Father and was therefore not God. This doctrine was overruled at the Council of Nicaea, but many of the churchmen, such as Ulfilas, mainly in the eastern portion of the empire, continued to hold this view.

http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/ulfilas.php>Ulfilas

POLYCARP, much loved bishop of Smyrna

In A.D. 156, anti-Christian persecution broke out in Asia. Fellow believers urged Polycarp to go into hiding. He was discovered in a hay loft and arrested. He had been a very influencial bishop for 50 years and now he was 86 years old.

The authorities wanted from him a denial of faith. Polycarp answered: "The fire you threaten burns for a time and is soon extinguished; there is a fire you know nothing about - the fire of the judgment to come and of eternal punishment, the fire reserved for the ungodly. But why do you hesitate? Do what you want."

The execution of Polycarp had been instigated and carried out by pagan officials, urged on by anti-Christian mobs, but the end result was a victory for the Christians.

Polycarp's death ended the outbreak of persecution in Asia, paving the way for others to declare their faith in Christ.

As homeschool often goes (here anyway), we are ditching American History until later and going back to Diana Waring's Romans, Reformers & Revolutionaries and beginning by reading the first 100 pages or so of From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya by Ruth A. Tucker. I think it is very interesting - I don't think Angela catches my enthusiasm, but thought I'd post a few notes here of the key points:

CHRISTIANITY & MISSIONS are very much linked from the get go. The HEART of FAITH = GO FORTH with the GOOD NEWS!

What made it easy to spread the Gospel in the 1st century?

1. ROMAN ROADS

2. GREEK was the UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

3. AVAILABLE SYNAGOGUES to meet in (until they started cracking down on it and giving Christians trouble)

Every Christian was a missionary.

Tertullian said, "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church."

PAUL the APOSTLE

Christian missions started with the New Testament church.

Matthew went to Ethiopia

Andrew went to Scythia

Bartholomew went to Arabia & India

Thomas went to India

Thomas resisted his call to India and ended up being carried off as a slave to India. There was a King Gundobar who became converted to Christianity. There are still "Thomas Christians" who worship in Southwest India.

PAUL was the greatest missionary.

5 means through which CHRISTIANITY penetrated the ROMAN EMPIRE:

1. PREACHING & TEACHING of EVANGELISTS

2. PERSONAL WITNESS OF BELIEVERS

3. ACTS of KINDNESS and CHARITY

4. FAITH SHOWN in PERSECUTION and DEATH

5. INTELLECTUAL REASONING of EARLY APOLOGISTS

I am nervous! Today is my son's first day of real school. He is taking computer & biology at the community college. I think he will do fine, after all, he tested as a freshman, so he will be finishing out a few things at home - U.S. History, Spanish & Health. Also I want him to take A Beka Economics & maybe Consumer Math. He is a junior & will be 17 in March. Then in the fall lhe will go full time and get those credits cranked out - the more the better the sooner is my idea of a good idea.

Angela is doing some of these picture blends for part of her computer credit. She does a great job, don't you think?? The middle,  upper right & lower left is Sheila, my sister, Angela's aunt, but sadly she never got to know her since Sheila died in 1973.

I ran across this website and thought I'd save it. My in-laws have been to Scotland. My husband is mostly Scottish - interesting to know about homeschooling there.

homeschooling in Scotland

Yesterday I spent a bunch of time on the computer trying to find a good U.S. History curriculum for my daughter who I'm trying to get as many H.S. credits going as possible. I ended up buying U.S. History the Easy Way - by Barrons from Amazon for less than $10 (including postage). It will be sort of a self-designed course, but I believe we can make it work. Praise the Lord for answered prayer. We have Diana Warings Romans, Reformers & Revolutionaries, but we can do that later, plus they haven't finished writing it yet; should get the rest of it by spring or summer, so on with U.S. History!! I really enjoy Rainbow science too - it's 7th-9th grade so counts for H.S. It is more expensive, but looking around for science lab. supplies has never worked for me and it comes with everything needed and will fulfill H.S. lab requirements by filling out the lab book and they only want us to spend 3 days a week on it - how perfect could it get?!!

Happy New Year to everyone!!

I see the school buses are running today but we are doing a minimal amount of school here at home. My plan is to go see The Nativity. I heard it was really good.

We saw the movie and I wasn't disappointed - very good.

INTRO - we homeschool 2 teenagers and now that high school is upon us I'm looking into video schools and found this excellent site. My son is now enrolled in some community college classes for the spring and will soon be out of the woods concerning homeschool classes.

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