"How Do I Do It?"

"How do you do it?" I get this question a lot. Almost everywhere we go, from almost everyone we meet, I get some version of this question. People at every church we visit ask this. Phil Robertson, from Duck Dynasty, asked it in his own unique way: "How many do you HAVE?" LOL.

Behold, children are a heritage of the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Psalm 127:3

You see, I'm a single homeschooling mom of the youngest 8 of my 12 children. I know many parents who have as many children as I do, and sometimes many more children, many who've adopted, and some who've adopted kids affected by trauma. Mine is actually one of the smaller large families I know but I realize most people aren't familiar with any large families, or large adoptive families, or kids with trauma histories. It is the PTSD and trauma history, and the behaviors that result from that, as well as my reactions to those behaviors, that escalated and brought this family into a crisis situation just 2 years ago. I had children busting holes in walls regularly, running away, fighting at school and getting suspended, barely passing their classes, harming themselves, ... one threatened suicide and another attempted suicide. Twice.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Romans 12:12

We traveled PT in our RV for 3 years before we hit the road FT. Before that, we couldn't ever leave our home town for very long, or go very far at that time. Our lives were dictated by medication cocktail regimens and doctor appointments: monthly psychiatrist visits, monthly social worker visits, biweekly or weekly therapist sessions, and a plethora of other specialist appointments. There also were random episodes interacting with local law enforcement, runs to the crisis hospital, and CPS calls from the public schools, not to mention the occasional broken door, hole in the wall, overturned furniture, etc.
How did I turn all this around? I didn't. I couldn't. God did. What I did do was seek Him and His guidance with all I had. Sadly, this was my last resort, what I tried when all else had failed, when the situation had gotten so totally out of control. It should have been my first option. It certainly was the only viable option. It has been my greatest desire to get my children to know, and feel, God's love for them, and my love for them, even in my completely imperfect brokenness.

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. Lamentations 3:25

Our journey began after I adopted 3 brothers. One kept asking me to take them to church. I had gone to church in the past but, due to behaviors and false accusations of a previously adopted child, I felt shunned by that church. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Plus, I did work all week. I was tired on weekends, there were lesson plans to do, etc. After months of begging, I finally conceded to search for a church family for us. I Googled all churches in my area with the things I like in a service: modern music, Sunday school, youth activities, etc. Each weekend, we attended one or more services at different churches until we found one or two we liked and began attending regularly: Sunday school and Sunday service. That's not what did it for us, though, but it did open the doors.

Seek the Lord and his strength; seek His presence continually. 1 Chronicles 16:11

We started getting involved in more biblical learning opportunities. My children started attending bible study and youth group. They came home one night with a small booklet called 30 Days with Jesus or 40 Days with Jesus. I forget which one, exactly, but the idea was we had to READ this every single day for a month or more. I was still working at that time. Finding 30 minutes per day to read a devotional seemed impossible. However, we did it. We found the time each night. It got us into the habit of reading together each night. We used to read together some nights, usually fiction novels, but we started reading the bible together. We really started to enjoy it. Reading the bible used to be a daunting task for me, and I certainly never thought my children would understand it, but the more we went to church and listened to sermons about bible passages, the more we learned the major themes presented throughout the bible and comprehending it became much easier.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Then, I was listening to KLove one day and they were asking people to take the "30-day challenge": listen to only Christian music for 30 days and see how your life changes. OK. Challenge accepted. We listen to almost nothing but Christian music these days. Listening to Christian music has helped us feel better. The mood and climate of my family has been completely transformed. The music encourages us and keeps us focused on God. Some songs have brought me to tears and have really spoken into my life. I highly recommend it.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James 4:8

Even after these steps, my family was still a hot mess. I kept seeking help for them. Therapy increased. Meds changed. I tried desperately to find a self-help or support group for teen boys who'd been abused/neglected. I found such a group for girls but none for boys. Then, quite by accident, I found Celebrate Recovery with its Landing program for teens and Celebration Place for children. We attended meetings every Thursday night over an hour away from our home. This program helped heal my heart of its past hurts, which I never realized were there affecting my life as much as they were, and my youngest children loved it. My teens were OK with it but it did bring out PTSD flashbacks for one and we had to stop going for awhile. We did get back to it and now they all love it. We still attend and always learn something new about ourselves or about God's will for our lives.

And those who know Your name put their trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. Psalm 9:10

My home church also offered some classes to teach people how to be disciples in Christian counseling. I took every class offered, at any church I could, in an effort to learn how to best help my family. I also learned a lot from the Post Institute regarding how best to react respond to my children in the midst of their behaviors. I found some videos by Christine Moers, who is now a therapeutic parenting coach and have gotten some precious, treasured advice from her that really helped me help my son in the midst of his depression. He began to improve. We found a little help and healing from everything but found our greatest help, hope, and healing from God Himself through our relationship with Jesus Christ.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. James 1:5

Attending church-related programs almost daily really took it's toll on us, however. By Thursday mornings we could barely get up for work and school. I lost my job in all the chaos and my boys were constantly being suspended anyway so, I started homeschooling them. I pulled them out 2 at a time until they were all home. Each time a new child joined our family, or each time we started slipping back into chaos, we retreated from life and simply stayed home reading the bible together until our focus was on God and His will for us. One by one, my children's hearts were healed. One by one, they accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. One by one, they were transformed. One by one, they went off all medications. I would say I started seeking God earnestly about 2 years ago. I started teaching my children to be Jesus seekers shortly thereafter. I will be forever grateful for all He has done for us. We each have a testimony to share and it has become part of the reason we travel. We travel to raise awareness of the need for forever families for the many children waiting to be adopted and to give hope and encouragement to other families struggling with the effects of past trauma on their children. That's not to say we don't have days with struggle. We do. Despite our struggles and mistakes, God is working in our lives. We are free. Free in every way, including medication-free. Living under God's grace, mercy, and love.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

We finally launched and traveled FT for 6 months before we had to leave the road to do another adoption. Now, we wait. We are taking advantage of this opportunity to be stationary by involving ourselves in youth group ministries, bible studies, Celebrate Recovery, and fellowship opportunities at our home church as well as educational opportunities in the area. Because I've been homeschooling/roadschooling for almost three years now, year-round, my older children caught up with their peers and were able to graduate high school early in order to go to college. So, they're taking classes at a local college. I have no doubt God will work in my future children's lives the way He has faithfully worked in ours. Gotta love that!

The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise Him, my father's God, and I will exalt Him. Exodus 15:2

My Chloe Bug

This girl is the baby of our family. I adopted her when she was 7 years old. She was developmentally delayed, which caused her to get hurt by other children running and playing around her, creating in her a great deal of fear: fear of falling down, fear of steps, fear of heights, fear of jumping, fear of walking over jetty rocks, fear of cracks in sidewalks .... you name it, she feared it. In her fear, and with her diagnosis of autism, she'd often melt down into a raging tantrum. Many. Times. Each. Day. Her anxiety caused her to self harm. When I met her, she was taking 21 pills per day under psychiatric care. Today, she is medication-free, thanks to her relationship with Jesus.
Yes, Chloe still struggles at times with self-control, fear, and anxiety, but she has learned to Google bible verses that help her in these areas. I didn't realize how much fear she had overcome until she jumped into the pool at a campground one day. I asked her how she was able to jump in like that after years of resisting. She said, "I just prayed about it and did it. God helped me not be scared."
Chloe's favorite bible verse is Ephesians 6:11:

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

Back to "Who We Are"

Who We Are

We are a large, racially mixed, adoptive, homeschooling/roadschooling, Christian family. Our desire is to share our testimonies of how God's love healed our hearts and brought us all together as a family while repairing broken relationships with others. We were a family in crises. Broken. Now we are a family filled with the love, peace, and hope found in Jesus Christ. We hope other families will find peace, hope, and encouragement from our stories. I will add testimonies to this page as they are written.

It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. Daniel 4:2
Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon His name; make known his deeds among the peoples! 1 Chronicles 16:8
But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect; 1 Peter 3:15

Alison

God has chosen you to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27

Daniel

He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. Daniel 6:27

Richard

I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

Arthur

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Mercy

Chloe

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Ephesians 6:11

My Arthur

I asked my children to give me their favorite verse and to write a testimony for our blog. My Arthur said, "Well, you already know my favorite verse and I wake up every morning. That's my testimony." He's right, I do know his favorite verse:

"... For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future..." Jeremiah 29:11

Arthur's "testimony" is so fitting for him. As long as I've known him, he has always woken up each morning full of energy and with a huge smile on his face. I adopted Arthur when he was 9 years old. He was the one boy who drew me to the sibling set of 3 that I adopted that year. Him and his life of struggles. He had bounced around from home to home, from residential treatment program to residential treatment program. He was angry, volatile, violent and destructive. He hated himself, his birth mother, probably me many times, and God. He was hospitalized many times for his behaviors, which later included suicide attempts.

Each heart knows it's own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy. Proverbs 14:10

Even with all the chaos, he still woke up every morning renewed.
I will never forget the day I was talking to him in our RV, shortly after he came out of the hospital, and his face just changed. It was as if a light bulb suddenly turned on. We had been seeking Jesus wholeheartedly for about a year. It's as if all the bits and pieces finally fell into place. He put his life into prospective from a biblical view. He stopped hating. He stopped holding onto his past hurts and his bitterness. He, like all my other current children, are living free: spiritually free and medication-free.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Ephesians 4:31

Arthur still struggles with the effects of being born exposed to drugs and alcohol but found hope in his favorite verse. He loves God, loves people, and loves himself. He has let go of a lot of bitterness and anger and has forgiven his birth mother for her role in his life struggles. He would like to be a pastor some day. He is also the reason for the adoption of my last sibling set of two. They had lived together in their first foster home and, when he found out they were still waiting for a family, he begged me to adopt them. He also relates well to other foster children who struggle with severe behaviors, often giving me insight as to their thinking process. He is a special guy.

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13

Back to "Who We Are"

How My Homeschoolers Got to College

My 8 youngest children are all adopted from TX foster care. They all came to me way behind academically, as well as in other areas of life. I had to homeschool them while they were in public school because they received homework each night that they couldn't even complete. Despite being placed in classes that were supposed to address their special needs, they still struggled immensely. I had to try to fill in all the gaps they had missed in their lives: a daunting task. It made them feel bad and caused me to be very frustrated.
Some of my children came to me with developmental delays, some classified with intellectual disabilities/mental retardation, some with attachment issues and behavior disorders, some struggle with autistic-spectrum disorders (3 diagnosed, 1 not diagnosed) and some with PTSD. Of course, I've never met a foster child yet that hasn't been diagnosed with ADHD. However, I believe the thing that most negatively impacts their growth and development, their daily life, and their academic progress, which has no cure or 'quick fix', is the effect of alcohol exposure when they were in the womb. They often don't understand the meanings of simple, every day words enough to understand instructions. Everyone talks too fast for them to follow. they can't communicate their thoughts properly, as well. They've had much to overcome, which is one reason why I started homeschooling.
My children were all behind in school. Most were placed in self-contained special education classrooms or inclusion classrooms with IEPs. Some had 504 plans in regular classrooms with modifications. Some were still in danger of failing every year and had to attend summer school at times. They rarely passed a standardized test and, because of that, they had to give up an elective class in order to attend a second reading/writing and/or math class-a class designed to help students learn skills in order to pass these standardized tests. They had to attend before and after school tutoring. All this was on top of the homeschooling I had to do each night with them. it became crazy. At a time when our family was already in crisis due to emotions and behaviors, our lives revolved around learning academic things to pass tests and therapist/psychiatrist visits.
The madness ended when I started pulling my children out of public school by simply filling out a withdrawal slip, 1-2 at a time, to homeschool them and we spent our days fervently seeking God's wisdom on all matters. The first thing I did with them was ... nothing. We deschooled. We talked. We played. We took day trips. We watched TV. They played football and basketball. We did all the things we weren't able to do while they were in public school. We discussed what kinds of things we'd like to learn. Other than learning how to learn, learning to read and write was my top priority. It still is. I avoided math like the plague since it was a source of confusion, frustration, and shame. I did spend some time, as I had started to do while they were still in public school, teaching my then 9-year-old daughter (DD, ADHD, mild MR, autism) how to read, since the public school hadn't been able to do so. She was reading age appropriate chapter books within 3 months.
After a few weeks of deschooling, I unschooled. Some would call it radical unschooling. It came out of necessity but served us well at the time. At the time, we had had a pipe burst in our upstairs bathroom which flooded and damaged the bathroom and kitchen below it. Home owners didn't give me enough money to hire someone to fix all that damage so I did it myself. Being busy, all I asked my children to do every day was read, learn something, and tell me what they learned. That's it. I had no other requirements. Later, when we went out to aquariums, museums programs, homeschool classes, and even church sermons, they still had to tell me what they learned but they also had to write a summary of it and/or take notes. This was based on a survey of colleges who stated their biggest issue with accepting homeschoolers was that they didn't know how to take notes. Then, to synthesize what they learned as they got older, they had to not only write a 1-paragraph summary but also write a 1-paragraph description of how what they learned applies to their lives and, if it was a science related topic, they had to write 5 questions they now have about the topic. Often, they would google their own answers. In this way, they learned how to question what they see and hear, ask good questions, and google answers.
I took only a few children out of public school at a time. The oldest ones didn't trust that mom could actually educate them well, even though I was a public school teacher for 10 years, but once they saw my littles were learning how to read ... and that we learned science at aquariums and museums and watching TV programs ... they were begging me to homeschool them, too. Yes, our public schools called CPS on us several times, who did come out to check that I was actually educating my children. Remember, too, we were a family in crisis quite often due to behaviors.
I unschooled for 1 year. Just for fun ... well, actually, because of some pretty serious behavioral issues one of my oldest was displaying, I felt the need to prepare them to go away to college. So, I took them to our state workforce office to take a practice GED test. They did quite well, despite being behind all their lives and unschooling for 1 year. I had hope for their futures for the first time. Ever. Eventually, I finished the home renovations and I started teaching some things my children still struggle with. I loved unschooling, and they loved it, but I honestly feel it's not enough for my special needs kids. They need direct instruction in many things to improve their weaknesses because, due to their disabilities, things don't often come to them naturally like they may to others, so I started homeschooling in a way that looked more like public school in some ways.
Once my oldest 3 were ready for college ... OK, they weren't all ready but the opportunity to be stationary and attend college presented itself, I made sure we covered topics expected for high school graduation in our home state of NJ, I wrote up transcripts, they took the college placement test, and enrolled in community college. Since I had stopped grading their work, making the transcripts did take me quite some time, thinking back on 2-3 years' worth of schooling; however, I try to keep on top of that each year with my younger children now. They could have taken a few dual credit courses first, at a reduced rate, but we were eligible for financial aid, which doesn't cover dual credit courses, so we opted to graduate them from high school early and attend college full time. If we didn't get so much financial aid, we would've opted for the dual credit while continuing with high school. They each had more than enough credits to graduate, they just didn't want to rush adulthood.

homemade high school diplomas =]

blank transcript I used from the HSLDA website

my son's NJ transcript, without identifying information

So, the boys who couldn't read or write when I met them, at all for some of them, who were detained a year in public school, who barely passed each year, have finished high school early and are now in college. Some of them did have to take one basic skills refresher course in reading and writing and they all had to take the pre-algebra refresher course but, so what? They're in. they're there, improving their skills and learning new things. They're taking college general education courses and courses in their chosen fields of interest. I couldn't be happier. My littles still work on reading and writing with Starfall and K12 Reader, and math facts with xtramath.org, and they use Easy Peasy Free Online Homeschool but we also unschool so they can continue to learn how to learn and follow their passions. I believe we should all work in our fields of interest, no matter what the pay scale looks like. If you work in a field you love, happiness will follow. Happiness rarely follows the money.

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income, this also is vanity. Ecclesiastes 5:10
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. 1 Timothy 6:10

If you're doubting yourself. If you fear you can't do it. If you think you will ruin your kids' lives by your inadequate homeschooling methods, like I did: stop. You won't. Children have natural interests, abilities, and curiosities ... even lazy ones (trust me, I know). Encourage their interests, teach them how to seek knowledge and ask questions, learn along with them. Learning should be a part of life and life should be enjoyed.

An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. Proverbs 18:15