Colombia Day 13 - A Day Of Home School First

Our morning started bright and early because we had to leave for the church by 7:30 am. It was a late night before frantically making sure everything was ready for the home school convention, which was to be only a few families and suddenly became an international event with several families actually flying in for the conference! When we got there, we had time to practice the songs a few times before having to lead worship for the conference (we found out the night before we were supposed to lead it).  The church was filled with over 45 families that in turn meant 80 some odd kids, luckily a good percentage was too young for us to teach and so we only had to teach 60 some odd kids, mostly without the leaders. The leaders were busy teaching the adults about homeschooling and encouraging them through their testimonies. Misty, Sterling, and myself also shared our testimonies to the adults concerning homeschooling and hopefully encouraged them as well. So after worship, I was put in charge of the older kids, 13-17. For the first hour, I taught them self-defense, which they thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated. After self-defense, Melissa taught them first aid and they really found that interesting too. Then we told the story of the prodigal son.  The rest of my family joined us and then we broke for lunch and went to eat empanadas at the grocery store. After lunch, we hit the road running with a group game then another story, this time it was the story of Abraham and how we had to trust God no matter what. While we were doing the group sessions, my mother was talking to the parents about the benefits of homeschooling from a mother’s point of view. After the story of Abraham, I did the masterpiece craft with the older kids to teach them that God has done a masterpiece in them and that He had made them with a unique and beautiful plan. After that, both Melissa, Brianna, and I shared our home school testimonies with the older kids and then held a question and answer time with them; we got a great response from them and really encouraged some of them.  After the testimonies, we had a large group.  Just as we got all the children sitting down and ready for the leaders to come and tell the large group story, Richard runs up and tells me to tell the story because the question and answer time with the parents was running long.  So… I told the story of Noah and took kids from the audience for my actors; the kids enjoyed acting and I had fun telling the story to the kids. Then we took all the kids downstairs and prayed for all the families. Finally, we sang what is now our team song, Still, My Soul be Still. Parents were coming up to us and thanking us profusely and asking us how many conventions we've done. They were amazed that we hadn't done one ever before and blessed us for coming. We left the church and went to Crepes and Waffles with everyone including the translators we had during the conference. It was an amazing day and I was so glad to be able to be involved with the home school conference.-Drew for the Team