Well, we survived the conference! It was truly a great success and we heard so much feedback from Russians who were touched by what they heard. After a day of rest a recuperation, we all hopped on a train and headed up to the historical town of Vyborg. This is the town we have visited the past 3 years in which about 15 families courageously pulled their children out of the government school and decided to disciple and train them at home in 2012. Since that time, more and more families have been inspired by this church and they have been a great asset to the ministry in St.Petersburg. Our team divided up into small groups to stay with local families and we were able to really connect and encourage one another. On Saturday one of the families opened up their country home to host a gathering to discuss many of the ideas shared at the conference regarding teaching character through family business. Whenever we visit Vybory we always leave feeling like they ministered to us more than we did to them! Here is a short video of that gathering where one of our Russian speaking team members (Hannah) shared her testimony.

A Secular Homeschooling Webinar…

As I shared a few days ago, I was asked to speak to a secular homeschooling group from Moscow.  Since we didn’t travel to Moscow this trip, we did this online through a live webinar set up by my dear friend and translator Lena.  The leader of this group explained that the group is totally non-religious but he said I was free to share anything about my faith and why we have decided to homeschool – it was almost as if he was asking me to share!  After much prayer and thought I decided to organize my talk in to the three needs our children have – needs of the body, needs of the mind, and needs of the spirit.  I shared how as homeschool moms we are always aware of the physical needs of feeding our children and providing a peaceful shelter for them.  We are also aware of the needs of their mind so we seek to give them a good academic education.  But often the needs that go the most neglected is meeting the needs of our children’s spirit.  This allowed me to open a door to discussing how each of us have a deep spiritual need for TRUTH and MEANING in life and the truth can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ and through his word.  My main point is that if you truly want to meet your child’s needs then you must first feed your spirit from God’s Word.  I referred them to an apologetics  website in Russian that fully explains the gospel and answers many questions they have about truth (www.gotquestions.org/russia) and many people thanked me for sharing that and said they would look into it.  I pray the Lord would cause growth to those tiny seeds that were planted that evening.