A Month of Service

Sorry it has taken me so long to post. We live near enough to the Joplin, MO area to be asked to help with clean-up and several other service projects to help those in need. Our church (locally) has designated the month of June as "A Month of Service". Our family typically does this anyway during our month interval when we take off from educational times. We typically take off July and December, focusing those months on service projects and our annual projects, as well as family trips. We decided to change our month of service to June this year, but keep our month "off" in July to coincide with various camps and youth conference that is planned for July.

The Sunday after the Joplin Tornado, a meeting was held during the last hour of our church meetings to give information about the way we can help, which included:

• Priesthood assignments with Mormon Helping Hands to clean-up.
• Visiting those critically injured that were moved to our city (The hospitals in our area are FULL and we have had public notices to go to Urgent Care instead of the hospital if at all possible.)
• Donating funds to the LDS Humanitarian Fund.
• Donating time to various organizations as we wish.
• Helping with specific needs for families in our church.

In all, we have been able to help with several needs and service opportunities. It has been an uplifting experience to visit severely injured people who have nothing, not even a pen and paper to write down their story of survival. As we talk with these survivors, they don't even know where to start. 

Now, most are waiting for insurance checks so they can purchase household goods and rebuild there lives.

Finding "Like-Minded" People

One of the things that has been the hardest about moving was leaving behind a community of home educators that were "like" us. When I decided to begin applying Thomas Jefferson Education (Leadership Education), the key for me was other families that helped me to learn and understand what it was. They helped me along in my infant stages of making the necessary changes in our lives to truly accomplish what I knew was right for our family.

We had the great privilege of being part of Arizona Liber Association of Families (AzLAF) which sort of became Homeschooling with Intention and Purpose (HIP) Arizona. Marly and Chris also attended the Thomas Jefferson Leadership Academy classes which were fabulous. In our new area, we cannot find other TJED homeschoolers. I have tried to start a few things, but it has not worked out yet.

My kids are in the beginnings of the Scholar Phase and need to have like-minded peers. It has been a real issue for us. I found TJED Academy and Prep School, which was started by Rachel and Oliver DeMille (and others). They also provide transcript and portfolio help for getting into college as a homeschooled TJED student, which I'm really looking forward to! I signed Marly up for one class this quarter to give it a try. I'm hoping this will help fill the void left by moving away from the TJED community we had.