Deciding to Home School

As I learned since beginning the older child adoption plunge more than two years ago, undoubtedly the biggest and hardest decision parents make upon returning home is school. For a number of reasons, we've decided to become a home school family when the next school year begins.


More emotional energy has gone into this that I ever anticipated, mostly because we love the Christian school that the girls have attended this year. They've been surrounded by the most loving, caring and competent teachers and staff we could ever have dreamed of. It has been an ideal first year as the girls have immersed themselves in their new language and have been in a safe and welcoming learning environment.


But the plain truth is, we're exhausted. We spend over an hour a day commuting to and from school and it occured to us that we are already "after-schooling" anyway. Frequently, we're up late at night doing homework.


Home schooling will allow us to give the girls the individual attention they desperately require. In Anastasia's case, she turns 18 in October, and currently she is enrolled in both 8th and 9th grade classes. We've decided to concentrate on Language Arts this summer, and then prepare her to take the GED sometime in 2009. She will then be eligible to enroll in community college.
She is a very hard worker and we are confident that this is a wise plan for her.


Galyna has been under tremendous pressure to keep pace with a rigorous sixth grade curriculum and we don't want her confidence to erode. She's thrived socially, so she's not very happy about it, but home schoolers in our area have an abundance of opportunities for sports, music and other extra-curricular activities.


Of course this brings up the biggie -- what about socialization? The home school parents we've talked to say it's a total non-issue. See this article for an excellent refutation to the oft-heard criticism of home schoolers being unsocialized.

Meanwhile, Christian is totally psyched. His love of learning keeps us all on our toes and Dana and I thrilled about having the privilege of being able to teach him full time. Anastasia has already starting teaching him the Russian alphabet!

We may be crazy by diving in with all three of our children. This is indeed a leap of faith, but we've been taking alot of those lately, and so far, so good!

Larry Norman 1947-2008

I've been so saddened this week after learning of the death of Larry Norman. I was a confused teenager in the late 1970's, already living self destructively and most likely headed for an early death.

I'm not sure when I first heard his music, but I'll never forget the way it made me feel to hear Norman sing with such grit and honesty about life's struggles. But his music always pointed to the hope he had in Christ and as an alienated young man feeling like an outcast, the hope I heard about from Norman was my lifeline, and it still is.

Please do yourself a favor and watch this 2006 performance of "Let The Rain Fall Down."

I thought I was a worthless servant

I didn't know I was your son

and I didn't know you had forgiveness for

everything that I had done

Praise God for my brother in heaven, Larry Norman

Gittin Sum Culture

I often say that I grew up on the redneck side of a redneck city. But this Houston, Texas native has been trying get some culture lately. One of the things all of our adopted children can be proud of is the rich artistic heritage of Russia and Ukraine.

Thus, I forked out $120 to buy tickets to take my lovely daughters to the Virginia Opera's first-ever production of a Russian Opera. Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin was spectacular, at least to my untrained eyes and ears.

But the enduring memory for me will undoubtedly will be the observation made by Galyna during intermission. "So, how do you like the opera?" I asked. "It's okay," shrugged Galyna, "but I don't like all the singing."

That quote goes down in the Hall of Fame category. Other adoptive parents know what I mean!

Not to be deterred by my quest to bring high culture into our home, Nastia began her piano lessons with Olga, a lovely Russian woman who hails from Nizhyni Novgorod and moved to Richmond last summer to live with her daughter and grandchildren. Olga was all business in introducing Nastia to her new hobby. Nastia is a very hard worker and I've got a feeling that she is beginning something very special.

Avoiding the Poor House

As stupid as it sounds, I just didn't realize how much girls eat! It didn't take long to realize that having two teenage daughters exposed our budgeting defects in a frightening way. With a family of three, we had been able to pretty much wing it when it came to grocery shopping, meal planning, etc. Something had to change.

This book has been a Godsend! Dana and I are reading it together and it has already made a huge difference in getting our spending under control. The chapter on how to grocery shop is revolutionary. It's all common sense stuff, but the degree to which we had become automated mass consumers, wasting huge percentages of our God-given resources, is astonishing. I don't exaggerate in saying this is the most important book I've ever purchased.


I've been so convicted lately in grasping the fact that we are teaching our children how to live, and chances are very high that they will make decisions about their lifestyles based on what they see their parents do.

Thus, I've taken to teaching Christian some vital life skills! He doesn't care if his clothes come from the thrift store. No sense on spending 15 dollars on a pair of pajamas anyway because he refuses to wear a matching top and bottom!

And, he has no idea that I traded his old plastic slide and toddler bed for his new/old clothes! We're also trying to nurture his interest in non-electronic forms of recreation. Becoming slaves to the whole video and computer entertainment world comes with a price to pay in more ways than one.

At the seven month mark, we are a family. Nearly all of the strangeness has gone. It feels almost natural, and now that we're getting a grip on the financial shock of clothing, feeding, medicating and educating two teenagers, we are confident going forward. Dana's already talking about another adoption!

Maybe She Has A Point?

I knew something was up when I heard Galyna laughing hysterically downstairs. She was treating our 13 year old cat "Champ" to a ride on my office chair, spinning him around like a top:

Dad: Galyna....Don't do that! Champy is too old and I don't think he's enjoying it."

Galyna: "Sometimes old people need doing for himself fun!"

Good Movies

It didn't take long to figure out that our daughter's did not learn much about history at the orphanage and much to their father's dismay, they showed no enthusiasm for my attempts to engage them about their own country's history, or any other historical topic. But they love movies, and we've seen some outstanding films portraying important moments in the 20th century, and this has been an effective means of getting them excited about history.

Here are three favorites:


Sophie Scholl is one of the powerful movies I've ever seen. It is the true story of a college-age German woman who demonstrates stunning moral courage in standing up to the Nazis. The end of movie somberly demonstates her Christian faith.

The story of the Rwandan genocide is something I've only been learning about in the past year. Like many Westerners, I had known something terrible happened somewhere in Africa in 1994, but I'm ashamed to say that it didn't have much effect. I've seen three movies that have awakened me to this modern holocaust and in my mind, Beyond the Gates is the best. The great John Hurt gives a memorable and believable portrayal of a Priest ministering to a group of doomed refugees.

Our daughters are one-quarter Jewish and they had never heard about the Holocaust! This 1970's movie stars Patricia Neal as the heroic Corrie Ten Boom and it has stood the test of time well. The Hiding Place is beautifully acted and haunting. I liked it particularly because it shows how Ten Boom faced a crisis of faith in unimaginably horrific circumstances. It is long, but gripping throughout.

Music Recommendation

We spend alot of time in the mini-van and until now, I thought it was impossible to keep everyone happy with music or books-on-tape selections.

Alas, I've made a wondrous discovery! It was risky given their general lack of enthusiasm for classical music, but I had read a good review of the Classical Kids CD series, and I grabbed Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery to sample.

The result is that it is a smash hit! - all three of our children, ages 6, 14, and 17 love it! They want to hear it every time they get in the car, and the bonus is, it is so well produced that I really like it too.

It's not your standard "teach your kids classical music" fare. Vivaldi's music is weaved throughout a story about a young orphan girl, who lives with other orphans at a school where all the children play instruments.

The story is fictional, but it drops in nuggets of truth and presents classical music in a unique and compelling way. This is something I can safely say is a good investment, and recommend highly. You can get the entire series on amazon for $35.