A Window and the First Stirring
When our older son was born, we were renting a place on a street less than 500 meters long. On the left was a kindergarten, an elementary school in the middle, and a middle school on the right. We used to joke that our child would not make it off that street until high school.
Sometimes adults taking children out for walks would stand with them behind the iron fence, watching the school raise the flag and do morning exercises. One grandmother beside me said to her child, “When you grow up, you will go in there too.” At that very moment, God put a thought in my heart: I would not send my child to school. We would teach him at home.
I was born and raised in a city in southern China, and I have been a Christian for more than twenty years, since my university days. My husband and I now have two boys.
Many friends know us for two things: our involvement in missions ministry and our decision to homeschool. We have raised both boys ourselves since birth, and neither has spent a single day in public school.
What this would look like in practice or what we would teach, I had no idea. I only knew clearly that this was a conviction God had placed in my heart, accompanied by a sense of authority and peace. When I shared the idea with my husband, he strongly agreed.
Not long afterward, I came across an article on a WeChat public account announcing registration for a homeschooling seminar, and I signed up immediately. At the seminar I met many different kinds of families and heard many different philosophies of education. There were Christians, Buddhists, and people with no religious faith. Some believed that children needed only to read the Bible and no other books; some focused heavily on developing a child’s talents, such as painting or music; others felt that if a child had good character, everything else would naturally fall into place. I had questions about many of these ideas, but the experience opened my eyes. I realized homeschooling was not some strange idea that had suddenly occurred only to me. Many people were already walking this road, and it was not beyond reach. I also believed that in God’s wisdom, there must be a good path he would lead me along.
And so, on that morning filled with both uncertainty and conviction, we took our first step into homeschooling. I began by listening to the Bible with my child each day, doing crafts, and visiting parks large and small.
Interwoven Visions: Discipleship, Curriculum, and Our Parents’ Perspective
By 2016, my husband and I began discipleship training with a pastor and his wife. At one point, I learned that their two daughters, who were then in college, had been homeschooled throughout childhood. Seeing their example gave us more confidence. On their recommendation, we began using the Abeka curriculum. At first, my English was not very strong. When I received the all-English materials, I had to look up unfamiliar words one by one in a dictionary, and preparation took a great deal of time. But slowly, like a turtle, we began to enter a more structured way of learning, and our son adapted better than I expected.
When our older son turned three and reached kindergarten age, our parents began asking about school. We told them honestly that we planned to homeschool him. They had difficulty understanding the decision. They could accept skipping kindergarten, but they were sure he would have to go to elementary school. It made us realize that even though we did not live in the same city, they were concerned about his education because they loved us. We felt we should help them understand our thinking, and even more, we hoped they would be able to see how God was leading our family and give their blessing to our decision.
Whenever we returned to our hometown to visit, we encouraged our son to show his grandparents his crafts and schoolwork and read to them. They could not understand the English books he was reading, but as they saw him growing well, they stopped interfering with our decision.
There was pressure from outside the family as well. Government officials would call and ask why we were not sending our child to school. They told us that by doing so we were depriving him of his right to compulsory education and breaking the law. We would explain that our child’s situation was unusual and that school was not suitable for him, but that he was receiving an education at home. We also told our parents back home that if village officials came to ask questions, they should have them call us directly. Over the years, we received quite a few such calls and filled out some registration forms. We are grateful that God has continued to protect and lead us to this day.
Time passed, and in April 2018, with the warmth of spring around us, we welcomed our second child. A few months later, we took both boys back to our hometown to visit their grandparents. To our surprise, people from the area came to see them because they had heard that we were raising and educating the boys ourselves and wanted to see for themselves how they were doing. Back home, most children had parents and grandparents on both sides helping to care for them, and yet they could still be quite a handful. Hearing what people said about our boys, we were deeply grateful and gave all the glory to God.
Through the Valley: From Turmoil to Classical Education
At the end of 2019, the COVID-19 outbreak began to change life around us. The sudden disruption required our whole family to adjust, both in our daily rhythms and emotionally. During periods of strict lockdown, our previously varied outdoor activities and in-person gatherings came to an abrupt stop. At one point we were confined at home, and we later spent the Lunar New Year in hotel quarantine.
Lockdowns cut off much of our in-person contact, but online meetings became more frequent. Through this, we also gained access to spiritual resources that had previously been difficult for us to obtain. We took more systematic theology courses online, encountered Reformed theology in depth for the first time, and were greatly built up by it. We also learned more about Christian classical education, which seeks to form the whole person.
Yet just as our spiritual horizons were broadening, our homeschooling life was running into a storm. As our older son grew, our daily routine began to hit a wall. He attended his lessons but did not want to write his assignments. I could explain a simple arithmetic problem several times, and he would still get it wrong. Worse, constant correction and having to redo his work brought out intense resistance and a pain I could not name. Frustration and countless clashes followed. I was nearly at the breaking point. The good reputation we had once enjoyed began to feel like a mirror exposing the pride and vanity inside me. My husband, caught between our son and me, was almost unable to carry on either. After several years of homeschooling, how had we ended up here? I even began to wonder whether we had chosen the wrong road. We had entered a very dark season.
In our desperation, my husband and I could only pray through tears and look to God for a way forward. As I prayed, I remembered what I had learned about biblical counseling and Christian classical education in my theology and education studies. I also thought back to some children with special needs I had encountered through my work. After some assessments at home and a professional evaluation at a hospital, our son was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
At that moment, it was as though the fog had been blown away. We could finally see more clearly what we were facing and begin to address it. God continued to lead us through discipline and refining. We stopped pressing our son out of worldly anxiety. Instead, before God, we repented, acknowledging how much of our own ambition had shaped us, and asked for wisdom from above as we adjusted our approach:
- Building routines: We patiently stayed alongside him and gradually helped him rebuild a stable daily schedule and regular study habits.
- Making a gradual transition: We slowly moved away from Abeka‘s prerecorded lessons, which did not fit his pace, and toward the Veritas Press approach to Christian classical education, with its emphasis on logic and reasoning.
Gradually, the road that had seemed covered in thorns became smoother. Grounded in biblical truth and supported with gentleness and clear boundaries, our son’s fear of difficult tasks and angry outbursts began to ease, and his smile returned. When he finished his first course, he even cried because he did not want it to end and asked whether there would be another class like it. Watching our older son step slowly out of that shadow brought my husband and me great joy. As our younger son grew, he naturally began homeschooling along the path his brother had taken.
Teaching our younger son has also shown me how unique every child God creates is. Even with the same parents and the same home environment, our two boys are completely different in personality, interests, gifts, and learning styles. I cannot simply reuse what worked with his older brother. I have to prepare carefully again and make a new learning plan. Through homeschooling, God has first of all been educating us as parents, not just the children. Along this road, we have learned many precious lessons, and our own lives have continued to be formed.
Conclusion: Walking in Grace
Over the years, friends have often asked us about education. Many say they do not think they have enough ability to homeschool. After nearly ten years on this road, I usually ask them: Why do you want to homeschool? We did not choose this path to raise elite children, nor to escape the pressures of school. We need to stay close to the Lord with the simple trust of a child and seek his will for us. This has been our experience: he led us onto this road, and he has also provided the resources and abilities we needed.
This September, our older son started sixth grade, and our younger son started third grade. A new school year naturally brings new challenges, but in God’s grace, our destination is clear, and all along the way, he continues to walk with us.
