A R C H I V E S

MAY 2005

May 27, 2005
ICHE

Last weekend we attended the Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE) conference, held this year on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Ken Ham, homeschooling father and president of Answers in Genesis, was the featured speaker. The conference was once again excellent! The evening before the conference, we were going through the schedule as a family, and were just amazed that so many interesting things were going on all the time!

Unfortunately, there is a common perception of the “great homeschool conference” as a gargantuan book fair and curriculum sale. But there’s so much more to a conference than just buying curriculum for the next year! What we have benefited most from over the years has been the inspiration, insight, and vision shared at the conferences. The ICHE board works hard to bring together a group of speakers from all over the country who are great communicators of vision. Because homeschooling is so much more than “schooling.” It’s a God-ordained means toward the end of recapturing the culture for our King. (“Home education,” or “home discipleship,” are broader terms than “homeschooling,” which more accurately describe our mission.)

It was actually through ICHE some years ago that we were introduced to two men who have been very influential in our family, and in my life in particular, Richard “Little Bear” Wheeler (Mantle Ministries) and Doug Phillips (Vision Forum). Both of these men are powerful communicators, and repositories of much wisdom. Their influence has not just been related to homeschooling per se. But that has been an important part of it.

So, thanks to ICHE for bringing these speakers our way. And thanks to my father and mother for putting me around speakers who encourage me. (Homeschool conferences aren’t just for parents.)

So – this conference will happen again in about 12 months. We hope to see you there!

Stay tuned for pictures from ICHE. (Believe it or not, we do NOT have a digital camera. We have to have our pictures developed the old-fashioned way, then scanned!)

Posted by Lael Weinberger, May 29, 2005
 

May 23, 2005
Entering the World of Blogging
Welcome to the first Blog posting of AMHE. Lael and Joel have worked hard to re-design our website, and we praise the Lord that it is done! (No RSS feeds, but it’s big improvement over our old site! – Lael)

AMHE’s main activity these days is prayer. Different members of our small home congregation, Messianic House of Prayer, have volunteered to pray for God’s guidance on AMHE on one specific day of the week. We then call the person who is assigned to the day after ours to remind them that it is their day to pray. Messianic House of Prayer (MHOP) is supervised by Temple Shalom Yisrael in Rolling Meadows, IL. MHOP is a congregation for Messianic home educators and others who believe in praying for Israel, living out the feasts in Leviticus 23, and praying for/living out/being taught the principles of the importance of the family and the Biblical world view.