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Jun 6, 2024 · 49 minutes

Anne Miller, President & Executive Director of the Home Educators Association of Virginia (HEAV) makes her first visit to “The Corner.”

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Show notes

0:00 - 15:00. Acts 17:26-27. God has ordained us for this moment and this moment for us. 15:00 - 31:00. Anne Miller, President & Executive Director of the Home Educators Association of Virginia (HEAV) makes her first visit to “The Corner.” 31:00 - 48:00. Anne Millers shares a bit of HEAV’s history and its future.

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Transcript

8,751 words, in two-minute parts. Made by machine, so a few words may be off.

0:0048:46

  1. 0:00

    Darkness is not an affirmative force. It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio. It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite. Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media. And the philosophies of this world. God has called you and me to be his ambassador. Even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment. And now, the Hamilton Corner. Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone to the Hamilton Corner. I am Abraham Hamilton the third. I am grateful to be here in Virginia. Y'all can clap if you want to. You don't have to. Hehehehehehe. It is an amazing time. This is my first time here at the HEAV convention. This is the 41st annual convention. If I have that right, 41st annual convention. And we are here. This is a part of one of the workshops where we're kind of doing a mashup with the workshop and the radio program at this juncture but those of you who are listening in as I mentioned Abraham Hamilton, III is my name. Jay Mack is here if you often describe him often imitated never duplicated. This is a man right here produced extraordinary. Mr. Rosa is back in studio in at AFR's home base but we are ready to rock and roll with today's edition of the program. At this very moment, many of you, if not most of you, are making your transitions from your part-time jobs where you generate an income to your full-time jobs where you cultivate an outcome. And as you do so, I want to remind you to make that transition with intentionality, remembering the fact that what goes on in your house is far more important than what goes on in the White House. The purpose of me saying that is not because the things that transpire through the White house are unimportant, but they simply should not supersede for us what we do. Unfortunately, in our day and age, many times we play significance and importance on everything else. We allow headlines, news stories, things that are transpiring, you know, across the way with people that have royal families and all that kind of stuff. And we often neglect what happens at home. But the reality is we have the opportunity to be executed as our Lord's commission starting first and foremost in our homes. And it's not the Lord's will for us to make everything else important, everything else significant, and we offer our families just the leftovers of days well spent. It is our responsibility to make sure we prioritize rightly, hence the description of our income generating capacities as our part time jobs. We all have to do it. I have bills to pay. I have children. They have mouths and they're getting older and growing more.

  2. 2:47

    And you know, I know about inflation being an economic phenomenon, but I know about inflation because of growing pains, because the 12-year-olds become 13 and they eat more when they get older, you know. But those are things that we do, but those are not the sum total of who we are. And if you are born again, hear me well. Every single believer is called to ministry. Every single one of us. The only question is what roller we to play. And if you are blessed as I am to still have children in your home, that is the first external outlet for our glorified God Lord through, which I describe always as the lifestyle of worship. Worship is not merely a specific activity. Worship is a lifestyle that includes all kinds of activity, but the pinnacle of this lifestyle of worship is obedience. It is our responsibility to obey the king of glory. We don't want to be people simply understand scripture, memorize scripture. all of those things are vital. But what is the point if you never live it? What is the point if you never put it into practice? So at this very moment as you're making your transition, I want to encourage you to make today. If you've never done this before, if this is a brand new concept to you, make today the day where you set your heart, set your course for your home to be transformed into a golden altar of incense. You may be remember that from the Old Testament tabernacle structure to where your home becomes a sanctuary of the Lord's presence, to where you exalt the Lord starting right at your home. It is not the Lord's will for your children to learn how to pray, to learn the study scripture elsewhere as a matter of first import. Those things are great, especially if they are support, but if they are replacing what is supposed to happen in the home, we are missing the boat. We are missing the boat. So let today be the day. And if you're already on this trajectory, let me encourage you because I understand it's very, very tempting to become weary and well doing, but I want to remind you and to encourage you to rely on a strength of the Lord, to rely on a strength of the Lord's Spirit and to continue with this. And again, I understand because I know it's like having older children, my oldest is 13, he's in the teens, track right now at the ATAV convention.

  3. 4:52

    But my youngest is two, and you know, you have the reality of where you're pouring in and all these things are happening with the older ones, but then that's more coming along. It's very easy to kinda just let things kinda drift, and then one day becomes a week and a week becomes a month. And the next thing you know, man, I have a four year old we haven't walked through the foundational scriptures with, you know, I understand how that happens. Don't allow those things to cause you to embrace any level of condemnation, but that today be the day where you reverse that trajectory. And you've heard the adage, Rome isn't built in the day, God is not expecting you to take, you know, a newborn and make them an apostle of Paul or anything in one moment, but day by day, individual investments, cumulating over time, disciples are never meant to be made in a microwave, never meant to be made in a microwave. This is something that is done cumulatively over time. And one of the foremost components of our mandate to be disciple makers is that we're disciples ourselves. So before we focus on what we're gonna pour into others, we need to make sure we are living what we wanna see reflected in how our children are living. Praise God. Well, let us turn to the word of God. If you're new to the Hamilton Corner, we start every program. And look, y'all don't have to be quiet. So y'all feel free to interact. If you have a question, shoot your hand up, we'll get to it. But we start every program by turning to the word of God, and that is intentional. Yes, we navigate the issues of the day, but we never want to do so by putting our Bibles on the shelves. But we want to make sure the Word of God is our anchor, is our fulcrum, and is our means for addressing the issues that we confront. And unsurprisingly, the Word of God speaks to everything that we confront in our day and age right now, because the Word of God is not just a book, it's the living Word of God. So today we're going to turn to a portion of scripture that is familiar to Hamilton Corner listeners. But I just want to offer you this by way of reminder, preparing for today's program. I wanted to offer you this from Book of Acts, Acts 17, verses 26 and 27, all right, for some of you who may not be familiar with this portion of scripture, the Apostle Paul was continuing on a portion of his missionary journeys, and he didn't intend to stop here at this juncture, but circumstances required him to take a stop in Athens, Greece, Athens, Greece, a real place, a real city in a real portion of time.

  4. 6:58

    This is my plug for, if you're gonna study history and world history, you shouldn't put the Bible on the side, You know, the Bible is filled with historical facts that world history can be navigated in light of. But in Acts 17, the scriptures conveyed to us the Apostle Paul was there, but this was a place that was highly religious in a pagan sense, but didn't know Christ in the portion of the Apostle Paul first going to the marketplace. The scripture tells us this, and he was sharing the gospel, and he caught the attention of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. So these are people who had divergent perspectives. You had the Epicureans who were fascinated, you know, with the material and the ethereal. You had the Stoics who thought all things concerning, even any level of emotion was, it was subhuman. They're not worthy of giving attention. But the Bible says these guys really had no intention to actually put anything into practice, but they had developed a habit. They just want to hear the latest in philosophies. So they heard the Apostle Paul and invited him to come and share at Mars Hill, or in the area, it's been explained. So this portion of scripture is a part of the Apostle Paul's appeal to these intellectual people who saw themselves as being an area like Skola. And he took occasion to take the things that were common to them, but to point them to the creator who also is the Christ. And in the course of doing so, he made some observations that are historical, but as they are carried about by the Spirit of God, they carried the weight of the, the breathed out Word of God that are, that are instructive for us in our day. So I'll read a portion of that and I'll pick it right at verse 26 and Acts 17. And the apostle Paul is speaking, I should turn my page, it would help if I get on the right page. And the apostle Paul says this, and he, God, made from one man, or some translations written to that One blood, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined a lot of periods, or some translation, say the times before appointed and the boundaries of that, their dwelling place that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.

  5. 9:15

    Yet he's actually not far from each one of us. This is amazing, amazing scripture. Several things are happening here. first and foremost, the Apostle Paul in making this presentation, I want you to note that he's not communicating this to people who were Jewish, who had familiarity with the Hebrew Scripture. He's not. He's communicating this to an overtly pagan audience. This is one of the reasons, not the exclusive, but one of the reasons why I want to encourage you if you're listening or you're here at this workshop breakout session, to refuse to be ashamed to use the word of God as authoritative as you navigate the issues of the day. The world would try to invite you or entice you to say, well I'd love to hear what you have to say as long as you put the Bible away. We don't believe in that book. I don't care if you believe in it. Truth is truth. You might not believe in prisons, but go ahead and drive out your drunk and see what happens. You know, you cannot believe in rain and you stay outside when the forecast goes the wrong way, what's going to happen to you? Truth doesn't require consensus. Truth is not something that requires consensus. Truth is truth. All right, now what we want to do is obviously, I won't say obviously, what we want to do is to be effective in our ability to communicate it, but we certainly are not going to hide the truth of God's Word in an effort to try to win an argument or to be persuasive or to be effective. So the apostle Paul to a pagan audience, he lets them know, hey, you might not know this, but he, God is one made from one blood or made from one man, all the nations of the world. And I love how the Lord moved the Apostle Paul to lay this out, because this is one of the major sources of scripture as the Apostle Paul is affirming the creation account, that all mankind has common ancestral heritage. This is one of the reasons biblically we can stand firm and say this notion of ethnocentric partiality, skin color-based partiality is not only wrong, it's stupid. I hate to say it's so blunt, but it is.

  6. 11:18

    It is because it requires you to deny biological fact, scientific fact. It's amazing that science always sends a catch up after the fact that the Lord has already announced. You know, we're in the day and age. I'll never forget. I found a National Geographic article that said, Oh, Eureka, there's no such thing as race. It's not based on anything scientific. And I was like, well, congratulations. I'm so glad you have finally arrived at this notion. I could have pointed you to something that's about 2,000 and years old plus, that could have held you in the same place. Because the reality is all mankind descends from common parental heritage, ancestral heritage. The reality is our skin color depictions are the feature of one component melanin. All of us have it. Some of us have a little more, you know, be mad at me. Because the Lord bless me with my Ebony, you know, don't be mad at me, it ain't my fault. I didn't get myself all this wonderful Ebony, you know. All of us have it, which is why some people, when they tan, they look just like people who don't tan. Or people who look like they may not need to stay inside a little longer get a little brighter. You just see my children, it looked like the Rainbow Push Coalition. You know, I have everything from, it's to me, and I have a sister, you know, you see, you're like, oh, wait a minute, are you sure that's your system? Like, yes, that's my sister. I live with her my whole life. I know what, you don't know what my sister is. But it's ridiculous for us to allow lies to govern how we interact. And so one of the things we need to do as people, especially the people of God, is refuse to live by lies. Yes, I understand history very well. Yes, I understand all over the world. You know, this is why the idea of thinking that this notion is limited to America is ridiculous because you have this whole notion of partiality that led to the Rwandan genocide. You show up, the people look just identical to each other, but they know the difference between themselves because that is a feature of the flesh, Galatians chapter 5. One of the fruit of the flesh is factions. Fleshliness leads us to want to divide from one another. But the Spirit of God is what causes us to live as reconciled parties. So simply put from one blood, all the nations, the word for nations in Greek there is ethnos. All ethnicities derive from the same common ancestral source.

  7. 13:21

    So this notion of racism is commonly described. It's simply a lie. So why live by it? Ephesians 5 and 11 says, have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness. Rather expose them. You and I are not obligated to live according to a lie. We not only should know the truth, we should live according to the truth. Let me keep going. From one blood, the Lord made every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, Having determined a lot of periods. Oh, I love this. This is one of the things that when I wake up in the morning and my feet hit the ground and reminded of this, because the fact that you and I are alive right now was not the common incidence of biological occurrence. There's not one of us in this room, or one of you listening to the program who decided, you know what? I decide I want to live in the 21st century. None of us have done that. None of us have done that. This is a feature of God's divine design for us. We have been made for this moment, And this moment has been made for us. We don't have to cower in light of what we're facing. God knew what we would face, what we would face, and he placed us here to do so, because he says it's very end of verse 27. Why did he do this? Why did he send us in this time? And with these physical boundaries where we live in, so that men should seek God. That begins with you and I. The foremost necessary ingredient for disciple making is for us to be disciples. You can't give what you haven't bought. You can't sell what you haven't purchased. You can't disseminate what you'll have not received and secondarily, when you have been captured by the King of Glory, we live as such, to what we make the transition from no longer giving offerings to being the offerings. This is the perk we have as Christ followers. Stay with us for the remainder of this program. This June marks two years since the overturn of Roe vs. Wade, but did you know that the number of abortions actually increased the following year? In 2023, the amount of abortions reached its highest level since 2012. Preborn continues to stand strong for women in crisis. Preborn is a ministry of compassion that showers women and babies with God's love, providing free ultrasounds to mothers to introduce them to the precious life growing inside of them.

  8. 15:25

    When a mother meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their heartbeat, she is twice as likely to choose life. $28 sponsors one ultrasound and $140 helps rescue five babies. Your generous tax deductible donation will also help to provide women who choose life with assistance for up to two years. So please, give your best gift to donate dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 baby or visit preborn.com slash AFR. That's preborn.com slash AFR. Shiting light into the darkness. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio. Welcome back. Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner. everybody Abraham Hamilton, III here and I am honored to have on the program with me the president and executive director of H E A V which is an acronym for home educators Association of Virginia I'm saying that better home educators Association of Virginia and Miller. Thank you for joining me here on the program Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here. Yes, it is Well, I'm not saying yes because you're glad to be here. I'm glad That you are here I wanted to take some time since we are here at your convention and here at the Greater Richmond Convention Center To do what I enjoy doing. I love meeting people members of God's family getting a down payment on what we will enjoy for eternity And simply welcoming you to share your testimony how you came to know Jesus Christ is saving faith with our audience here Oh, wow. Wow. Well, you have our friends across Right. Well, I grew up in New York City and my mother grew up in a household without God. But she was always looking for God. But she looked in a lot of strange places. She looked in palmistry. She became an astrologer. She taught classes at Sunny University in Long island in astrology, our house became a center for transcendental meditation. We went to Italy for three months and my parents and I became teachers of transcendental meditation. And so that's what I grew up in. And so when my, through a whole set of not good family circumstances, My mom left our home and went with another man.

  9. 18:02

    But God had a plan. And he redeemed that, and they got saved. Like I mean, Holy Ghost saved on fire, saved life full of miracles. And so they actually came and said, Ann, Ann, no, no. This is it. all that other stuff, that was something else. You know, that was not God, but we have found Jesus. Like this, and I'm like, okay, mom, it's the next thing. Because we did I, Chang, we did, I mean, and I love those things and learned right along and was in her classes for the astrology charts. Like this is charts like all mathematical. And so, but I'm like, okay, mom, they're like, you gotta get rid of all the stuff. And I'm like, well, this is nice for you. And it took me about six years of them just sending me gift boxes with check tracks in them and books to read or tape recording. I'm old, so got tapes. And so, but one night I was listening to the radio and I heard them say, if you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven? And I grew up Catholic. And so I thought, well, I always talk to God. I think I will, but I just stopped and prayed and gave my life to Jesus to make sure. I went to bed, it was no big deal, I don't know the date, I know sort of the season of the year, but after that my life started changing. Like incredible changes. And I did get rid of all the things. I mean, I had gods in my house, I had a giant, carved, teaky head. I mean, it was pretty intense. And I was also dating someone at that time. And the Lord was like cleaning out my life and getting rid of everything that wasn't Jesus. And he was next.

  10. 20:04

    But I loved him and I, but he was a mess, a total mess. And he wasn't even very nice to me. But there was something, and I just prayed like, Lord, I think this is the man I'm going to marry, but I'm getting rid of everything in my life, and you need to do something here. So I'm telling him like about the Lord, and he grew up Baptist, and he's telling me the stereotypical kinds of things, well I never killed anybody, I never robbed any banks. Like he said those things. But in the meantime his life was like a shipwreck, and I won't go into the details, but trust me, it was not a pretty life with alcohol. And so we went to a wedding, and it was a beautiful, just incredible wedding in the Lord, and people went back to pray, and God was moving, and he's just kind of was sitting there and everybody was leaving and I said, do you want them to come back and pray for you? And he couldn't even talk. He was just like, yes. And so everyone came back and they just laid hands on them, they prayed over him and oh my goodness. He just got saved, delivered, filled with the Holy Spirit like them and I mean just a transformed man, 30 minutes later he asked me to marry him. Wow. And I said yes. Wow. And we were married five weeks later after my mother and my stepfather now gave us what they called Holy Spirit Invisible Training School, which set us up for like what God says about marriage, money, children, deliverance and renunciation. And so in those five weeks we went to Connecticut every weekend and we and they just discipled us and they just showed us what you were saying before.

  11. 22:08

    They just showed us what the Bible said. Not man's opinion, but what does God say? And that transformed our lives. And my husband has never, ever, ever gone back to any of the ways that he was before he was saved. And I mean, it's a miracle really. Salvation is a miracle. It's transformational. It is. Wow. What a powerful testimony. palmistry and you mentioned sunny University of New York and I know I think I know what those things are but some people may not know what those things are so what are the what is palmistry first of all and second of all when you say sunny University of New York which university refers state University of New York yes and and palmistry is where you have lots of lines and things on your hands and people can tell that your fortune tell your future and different things And you know, even with astrology, it's not that there isn't real science and the things don't work, but the thing is, is that the Word, when you go to the Word, God forbids having anything to do with these things. And if they were just like the horoscopes in the newspaper, he wouldn't have to forbid us. But he forbids these things. So we don't do those things or have them in our homes. Praise God. Now, how do you go from that with that background? And it's amazing because there are people from all kinds of backgrounds. Being from New Orleans, I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana, originally. I'm familiar with all that kind of stuff. I remember seeing Palm readers and tarot card readers on the sides of the streets. So I'm very familiar with those notions. How do you go from there to becoming the president of this crazy kooky people who think they can actually raise and reer and teach their own children? How do you get there? know. Well, one of the things they taught us was about children. We trusted the Lord for our children. We knew my parents homeschooled my two younger brothers in the 70s and early 80s and so my husband was a public school teacher. We saw the difference. We wanted our children number one. We wanted them to serve the Lord with all their heart and with all their might. And we knew what was happening in the school system even back then in this in this was 1980 and that's important to know if you know my I'm sorry I'm interrupting you because often especially believers we have this thing that we do even though Jesus said comparing ourselves amongst ourselves is not wise we do it you know well you often have people saying well I sure wish it was like it was back in my day and energy simply say well, how was it in your day?

  12. 24:52

    And not compared to what you see today, compared what it was in your day, to what the word of God says. Yeah. And if you were looking in the 70s and 80s, you would have seen some of the things where the seeds were actually being sown, and I won't even say seeds there, because really we're living in the harvest of seeds planted 150 years or more ago. And that's another conversation for another day, but we've walked through some of that on this program, Some of the historical incidences to where what we're living in now, we're planned long ago, but nevertheless. Yes, they were. Yes, absolutely. And our system, our education system is not failing. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do. Is your name Abraham and William? Because I might have said that exact same thing one for a hundred times. It is not failing. And even in the 80s, in 1980, the 70s and 1980, We did not want to serve the Lord and know the Lord, but we did not want them to be peer-dependent. We wanted them to be independent-minded. We wanted to teach them how to think, because the government system is designed not to teach us how to think, actually quite the opposite, because it's an industrial education that was made for a good, strong, docile, compliant workers who move at the ring of a bell. That's how we were brought up. It's not ironic that you have often, you know, class changes and other things that are tuned to a bell, similar to factories, to where. Surprise, yes, yes. But it was planned. It wasn't accidental. And you can look, there's a book, Underground History of American Education. And he's got lots of citations in there. It's a great book and Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto, both of those. Excellent resources. Yes. Excellent, excellent resources. Okay. So, how did I get here? Yes, how did you get me? I'm pulling up things right now because some of the historical things, they're recent things that are transpired and I definitely don't want to take up the time for your response to how you got here but that affirmed that same thing.

  13. 27:01

    Yeah, well we decided to homeschool in 1980 when we got married and we didn't have any children, but we knew we were going to homeschool them. We felt led by the Lord. And so our first one was born in 1981 and we have, and we just started education. were educationally minded and there was no homeschool law in Virginia at that time. So we knew what we were going to do and when the law came in Virginia in 1984 and our daughter we needed to decide what we were going to do for kindergarten and we found out about HAV. HAV started in 1983 and also Virginia is the only state in the nation that has religious exemption. And so we were convicted that God was calling us to teach our children at home. It wasn't just a preference. And so we found out and we didn't believe the government had responsibility for our children's education. And so we found out about the religious exemption from an article about HEAV in the paper. The no internet back then, by the way, we did not meet our first home schooler in Virginia for many years. And so I started coming to, started some local support group and then started coming to the board meetings for HEAV just to be an an informed leader, this is in the 80s, and in 1989. And so I just, I came with Yvonne Bunn, who's our, was our 35 year director of government affairs. We started coming together as leaders. And I was in a meeting one day and they said, I nominated Ammiller to be on the advisory board on favor say, I, they didn't, And every and asked me, they just voted me on the advisory board and it's like okay.

  14. 29:03

    And I had offered to help do their newsletter because the editor was having a terrible time and I'm a graphic designer and so, and I did newsletter. So on my little 512K Mac enhanced. And so two weeks later she resigned and I became the publications person. Well, I mean, they've taken volunteering even something to a whole another level. And I've been volunteering with this though. So I did publications for 21 years. And I've been president. This is my 30th year. But also in a board meeting, no one spoke to me. They just said I nominate Ann Miller to be on the board. And all in favor say, I, and I was on the board. Wow. And I didn't want to be president. Actually, I turned it down. but through circumstances, my husband's like, and I believe that the Lord has called you to do this. And back then you have to know it's very patriarchal in the homeschool movement. So to have a woman be the leader of a state homeschool association was not a place I wanted. And but here I am and after two years, I have eight children by the way. At that point, I think I had six of them. I had six. And so he tried to be president, and at the end, he said, and God did not call me. He called you. And he told our family, this is not mom doing her thing. This is our ministry. This is our family ministry. And our eight children, they love HEAV. They're here volunteering all over the place. And they're all walking with the word. Oh, praise God. And when you said before you were talking about home being the first priority. And home being our sanctuary. And years ago the Lord gave my husband a verse. I actually embroidered it. We have it on the wall. Take heed now. The Lord has chosen thee to build a house for the sanctuary. Be strong and do it.

  15. 31:04

    Amen. Amen. And so just to piggyback on what you said earlier, that just, I mean, that's what the Lord told us when we were early in our marriage. that that moves me so much for a host of reasons because you see in scripture like even in for example Acts chapter 1 when Jesus he's resurrected and the Bible says he spends more than 40 days spends 40 days providing convincing proofs that he is in fact the same guy that was on the cross that you saw now I am not and I'm in glorified I've been glorified and he says you will be my witnesses and the Greek word for witness there is Martis where we get our English word martyrdom from. And we often think about martyrs being those who lose their lives in further and suffer particular cause. But the call to be a martyr biblically is a call to become the living dead, not simply to die naturally for a cause, but to die to self-life, to live according to God's auspices. And he said, you will be my martyrs in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the othermost part of the world. The simple notion is that there's a home base established first and much of what has befallen our society, where governments attempt to interject and the Leviathan state ever expanding, are attempting to address deficiencies in the home. But we will never outchurch, we'll never out politic deficiencies in the home. The home is central to God's plan for multi-generational faithfulness. So saying that and seeing a living testimony of that, it's just greatly, greatly, greatly encouraging to me. When we come back, you can't hear it, but I hear the disrespectful music right now. I wanna ask you because it is a significant shift to recognize, okay, this is what God is calling me to do for our family, but to take on this responsibility to be a service to other families for an entire state. That's pretty significant. A Hamilton Quarter podcast and one-minute comment terrorists are available at aFR.net.

  16. 33:08

    Back to the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio. All right, welcome back everybody. We're in the third segment. for the Hamilton Corner, we're still here with Ann Miller, she's telling her, sharing her profound testimony as to how the Lord first saved her, saved her husband miraculously. It's amazing to hear how the Lord saved him, and here you say, and he has never gone back to his sinful lifestyle before, oh my gosh, what a powerful testimony. If you are listening to me right now, and you're hearing us saying, oh, you're just Christian, goody-two shoes, listen first and foremost, when we declare that we're Christians, we're saying nothing good enough of ourselves. We're actually admitting out loud that we know better than anybody else, that man, we're messed up and we know it. The only reality though however, is that recognition of us being messed up, we've given our lives to the one who takes broken vessels and shapes them into vessels for his honor. And that is what we're declaring. Nothing good about ourselves, but the fact that there is one who is good, who has made the way for us to have eternal life. And if you're listening to this show, you are not too far gone, you're never too far gone for you two to become a member of God's eternal family. Romans 10 explains it very well, if you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart. Now that's not just an easy belief, it's confessing with your mouth is one thing, but not just belief, belief with your heart, that you know this is a genuine reality. You two can be saved. And so I don't wanna take up too much of the time because then you were sharing your testimony and recognizing with your six kids, six children, then you have eight children in total, that God was moving you to be one who would take the responsibility of shaping and directing your children from home, but now you were volunteered to the board of HEAV. It was. Taking on it. Volentold. Volentold, I love it. You were volentold. You were beyond the board to help us for the whole state. That is a pretty significant undertaking. How did you get to the place where you recognized as your husband said, I'll try this, but this is something God is calling you to. How did you recognize that yes, God was, in fact, calling you to that?

  17. 35:11

    Well, I mean, he just confirmed it. And with our family, children could be resentful, but he made it our family ministry. I didn't have that vision. I had no vision for this at all. But he had the vision and he has stuck with it. He knows it's God. And it's been a lot of sacrifice for our family. However, the Lord has used it with our children. They have learned to work and serve in ways that they never would have, if I had not been involved. They've also learned about leadership. They've learned the pros and the cons. You were saying earlier about discipling our children and living our life out before them. And they saw us living this out with all the trials and tribulations. I'm not gonna lie. I have a file of resignation letters. But obedience, you talked about obedience. Obedience is better than sacrifice and harkening than the fat of lambs. And so the Lord moves us out of our comfort zone to do His work. And He's looking for those who will listen. And I just pray that I can continue to be a willing vessel. Amen. And this is a part of the reason why I wanted to interview you because God has made us as human beings to be relational people. That's why solitary confinement is viewed as one of the most egregious forms of punishment for criminals, because God made us to be social. And often what people need to recognize, wait a minute, God has something for me too is to see somebody else. Being willing to take this step, there's a quote that's attributed to Billy Graham that says, all this need is often for one person to stand, stiffened neck, square shoulders, and raised heads to see others stiffen their necks, square their shoulders and raise their heads. And so as you're listening to this program today, and I've said numerous times, there are lots of things happening in our time, absolutely. But God knew it, that they would happen. The question is not how crazy things are. The question is, what are you called to do about it? What am I called to do about it? This is a part of what God has for us, recognizing that the times and place that we're planted, we have been planted for God's glory.

  18. 37:17

    And a part of us being disciple makers, God doesn't call us a be perfect. There's a reason why the scripture... Amen. Amen. Sister Anne, amen. There's a reason why the scripture includes the good, bad and the ugly. The Lord didn't just show us a David standing over a fallen goliath. He also lets us see the ugly parts of David's life because a part of that demonstration of what a disciple is includes repentance. And redemption. And redemption. Lord, I want you to curate your testimony. Let me make a presentation before my children. No, live before them. Yes. Show them the reality. I'm not saying be cavalier and be belligerent or be obtuse about your lifestyle, but to show the reality of what it looks like to serve the Lord full out. That is a part of what's necessary. So what you're describing is something that we all should be a part of at various stages. I'm talking about, of course, age appropriate. You don't show your two-year-old all the resonating letters. I'm not saying that, you know? But you guys get the point that I'm endeavoring to make. But I want to continue the conversation that you were sharing and recognizing this is what God was calling you to. What will you seek into accomplish through HEAV for others in the state of Virginia outside or beyond your individual family? Well, as a homeschool parent in the early days when some of the major curriculum providers wouldn't even sell curriculum to families, and families were being charged with truancy and going to jail. When I started my little local newsletter, when I found everyone, I got us together on a newsletter, and then I thought, oh my Lord, what have I done? Like I've just identified all the homeschoolers in the area. And so, but the thing is to, it's homeschooling is hard, parenting is hard. And homeschooling is like, are we crazy? Like we're gonna add that on. Actually homeschooling saved me from a lot of problems that my friends with kids in public school were having because we didn't have all those problems.

  19. 39:18

    And it's not that we didn't have problems, trust me. I have full body scars if you wanna know about problems. But God is a redeemer and all my children are walking with the Lord. And I know all like we have six boys and two girls. And but I wanted to, it's in my heart, like I'm an encourager and I wanted to support families. And also there was no internet back then either. And so everything was word of mouth. We used to do when we had alerts, legislative alerts. We do it on a phone tree. And so that idea of serving families, that's why we're here to provide information, accurate information, if you've been on Facebook five minutes, you know, who's telling the right thing, 20 opinions on one point, or maybe 200 opinions. And so we, I mean, for me, I mean, part, this is part of me, providing accurate information to provide support and encouragement. And also we've been brought up in an education system, As I said earlier, this industrial age system, and we want homeschool families to know they have freedom. We have freedom in the Lord. Our theme this year is freedom. We have freedom in the Lord to educate and bring up our children in the way they should go. But sometimes often it's the only system we knew. We get constricted. It gets constricted by curriculum and eight days and hours. And what is the school doing and all those things? And they have to have all this peer interaction. And so because it's all we knew, and age segregated, like we're breaking them up into different age groups, which that's designed because in a family, it's all age groups and the youngest learn from the older and the older ones learn compassion for the younger. I mean, it's, but it's all designed. So that's in my heart is to encourage families to take advantage of that freedom, the Lord has sent the most remarkable people who love the Lord, who love the families we serve, HEAV serves all families.

  20. 41:32

    We operate from a biblical worldview, but we meet people where they are. Guess what? Guess what? Just like who, Jesus. He met people where they were, but with truth. And so we meet people and we serve them with accurate information. We can encourage them because I believe everybody should get their kids out of public school. And so. Wait, wait, say that one more time? I just thought, oh, should I? I believe that parents should get their children out of public school. And there are so many new options, which is exciting and terrifying at the same time with micro schools and hybrids. And most of those are homeschoolers. They're still sending in their notices in the states that require it. So it's very exciting. And the thing is, it's so good for the kids. I had special learners, I have dyslexic son, I have five diagnosed ADHD kids. Now, I didn't have them diagnosed when they were kids, but I knew because I did research. And as a homeschooler, we actually learn right along with our kids. So we did what we needed to do, and then they got themselves diagnosed when they became adults. But I had a son who didn't read anything until he was almost 10 years old. And he was smart. We had testing. We didn't have special needs testing, but we had intelligence testing, like everything going well here. But he wasn't ready. Our kids aren't ready. If you have a delayed learner, read better late than early, or school can wait. Because the research shows that if you just wait till they're ready, and it doesn't mean that there aren't issues that need remediation. But if you're a five-year-old's not reading, I don't know if you need remediation, or they, especially if it's a boy, they may need just another few a year or two or three. That son who didn't read anything is now a PhD NASA engineer who co-founded a multi-billion dollar company and was called by Apple to come and work.

  21. 43:33

    They called him to come and work with them. And he didn't read anything until he was age 10. What would have happened to him if he had been in school? With a sensitive nature. He would have been destroyed. And so we have that freedom to give our kids that individualized instruction outside the box. He got a full engineering scholarship from the get-go, and he only had two science credits on his transcript. But he wrote an essay, my non-standard science education. And he listed all the outside of the box things that he did that had nothing to do with curriculum, a lot of it independent reading and book lists, tons of books. And so we have that freedom, freedom, freedom. And I can tell you stories about all my kids with special needs, but I'm so, you can tell, I'm passionate about the freedom that we can have to train up our children in the way they should go and what is their bent, how did God create them? We have that opportunity to help us end them, figure it out and nurture what God has put in them because what you said earlier, ah, I love it. He needs his people everywhere. We brought up our kids to know that God needs, He needs you in engineering, He needs you in the arts, He needs you in music, He needs you every single place. Don't just think a mission field, think world, like what is God calling you to? And our kids are out there doing so many amazing things. With God, I mean, it's, it's, and it's because of the Lord. I know they wouldn't have been there if we had not taken that bold step. And so with HAV, we are here to support parents every step of the way. We bring people like Abraham to the convention. Why would you do such a thing? Well, because you have the word that people need to hear, and especially Christians, especially Christians. I'll let you take that one over.

  22. 45:34

    But we need to get our children home and in a micro school, get a co-op, get support. And that's exciting because it's scary. The responsibility for our children's education when you homeschool, it's like, ah, I'm responsible? Well, guess what? We were always responsible. Absolutely. But there's so many new opportunities, and that's what we love to do. Well, glory to God. And it's amazing here you say so many things, and it is not an effort to kind of denigrate what's commonly understood as like a foreign mission field or a domestic mission investment. But what's necessary for Christ followers to understand God's perspective on his mission is God's mission not ours and what's often happened is we've had such a truncated Understanding of what it meant what it means to be missional that we've often you know stepped over corpses in efforts to win the world You know started writing our own homes a lot of people we think that things that are important or whatever we do outside Yeah, you know I talked to lots of dads who you know Evaluate their success or lack their oven life based on how much money they generate When they can't tell me what's the last thing that child read, you know, and this is not to be condemning, but it simply shows that our value systems oftentimes are things that we've ascribed from the world. We don't recognize that the Romans 12 phenomenon is not something simply to encourage children away from youthful peer pressure. Adults year to year to peer pressure. The scripture says, says, third John too, I rejoice to learn that my children are walking in the truth. Amen. That is my life goal for my children. Sorry, I'm hitting the level there. I'm like, that's my life goal for my children. I don't care if they become millionaires, billionaires, published articles or whatever. I want to know that they're walking in the truth because reality is eternity is far more long and significant in time. Yeah. You know, and so we're endeavoring to live from heaven down and not the opposite way. And even recognizing the notion many people underestimate the significance of peer learning.

  23. 47:37

    A lot of you guys know I'm from the hood, I'm from the block. It wasn't teachers in class teaching me the crazy stuff, it was pookie and ray ray now. Those were the ones that were providing the pedagogical offerings that straight away from the Lord. And so when we see this, oh man, this music is so disrespectful right now because I could talk to you for three more hours. At least that would be the warm up. What we have to recognize that God has called us to ministry and some of the most profound generational ministry is right in our homes. Yes. I've had children want to have a son who's just like me. I have a daughter who's just like my wife, she's kinesthetic. She didn't learn to read and write the same way my son did. We had to do other things, got rid of furniture, put painters tape on the ground to where her body was a physical pencil, connecting her to be able to learn a trace and then it connected for her. We had to stop seeding our authority, sending our children to the world for discipleship and then becoming surprised when they come home as worldly. The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.

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