Grace Notes

Sarah working at our booth at the Michigan Home School Conference

We’ve been keeping a Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends Coloring Book open at our booth for kids to color. We accidentally sold this coloring book at the end of the Michigan conference, so if anyone came home with a half-colored coloring book (including this nicely colored green-headed dog) we’d be happy to send you a new one. 🙂

We were asked to lead the singing for the keynote sessions at the conference. As Sarah and Stephen were trying to pick out songs, they remembered that just one week previously at the San Diego home school convention they had learned a new song called “For All Generations”. Written by one of the mothers who helped to lead the conference, it’s a powerful song about what makes Christian families strong — perfect for a home school conference. It went over wonderfully, and many wanted information so they could teach it to their church or friends. We are grateful to Stephanie Wojnicki for the beautiful song, and we are grateful to the Lord for bringing it to our attention just one week before we needed it!

After Michigan, on our way to the FL convention, we stopped to visit a good friend of ours (who was a good friend of my grandma). It was a highlight of the trip for me. Every time we visit Clorinda, she encourages us and speaks about the things of the Lord. Her endearing Brazilian accent, zealous personality, and humor make her fun to listen to. I’ve never heard her chat about menial things — it’s always about the gospel, about how we need to be obedient to God, be a persevering warrior for Christ, and be in prayer about what God is doing in the world. (I want to be more like her!!)

Pictures and reports from Florida coming next.

Stephen and Sarah flew to the CFS Expo homeschool conference in San Diego last weekend. Before the flight, Sarah prayed that God would put her next to the right person. She found herself next to a man who used to be a Jehovah’s Witness but was now a Christian. (Apparently a Christian acquaintance had witnessed to him in a gas station and the Lord used it to get his attention.) He has only been saved for two years now. Sarah talked with him the whole way and left him with some materials for his family –which he was very enthusiastic about receiving. He said that God just keeps putting Christians in his path who have been discipling and encouraging him.

The booth in San Diego

Meanwhile, my parents and I were at the Arlington, TX Book Fair

Simultaneosly, the Florio family was representing Bright Lights at the CHAP Pennsylvania homeschool conference for us. See a report of their week here. Thank you again, Florio family, for your help and hard work!

We felt like we were in “three places at once” last weekend, and we were grateful for the way God worked everything out.

Below are a few more pictures from Arlington.

Alexandra drove up from Austin, TX to help us. It’s neat how the Lord provides. Since Alexandra had just interned with Bright Lights for 10 weeks, she already knew how to run the booth. She jumped right in and was a huge help.

These twins came up to the booth and were excited to tell us how they were best friends.

Haley and Megan (both 14 yrs old) lead a Bright Lights group together. God gave them both the desire to disciple young ladies independantly. When they met each other last year, they hit it off right away and excitedly made plans to start a group together. Their group has now grown to about 17 girls and they are very excited about what the Lord is doing.

Tear down…

As you can see we were one of the last booths to get packed up…we weren’t moving too quickly at the end of the day.

I was a little worried about how we’d get through this conference without Stephen and Sarah because Arlington is one of the biggest conferences of the year. But thankfully none of our equipment broke, (answer to prayer!) Alexandra was a big help, and when we were ready to load up, the ALERT guys showed up and took out all our boxes really fast. Like, in about two trips. Wow, it would have taken us forever… (Not to mention, they also brought our boxes in before the confernece started…) God provides. 🙂

Alexandra and I had a good time jumping on the trampoline with the daughters of the family we stayed with. The Friesens lead a Bright Lights group and it has now grown to become four separate Bright Lights groups. Each one is led by an older girl or a mom, and occasionally they all meet altogether. It was very encouraging to hear their positive reports! Praise the Lord.

“I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.” Psalm 89:1

It makes it a lot easier to unload and load up when we can pull our trailer into the convention hall…

Friday evening, after a long and tiring day at the OCHEC homeschool conference, we enjoyed a great BBQ dinner with the Solis family from Lifetime Books and Gifts the Reinhart family from Rhino Technologies, and Jan and Gary Bloom from Books Bloom. One of the highlights of traveling to homeschool conferences each spring is being able to visit with the community of other “homeschool resource suppliers” and speakers. We usually see each other several times each spring in different states and leave each conference saying, “See you next week in Texas!” and then “See you in Florida!”, etc. The men help each other with their trailers, and it’s always a highlight when we get extra opportunities to talk — which is rare because the conferences are so busy!

Many of these families go to far more conferences and put on a lot more miles than we do. They are very dedicated in their ministry to homeschoolers! Plus, they are a lot of fun to be around, and we always enjoy the great fellowship (and humor) :).


I didn’t take very many pictures at the confernece, but here is half of our booth.

The conference went very well and we are so grateful that God brought us here. We were praising the Lord for many things as we left!