Visit to National Religious Broadcasters Convention

After a long weekend, we’re home from the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville. We had a wonderful time and a safe trip so I wanted to say thank you to everyone who prayed for a safe travel. Also, I received several notes from people that you would specifically pray that the Lord would be able to use my words to glorify HIM and help the cause of homeschooling and parental freedoms. I can’t tell you all that was done this weekend – it was just amazing. I had a great time and there were many doors opened! I was able to do several interviews (radio, television and web) so hopefully I’ll be able to post announcements about those in the future. They’ll be aired in the coming months – all are about homeschooling except for the interview I did with Campus Crusade for Christ, which was more of my personal testimony.

I did want to share a couple of funny stories that I thought readers might enjoy.

The interviews I did this time were especially fun because they were with very large media outlets (national in most cases) so in one they actually tried to “fix” my hair, which is basically impossible with naturally curly hair! The lady figured that out after a few minutes of trying to get my curls to go where she wanted them so she finally just sprayed them down with hair spray. : )

Many of you know we don’t have cable at home or watch much television (it’s wasted time and pointless anyway with only two channels!). When we go to hotels, however, we LOVE to watch those “fix your home” type shows. We were watching one of these in the hotel and Micah (12) said, “Look at that sink in the bathroom. It’s almost on the floor!” I said, “Micah, that’s not a sink. It’s called a ‘bidet.’” He still didn’t know what it was so we explained how it works and I said, “It’s like a sink for your bottom.” You should have heard the kids laughing! Life is always a learning experience.

Then, on Sunday, I had finished my interviews so I was waiting for Chris to pick me up. Finally, he drove up in our 15-passenger-van. I walked around to the other side of the van and he started loading my bag, my computer case, etc.. While he was loading things, another lady walked up to him and said, “Is this the shuttle to the mall?” You should have seen his face!! He was so embarrassed. I told him he should have let her join us since we were heading that direction anyway. It was so funny. On the other hand, I pointed out to Chris that if I were paying $220 a night for a hotel room and they tried to pick me up in our van, I would be incredibly upset!!

Among the people I met or saw in Nashville, I ran into Matthew Hill, Ron Ramsey, and a few other leaders or media professionals I've met before. I visited the people from Answers in Genesis (the Creation Museum), met a few authors (doing book signings), and had a TERRIFIC evaluation of my website from a professional website development firm while I was there. I’ll be implementing some of the changes they suggested over the coming weeks so that’s exciting.

I also had lunch with Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson. Well.... not really. : ) What happened was that after I purchased an itty bitty box of Asian food for lunch, which cost $7.50!!, there was not one single table with a chair open where I could eat. There were, however, those tall bar-size tables where people stand to write notes, make phone calls and such. I just stood at one of those and started eating my lunch when Dr. Dobson started to walk by. He was with several people and they stopped and talked right beside my table for about ten minutes. It was enough time for me to finish my lunch so I told the kids I “had lunch” with him. At the end of their conversation, one of the men wanted a picture so I took that for them and then, having my book handy, I took advantage of the moment and thrust it into Dr. Dobson’s hand, telling him I’d like to give it to him. I know many of you were praying for the Lord to open doors as He saw fit. You never know what will become of a “chance” meeting so hopefully he’ll read the book and find in it something he likes. I believe my publicist said Focus on the Family is starting a new program soon specifically for homeschoolers so maybe they will be interested in discussing some of the concepts mentioned in the book – placing the responsibility of learning back on the student, focusing on relationships and obedience early on in the child’s life rather than stuffing them with academics, encouraging homeschool parents to evaluate their relationship with Christ as a priority over everything (including homeschooling), etc.

When I find out more about when any of the interviews will air, I’ll post the information. There was a lot of discussion – from me and others – about the Obama administration, the German homeschool family who is seeking asylum in the United States, homeschool rights and how they link to parental freedoms in general, and much more – from me AND others. It was great to be around so many like-minded individuals who see how important homeschool freedoms are, whether someone wants to homeschool or not. If we lose this right, we WILL lose the right to parent our children as we see fit in every area.

Thanks again for your prayers.

Sonya Haskins, author of Homeschooling for the Rest of Us

www.thehomeschooladvocate.com