One of my favorite things to see is how God writes the stories of our lives.
He is a masterful author who often weaves themes later on that we sometimes assumed were already tied off with a nice neat bow in earlier chapters. I’ve certainly seen that in my own life—in ways I never would have imagined!
What’s more, he connects the narratives of our lives to the stories of the generations that have come before and those who will live after us. And the themes of all these tales woven together tell one grand story of his glory being known to all ages and all nations.
The Growth of Classical Christian Education in Colombia
In the current chapter of my life, I find myself in a season in which there are striking parallels to earlier years. I was in the first graduating class of a classical Christian school in Florida and returned to teach there after I graduated college. Now, my children are among the first generation of students to receive a classical Christian education in the country of Colombia, where my family currently resides. After spending five years as a teacher in classical Christian schools and homeschool communities in Florida, I am the director of the Classical Conversations group here in the capital city of Bogota, where our community has just finished up our second year together.
Expanding Communities and Rising Demand
There is a growing hunger and excitement for this kind of education in the church in Colombia. Our community was the first to open in the country last year; now there are six. We began with only three students enrolled, and we just closed our second year with twenty-six. Christian families long to give their kids a quality education that allows them to have close relationships as a family and to see the Lord’s hand in every subject that they study and every conversation they have.
As a missionary homeschool mom who has been formed by classical education, my heart longs to see this, too. My lifelong prayer is to see the gospel spread out through the nations and down through the generations. I always knew that I wanted to give my children the same kind of education that my parents had gifted me, and before we even moved to Colombia, the Lord was kindling a desire in my heart. I longed to educate my own children in a way that created a space for our family to invite Colombian families into the intense and profound community discipleship process that classical Christian education provides.
CC was an answer to my prayers as it has provided a Spanish curriculum and a structure for our community as it develops so that my husband and I can focus on relationships with other families and our own kids.
I am in awe of all that the Lord has taught us as our community grows together on this journey. Creating content for the history and geography memory work for Colombia this year as we ventured through Cycle 3 together provided a profound experience as we sought to apply the principles of classical Christian education to the nation where the Lord has placed us.
Together, we are learning how to translate the truths of a classical education into a Colombian context in a way that invites us to celebrate what the Lord is doing in the story of this nation and at this moment in time.
The Impact of Classical Christian Formation
As I look back on my own life, I see how the Lord used my own classical Christian formation to prepare me for this ministry in Colombia. Just before I started high school, my family moved to Florida, and my parents enrolled my brother and me in a Classical Christian school. I was a part of the first ninth-grade class, and every year after that, the school added a new grade, so we were the very first class to graduate from that school. Although I was hesitant to give up the freedom I had previously enjoyed as a classical homeschooler, I soon grew to love every minute of it, especially as I entered the rhetoric stage.
Entering the Great Conversation
A vivid image is pressed into my mind of one of my teachers resting his hand on a stack of books at an orientation meeting and excitedly sharing names of some of the authors we would be reading together that year—Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, Darwin.
I felt very small as I eyed the stack and remember thinking, “I’m only 13! How on earth am I going to have anything worthwhile to say about these thinkers and their powerful ideas?!”
But as the school year commenced, it quickly became obvious that I would not be entering the Great Conversation on my own; together with my teachers and classmates, we sifted through the ideas presented in each text and measured them against the Word of God. In the context of this community and with my feet planted firmly in Scripture, I was surprised to find that I actually could respond and engage in a meaningful way.
My classmates and I soon started seeing the ideas we talked about in one class popping up everywhere else—in other classes, in the movies we watched together, the conversations we had with friends. There was so much overlap between themes we saw in all of our classes and the rest of life that we often joked about how we kept forgetting which class we had started talking about a particular topic because it started popping up everywhere.
In this deep discipleship pursuing goodness, truth, and beauty, I was in awe of how God’s sovereign rule means that everything is connected. The more I learned to see things the way God saw things, the more I was able to respond to the ideas of the world around me and present solid answers of my own.
We are living in His story—one that gives life and hope and joy that the world so often cannot find.
Building a Legacy of Faith and Education
I found myself vividly reliving these memories a few weeks ago as our first class graduated from Foundations and we prepared to open the Challenge program this fall.
I pray that these six students about to enter the next stage of their education find the same joy and delight that I did upon entering the Great Conversation. May they find themselves prepared and ready to give an answer that explains the hope that they have in Jesus (1 Peter 3:15).
I pray that they will rely upon the grace of Christ as they enter into the good works that God has prepared for them to do as they pioneer the logic and rhetoric stages of our community (Ephesians 2:8-10).
I am so thankful that these young men and women get to enter into this humbling adventure together, alongside peers and mentors who share their same Christian convictions and are committed to encouraging each other along the way.
The Global Impact of Classical Christian Education
When I look at how the first generation of classical Christian education and homeschooling in the States has laid a strong foundation for the second, I am filled with hope for what the Lord may choose to do through this movement in Colombia and beyond.
Growing up, classical Christian homeschooling was scarcely known in the various communities where I lived. Now, every time I go back to the States, I am surprised at how much the knowledge of and desire for this kind of education has grown. I am encouraged when I think about how much that first generation of parents was willing to sacrifice to be able to provide this kind of education for us, their children. I am in awe of the fruit of their labors. The first generation in the States has produced educators, culture creators, and fathers and mothers who are committed to passing the same blessings they received down to their children in a way that has been an attractive witness to a watching world.
The Lord has been faithful.
Fulfilling the Mission to Know God and to Make Him Known
As I look around me at the persevering Colombian fathers and mothers in our CC community here in Bogota, I see that their faith and determination to give their children this same gift fills me with hope. When I look at their children—the students in our community—I wonder which of them will grow up to direct and tutor in CC communities in the future, which will be pastors who help their congregations see how their faith connects to every area of life, which will be musicians and businessmen creating and contributing goodness, truth, and beauty to this city, which will be fathers and mothers who commit to bless the generation that comes after them with a godly heritage.
I see how my own godly heritage has woven me into this community and this grand story the Lord is writing. I dream and pray and wonder how the chapters of the stories of my own children will unfold as they live this cross-cultural, classical, Christian, community lifestyle.
The Lord will be faithful.
CC’s motto is to know God and to make him known. May He be known in every nation, tongue, tribe, and generation. May the whole earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
