I just got back from registration night for the 2013-2014 homeschool year in Sevier County, so this blog post is fresh off the WordPress press. We met at Victory Baptist Church in Sevierville. We registered as homeschoolers and received our ID cards. The coordinator, Sabrina Gray, opened the meeting with prayer and a few remarks about our goal of instilling godly character in our children. Then, she introduced some of the vendors and activity leaders.
She surprised me by asking me to come upfront and share about my blog. Afterwards, several ladies with small children walked up to me and asked for the name of my site again. I was excited to share, obviously, and hope they will sign up for updates. I am honored to serve the homeschooling community through this blog.
A paragraph about Sabrina: she is such a neat lady with a beautiful story of homeschooling three children through the tough times, in the early nineties, and now. A talented artist, a writer and an actress, a quilter and a storyteller, she can also bake some seriously delicious bread. Back in May, we were in her home for a bread-making workshop and her husband shared how he went to Romania in 1992 to give Bibles to people. Coincidentally, 1992 was the year when I decided to follow Christ and the Bible. We all cried as we traded stories of how God used different people like him to bring the gospel to Romania.
The Sevier County Homeschool Support Group offers so much: 4-H, choir, Keep Sevier Beautiful, the Passion Play, several activities for highschoolers, quilting classes, parent support night, just to name a few. My children will try the choir. For myself, I will attend the parent support night. I felt encouraged every time I attended last year.
The homeschooling family Sabrina invited to speak are engineers by profession and the parents of four children. I expected them to be informative, but they were also funny. Who would have thunk it? The mom used to be the president of her company when God called her to homeschool her children. He is still an engineer with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Their older children got accepted into all ten colleges they applied for and six of these ten colleges offered them a free ride. Intrigued? I will pass on to you their twelve pointers about homeschooling in a future blog post.
All in all, it was a great night of networking. It was good to see old friends and make new friends. Homeschooling is an exciting adventure and being plugged into a support network makes it even more fun. My suggestion is that you find a support group wherever you live. You will need them in good times and tough times alike.
Good afternoon!
I am a Prevention Educator with Safe Harbor CAC and was wondering if you would like to schedule some visits this summer where we can come and meet with the kids to do a prevention education talk? We can do grades K-12th as well as adults.
Through the course, we talk through safety rules to make sure they do things that will keep them from danger, but if they do find themselves in danger it will give them pointers of what to do next. It also walks through the different forms of abuse, bullying, and online safety.
Let me know your thoughts and look forward to hearing from you!
Jessica Shumake
This post is from 2013. Ten years ago, I was involved with this group. Now we are members of other support groups. You can find this group on Facebook and reach out to their coordinator. Thanks for the offer though!
we are new to homeschooling and new to the area. We would love to connect with a group. Can someone please contact me?
Hello Jessica,
There is a Facebook Group called Sevier County Homeschoolers. We are not that active with them anymore. The above post was from 2013. 🙂
https://www.facebook.com/groups/468557283270924
I am sure if you post there, they will reach out to you. Hope this helps.