As we close the 2021 year, we look back on a year of uncertainty, but also of hope, change and growth. This fall as I worked and began my senior year in college I faced new and reoccurring fears of failure, rejection and uncertainty. In November I began to witness, in a variety of ways, how fear was gripping those around me and I had things going on at work and school that were beginning to leave me overwhelmed and afraid (of failing, mostly). After working through situations of my own, and realizing I wasn’t going to be able to fix everything I “needed” and wanted to, I decided that rejecting fear was one of the most important things I needed to share with those around me. And as Christmas approached, the Lord showed me that rejecting fear is a powerful message of the Christmas story. At the end of November, a friend I’ve worked with promoting pro-life causes also gave me a call and mentioned how God was laying it on her heart to set aside a time for Christians to pray about the fear gripping our community (much related to Covid, but even in general). Isn’t it amazing how God will use people around us to reinforce things we have been learning?

This Christmas season I pulled together scriptures from the Christmas story that relate to fear and shared them. Many times angels, sent by God, appeared in the stories telling characters in the Christmas story not to be afraid— of the angels or their message— and to embrace the situation and challenges before them. Whether the message was to Zachariah, Mary, Joseph or the lowly shepherds, I think this message to not be afraid was shared repeatedly for a reason. If we place our trust in Christ we have nothing to fear— Covid, death, failure, other people, or even falling short of our own timeline. Our only fear should be in God.

“And when Zacharias saw him he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, “Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.” Luke 1:12,13 KJV

“And when [Mary] saw him, she was troubled at his saying and cast about in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus.” Luke 1:29-31 KJV Then there’s what the angel said to Joseph, “But while [Joseph] thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” – Matthew 1:20 KJV

“And the angel said unto [the shepherds], “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:9-10 KJV ). This Christmas may God bless you with His love, and may the message shared with the shepherds on the night of Christ’s birth– “do not be afraid,” bless you throughout the holiday and into the 2022 New Year!

If you know me, you probably know I was home educated. I’m the oldest of six kids and grew up traveling the western half of the United States. My family didn’t really settle down until I was well into my twenties.

For families looking at the confusion and screwiness of education as school districts “look” at going back to school this fall, I’d like to encourage parents that home school is a valid option, for parents that can tag-team it or have a stay-at-home parent, or for families where grandparents are the care-taker of the children. Masks aren’t good for young children. As a matter of fact, I know my professors and employers would have called them abusive eight months ago when I was working in the early childhood education field. Children can’t breathe with them and it will impact their physical development.

This past spring I earned an associates degree in early childhood education from Western New Mexico University. As a first-born in a home school family, education probably seems like a natural field for me to follow, it interested me as a teenager, but I ended up getting into politics instead. Since pre-teens I assisted with, and absolutely loved, curriculum development. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to be part of the development of education over the last twenty years. From spiral-bound books in the mid-1990s when I entered Kindergarten, to the world of e-readers and iPads which developed about the time I graduated from high school, I’ve seen education completely transform. The last few years I have spent much of my time working in an education setting, first in children’s camps and serving as a lead for an after school program, but also as an education assistant working in the public school system and as a work study at my university’s infant/toddler program. I’ve worked with children from six weeks through to elementary school. With my background out of the way, I’d like to share a few things about home schooling.

Home schooling isn’t as difficult as you’d think! For New Mexico residents, getting registered and set up to home school is easy. Just check out the state’s website HERE, follow the directions and sign up. Next you can choose some curriculum to follow and plan out a school calendar. If you want your child enrolled in extracurricular activities or a specific class or two in your local school district, choose the home school option that gives your child a unique ID. You still have to talk with your district about what programs are available, but this helps open the door to that option.

Early Years: For young children (ages 4-8), home school can begin with as simple as approaches as teaching phonics or early reading with online tools, playing with blocks and number “toys” for math and using geometric blocks, to having paper, pencils and markers available for the child. Cooking dinner can turn into an experience in social studies (ethnic food) as well as math (measurement) and reading (a cookbook) and science (dry food textures and discussion on how veggies grow). For young children the options for teachable moments go on and on. At this age, children are learning to read. Later they’ll be reading to learn!

Elementary School: Over the past four summers I’ve worked in a summer camp, which also led to substitute teaching during the school year. As I’ve worked with elementary-age students, I’ve learned the importance of allowing children at this age to explore their interests. Setting up a schedule is important. It’s also important to allow the student to explore his or her interests. A child might be interested in electronics? Encourage her to complete important reading and math assignments so she can take apart an old printer and figure out how it works (science). Similarly, if a boy wants to research the history of a local historic landmark, allow him to shape his learning around that interest so that he’s completing his grade-level assignments while pursuing an interest. Teachers who have helped me to grow along the way have stressed the importance of getting children involved in what interests them and helping their curiosity to shape their learning.

High School: While I have zero experience working with high school students in a classroom setting, I can say that I found that during my high school experience (in another state), learning new skills such as auto-mechanics, helping the needy in my neighborhood and home economics helped me as I became and adult. I encourage parents looking at home school for older children think about having their children learn life skills in addition to academic learning. A local charter school I’ve been connected to in my community requires students to fulfill an “internship” when they’re in high school. Students work one day a week (at least) to fulfil graduation requirements.

Choosing Curriculum:

Curriculum is such a difficult discussion to have without knowing each family and individual child. As a Christian, my family always chose religious curriculum for everything but (sometimes) math. I’d be happy to share my personal perspective in a more personal platform, but the biggest thing I stress is to do what will cause your child to be most engaged. What “experts” say is good, might not be the best. For example, as an assistant working in New Mexico Pre-K, I can’t say enough about how awful the “expert-recommended” Pearson curriculum is for Pre-K. I haven’t met a teacher who believes it is appropriate and great for kids, but it has great reviews supposedly, and is encouraged by the state of New Mexico.

FREE Helpful Tools for elementary and high school students:

Kahn Academy for STEM. While I didn’t use this as a teen, my siblings did, and they have found Kahn super helpful.

Project Gutenberg for classics. Just add a cheap Kindle from Amazon or eBay. I love this website.

ABC Mouse (possibly free). ABC Mouse is free for teachers, so I would argue it should be free for home school students as well. If you can’t get it free as a home school parent, I would talk with your local school district and see if a teacher can sign your child up free. If your child has the unique ID from the state, your school district may cooperate (it’s a local decision, usually).

CLEP/AP Tests and Classes. Since 2012, I tested out of over 50 college credits and it cost me about $1,200 (the credits paid off when I was paid as if I had an associates degree at one job). Add 3 online classes I took that were regionally accredited through ACE, and I transferred 60 college credits into my university before I took a single class. The tests were mostly easy. Some I took after studying two or three hours (like the marketing class, when I was working in marketing). Either way, it is worthwhile for a college-bound high school student to look at making her time worthwhile and take a little extra effort to get college credit for the material she’s already forced to study in her daily classes.

Modern States offers free curriculum for students who want to test out of CLEP tests. I would recommend students consider using this because it could fulfill most academic requirements for a student for at least two semesters, and a student could use it to jump start herself to college.

Rebekah Stevens is a resident of Silver City and has spent the last ten years working on nearly every level of New Mexico politics, from Taos County volunteer headquarters staff and Grant County GOP Vice Chair, to representing New Mexico at the RNC and running winning campaigns in her home town, including helping a Republican win her own district‘s county commissioner’s seat!

In 2015, Rebekah helped charter the New Mexico Young Republicans and has been the organization’s chair since 2017. This leadership opportunity helped her to meet national Republican leaders and even led to a trip to Israel with other young Republicans as a guest of the center-right Likud Party (led by Prime Minister Netanyahu).

As the eldest of six children Rebekah was raised with the values the Republican Party holds dear– faith, family and life. She’s been active with organizations across New Mexico and in her community including New Mexico Center for Family Policy, Jobs for all NM (pro-right-to-work), Americans for Prosperity, the Republican Party of Grant County, Indian Hills Baptist Church of Silver City (including a children’s ministry director), Silver City Wild, Wild West Pro Rodeo, Calvary Christian Academy of Silver City, the Silver City Grant County Chamber of Commerce, Grant County Friends of the NRA and many more.

Rebekah has a variety of interests and continues to work as a consultant and contractor for clients in conservative circles in New Mexico and around the nation. Rebekah has also worked as an office administrator for her local newspaper and an educator at a local private school.

Rebekah hopes to bring her varied experience and the hundreds of hours of training as an operative she has received to the Republican Party of New Mexico. Over the past five years she has visited a dozen states and Washington D.C. learning from trainings conducted by the RNC, Young Republicans and center-right organizations including Leadership Institute and Americans for Prosperity.

Please support Rebekah Stevens for 2nd Vice Chair of the Republican Party of New Mexico.

Oh, the FAITH!

Recently, I was challenged to think about what hope, trust and faith mean to me through an incorrect use of the word hope by a politician (go figure) equating hope in God to their own efforts. I don’t appreciate that…it’s disrespectful at best.

This causes me to think about faith a bit…what does Faith mean? Where will it take me? Why do I believe it? I found these scriptures so encouraging! For me, Faith means a lot. It’s what is there when I can’t count on my family, my friends or other people to meet my needs when I’m struggling! I love these scriptures!

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear…

These all died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded by them and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth…

But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a City. And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak and of Samson and of Jephthah, of David also and Samuel and of the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness they were made strong, waxed valiant in battle, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens…

Seeing we also are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 11 & 12, Excerpts

Earlier this month I had the honor of being a member of the Young GOP Leaders for Israel group visiting Israel to learn about the nation and discover more about how everyday Americans can become advocates to strengthen the bond between Israel and the U.S.

I found the trip deeply meaningful in political, spiritual and historical ways as my group was led by Likud party members, visited the old city and saw so many historical sites that have political and historic meaning to the nation of Israel.

During the ten days I spent in, I witnessed the excitement leading up to the announcement that the U.S. will move its embassy to Jerusalem. Israelis I spoke with certainly wished President Trump would recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capitol of Israel, but the outrage of the Muslim occupied Israel would have been significant.

I learned so much about the Jewish culture, the state of Israel, and the turmoil of the Middle East that impacts citizens lives every day. In Israel, terror is a horror citizens experience all the time– from rabbis stabbed in the streets, to trucks that tear through a crowd killing half a dozen people. How often is it we’re faced with seemingly random religiously-motivated acts of terror in the U.S.?

The culture respects religion like no other I’ve ever seen and for me that is inspiring. Israelis by and large also accept the idea that politics and faith can and do work parallel, after all, for many people around the world, religion and ideology are intertwined because religion impact ideologies in many instances.

For me, the visit to Israel was life-changing. Everyday citizens are so passionate about their culture and the state of Israel– they’ve been willing to sacrifice and even die, to reclaim the traditional homeland of the Jewish people and freedoms for their children.

In a war-torn, poverty stricken region, Israel is with us, as an ally, but much more. I now value my freedom so much more after seeing how liberty and security are fought for in Israel.

I’m looking forward to sharing more about what I learned and experienced while in Israel. Stay tuned.

(cross-posted on my political blog: politicalfireball.com)