Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Thanks for tuning in today. You guys have found me at my little corner of the internet today is Monday, September 13th.

And today is mailbox Monday. I'm going to spend the rest of today's episode answering your questions and you guys are in for a treat because my friend Steve Lambert is here to help me dive into your questions.

Stick around. I think you're going to be encouraged. Are you weary? I hear that word everywhere I go these days. People are weary from the pandemic, weary from what's happening in our schools, weary from what's happening in our state capital and perhaps most of all people are weary from the feckless leadership in Washington DC.

But I've got good news for you guys. My name is Heidi St. John and I'm running for Congress in Washington's third congressional district. I need your support so I can be your voice in Washington DC and together we can bring sanity and hope back to this weary land to join my team. Please visit me online. Heidi St. John for Congress dot com.

So thanks for tuning in today. You guys, couple things going before we get really into the meat of it today. I want to you guys make sure that you check my calendar so that you can see where I am speaking and what's going on with my run for the US House of Representatives.

And I think that's why we're going to be doing this. We really appreciate your prayers also wanted to let you know that today is the first day of classes happening at the homeschool resource center. I know a lot of you have been watching the journey that we have been on over here at the center for quite some time.

And we continue just to watch the world really just on fire and I'm going to be talking to Steve about that in just a minute. You know, we got vaccine mandates now and all kinds of silliness happening really I think the Lord is using the homeschool movement in a lot of ways to save America because these are free thinking individuals their parents have made the really difficult jump to pull their kids out of the public school system and do the thing they thought they could never do.

And in the midst of all the craziness and insanity that's happening the homeschool movement is actually providing hope so as I was looking at your questions today and trying to decide, you know, which one's to answer first and all the things I thought there's really nobody better that I can think of to come on the show and offer you guys some hope and encouragement.

Then my friend of many, many years Steve Lambert Steve my friend welcome back to the show.

Hey, thank you Heidi it's always fun to be with you. So you and I talk almost daily you and me and Jane on our kind of morning phone calls and you know what's it like over there at Missouri what's on fire and Missouri what's on fire in Washington you know talking about all the things.

But more recently than not we've been talking about the importance of the homeschool movement and really the answer and the hope that homeschooling is providing to a lot of parents and I know that you and I have been for years and years involved in homeschooling help when you guys started in the 80s right.

Almost in the 70s we started in 1981 so probably at least two thirds of your listeners probably weren't even born when Jane and I began our homeschooling journey 40 years ago.

Wow and I would imagine in 1981 homeschooling it wasn't mainstream people are just like what do you guys you know you hide in your kitchen from social security are you growing your own weed I mean what was that like when you decided to do that.

Yeah it was nuts we didn't actually know any other homeschoolers at the time we never met one and I didn't even know it was legal to be honest and Jane heard about it somewhere and approached me but yeah we at one point had that dreaded knock on our door from Department of Family Services we had to hire an attorney to defend our decision.

And so it was a different time thank the Lord that homeschooling today is a mainstream option that more than 10% of American children are involved in homeschooling now and the rights to homeschool are well established in all 50 states and we have a solid 40 year plus track record of evidence for new homeschoolers to indicate that this is a sane in fact an excellent academic choice but more importantly a way to get a better job.

And so it's a different choice but more importantly a wonderful social choice for children of all types ages and different personalities.

Yeah and I think it's actually love I mean you and Zan Tyler have this in common right I mean Zan had the the police coming to her door you know she was threatened with true and see threatened with jail this was back in you know in the state of South Carolina but the fact of the matter is we're looking at terrible government over reach right now people are afraid for lots of different reasons.

And so I think that's why schools have already been here.

You know we know I kind of think we've got the law and the you know we won the lot didn't we won we won and I think that was the beginning really I mean because if your decision to homeschool five in a row which is the award winning curriculum that Jane authored and has served hundreds of thousands of children over the years it was born out of that.

And so a lot of things out of the homeschool community so when I talk to people who are afraid right now especially you know brand new people I look at the you know you were really a pioneer you and Jane were very much pioneers in the homeschool movement I was at the tail end.

Of the pioneering sort of spirit that the homeschoolers were bringing into it these guys are not pioneers they're refugees they're not running to something they're running from something.

So what's the best encouragement that you can offer is there are a lot of people listening this right now who this is really their first full week of homeschooling and they're scared and they're wondering if this grand experiment is going to work and maybe their kids are saying mom I miss my friends from you back in school.

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