My Wild Brothers

This was an actual conversation that happened in our home yesterday morning.....

"Mom, you're really going up in the polls!"

"What?  Oh, I cooked bacon."

"Oh yeah.  That definitely has you in the running for 'Mom of the Year'."

"What about the tarantula and the bearded dragon?  That should help my polls..."

"That's going to get you the win...."

That's right.  Mom of the Year.  Because I cook bacon and because I let them get a tarantula and a bearded dragon lizard.  Truth is, I SHOULD get the award for doing those things!  I do NOT know many moms who would let those types of bugs and lizards in their homes.  But, now ask me, was I consulted ever on whether they would enter our home?  No.  The conversation just went on and on around me as if I didn't exist.  One day they just showed up.  Watch for the award show.  I'll win.

We support our kids hobbies, even if they are weird and wonderful.  We are all about cheap, though, so tons of research went on for weeks if not months and years before these beasts arrived.  Then, once the best deal was reached, they were purchased with mostly their money and voila, now we have a zoo INSIDE the house.  What is so great about hobbies is that it gets the kids reading, writing, and studying without them really knowing it.  They are virtually carrying out what my schooling used to call "independent study" without the label, so learning becomes fun because it wasn't "in school".

I attended a homeschool conference on the weekend and it described that type of learning as "life learning".  It sounded so good!  How could I create life learners?  Then I realized a lot of life learning was already going on in my home, but sometimes I miss it because I'm not paying attention to how it is happening.  It was good affirmation for me to remember learning is happening all the time in our home, even if it isn't with a book open.

I picked up a few videos at the conference, too.  One set of videos jumped out at me in particular, a series from Answers in Genesis, called "The Wild Brothers".  Loved the title!  Sure enough, it was a dvd about 4 brothers who live along with their missionary parents in Papua, a southeast Pacific island, and it just so happens they are wild boys for sure, but their last name is also "Wild", literally.  They homeschool their boys, but most of their learning goes on after the books are closed.  They recently helped build their home on the top of a mountain.  Then they helped build an airstrip!  In addition to that they hunt, collect butterfly and bird specimens, skin snakes, help their parents in mission work.....unbelievable.  It was so inspiring to watch.  My older boys refused to watch though.  They knew they would be jealous.  They want to live in the jungle.  They want to catch butterfly specimens, skin snakes and hunt.  Well, sorry, we don't live in a jungle.  Tonight, I'm going to force them to watch it.  What I want them to see is how they learn in other ways, outside school hours.  I want them to be inspired to keep up their interests, to pursue learning all their lives, all 24 hours of their day. 

But most importantly, what I noticed in these boys was their love for God.  They couldn't help but talk about God's faithfulness.  They've been in some tough situations, but the oldest boy, narrating the video said, "God has never let us down."  That was something I wanted our kids to hear, too, other kids, their ages, talking about a walk with God, about His faithfulness.  It was completely natural to them. 

I have "Wild Brothers", too, some more wild than others.  That is a good thing, but I don't want them to remain wild in a crazy animal type of way.  I want them to be wild about their faith in Christ.  I want them to be wild about learning.  I want them to be wild about their relationships with our family.  These other brothers spoke so well of their parents and of each other.  They loved spending time together.  Outside the tribal peoples they work with, they only had each other. 

So how do I take them from being wild rambunctious boys, to wild about God?  The Bible has the answer, of course.  We read in Hebrews on Sunday how we are not supposed to stay like little babies, "You need milk, not solid food."  The writer was saying how the people he was talking to were not growing, they were stuck in their foolish ways.  They were "dull of hearing".  He wanted to explain many more difficult things to them, but he couldn't as it was too "hard to explain".  He said to them, "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God."  I told my 5 year old, "By this time you should be a teacher!"  Ok, maybe not a teacher, but I explained to him how the passage even applied to him.  He can't stay being a little boy forever, he needs to realize he is an adult-in-training.  He can still have fun, but he can't be "dull of hearing" which he often is.  Then it went on to say, "everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.  But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil."  (Hebrews 5:13, 14)

Children are unskilled in righteousness!  The Bible nailed it!  That's really a fancy way of saying they are just naturally badly behaved.  How do they become skilled "in righteousness"?  I told them they could have a new super power like a super hero, if they so chose.  My boy got really excited.  I think he thought he could be running around at lightning speed or something like that.  No, I told him.  He could have the "Powers of Discernment"!  Not quite as exiting.  But it's true!  The way they get this super power and at the same time get trained in righteousness and develop their skills in the word of God is through "constant practice".  Then they will know the difference between good and evil.  They will know what is wise and foolish.  They will be able to tell when they are developing as adults or staying as children.

We aren't planning on moving to the jungle anytime soon, sadly, though my boys would love that.  But in the meantime, I can develop my Wild Brothers, here on the farm, to not only be in a constant state of learning and enjoying life, but also to be developing a walk with God, helping them grow from immaturity to maturity.  Even my 5 year old knew what that meant, "getting old", he said.  I explained it was more than that, but he was close!  He knew it meant to start acting more like an adult than a boy.  In some ways, he's a long way off, but then I consider my 18 year old girl.  How and when did she become an adult?  It happened so fast, but it wasn't one day to the next.  We trained her all along that she was an adult-in-training.  Her transition to adulthood hasn't been as painful as it could have been.  So even though my 3 and 5 year old boys are so little, so young and seemingly a loooong way off from being adults, I now know, from the experience of my older ones, that it is just around the corner, so I'm training now.  No time to waste.  And along the way, I'll pick up a few bugs and lizards just to make them feel like they're living in a jungle.