Testimony from Arizona
As we were beginning our homeschool journey more than ten years ago, we had no idea we would have 10 kids right now! We just knew that God had put it on our hearts to homeschool our kids, and we wanted to be faithful to that/to Him. We began by getting the Old Schoolhouse Magazine and reading articles to see what was best for our family (at the time, we had 2 daughters). We read a number of articles about character being the most important thing in a child’s education. Then we read Romans 5:3-5, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
And 2 Peter 1:5-8 says: "But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue (character), to virtue (character) knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
When we found Lamplighter Publishing, we knew we wanted to try a few of their books to see if they were something we could use to instill character in our children. Lamplighter Publishing began in 1994 and has become a collection of more than 200 rare books infused with biblical insights and heroic, godly role models to be emulated by young and old. Lamplighter’s mission is to make ready a people prepared for the Lord by building Christ-like character one story at a time. As we sat down and began reading these redeeming stories, full of suffering and growth, we realized God had sent us absolute treasures. Out of those first few books, the Lamplighter Challenge was born. The idea was to have our children live out what Paul says in Romans 5:3-5, by challenging them to read the entire Lamplighter collection of 200+ rare books by the time they turn 10 years old. Then they got to choose a Daddy Adventure anywhere in the world.
Daddy has now taken the first 4 of our 10 kids to various places around the world, from Israel to Great Britain, New Zealand and Slovenia! We have seen character growth in many tangible ways in each of our kids, and though Lamplighter may not be the only thing, their books have had a huge impact on each of them. We continually talk of the stories and how we are or can be like Little Faith or Ishmael or Capitola. The heroes and heroines in these stories are fun, engaging, real, and show our kids (and us) a little of the depth of our Heavenly Father’s love for us and how we can love others because of that love.
~Brian
