I hope you’re having a good August. My apologies for the lateness of this newsletter. The first of August came before I was ready for it. And last week had some unexpected challenges right after I finished the “Homeschooling Can Be Fun Challenge” that I had prepared for for so long. There were literal “Challenges” from Pedro Adao and Dachelle McVey, and there were relationship challenges that threw me for a loop. Don’t worry, everything’s fine with my family, but sometimes people can get upset about the strangest things.

Speaking of Challenges, the Homeschooling Can Be Fun Challenge was a great success! Many came and learned new ways to add some fun to their homeschool and how to take the drudgery and boredom out of it. You know that we want learning to be meaningful and enjoyable. This should be a time of bonding together as a family. These are the best of times. Let’s not turn them into the worst of times!

On Day 2 I talked about Familyschooling and Lifeschooling. These seemed to be the topics that had the most impact on those who attended the challenge. Several participants said that they will be applying these principles to their homeschool this year.

I also heard feedback about Day 4’s topic of Unleashing Their Creativity. We want to encourage our children to pursue their interests and passions. We also want to give them time and opportunity to be creative and develop their artistic abilities. We want to value right-brained abilities as much as we do left-brained abilities.

The world is changing, and we homeschoolers need to change with it. For more information about this check out Danielle Papageorgiou’s blog at Lifeschoolingconference.com.

I encourage everyone to pray about how God is leading you into new ways of thinking about things and doing things. He is doing a new thing! We are entering a new era. Things are being changed for the better.

It looks bad right now, because the terrible things that have been going on for decades or longer are being exposed. The crimes against children and corruption in government and all of the institutions that have been ruling over us have been going on for a long time. They are just now being exposed and dealt with.

We have been lied to by the media, by our government officials, by our education establishment, by church leaders, and by medical experts for such a long time. We have to learn to think in a whole new way as we realize the truth about our history and even the role our country has played in some of the worst travesties of justice.

We the People are finding out the truth little by little. Even now the 2-tier justice system is being exposed as the DOJ is trying to put their top political opponent in prison through all kinds of drummed-up indictments.

We are getting new revelation on Revelation. If you want to know more about that listen to Johnny Enlow HERE.

We are Opening the Sealed Book. You can find out more HERE.

I titled this newsletter “When God Changes Your Plans” because I saw Him do that a lot last week during my Challenge.

He changed my plans in the middle of my challenge. I had everything ready, I thought. But God highlighted some new themes to me that I knew I had to add. I knew that on Day 4 I was supposed to focus on unleashing their creativity, not just following their interests. And the last day I knew that I was supposed to speak about more than just how we shouldn’t try to do homeschooling alone, but also a better way to deal with evaluating our children’s progress than grades and tests.

And I felt much better about the quality of the information I covered during my challenge.

Then I had a free day planned on Tuesday, but I got a phone call from a friend asking if we could drive to the Dayton Mall area to pick up a package. We had just taken our son to work, and that put us closer to the mall, so we went from there. She didn’t tell me what was in the package. But we trusted her and changed our “plans”, and we ended up with a new Samsung Tablet for Gary! The Lord had told her to get that for him.

The next day, Gary and I met with a friend of my mom and dad at a coffee shop. We were thinking that it would be like an interview for Gary to do something for the church that my mom and dad had been so involved with for many years or for this man’s business. It kind of started out that way, but halfway through, Gary started speaking life and blessings over the man. He started telling him how he could do more for the Kingdom and how he could use social media to spread the Gospel. He told him how great God thinks he is. The man was taken aback. He didn’t really know how to take all that Gary was saying. His demeanor changed, and his all-business attitude became one of “Let’s see what the Lord might have for you to do with us in the future.”

Go ahead and make all the plans you want,
but it’s the Lord who will ultimately direct your steps.
Proverbs 16:1 TPT

Before you do anything,
put your trust totally in God and not in yourself.
Then every plan you make will succeed.

4The Lord works everything together to accomplish his purpose.
Even the wicked are included in his plans—
he sets them aside for the day of disaster.
Proverbs 16:3,4

Within your heart you can make plans for your future,
but the Lord chooses the steps you take to get there.
Proverbs 16:9

I was kind of living in Proverbs 16 last week!

If you are intrigued by what I’ve told you about the Homeschooling Can Be Fun Challenge, you can still see the videos and check out the Facebook page.

The videos are all here:

Day 1 – Don’t Do School at Home

Day 2 – Learning is Natural – Keep it that Way! Develop a Homeschool Mindset

Day 3 – We don’t have to do the things schools do – We can make it a lot more fun!

Day 4 – Follow the Interests of your children – Unleash their Creativity

Day 5 – Should we use grades and tests in homeschooling? and Don’t do it alone!

And the Facebook page is here.

Enjoy the challenge for free.

Then check out my course on The Basics of Learning and Homeschooling.

And then check out my blog at Safe Haven Homeschooling!

I’ve written a new book called “Dear Struggling Homeschool Mom, I See You”.

We had “Planned” to have it published on Amazon during the week of my challenge, but you know how plans go. We are working on it, so be watching for my announcement in the next week or two.

Thank you for your support and encouragement!

If you have any prayer requests, be sure to hit reply and tell me what’s on your heart. It gives me great joy to hear from you and to pray for you and your family.

Your Homeschool Life Coach,

Penney Douglas, B. S. in Ed.
Safe Haven Homeschooling

linktr.ee/penneydouglas
Homeschooling Can Be Fun Facebook group
My books on Amazon 

And join our Christian Moms Book Club August 16 when we will be discussing 1000 Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp.