The first of October and my daughter gets done with her 3rd quarter homeschool portfolio.
I know, it's just the third quarter of our school year, three down and one more to go but somehow we always find a reason to celebrate different occasions in our homeschooling. For example, someone gets a perfect score on a quiz one morning, we run to the nearest grocery to get a gallon of ice cream to celebrate that little victory, sometimes never going back to school again later that day, we get carried away.
Someone loses his last and overdue milk tooth, then we pop open Pringles and sodas in revelry of this significant loss, we find ourselves lounging in the family room for too long and later get amused that it's already dinner-time. Still, someone learns how to read phonetically and we get elated that everyone's reading in the family, we find ourselves staying up late at night watching impromptu movie marathon.
Maybe we're that kind of homeschoolers; serious learners but fun-loving and yet structure-hating; relaxed but panicky on deadlines; hardworking but procrastinating; home-educating but world-travelling. ( Okay, I got a little carried away with the last statement, maybe not yet .) And always, there's a reason for celebrating homeschooling no matter what stage or age we're in.
On our tenth year, yes, tenth year( ! ), we realized that we may have reached a stage in our journey that author Malcolm Gladwell coined as the "10, 000 hours of greatness" which is the "magic hours of greatness to be an expert." (Again, I'm getting a little carried away here, maybe not yet.) Celebrate, anyways.
What a way to spend the first evening of October by watching a Don Moen concert billed, "God will Make A Way." Out of our excitement, we made sure to come as early as possible to see the auditorium get filled by expectant audience that night.
Bad idea. I decided to have a tall cup of caramel "Blesspresso" while I killed time before the concert started at 8pm. My drink was loaded with a ton of caffein which kept me awake till 3am. I got tired of counting sheep.
As I said, we intended to arrive early to watch Don Moen crowd build up at the auditorium.
We actually wanted to take selfies as early as we can without the hassle of photo bombers on the background for posterity's sake...because this would be our first concert to watch as a family (as Noah puts it) e-v-e-r... So, for the record, since we've spent most of our homeschooling years from the boondocks, this would be the Mangyan Homeschoolers' first live concert date, "ever."
And I bumped into these two beautiful ladies, Chet and Bubbles ( l - r ) who were busy ushering people to their respective seats. I sit down with them every "SaturDates" afternoon to Dgroup with them and pray with them and laugh with them and simply be blessed with them. And oh, homeschool with them, too.
What a privilege to worship the Lord that night as brother Don Moen invited us to join him in choruses. I felt like I was transported back in time during the days of the analog, from the wordings of the songs, to the music grove that was distinctly a 'Don Moen.' I'm sure all the 1990's crowd shared the same kind of feeling of "euphoria" that night as we sang songs that have become part of our daily devotions and our spiritual walk more than two decades ago.
There were no fireworks, no frills, no orchestra, and not even a choir that night but Don Moen simply ushered us into the presence of God as we sang songs like "God Will Make A Way," "God Is Good All The Time," "There Is None Like You," and "Give Thanks."
Then Lenny Leblanc was there as a bonus treat.
To a generation that belonged to the age of everything digital, the EDM's ( electronic dance music ), the rich heavenly sound of electronically engineered record albums, this concert served as a "bridging event" to our younger generation of worshippers. Noah kept elbowing me in his amazement, "Mom, I can't believe you know all these songs."
Tsk. Sorry for the blurry photo. We were this close to the stage at the end of the concert. Everyone clamored for "more!!! more!!! more!!!"