We Came,
We Saw...In
by Joshua Carden
Well, you might guess where I am while writing this
column. Yup, you guessed it: an
airplane. In keeping with my usual
tradition, I won’t tell you the name of the airline, except that the word
“continent” is a large part of it. Of
course, as old readers are aware, I’m well acquainted with the ins and outs of
airline travel—mainly that it’s hard for me to get in and out. This particular airline is doing fairly well,
except for the pilots’ tendency to land one side of the airplane before the
other side. For once though, I’m not
going to or returning from a wedding (Please try to restrain your shock). That’s next weekend. This weekend, I am returning from my very
first ever home school conference speaking engagement! (Kids, I pray that your parents don’t make
you diagram the previous sentence!)
You have to understand something at
this point: I have wanted to speak at a home school conference since I
graduated from high school. I once asked
Mike Farris, Executive Producer of the Crosswalk Homeschool Channel and
broad-jumper extraordinaire, “How do you get to speak at a home school
conference?” His answer: “Write. Write a lot.”
So for the last several years, I have written. And written. And written. Along the way, I discovered that I really
like writing. But there was always this
nagging desire to go speak somewhere. Especially since I’m so old and wise now. (Hey now, it wasn’t THAT funny!) So when my friend Olivia Johnson asked me to
come to
As we began talking about this
conference, I started to meet the other speakers. Only home school graduates were being invited
to speak—a rather exclusive club, although that is changing rapidly. I was surrounded by some of the best of the
best. The Fabulous Denton Boys, er, excuse me, the Denton Brothers Quartet kicked off the
conference with a wonderful time of singing, and then Michael Denton spoke on
“sibling harmony” (and I thought I was the only one who still used bad
puns). If you’ve never heard them sing
together, you’ve missed out! Then
Southern Californian Matt Duffy, author of Hot
House Transplants (a still more exclusive club that I haven’t been asked to
join. Sorry, Matt, you knew I had to say
something!), shared from personal experience how home schooling is “what you
make of it.” Olivia Johnson, a
What a joy it was to stand before a group
of younger home schoolers and their parents and be
able to share what God has done in my life through (and sometimes in spite of)
home schooling. We had a blast! And the memories! Who could forget the sight of Matt Duffy
demonstrating the non-productive busyness that plagues our lives by stuffing
his mouth full of marshmallows? Or
seeing the city of
I don’t know when I’ve had more fun
speaking to an audience. I mean, I
wasn’t doing this for a grade, or for a position, or for any ulterior motive—I
just got to speak on something I actually knew about! And for once, no one confused me with Joshua
Harris. I did discover one major
difference between speaking and writing.
There is no “delete” key in speaking!
What comes out of your mouth ends up on the tape for all to hear. Fortunately, God was gracious and I only ate
about a foot and a half rather than both my feet!
All of the speakers decided that we want to do this
again sometime. Hopefully,
next summer. I’ll try to keep you
informed as to what cities we get to come to.
Who knows, maybe I’ll see you there!
And if you want us to come to your city, let me know. I can’t promise anything but we’ll sure
consider it. Look out world, here we
come!