Homeschooling on a Mission Field: A Blessing and A Challenge

Homeschooling on the Mission Field: A Blessing and a Challenge

By Pam Berglund

Indonesia is sandwiched between Australia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia. It is made up of more than 12,000 islands, many of which have their own languages, beliefs, and customs. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, but we are committed to reaching the most unreached people, those who live in remote tribes and villages and who have never had the opportunity to hear about the saving grace of Jesus. These people are not Muslim but are animist, which means they worship and live in fear of their ancestors.

My husband, Greg, and I, and our five children (Nate, age 12; Hannah, age 10; Grace, age 8; Katie, age 6; and Caleb, age 3) live in a town in central Indonesia where I homeschool our five children and give support to other homeschooling families in the region. My husband, Greg, is translating the Bible into the Buru language. The Buru people live to the south of us in the remote jungles of the island of Buru. Because of security and transportation issues, we have not been able to live in the tribe with the Buru people for several years, but Greg makes frequent trips to encourage the believers in Buru and to check the translation work. We are anticipating that some of those transportation issues will be resolved soon and that we will be able to make the move to one of the Buru villages this year.

Our life here in Indonesia looks very similar to a homeschooling family's life in the U.S. in many ways, but we also have many opportunities and blessings and even some struggles and challenges that the typical homeschooler in the U.S. doesn't face. We miss parks, libraries, museums, and the opportunity to take part in homeschool co-ops and community activities. We miss the passing of the seasons and the feeling of truly fitting in and belonging somewhere. Even more than that we miss grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. On the other hand we are able to do things here with our kids that we would never have opportunity to do in the States. We can go snorkeling right on the Great Barrier Reef, hike through jungles, visit ancient ruins, and look into the mouth of a volcano. Our children have been to many countries and are growing up protected, in a sense, from some of the prevailing American culture. They are seeing firsthand the poverty that much of the world experiences and also the amazing resilience and creativity of people with so little material goods and opportunities. I love the fact that my kids are able to explore and are constantly finding huge beetles and odd bugs or rescuing tropical baby birds. They hunt for gecko eggs and watch them hatch and hack open coconuts to drink the coconut juice inside.

Probably my biggest challenge living overseas as far as homeschooling goes is the absence of libraries and garage sales and the painfully slow and expensive shipping. I have become very adept at turning to the Internet to find materials and tend to choose curriculum that can be reproduced and used for all my children. I also buy as much as I can in ebook format. We have added a continuous-flow ink system on our printer and are able to print very cheaply. We also have just been given Kindle ebook readers as gifts, which I am hoping will make the buying and shipping of books less of an issue, at least for the older, voracious readers in our family.

I use a modified version of Sue Patrick's Workbox System to organize our schoolwork. Last year I was also teaching our co-worker's two children and had six children in five grades . . . plus a 2-year-old! I found that workboxes were a lifesaver, helping us to organize our materials and giving form and structure to our day. This year, with just my children, I have adapted it a little more by having only six workboxes per child, as well as a "family" workbox unit in which we keep all the books and supplies for the subjects we do together, such as science, Bible, and history.

Because we had other students coming each day, last year we got into a strict 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. school schedule. We like to keep to that if possible, but with a little more flexibility this year, we often find ourselves finishing up a few extra subjects in the afternoons. We also have a sports day once a week, when we get together with other MKs (missionary kids) to play sports. Recently the kids have also had the opportunity to learn to care for and ride horses twice a week.

I would describe myself as an eclectic homeschooler. We have several curricula that are such a good fit for our family that we keep returning to them year after year. For Bible we use Foundations by Anne's Homeschool Place (available at CurrClick). We like the chronological approach and how easy it is to use. The kids also work through Awana books at their own level. Math-U-See is by far our favorite math curriculum, and we have used it for all but our first year of homeschooling. We love how easy it is to use and how well concepts are explained. The Story of the World has also been a good fit for our family, and we are now on year three.

We ship a box or two of books over each year. Those books, together with corresponding literature I find online, in our home library, and in our little MK library here make up our literature curriculum for the older kids. We are using Artistic Pursuits this year for art and are really enjoying it. We use a wide array of different resources for language arts, including Wordsmith Apprentice and Spelling Power. We round out our studies with free resources I have found or inexpensive online resources. I often take a week off from our regular studies around different holidays to do unit studies; I find it keeps everyone's enthusiasm up if we switch things up occasionally.

I guess one of the basic themes of our lives as homeschooling, overseas missionaries is adaptability. We have to be creative to find ways to meet the needs of each of our children, as well as to deal with the changes and interruptions that come our way. Through it all I pray my kids are learning to live for Christ, follow His will, and be open to the circumstances He brings their way.

Pamela Berglund and her husband Greg serve as missionaries in Indonesia with New Tribes Mission. There she homeschools their five children and assists and encourages other parents who are homeschooling on the mission field. You can find out more about how to pray for and encourage them at their website: www.ntm.org/greg_berglund.

Copyright, 2011. Used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, Spring 2011.

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