life by julia

through a conversation i had with a friend last week, i began to ponder the value our society places on certain things. this is definitely something that came up in my mind a lot when i was living in Zambia. it was the topic of education that stirred these thoughts most recently. i have many friends, who homeschool their children. they have all expressed to me at different times their feelings of insecurity when it comes to giving their children everything they 'should' be getting in their education. after talking to my friend about this last week, it hit me that we as followers of Christ need to be confident in not placing value where the world does. the world of education says, 'these are the facts that a child should know by a certain age'. the reality in our world as Christians is that none of this matters if the child does not have a strong foundation in Christ. of course, we want them to be successful and competitive in the world market, but for young chil...

sorry that i have kind of dropped off the radar for the past month, but i needed that time to readjust and be with my family. i arrived in Chicago on April 9th and headed back to Racine for five days, which felt like a complete fog. i'm not sure that i remember very much about those days. between jetlag and culture shock, i was pretty out of it. including when i packed my bags to come to St. Louis for three weeks. i have NO idea what i was thinking when i packed other than the fact that i was exhausted and couldn't be bothered. consequently, i did a lot of shopping in my first week here, which was fine with the women in my family who got to participate! these are the women in my family. my sister, me, sister-in-law's mom, sister(in-law), her aunt Helen, my mom, and sister-in-law's grandma. i have been browsing through pictures from the past year of events that i missed with the family. here is a glimpse into my crazy family: now you can see why i missed them so ...