About Us

Hello! We're the Lewis family, Frank, Kari, Matthew and Jonathan, publishers of Home School Enrichment Magazine!

Our journey to homeschooling was an unusual one, and it makes a long story. So we hope you'll stay with us as we explain how we came to love the lifestyle known as home education!

We've been married over thirty years, and God has blessed us over the years with much happiness, for which we are truly thankful. Sadly, however, during the early years of our marriage, we were not terribly serious about actually following the Lord and living a Godly life. Regrettably, we did not diligently study the Bible, nor apply the Bible to our daily lives on a regular, practical basis. Therefore, our lives took some paths contrary to Biblical principles and some decisions were made, which we have regretted over the years. Finally, through a long series of events that took place while our sons were still very young, the Lord opened our eyes to our need of a life-changing, daily, close walk with Him. Thankfully, God, in His wonderful mercy, has forgiven our sins, healed our wounds, and by His grace caused us to grow as Christians. There is such peace, love and communion with the Lord in a life of Christian growth, whereas friendship with the world makes the Christian life feel like a struggle. We praise Him and thank Him for His mercy, grace and love, and for showering us with so many undeserved blessings over the years.

In our early years of parenting, we dutifully put our children in pre-school, then public grade school, where they were incarcerated (!) for a couple of years. However, it soon became apparent that if we wanted our children to espouse Godly values and standards, and to obtain a quality education, we would need to spend considerable time and effort each evening and weekend to un-do what the public school had taught concerning values, and teach what had slipped through the cracks academically. Thankfully, there was one family in our church who homeschooled their children, and we became friends. As our relationship with this homeschooling family grew, they began sharing more and more of what they knew about public school in general. They also talked with us rather extensively about homeschooling. The fact that we had our children in public school, and that we felt inadequate to actually teach them at home, made us uncomfortable. In fact, it ended up making us so uncomfortable that we began doing research on public schools and on homeschooling. To tell the truth, we were hoping to justify the fact that our children were in public school. Our research was being done to ease our consciences and to give us up-to-date facts to share with our friends, so they would stop making us feel bad. Now, they weren't really trying to make us feel bad. In retrospect we recognize it was the Lord dealing with us and directing our paths! Anyway, to make a long story short, through much tender but ever persistent leading from the Lord, we came to the realization that public school simply was not for us. So, in March of 1990, during the last nine weeks of Matthew's third grade year, and Jonathan's first grade year, we brought them home for school! We spent many wonderful, exciting, challenging years homeschooling, and watching our sons grow and flourish in every way. The only regret we have is that we waited so long to begin homeschooling! It truly was a "faith-walk" adventure that put within our hearts a burning desire to encourage and help other homeschooling families in any way we could.

Despite the fact that we lived in an apartment complex while our sons were growing up, we were still able to give them a rather "wild" upbringing. By wild, we do not mean "out-of-control," we mean "wilderness" type of wild! Just behind our apartment building was a wooded area complete with ravines, ditches, neat things to explore, a wide variety of trees and plants, and some wildlife including various birds, squirrels, raccoons, deer, skunks, possums, snakes and insects galore! With the freedom of mind that comes from homeschooling and not being peer dependent, our children didn't have much interest in doing the things the other children in the neighborhood were doing. Thankfully! Most of their free outdoor playtime was spent in the woods, away from the influence of the city and worldly children, all the while creating a wonderful, lasting friendship with each other. They were able to bound up and down through the ditches and creek, explore to their hearts content, build dams and bridges, and go wading. They built rather elaborate log forts and bridges, and played Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett for hours on end. It was long, dirty, hot, hard work/play, great for their minds and bodies, and we all loved it!

We have been blessed beyond compare in that Frank got to be home with the family almost all the time. Some of the time was due to physical problems and unemployment, which just helped us all to pull together and weather the storms of life, relying on the Lord and each other. Relationships in our home were bound together because of the amount of time we were together, with cords that today are still strong and cherished by all of us. In fact, Frank was home so much of the time, that when Jonathan was young, and was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he simply said "a dad". At the time it worried us to some degree since we thought he should have higher ambitions than that. However, we began to see that when a family is together so much, things like parenting, working, playing, schooling, and everything else a family does just melts together and simply becomes "living". Now that our sons are grown, and we are seeing the wonderful fruit of a family being together and working together, somehow having a goal of just being "a dad" seems plenty ambitious, and pretty much says it all!

In 1995 our family began working for a ministry. It was a fledgling ministry, so together with our sons right at our sides helping us, we learned the job together, brainstormed and worked long hours to help the ministry get off the ground. Working together in our own home, helped us feel that the ministry was our own home business, which then put within us a great love for home business in general. We saw first hand how being together so much was so very conducive to training character into our children, and further binding us together as a family. Often, during the early years of working for this ministry, we had large amounts of printed materials, bulk mailings, extra tables, computers, etc., all crowded in (and lived around), on a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week basis. At one time we had 78 large boxes of printed materials for the ministry, several large trays of a bulk mailing, two growing boys, two adults, 2 bicycles, and a bit of furniture, all crammed into our little 750 square foot apartment! Talk about learning how to get along and pull together to weather stress!! However, what a blessing and opportunity it was for our sons, at the ages of 12 and 14, to be able to do needed, helpful, actual "work", and help support the family in the process. Plus, the education we all received during those years has been very helpful as we began making moves to begin our own businesses.

Finally, in 1998, after 21 years of marriage, we were able to purchase our first home! How wonderful to be able to move away from the tiny, cramped, dark apartment, and all of the problems associated with living in a crowded apartment complex. We have been in our house now for almost five years and still can't get over the wonder, pleasure and freedom of owning our own home. What a blessing to be able to paint a room if we want to, or fix the plumbing when we see it needs attention (rather than waiting for the maintenance men to come). We are thrilled that the only cooking smells we live with now are the smells of the food WE are cooking, the only music we hear is the music WE are playing, and the only conversations we are party to are conversations we are SUPPOSED to be hearing! Ahhh! It's wonderful!

Just writing this article, and thinking back on all the Lord has done for us, has made us so thankful for each and every thing, all over again! When we look back on what God has done for us, where He brought us from, and what He has brought us to, we are simply amazed, humbled and thankful beyond words. Truly "little is much when God is in it"! We are thankful that He has quickened our hearts to His call, and urged and led us to Christian growth. Always He has shown mercy and grace, and so much love, as He has guided us and caused us to make changes in our lives, so we would be better able to serve Him. We are so thankful that He knows the intent of our hearts; He remembers that we are dust, and He allows us to grow at a rate that we can handle! He has blessed our obedience far, far beyond what it deserved, He has forgiven our disobedience completely when forgiveness was not deserved in the least. Though we are undeserving, we are grateful beyond measure.

Well, we've rambled on enough about us, now we'd like to take a moment to introduce you to Home School Enrichment, Inc.!

Here at Home School Enrichment, we have a heart and a burden for Christian homeschooling and homeschoolers. It is our desire to encourage, help, inspire, and uplift them. We think that homeschooling is more than pencils and books; it's more than test grades and graduation requirements. It's more than determining learning or teaching styles. It's more than deciding if you should use unit studies, a packaged curriculum or if you should write your own curriculum. It's even about more than socialization! To our way of thinking, homeschooling is a way of life! Therefore, we're all about homeschooling as a whole "way of life." In each issue of Home School Enrichment Magazine, you'll find articles on a wide variety of topics to address almost every area of your life. We hope you'll find something of interest for most every member of your family. You'll find articles to help you with the nuts and bolts, so to speak, of home education, articles to encourage you in your Christian walk, and advice and tips on using everyday life to "enrich" your homeschool experience. We'll have articles about home business, puzzles to bend your brain, and recipes to try in the kitchen. We'll be including advertisements for companies or products that are family friendly and helpful to homeschooling and family life. We'll even be including stories from other homeschoolers who, just like you, are daily "in the trenches" living this life called homeschooling.

We hope you enjoy Home School Enrichment Magazine and that you'll visit our website frequently! We invite and encourage you to email or write to let us know what you think of Home School Enrichment Magazine. While you're at it, tell us about your family and your homeschooling experiences. We always love to hear from our readers!

You can email your letter to us at: hello@HomeSchoolEnrichment.com or mail your letter to: Home School Enrichment, Inc., PO Box 163, Pekin, IL 61555-0163.

May God ricly bless you and your family!

The Lewis Family

Frank, Kari, Matthew and Jonathan