41 - Ways in which God guides our homeschooling curriculum.

Maeve and Mat explore the wonders of the Butterfly Effect, sharing stories of historical serendipity and divine intervention. They also discuss the importance of history in homeschooling and the inspiring tales of early missionaries like St. Isaac Jogues. Don't miss their tips on prayer and why a love for learning can transform your homeschool experience! This episode reminds us how small actions can have monumental impacts. 

Show Notes
Episode 41
Published Oct. 27, 2024


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My favorite History Curriculum: RC History Connecting With History

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Transcript

 Welcome back to home is where the truth is. You found us.

Awww.

for coming over. It wasn't hard to find. Was it?

wasn't so hard

That's what people always ask when you go to their house for the first time, right?

Not with Google maps, It takes you right to the front door!

 Yeah. Some people's houses can be a little iffy if it's a small road, a back road, a dirt road.

 You can't really be out there somewhere to not find somebody.

Right. Okay. 

But you're here.

we're, you're here, we're here.

You guys,  we spoke  a little bit last in last week episode, we are in full

household.

So

American history mode in the Jemison household. So you guys are gonna hear some great stories about American history, and I really enjoyed last week's episode.

It was called Can AI Do That episode 40, which we didn't even talk about that Milestone 40 episodes

it was Living Like a Little House on a Prairie. 

well, I named it and yes, I named the episode. Can AI do that

Oh, gotcha. It,

working in our lives. Of course, he's working in everyone's lives, but we brought it home with the point that he's definitely working in a homeschool family's life because he's giving us lesson plans. He's giving us  all this great bonus content. And it's actually like the butterfly effect. Have you heard of the butterfly effect, Matt?

only have I heard it. But I watched the movie 

You do watch every blockbuster that comes out. I did not watch the movie. , not, this is not a reference. Okay. The movie I don't know about, , I didn't watch it, but the butterfly effect is like, It's when

It's what it the a butterfly flaps its wings and it can affect that little flap of wings affects Could cause a

or

a

a monsoon, 

is not a new idea either

This is not a new idea either because there's a couple of books that have been written kind of about this same thing as the compound effect by Darren Hardy, says little tiny things you do in business can make a huge difference. Like,  The way you answer emails or the way you treat your customer, the littlest thing can make just a huge difference.

And the reason I'm calling this the butterfly effect and how God works in our lesson plans and in our lives is because it's even working

not just in our family, but through everyone we know, .

For example in last week's episode, I talked about some latte art, Matt's working on his latte art, and he made the symbol.

which is

of the medical symbol, which is snakes around a staff. And we tell that whole story. It goes really deep in the last episode, but I showed my, and I told you guys, I was going to post it on social media, which is Instagram is at Maeve Jemison. So I did post those pictures so you guys could see the latte art. Well, when I showed my dad the picture, we were all in the car driving to a basketball game. And I showed my dad the picture and he said, Oh, do you kids know what that means?

plus, not only that, he already knew right away what that latte art was.

Didn't even know how to explain it

Exactly. Well, in the picture I did, it was juxtaposed next to the actual symbol. 

You made me feel like it was like legit.

Right. And Matt has gone off social media. So he didn't know that the post had it next to it. And I'm side note, really proud of Matt. He even deleted the apps from his phone.  And, I tell you what, it's like now we have this  present father and principal. It's just amazing. It's amazing. highly recommend, highly recommend dads take the apps off your phone.

So  good job Matt.

I showed

So when I showed him that picture, he asked my kids,

and they're all in the car, all eight of us.

do you kids know what

Oh, do you kids know what that's from? And I'm just sitting there like brushing my shoulders and the front seat off. I'm like, okay, thinking to myself, slay kids. And they all did.

All of them were like, yeah, I know, I know. They raised their hand. I know. And

We 

we allowed our 11 year old to answer because when all of them answer, or when all of the kids raise their hand, I go from youngest to oldest. And The seven year old still didn't know. He still,

to oldest, the 7 year

he still didn't know, but the 11 year old did, he described, he said what it was.

Well,  our 16 year old, she goes,  actually that's Hermes, the Greek gods symbol. Cause Hermes is the Greek God of healing.

healing

And she has read all of Rick Royden. He's the guy that did Percy Jackson. And so she is well versed in Roman God theory. Okay. And, and so this is a very good example of how secularism has. 

Come in and influenced our daughter who's been homeschooled, but she's like, Oh, that actually originated from Hermes. Well, my dad was like, , no, it didn't because Moses predated Hermes 

moses predated

predated that era in Greek culture,  and he was able to say that because, and this is the butterfly effect of God working in our lives and in everyone we knows lives, 

he's like, no, actually Moses predates that by a lot of years. I can't remember if it was a thousand or five hundred. So it kind of squelched it  , she realized Moses is where it came from. So he, called me the next day after listening to our episode and we should now call him a contributor, our number one contributor, because he's always calling me saying, Oh, after he listens, he said, I got another God moment.

And this is what he said. The reason that he knew and had that fresh in his mind is because he had just read in first Maccabees where, they mentioned where Alexander the great, now this is getting into a lot of history, but Alexander the great conquered all of like Greece and all those areas. And then that's when years later, Rome started flourishing and they had their Greek gods.

So he had  just opened the Bible. What he does is he just prays. And says, give me a Bible verse, Lord. And he opens the Bible to that Bible verse.  And he had just read in Maccabees where.

Alexander the Great did not conquer the Jews. He visited the Jews and he saw that they were a great nation and that's when , the Helens from Greece started intermingling with the Jews of that time, which were the Hellenistic Jews.

And it gets into all this Jewish history.  But the point is, they, the Hellenistic Jews, they're the ones that got it from Moses, the Hermes symbol, and they used it for their God. So there's another example of where he's like, God gave me that verse just so I would know what to say when that came up. Okay.

So that's more like

God's  butterfly effect is more like Do you guys know about the Monarch Migration?

From Canada to South America or something like

Yeah, and it's  millions of monarchs a year go to their spawning place.  That's, okay, you compare like the butterfly effect, one butterfly's wings. Well, God is the mass migration butterfly effect.

effect. How long have you thought about that one, is my question.

Listen, that's a little bit of homeschool mom knowledge right there.

the mass migration butterflies,  it's just another example of stuff I've learned in homeschool or homeschool mom wisdom.  

You're

to tell you parents out there. Maybe you're thinking about homeschooling or you're new to homeschooling.  What I want to do is I want to give you guys encouragement and hope because

it

It is amazing to constantly be getting filled with knowledge. It's not just that you're teaching your kids, but you're also attaining this knowledge and you're talking to somebody or you're listening to somebody right now who I abhorred history when I was in school.

Me too.

The dates,

The dates that it was. I mean, not chronological. Why am I studying this? Why does it matter? What battle is this? I didn't care at all. And why didn't you like it, Matt?

Those exact same reasons I couldn't keep a date to save my life and what did that date coincide with what battle and this and that I'm just like, it's just too much.

Exactly. Oh, when I was telling you guys about how God was giving us all this stuff for our lesson plans, I didn't even get to the parts because I had a lot of notes. And usually we just go off the notes and I just start rambling or whatever, but I didn't even tell you guys the creative side  of the stuff that God gave me because of my creative side.

So God gave me,  stuff for the podcast and he, he showed me these stories. And 

a homeschool mom 

now has changed me from someone who  I couldn't have cared less about history to now somebody who absolutely loves it, loves the stories. And now I've got a couple of children's books like bouncing around in my head that I would need to write these books.

, So it changes you as a person, and if you were somebody who liked being student in your,  let's say in your adult years, ,  did you like college, Matt? Best year

years of my life. 

Wait, I take offense to

Well.

hold on. Okay, but, okay, why did you,  why did you like being a student in college?

 to be quite frank, because I had no other responsibility other than showing up to class and studying at night. And I look back and realize I had it good. I was fortunate I didn't have to work  so it was  Wake up work out  go to class  eat cheap meals somewhere and go up

in, it was, uh, so I

I used to eat in it was so I went to University of Florida And there was this place called in the business area was called the Plaza

and every day

a van

van full of Hare Krishnas would show up and serve vegan food  a dollar,

A

a dollar is all they charge you.

okay, this was back in the mid nineties as a reference, 

even still.  And I will tell you that was some of the best vegan food  I have ever had  to this day.  I remember it.

Okay,  y'all, I cannot get Matt to eat vegan anymore, so maybe he's got such high standards from the Hare Krishnas.

but, and

Okay, And we're not vegans, but if I see a vegan restaurant, I like to try it. Cause I think it's fun to eat vegan when there's lots of options. But anyways,

But anyways, for that

thank you for that awesome story.

brings back good memories. The

and I still love learning, but it was because When we were in college, we were actually learning stuff that we wanted to learn about, right? It pertained to our future. We were passionate about that which we were learning. So,

 There was that intrinsic motivation to learn because it's like your future, right?

And so if you enjoyed that season of your life or  if you're still  an adult who just loves to learn, then you will love homeschooling. You will love parent led education because that love of learning is amplified when your kids are the ones learning it and you're. You're usually learning it right along with them, because you've forgotten most of the stuff you've learned.

And like I was saying, I hated history through my government education. And even in college, I wasn't really thrilled about it. But, here's one of the reasons why.

it was

Because it was stripped of the good stories. , it was stripped of those stories of people like the missionaries who gave their lives in horrible conditions, , they faced  in talking about the American continent, the North American continent. They faced harsh weather, hostile lands, starvation, deadly tribes, with different beliefs.  And

so the couple of stories came, have come up in our American history that I want to share with you guys, because.

up

And let me back up a little bit. Let me just also say this



a couple of weeks ago, we were recording on Columbus day and Matt had to mention, yeah, it's either indigenous people or Columbus day.

people or Columbus really not one the new moniker, these.

 Throughout history, yes, there have been very evil people who have come to America to enslave, to, to, what's the word when you exploit, to treat, treat the indigenous people horribly. Yes, there have been.  Uh, Columbus wasn't actually one of them. Yes, he did admit in his. Log that he did kidnap one of the Taino Indians He left behind people who he thought he could trust to treat them.

Well, and they didn't they treated them horribly  Columbus did get a terrible rap, and there are lots of other explorers who did just what we said, but

when

you strip  when our education system was founded? You

America, we're

talking about modern education.  It was founded by Marxists and communists who hated traditional values.

They hate God. They hate patriotism, even fathers as heads of households. And the people who started our education system hope to manufacture a political revolution toward communism. And one of those people, , William Z. Foster, he wrote a book. He was the national chairman of the American communist party.

He was crystal clear. About  their goal for education

he said in his book towards Soviet America he said quote among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are

The

A, the National Department of Education. The studies will be revolutionized, being clans of religious, patriotic, and the features of the bourgeoisie ideology.

The students will be taught the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism, and the general ethics of a new socialist society. So when you scrub,  when you cleanse, quote unquote, cleanse history of the stories of God and the stories of Christian people, , you are defiling history because there's all these great stories about Christians who came over here to, to spread the love of Christ. So,

I'm going to tell you about one man, one of the most fascinating stories.

stories

that I've ever heard. And if you read about him in any old book, or in any history book, he might get a sentence or two. The way, this is another way that God gave us this lesson. I, a person who admittedly does not love history, I listened to this story about, his name is Cabeza de Baca. What is his whole name?

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Baca. , I listened to a CD from Lighthouse Press,  which is a Catholic media. I listened to a CD about Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Baca about 10 years ago I heard his story. So when I'm reading, through Our history book, which one of them was a secular book, and it mentioned

mentioned

Cabeza de Baca, the light bulb went off in my head.

I said, I remember this great story, this great CD about him. So I reordered the CD.

about him.

Now, I bet you I'm willing to guess you probably have never heard of this man. Had you heard of him, Matt, before we listened to this?

this man. Had you 

Okay, he wrote his story , it's called La Relacion. So he wrote this story, a first hand account.



And yes a lot of the Explorers, their main goal was fame and fortune. And as was Cabeza de Baca, he wanted to make a name for himself. So, yeah. in 1526, King Charles commissioned a man named Narvaez go over to the New World and try to find, try to set up colonies, find gold, whatever.

So, before they left, and actually they took,  Citizens with them people were able to get on these boats and go they were just people riding over to go live there and One of the ladies prophesied. She said everyone on this mission is going to die and It's gonna go terribly wrong. If anyone does live live through this They're gonna just live a it's gonna be a hellish adventure and her prophecy comes true

Yeah. That's the thing. Exactly. And they were noblemen. So, for them to listen to like

and they were noblemen so for them to listen to like a peasant lady's crazy mumblings, they're just like kind of like they would have listened but they would have been side eyed and be like this lady's crazy, which is

crazy.

Yeah, well, it just goes wrong from

well, everything, it just goes wrong from the start it takes two months to get across the Atlantic, which is a terribly long time when they get to Hispaniola,  140 men desert and curse the name of Narvaez and, and like, we're never riding with this guy again, 140, then leaving Hispaniola.

Two of the ships sink,  run aground on a coral reef where they're stranded for two weeks.



Finally a higher tide comes in and so they get out.



So then they land on Florida. And, it's so ridiculous. Narvaez comes, he speaks Spanish, the Indians speak their native tongue.

He comes with  a decree saying, We own this land now, you will pay taxes to King Charles, and, we stake our claim. And it's like, so absurd. But then, they find a piece of gold in a fishing net. And Narvaez is like, where did you get this? Where is this from? And this is when they say, Oh, up North, , there's a big city of gold up North. so Narvaez says, okay, we're going to leave our ships and go travel inland. And Cabesa de Baca is like, no, this is so stupid. Why would we leave the ships? He's trying to talk him out of it until Narvaez says, Oh, what you chicken and so he's like,  I would rather die than my honor be questioned.

So he went, to go inland to search for the gold cities. They took a pound of bread and a pound of bacon each person. So they end up, basically, they're starting to starve to death. They don't find the cities. Of course, Indians are shooting arrows at them.

They are getting yellow fever. They're walking through Florida swamps.

A category, probably four to five hurricane comes through and they have to link arms.

So they don't blow away for like two days straight this hurricane comes over  they're starving. They're destitute. Everyone's dying They they start slaughtering a horse every three days until finally they're like what we have to get out of here So they decide to build some rafts to try to sail out of there.

,

They don't have any tools. So they melt down all their metal, their weapons, their buckles, to make  the nails and stuff they would need. They take the horse's manes and their shirts together to make sails. And finally, they make three  rudimentary barges.

They have  barely any clothes on because those are the sails. And it's winter time. So they start sailing. Now they're in the Gulf of Mexico. So they're sailing along the coast of Florida, the coast of Alabama. , it's winter time, they're naked,

They're 

they're dying, , all the maize that they have stolen from Indian places is gone. And what I should have said before is,

Cabeza de Baca, was a pious man.

 There's no reason, nothing in his history that says he wasn't. A pious Catholic. Okay. I should have said that at the beginning, but think about how much prayer these men are praying because now there are drift on

barges. Men are just dying left and right. They can't stand up anymore.

In fact, when they go by the Mississippi river, they're the first ones to find. What is it called? The delta or the source. It's the delta of, of the Mississippi River because they can finally dip their mouths into the water and drink fresh water. Cabeza de Baca's barge finally lands on Galveston Island they're cold, they're freezing.

Well, some Indians see them and bring them food and

it gives them strength. So they figure, okay, our best bet is to try to push this barge back out into the water and try to sail some more. But the barge was kind of lodged into the sand.

It was low tide. So they're working to get the barge out all day long. And when they finally get it out, they are so sweaty. They put their remaining clothing in the middle of the barge and they start paddling out. And a , huge wave comes and crashes down, sinks the barge and all their belongings.

And a few men drowned. And then they swim back up to shore. There's four left. And. And they just start crying and their Indian friends who had seen them for a couple of days, they come out and they see them crying and the Indians cry with them and they just cry and cry

. But those Indians feed

those Indians 

the Indians say to them after a few weeks, , we have some sick people.

We need you to heal them. And they're like, we can't heal what we can't heal you guys. So the Indians stopped feeding them.  If you're not going to heal our people, then we have stopped feeding you.

So Cabeza de Vaca was just like, Okay, fine. I'll try. And he said a prayer over the Indian, gave him the sign of the cross and

 him, so everyone the whole tribe starts coming to get healed. And literally every person that he prays for is healed. And so this goes on. 

He 

Everywhere he goes, they're asking him, can you heal our people?

And he starts healing wherever he goes. And  

the historian who told the story was  questioning, , why do you think that he had this healing power? And another saint had written about it saying that when you are that destitute, when you are in that much.  Suffering, and you have literally nothing because when their barge sank, that was the last time Cabeza de Baca ever had clothing on for the next eight years.

He walked around naked for the rest of his time in America.

America. 

And I can't remember what saint it was. He said, When you're that destitute and all you do is rely on God to save you, there is a grace that comes through that and a closeness with God. 



 So he's just walking around America through Texas. and some of his healing stories were crazy.

He brought a guy back to life. The guy had been dead so long that the family and tribe had dismantled his wigwam because the custom was they burn it. And the next day after Cabeza de Vaca had been there and prayed for him a Runner from that tribe came being like he was back to life.

You brought him back to life so all these crazy stories 

  And there would be processions of thousands of Indians following them as they went from tribe to tribe.

And  In fact, Cabeza de Baca, there was a complete peace between tribes because he said, , we will not heal or come to your tribe if you're warring with another tribe. So literal, arch enemies would be walking in this procession together and he did, he said , in his story, he left, there was a complete peace And it ended up Cabeza de Baca did go back to Spain and tell, , all the terrible stuff that they were doing to the indigenous.   , 

 

And he lived through it and he lived to tell about it.  Is that an amazing story? I'm sorry it was so long winded. 

 The, abbreviated version would work for me and I would have

I tried to abbreviate it, 

that

that's just an example of one of the things that you're never going to hear in secular history. And 

I'm going to read to you guys. I got this amazing curriculum. It's called, ,

History.

connecting with history. And it does talk about all these stories of missionaries who went before.

People who fought intense cold disease and death, unknown hazards and uncharted routes. They faced Indians who might be.

foe

other Europeans that might be foe even at times it was like the land  itself seemed to be hostile to the European, explorers. And yet the first motivation was the most powerful lure was wealth. But what about. There are many people and some arrivals to the new world were laymen and religious.

They were eager to share the Christian faith with the native Americans. So their ultimate motivation was charity. And , you try to put yourself in their shoes to understand the depths of their longing to save the souls of the native people whom they believe are the Would not attain salvation without receiving baptism.

 as  Isaac Jogues,

so that

Jean de Brebouf, and some other  martyrs who were willing to persevere to the end so that they could get salvation of the souls. 

one striking example. Of perseverance is the account of father Isaac Jogues, who

incomprehensible

after a year of incomprehensible torture at the hands of the Iroquois,

he

in fact,

got

he had, he got captured and he had calculated that it was the Feast of the Assumption.  What's that Matt? What's the Feast of the Assumption? That is

Feast of the Assumption? Yes.

Yes. He, he

Yes, yes.

be that day, and he was being tortured. And he,

He, he had figured it to be that day and he was being tortured and he said, Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you that on the day that the whole world rejoices in the glory of your mother's assumption, I may share some part of your suffering as they're  stringing him, stretching him across

longhouse

the long house  Okay, this, this was his attitude. Um,

France and

He actually got rescued and returned to France

try

and came back

so that he could still try to save the Iroquois because he had learned so much about them. He went back to the same tribe and did end up getting martyred, captured and martyred. 

Uh,

to go back and save them.

So our nation was not built purely on, oh, we want to escape from suffering,  but on the persevering spirit of the Christian lay people, nuns, missionaries, and those martyrs, the blood of those martyrs, who are willing to give their lives for the sake of salvation of soul.

And that's the nearly forgotten heritage of America. 

And speaking of the heritage of America and about what we want to pass on to our kids so they can pass it on to our grandkids is

our 

when our kids are deprived of these beautiful stories, the stories of sacrificial love of faithful men and women who love God and dedicated their life to spread the gospel, then if we don't tell our kids these stories, then yeah, American history is pretty bleak and man does sound hopeless.

Say, 

Um, as they say, if you don't know where you've been,  probably don't know where you're going.

oh yeah, that's good, 

Paraphrasing

or if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it. Something like that. Both of those work, but, well, you know, that's why we need to homeschool our children, and if you can't do that, at least tell them these beautiful stories of the saints and missionaries.

 And

I want to encourage you guys in prayer for our nation.

I've been talking about praying and fasting with us on November 3rd and leading up to the election, I've linked to some beautiful and urgent prayers for our nation in our show notes. So please join us. Uh, in praying for our nation to repentance, humility, hunger for God's word, , turning point academy has  compiled Bible verses as prayers that our nation needs.

We need to pray , for protection from attacks, for honest, truthful elections, that the Lord would expose corruption and root it out. And

very importantly for godly men and women to call out to God, to be bold in the face of evil and to raise up more godly young men and women in a spiritual battle for souls. 

Um, keep praying,

Yes. St. Isaac and all the martyrs of North America.

Will you pray for us?

 📍 Amen. Thanks for listening

  We  

 

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