Hello, we are the Parker Family.  We have four wonderful children, two terrific son-in-laws, and one lovely daughter-in-law. We consider ourselves very blessed by God. Dan and I live in North Carolina along with our youngest daughter, Chelsey Brae. We live on a 9-acre horse farm near Fort Bragg military base. We have been here for ten years and, after many relocations in our 31 years, feel this is where we will remain. We love the four seasons of the South.

     Dan and I met in Orange County, California and were married in 1974. We were pioneers of the home birth movement. We had our first child, Heather Brae, in the city of Orange at our house on Walnut Street., Sean William was born two and a half years later in our home on California Street. Cashel Brae came along two and one half years later; one day after her sister’s fifth birthday, in our house on Cully Drive. We had very good experiences and felt blessed by each one.

    We moved to Meeker, Colorado for six-months and then back to California where I was trying to stay involved in our two oldest children’s government school classrooms. I became very frustrated with the school system and some of  the things that took place there. I had taught preschool before getting married, and loved it, and wanted to be more involved in their education, but it was difficult with a toddler. It was in 1986 that I was listening to Doctor Dobson’s radio program when he had guest speaker, Dr. Raymond Moore. He was addressing home schooling and I had never heard about it before. I discussed it with my husband to explore whether we could do it. He agreed to try it for a year.

      I started my career as a home school mom with a kindergartener, a third grader and a fifth grader. We joined an ISP (Independent Study Program) to help me get started with curriculum, goals, encouragement and schedules. We also joined Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) located in VA. We didn’t know of any one else implementing this novel approach to education, and I did this with a mother-in-law and aunt who were school teachers! I think they thought I was crazy to believe that I could educate without a degree in teaching. I had already shocked both sides of our family by birthing our children at home; and now I was embarking on something that was so unconventional. God led me with a confidence that I now look back at with amazement. God became so large in our lives, that we are still amazed with His grace for our family. In the beginning, we took one year at a time, each with new goals and ideas.

       In 1988, in keeping with our experience of home births; Chelsey Brae was born in our home on Elder Street. During the first few months of my morning sickness, I was trying to find out what my second daughter needed as a second grader. We did some formal testing and found her to be very bright, but she had trouble focusing and following a list of directions. We were blessed to get advice about some exercises, and the suggestion to take up quilting to help with her dyslexia. It was a challenge to keep her focused with a new baby to take care of. In this same year my husband was managing a music store out of our house and we also decided to open a music store in San Diego. We were all very busy for those years and managed to survive both home school and running a business. My husband, the entrepreneur, also designed a line of accessories for musical instruments, which we (the kids and I) began making out of our home. That was the beginning of The Original Swab Company. (www.originalswab.com) We are still in business and sell our products worldwide. This company has given our children many experiences working all aspects of business and even running it at some point in their lives. Operating a home based business and doing home school taught me to be flexible, creative, self disciplined, organized, and most of all, reliant on God. Our biggest distractions to school were all the events that were available. I learned where my boundaries had to be and my husband would help me to enforce them, which kept me on track. Our family has always been involved in activities and ministries that we had to balance with our commitment to home school.

     Thankfully the home schooling movement became more acceptable as an educational alternative. We had a support group that started with just 4 families and grew to 20 plus by the time we moved on. We helped in leading the group for a number of years. We have so many fond memories of dramas, plays, choirs, science clubs, field trips, and graduations. Many wonderful life long friendships were made during those years.

     My husband and I became involved with a parenting ministry in 1992. This has given me many opportunities to mentor young mothers and lead many women’s Bible studies. We are still leading parenting classes each year. We feel that our family should honor God and we want to help other families be successful in their parenting. All our children have helped in the childcare during the classes. Heather, with input from her siblings, developed a curriculum to use for the childcare workers during the parenting classes. We now publish it and it is available on our website www.getthecost.com. This was one of the benefits to home schooling, teaching our children to step out and try lots of things, even writing a curriculum.

       During the teen years we continued to use unit studies with our girls. They were able to integrate life skills, homemaking, academics, spiritual growth, and character development while using the unit study approach. We added videos for algebra and with Sean and Heather we used some science and Bible video programs. Sean’s learning style was very visual and enjoyed working with workbooks and basically taught himself chemistry. He enjoyed learning and was very self-motivated to self teach himself various computer skills. He was able to enjoy our very dramatic girls. They learned through hands on and lots of drama and art. They helped Sean stretch in the area of expressing himself and his self-discipline was an example for the girls. God does know who to put in a family and how it works best. We just need to let Him guide us in directing their paths.

         The teen years were very busy, challenging, yet a joy. We began to form convictions on dating, marriage, and parenting. We discussed them with our teens and read books together to see how “Team Parker” would get through the years of high school and after. We were not a family that said all children are going to college or all are going to go directly to work. We helped each one with the right choice for them. We are advocates of apprenticeship during and after high school. We wanted our kids to go to college for a reason, not just to fill time.

        After graduation Heather decided to go to PCC in Florida to study the Bible and music. She enjoyed leaning everything that involved music. She went for one year, came home for the summer and ended up in the hospital and had to recoup for a while. God used that time for us to really help her get to the next step and we all felt she should stay home the next year. We moved to North Carolina that summer. We needed to be closer to my family. We felt a big nudge and we acted upon it. It proved to be where the Lord would do more in our lives. Heather became involved in our local Cape Fear Theater; she took voice lesson from a couple in Tennessee while she studied at my parent’s house in Alabama. She then helped in our local home school group by leading a choir and teaching voice. She also was an Au Pair to a doctor and his wife. Heather went on to be a radio personality for our local Christian radio station while she led the MOPS babysitting program at our church. Our family has always had a praise band and Heather was enjoying writing music, playing guitar and singing in the band.

         Heather’s desire was to be a wife and mother, and she was keeping involved until God brought Aaron to her in 2002 through a ministry at church. We had developed a philosophy of courtship in our family when she was a teen and she trusted God for the time and person. She married Aaron, a Captain in the army, in 2003. They moved to Mons, Belgium in 2004 after learning she was expecting. Ella, our first granddaughter, was born February 12, 2005.          

        Sean was very interested in anything related to computers! After high school he took business classes from Ohio State University through online courses, and worked on his computer skills. He ran our home business and taught guitar lessons during this time. He took courses to become a certified computer consultant. Sean took some time off during the summer of 2001 to go on tour singing with the Continental Singers. His younger sister who was going on tour with the Continentals urged him to go, and God did the rest! It was during that time he met his future wife, Amy. She was from Montana, so we then learned how to court long distance for a while. Sean went to work for a company owned by a member of our church. After establishing his computer career, he purchased a house. He then went to Montana and asked for Amy’s hand from her father. She came to NC and went to work for two home school families, (one with twins), providing childcare and teaching until Sean and Amy married in July 2003. (Yes, two weddings in three months!) They moved in 2004 to be near her family in Montana, and she became pregnant with twin boys! (Isn’t God good to help prepare her by working with twins?) Joel and Ryan were born December 20, 2004. Yes, our first grandchildren… and 3 within 3 months! Sean is playing in the church praise band and is head of the Kwatuknuk Indian Nations computer network.

         Cashel chose to take classes at Carolina Bible College in our town. She also taught in the Awana program and MOPS. She has studied voice and bass guitar and helped to direct the local home school choirs. She loves children and ministry and suspected she would end up marrying a pastor. God uniquely equipped her to counsel teens at church. She worked as a camp counselor at the Billy Graham Cove and then also as an Au Pair for a doctor’s family. She also got involved in our local theater and then went on to tour with the Continental Singers. When she took classes at Grace College of Divinity, and became the assistant to our youth pastor at Manna Church, she met James. They began courting in May 2003 and James became ordained shortly after. They were married in May 2004. (Yes, that made three weddings in 15 months.) James and Cashel live an hour away in their new home. James is Associate Pastor of Manna Church. Apparently Cashel was right; God was preparing her well for the role. They had our fourth grandchild, Andrew on May 11th. They are expecting another baby  June ‘06. We are truly blessed as parents and grandparents.

       Chelsey is the last to graduate from our home school, named “The One Way School”. You can imagine what her last three years were like with all that went on. We have managed to home school through it all as she has traveled to Europe three times, as well as Montana to help with her new nephews. She will be a well-prepared mom. She loves to cook and take care of babies. She is very good working with junior high girls and encouraging them in their walk with God. She heads up the baby-sitting program in our ministry and helps in our home business as well. Chelsey does some childcare in her spare time and was involved with our home school volleyball team for a few years. She is now studying nutrition and anatomy. She plans on going to a local college to get certified in Massage Therapy. She is focusing her senior studies around her goal for the next two years.

        We have had a fulfilled twenty years with schooling our four children. We started with the thought that there must be a better way to do school, and ended with a life that we would never have imagined. Team Parker was born as we grew together as a family. We have learned to go through the challenges of many moves, pregnancies, different learning styles and disabilities, apprenticeships, teen years, college, three courtships, weddings, and grandbabies.  We have led an abundant life and are excited to see all that is still to come for Team Parker.