I zipped up my backpack and stepped outside into the dark night. To arrive at school on time, my dad woke me at 5:30 each morning. Faith Academy was over an hour away, but I was used to the commute. Outside, the street was quiet. My next-door neighbor was a senator, and I imagined he and his family were still snug in their beds. Sometimes I climbed onto our roof after school and peeked into their stately property. They had the nicest private pool I had ever seen in the Philippines!

We arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 1990, with an 8-month-old baby boy. In all the thoughts of transitioning to a new country, it never occurred to us that there wouldn’t be a school for our children to attend. In one of our first missionary team meetings after we arrived, we found ourselves listening to a lively discussion about the cost of international schools and about the decision that, moving forward, all missionaries would homeschool their children until high school.

This news came as a bit of a shock to me. When the time came for us to choose a curriculum, the process was pretty simple. We looked around at all the missionary kids and went to the mother of the family whose children seemed to be doing well with their education. We asked her what curriculum she used to teach her children. That’s what I ordered.

Some of the things our children said they enjoyed about studying at home were:

“We would learn about another country, and then we would go there.”

“It was so easy to get from one country to another.”

We truly counted it a privilege to serve as International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries. Our family was blessed beyond measure, not only for the financial support, but for the spiritual and emotional support as well.

Our MK schooling story includes many moves. Serving in a restricted access country means that you don’t really know what might be next. God was faithful and led us every step of the way. We landed with a 2-year-old and an almost- 4-year-old. Our first year of language study by immersion had us balancing tutors, child care in our home and some kindergarten homeschooling. The lessons and creative arts gave us a needed routine for the day. And it was fun! Little sister even got her own sheets to color, and almost every day we had a fun family time of interacting with something new.