When we left for the mission field on our youngest son’s second birthday nearly two years ago, I had no idea what to expect. We weren’t going to farflung fields, merely to a border town in Mexico; but crossing that border meant crossing into a whole new world. We are Scott and Jennifer Pepito, who with our children Emelie, Eden, Elias, Ethan, Emmett, and Ella Rose (born December 10!), serve the Lord in Mexico. God has given us a special vision to involve homeschool families in short-term mission trips and disciple Mexican families in the things of God. Near the border there is a great need for families to be lights.

Although there have been many hardships in our fledgling missionary career including several moves, learning a new language, and living in a morally desperate society, we have also seen many blessings. One of the greatest has been the concentrated time with our children. We moved to Mexico with very little language ability and found that, in the absence of same-language friends, our kids have become our best friends. I did not have the distractions of American homeschooling to deal with, very little shopping, no activities, and simply lots of time together. We explored the area and kept our studies going while we settled in. The first winter we were near a beach and were able to collect a hermit crab, watch it molt, and return it to its habitat while reading Pagoo, a story of a hermit crab by Holling C. Holling. We did other small projects that we would have done with a co-op in the past, but now we were the co-op. This concentrated time spent together helped cement friendships between the siblings and keep them from being overly peer dependent. They were able to love the people of this very different culture but not try to imitate them, realizing that the only One we should imitate is Christ. It also helped them to break away from their own culture and evaluate it by God’s Word, a hard thing to do when you are living in the midst of it.

Another blessing was having our children serve with us. They helped us teach Sunday school to impoverished children, did construction on a women’s shelter with their dad, and passed out invitations to an outreach by candlelight. I remember watching nervously as my young son balanced a candle while we walked dusty roads to invite people for an obra, chumparada, and pan dulce (a gospel play, hot chocolate, and sweet bread). Serving among people who look and sound different from them has also helped to give them more of a heart for all God’s people than they might have if we had stayed in our quiet, country home.

Opportunities to travel have been more available since beginning our mission life. It is our hope to encourage North Americans to be more aware of God’s desire that we help the poor, and that message has given travel—something we enjoy—a greater purpose. The children have put their toes in seas on all coasts of North America in the last few years and have gained pen pals across the country. We went kayaking in the Sea of Cortez while camping with our Mexican friends, and we saw some of the devastation on the Gulf Coast on our way back from visiting the Igarashi and Suarez clans in lovely, green Tennessee. These experiences were not available to us when we were building up a life in northern California.

On top of all this, I do actually homeschool. One of our daughters has some special needs related to processing information, and we use the help of a neurodevelopmentalist from ICAN to overcome them. This involves a daily list of activities that I do with her, as well as tri-yearly follow-ups. The expert help has given us clear-cut things to do to help our daughter, as well as nutritional counsel to overcome her infrequent seizures. Being on this program with one child has helped me be more consistent with schooling the others. I am forced into daily academics, which carries over to the other children. I have also become more aware of the developmental needs they all have. We also use a loose schedule from Managers of Their Homes to keep everyone somewhat self-motivated. This year some curriculum we are using with our eighth-grader includes Video Text Algebra, Spelling Workout, Apologia Science, and Write Your Roots, a writing program that helps her to compile a family biography. As she progresses I find that I am getting a better education as well. The last two years we have enjoyed doing The Story of the World from Peace Hill Press for history. We have found the maps to be appealing to all the children, and it is exciting to see my 6-year-old involved in learning about such figures from history as Beowulf and Augustine, as opposed to simply learning about jobs, families, and homosexuality for his early school years. We have also supplemented history with historical fiction and the Bible. For the younger children’s science we do some of the Apologia experiments and try to do lots of nature observation. We were excited this summer when we saw a large, hideous green tobacco hornworm we plucked off a tomato plant change into a more hideous, gray, owlish-looking moth.

We want our children to appreciate God’s handiwork and to be good stewards of it. Living in a border town has helped show a contrast and given them new understanding of what happens to all the trash we produce. It looks much different when it is scattered by the roadside than when it’s neatly tucked away in a city dump. Seeing it has given us even more reason not to be frequent buyers. One thing we don’t do a lot of is electronic entertainment. Studies show that it can inhibit language development in young children, and it inhibits creativity in all. We try to have enough well organized and creative materials around to keep the children busy and productive, while keeping clutter to a minimum.

The greatest of all benefits we have found from homeschooling on the mission field is that our whole family sees how real God is. He has kept us sane while living in a campground for months, helped us to love people who are different, and provided for our needs. Our children see their parents relying on Him for daily strength, and they have been more motivated to give, to love, and to know His Word, through serving Him as a family.

Jennifer Pepito is a homeschool mom of seven children, married for 16 years to her best friend, Scott. She is a contributor to the book Homeschooling Methods and enjoys exploring God’s creation and encouraging moms to love their children. Their family ministry, Firm Foundations, provides opportunities for homeschooling families to experience short-term missions in Baja, Mexico. If you are interested in hearing more about the opportunity, e-mail her at jennpepito@yahoo.com or check out her blogs at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/esperanzavallero and www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/firmfoundations.