Our Family
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The longer we live together as a family, the more we realize how much we have to learn. In fact, after almost twenty-five years, it seems like we have as many questions as ever! But we have gained experience, and hopefully some wisdom, which we would like to share with you. Our hope is that we can encourage and bless you. Who knows? Maybe you can help us as well. We certainly need it sometimes.
Why Such a Large Family?
It’s sort of hard to be introduced to our family without noticing that we have a lot of children. Some people seem to take offense at this, while others jokingly ask us if we have figured out what makes it happen. Then there are some people who just think it’s great. We think it’s great too, but we are also aware how odd it is in today’s culture, and that it often makes other people wonder why in the world we do it.
Actually, it has always been our goal to have a large family. We talked about it before we were married. It’s really pretty simple: like most people, we want as much of a good thing as we can handle. We think that children are the very best thing about a family, so the next addition has always seemed like a blessing.
Have you ever noticed how in our culture, children are often portrayed as a liability, an expense, a hassle? We are told it will cost $300,000 to send a newborn to college someday. We chuckle at commercials showing overjoyed parents shopping for back-to-school clothes, where the not-so-subtle message is that it’s great to get the kids off our hands. On a more serious note, millions of parents search for day care for their infants so they can go to work. So are children an asset, like the house we live in, or are they more like the mortgage on the house, an inevitable expense that we try to keep manageable?
We see children as an asset, an investment that does require a lot of work, expense and upkeep, but one that has the potential for great reward over time. And we are glad we have eight of them. Of course, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Good food is great. Gluttony is not. We are not suggesting that everyone should have as many children as possible; we just think it’s good to remind folks of the right attitude about children. So don’t worry. If you come and visit us at our farm (and we hope you will), you can relax. There’s nothing in the water.
Home Schooling
Our decision to home school our children has probably shaped and defined our family as much as anything. We began home schooling in the late 1980’s, when our oldest daughter was 5 years old. It was hard at first, especially as more children kept arriving. We have often doubted whether we are doing a good enough job. But it gets easier every year, and we are getting better at it. So far, our oldest three have finished high school and are either working or in college. Two more will be finished soon. But our youngest is just learning to read, so we will be at it for a while!
We have tried to have high standards academically, and we are definitely raising the bar the longer we home school. Our children who are in college seem to be well-prepared. But for us, home schooling really isn’t so much about academics. Rather, it’s about freedom. Home schooling has freed us from many of the distracting, disruptive, and even destructive influences that come from the schools. We just haven’t had to deal with them. Home schooling is a way to limit the competition, so to speak, and give our family enough space to really get to know one another, to work and play together, and even be aware of problems and deal with them before it’s too late.
One of the criticisms of home schooling is the issue of “socialization”. It is a legitimate question, because our children will all be adults some day. We have definitely sheltered our children, so how prepared will they be to function as adults? Can an “innocent” young person really get on in the world? To be honest, we have not been fully tested in this yet. But it has been exciting sharing in our older children’s experiences as they adjust to work and college while remaining at home. They have definitely had their eyes opened!
Why We Moved to Sycamore Hollow Farm
So why would a family with no farming experience move to a farm? And why would we choose a farm that had been abandoned for years, and was reverting back to forest? When we bought this land, and began making plans to move here, some in our family were wondering the same things. It seemed like a pretty big challenge.
For several years, we had been reading and learning about sustainable, earth friendly agriculture. Books by Wendell Berry, Gene Logsdon, and Joel Salatin influenced our thinking a great deal. This land had been used and abused for generations, and finally abandoned. But we saw that it had the potential to be beautiful and productive again, if only it were treated with care. We decided we wanted to learn how to live on this land.
Living here has changed our perspective about many things. It’s funny to hear people complaining about a little rain, when we have been praying for it because our pastures are dry. We don’t have the same appetite for entertainment as we used to; the work here is much more interesting than anything on TV. We experience God's creation every day; maybe that’s part of the reason the newest fad, or technology, or video game doesn’t seem all that exciting anymore.
Farming, of course, is about producing food. Like most Americans, we have always been good at consuming things (a family of 10 can consume a lot!). We have not always been so good at being productive. Living on Sycamore Hollow Farm has helped change our attitude toward consuming and producing. Here, we are presented with opportunities to produce things for ourselves. We raise our own beef and grow our own fruits and vegetables. We heat our house and hot water using a renewable resource: trees from our woods. Our kitchen has gotten much busier. We bake our own bread, dry our own herbs, and make our own yogurt. It’s a lot of work, but somehow it seems right.
Having read this far, you are probably thinking that we are definitely weird. First, we have too many children, then we keep them at home instead of sending them to school, and finally, all we do is work all the time. Well, we also go on vacations, like to ski, follow the Cleveland Indians, love to order pizza, and swim all summer. Does that make us a little more normal?
We are Followers of Jesus
We would like to conclude this introduction to our family with a few words about Jesus and what he has done for us.
The Jesus of the New Testament seemed to love to go to parties. We see a glimpse of his character in his first miracle: he turned water into wine for a wedding party that had already had plenty to drink. Later, the night before he was killed, he told his disciples to remember him, not by organizing worship services on Sunday mornings, but by sharing a meal together. Sometimes Jesus went to respectable people’s houses for dinner, but he also had the bad habit of hanging out with those who were considered the worst members of society. He befriended immoral people, like prostitutes and swindlers. He welcomed those with infirmities and diseases. He identified with the poor and dispossessed, and spoke out against injustice and oppression. And he ate with them all. His enemies said of him: “behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners.”
He not only befriended sinners and ate with them, he healed them. He healed them physically, emotionally, morally, and spiritually. It was like they had been dead before they met him, and he gave them life. They were burdened by years of guilt, or bitterness, or anger, or shame, or lust, and yet, by being with him, they were set free. And it doesn’t seem like this was just a temporary, emotional lift. Jesus’ effect on people was permanent and life changing.
Jesus might have gotten away with this behavior if he hadn’t directly challenged the religious and political establishment by claiming to be the rightful king. He seemed to think that he was establishing a whole new social and political order, one that would change the whole world. When the authorities crucified him, they hung a sign over his head that read: “the king of the Jews”.
Two days after his execution, God raised Jesus bodily from the dead. It was his resurrection that vindicated his life, his actions, his teaching, and his claims about himself. He appeared to his disciples over a period of many days. They were convinced that he wasn’t a ghost, or some kind of spirit, but that he was actually their flesh and blood leader, who had risen from the dead. If this wasn’t amazing enough, after being together again for about 6 weeks, Jesus said his goodbyes, and ascended bodily into the heavens while they looked on.
Obviously, there are a number of things about this story we are telling you about Jesus that are hard to believe. They are impossible, really. Yet we do believe them. We believe the accounts of what Jesus did and taught. We believe Jesus was killed by the authorities because of his claims to be introducing the kingdom of God on earth. And we believe God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead and elevating him into His presence.
We are sharing all this with you because we want you to be aware that the Kingdom of God does exist. Our family is part of that kingdom, and Jesus is our Lord. One of the reasons we can say this confidently is that we have experienced Jesus in the same way that the people did long ago. We are aware of him working in our lives, transforming us, changing us, healing us, and making us truly alive. Our experience is difficult to put into words; the analogy of passing from death into life is probably the best way to describe it.
You may have noticed that while we have talked about Jesus, we haven’t said anything about Church. Our experience with the Church has been very different than our experience with Jesus. In fact, we have begun to question how much the churches actually have to do with Jesus and the kingdom of God that he initiated and now leads. We continue to grapple with questions like this, while we seek to follow Jesus and encourage others to do the same.
Conclusion
Our purpose in writing this is to bless you and help you in some way. Are you questioning your knowledge and ability to properly raise and train your children? Are you considering home schooling, but wonder if you can do it? Would you like to see what we are doing on our farm? Did our conversation about Jesus, and our questions about the Church, hit home with you? If so, why don’t you get a hold of us? From our experience, these are things that are worth looking into.
David & Joan Houser
dwhouser@sycamorehollowfarm.com
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