Send me

After Asherel's helicopter finished its flight at the Science Olympiad contest, she didn't want to put it down. She cradled it in her hands, and smiled as coaches from other teams came to look at it. It had flown one minute thirty seconds....not its personal best of 1:40, but still under the stress of contest conditions, a long and beautiful flight. And at that point, the team was in first place. Her partner Ben's copter flew almost as long, and the second flight would be the tie breaker so we were confident we had done well.  I spent the time before and after the flight body blocking objects that came too close to the fragile helicopter, and glaring at anyone who dared come within a 6 foot radius. This 4 gram thin balsa and tissue structure was the culmination of 9 months of excruciating labor and to the best of my ability, I was not going to let it die under my watch.

"Excuse me!" I barked to the lady pushing down on the helicopter point, "Please please don't touch it!" I was in no danger of winning the Gracious Spirit award, but I knew that the 1/16th inch balsa would break with very little effort. She snapped her hand back.
"I should've known better," she said.
 As she had transgressed in this almost unpardonable sin after instead of before our flight, I was magnanimous in my forgiveness.
"It's ok, just don't let it happen again."
(OK folks, I didn't really say that, but I did then put a yellow "no crossing" tape around my team and their copters.)

Our trebuchet did not fire as beautifully as we hoped, and though it came close to hitting the "castle", we saw several teams actually land in the castle. We knew we didn't win that one, but we were somewhere in the middle. Our trebuchet didn't do well with light counterweights, so we had been hoping for a heavy counterweight to be given during the contest, but alas, it was a very light conterweight. However, no trebuchet came even close to the beauty and elegance of the beautiful duct tape pattern and covering Asherel had put on ours. We may lose, but we surely won style points. If they were awarded. Which they are not. Sigh.

Her third event was Experimental Design. The three team members came out after half an hour- with half their allotted time still left.
"It was so easy," they said. Ohoh. That is not always a good sign.

I was designated our club photographer for the awards ceremony, so went as close to the front center of the arena as I could get. There was an empty seat next to a woman who was sitting with a large school. All the other teams there were huge. Our little homeschool team took a small sliver of a small corner of the arena. The powerhouse schools had several teams in every division and I heard whispers that kids had to try out for a place on the team! In contrast, our team had to accost innocent homeschoolers and beg them to join.
At any rate, the woman I sat next to asked if I was a homeschooler. Now how did she know that? I was not wearing the prerequisite denim jumper, I did not have wool freshly sheared that morning that I was busily spinning into yarn, nor did I have a backpack filled with teacher guides in every subject from every grade.
"Well yes," I answered, "But how did you know that?"
"It says Science at Home on your shirt."
"It does? Are you sure? I thought it said Science Hounds."
She looked again.
"Oh, so it does. I thought for sure it said Science at Home."
We laughed and she told me she had a daughter she homeschools herself, and one that she had had to send to school, or she would kill her.
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, we suspect she had neurological issues, but we didn't know that when I was trying to school her. She has just been diagnosed with ADD and we are in the process of trying to do more testing as no one knows what to do with her."
"Have you ever heard of occupational therapy?" I asked.

In my former life, the one before homeschooling and raising three kids, I was (am) an occupational therapist. As I explained to the woman, I had been in private practice many years, and had specialized in pediatrics, specifically children with learning disabilities and attention deficit issues. I had worked in an area called Sensory Integration. (Those words had not tumbled off my lips in years, I realized as I spoke with her.)
As she described some of the baffling issues with her child, I saw a child who very likely had a Sensory Integration type of problem. She could be helped. I gave her a list of resources, and then did a little mini-therapy session to show her something she could try with her child immediately. Then I left to do my duty as team photographer.

Event after event, our team was called to the arena floor to collect medals. Nearly every kid won a medal in our middle school club. My own teams did wonderfully well. Asherel and Ben placed third in helicopter, Josh and Asherel placed 7th in Trebuchet (how....not sure..... maybe the judges gave us extra credit for the beauty of our treb), and her experimental design team placed 5th. The top 5 schools would advance to the State competition. Our club placed 4th.
"Oh goody," I thought, "6 more weeks of breaking helicopters and flinging things at our as yet unbroken windows."

As I returned up the thronging aisles to find my happy team, the lady I had been sitting next to stopped me.
"Do you mind if I get your telephone number?" she asked, "Forgive me, but I feel like you have helped me so much in such a short time....well, would that be ok?"
"Of course," I said, giving her my number. As I returned to my kids, overflowing with joy at the very unexpected results, I was marveling not only at them and where their perseverance had brought them. But I was also thinking of the patient and exquisite engineering of God that had placed me with my little bit of something I do know about next to a woman who sorely needed to hear it. And I returned to the teams I had coached in something I knew nothing about, at least when we started 9 months ago, who were now clasping the shiny medals around their neck.

In the end, you never know how you will be used. Moses begged God not to use him to lead his people, as he spoke with halting speech. Jonah ran from God's direction to speak His words to Ninevah. Sarah laughed and secretly mocked God when told by angels she would birth the father of many nations in her advanced age. Yet in the end, Moses led his people out of slavery, Jonah preached to the Ninevites who miraculously repented and turned to God, and Sarah did indeed give birth to Isaac, who was the father of the entire Hebrew nations.  God can do anything....with anyone.  All He needs is a willing spirit. How often I need to be bonked over the head with that message!

It was fitting that as Asherel's helicopter was disappearing into the rafters, an entire arena full of people were looking to heaven.

Isaiah 6:8
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”