When in Texas…

Alas, we are back to reality after a ten-day visit to my parents in Texas.  It really was a fantastic trip!

We joined our extended family at Grandma’s Lakehouse for a couple nights over Thanksgiving, and I watched my son relive my own childhood days of exploring in the woods, swinging from the huge tree, and chasing cousins on bikes.

We spent the rest of the trip at my parents’ house: my son’s favorite place on Earth.  We call it The Green House, and no matter how many days we spend there, Yehoshua is never quite ready to come home.  He’s a bit older now, so he’s able to do many of his beloved activities without quite so much of Poppy’s assistance: shooting the slingshot and BB gun, riding horses, driving the side-by-side.  We didn’t fish this time, but he still got to ride around the pasture in the bucket of Poppy’s tractor.  Grammy made his dreams come true with a shiny, brand new metal detector, so that was hours of entertainment all by itself.  Then, every night when the sun went down, the board games came out and took over the kitchen table.  Bingo, Old Maid, Candyland, Go Fish, and Chinese Checkers never seem to get old at The Green House.

Meanwhile, thanks to the terrible internet connection in the Southeast Texas woods, I was forced to disconnect from the rest of the world even more than I had planned on.  My husband even joined us for a week, and it was hilarious to watch him spend much of the trip parked in the car at the end of the driveway, trying to find remote reception.

From my son’s perspective, it was an epic trip…one for the memory books, for sure.  And from my perspective, the only thing between me and bliss was knowing that my Team back in Arizona was really struggling.

Our school mission is facing some extreme financial challenges to get off the ground, as almost anything worth fighting for does.  This Team we have is truly legendary.  Their commitment to the mission is unwavering, they are loyal beyond belief, and they are fun, passionate, and crazy hardworking.  But, any team that is understaffed and underfunded will definitely feel the pressure, no matter how good they are. 

There’s nothing I could have physically done for them by staying beside them in Arizona, other than showing my moral support.  And our annual Thanksgiving trip to Texas is not something I could deprive my son of, but it was still very challenging for my heart to be in two places…especially knowing the stress my Team was experiencing.  We’re in the middle of a real fight for longevity right now.  Suffice to say that I never cease to be amazed at the number of people who are OK with mediocrity.  And these are the same masses of people who then turn around and complain about the current state of the world.  My brain cannot comprehend it.

I know in my heart we will survive.  This mission will thrive…and it will change the world.  But it’s no walk in the park, and my Team deserves a medal for what they are willing to endure to create success.  Our pilot school is seeing literal miracles every day in the lives of our students.  And in the background, we’re working on the foundation that will allow us to expand globally to children of all faiths and backgrounds.  Why am I so passionate about education?  Because after 16 years of working with adults and seeing how exhausting, frustrating, and limiting it can be to try and teach the old dogs new tricks (myself included in the old dogs), I know that our best hope for the future is shifting how we equip and empower our children while they’re still young enough to easily absorb new beliefs.

For the next little bit, I’ll probably be doing more vlogging than blogging, simply because I can talk faster than I can write!  Time is of the essence right now, so I will be exercising some short-term sacrifice for the long-term gain, and every moment I have will go to getting this mission stabilized.  As all of us idealists know, big dreams mean nothing without equal amounts of elbow grease.

So, I invite you to join me on the journey…life is always more fun with friends, and we can be power partners with our individual missions! No matter what your goals entail, we could all use a little encouragement from like-minded dreamers. More to come soon…

Love, Chaya

xo