Rally Day

I remember walking through the Legislative Plaza in Nashville, TN with my dad, when I was younger, trying to keep up with his long strides as we visited our representatives on Rally Day. My dad tells the story of us visiting one representative to explain how excellent home education was. My dad told the representative that he was teaching me (nine years old at the time) some New Testament Greek. I sang the Greek alphabet for the Rep. and then he said, "Well, I know some Greek myself. Can you tell me what 'anthropos' means?" I immediately blurted out, "man," leaving the representative a bit dumbfounded (or so my dad says). =)

This year, my dad, who is Greg Stablein (Coordinator for Gateway Christian Schools- Total Home-Education Department), went to Rally Day, along with my sister, Berakkah, my son, David, and me. Here is a photo of my dad holding my son (David calls him "Boom").

Even before home education was legal in Tennessee, brave home educators have been visiting the state capitol to lobby for their right to home educate (since 1985). It's been a while since I went to Rally Day and yesterday was my first time back in years. I must say that it's quite a bit more organized than I remember. The excellent folks at THEA (especially Lana and Claiborne Thornton) do a great job of showcasing the accomplishments of home educators in the War Memorial Building's auditorium, encouraging current home educators with speakers, providing lunch and opportunities to visit with representatives and senators, and much more. This year, we didn't get the chance to walk through the Legislative Plaza to visit our representatives to tell them of our appreciation for their hard work and ask them to continue to support home education as a fundamental right, but it was great to see home educators from across the state come together to rally for the right of parents to raise their children in the way that the Lord has convicted them.