Where were you on Tuesday?

The e-mails were coming fast and furious...a homeschool bill had been proposed to add regulations to Illinois homeschoolers (SB 136). People were full of questions - What did the bill say? What could we do? Write e-mails to senators? Check. Call offices of senators on the education committee? Check. Rumors the bill had been dropped...no, it's still moving forward. When is the bill going before committee? Tuesday the 15th?!? But we just heard about it on the 10th!!!

Finally I got this e-mail: We are encouraging all homeschooling families who can come, to gather in Springfield next Tuesday to stand for freedom.

I prayed...I talked to Andrew...should we go? Driving to Springfield with my 4 young children, trying to find a parking place (ha!) and making our way to the Capitol building while Andrew was at work was no small deal in my mind. But it just felt important. Our kids needed to see first hand that freedom is worth fighting for. On Monday we decided to go. I put the address into our TomTom (thanks M&B!), downloaded a couple Springfield maps onto my IPod, talked to/prepared our kids, set out clothes and we were ready.

We were not expecting what we found in Springfield:

4000 Homeschoolers were there!!!! Obviously we weren't the only ones who thought this was a big deal :)! The security guards told us that there had never been a group this large show up for a hearing of anything before. We stood outside for more than an hour waiting to get in. Once we finally got through the metal detectors and made our way upstairs, we were greeted by this:

Amazing! Eventually, we made our way to the room where the hearing was being held. The room could only hold 100 people, so there was no way we could all fit inside, but it was requested that the doors to the meeting room be kept open so there could be a chance people outside the room could hear. The word quickly got passed to be quiet and I never could have imagined that 4000 people (including children of all ages) could get quiet so quickly...and STAY quiet for 2 1/2 hours, but we did it, and the capital security guards told us how impressed they were with the quiet respectful behavior of our group :). Unless you were there, you just can't accurately picture how inspiring it was to walk the halls and see 1000's of people, all with one goal, to educate their children to the best of their ability. Some people were whispering, some were praying, some children were quietly playing games, some were curled up with books, or doing homework, and some little ones were sleeping.

As the hearing was taking place, I tried to lean forward and hear, but it was just impossible, the hearing room was long and narrow and the doors were at the back, so I had to be happy to hear little bits of info (I happened to be standing by a husband whose wife was in the room and they were texting each other) that got passed along occasionally like, "One of the senators just said she couldn't imagine why anyone would want to spend that much time with their children." (I'm being serious) At the end of the day, the senators decided not to vote and we all left a little disheartened that it seemed like they weren't listening to us, but at the same time I was incredibly encouraged by the sheer number of people who took the time to be in Springfield to stand with us that day.

Yesterday we got word that the bill was tabled (essentially it's dead for the time being) and we are praising God for this good news! Unfortunately, we also heard that Senator Maloney has not given up on the idea, he basically wants some time to package it differently. So, I'll stay ready for more emails and trips to Springfield, if that's what it takes. In the mean time, I'll leave you with a video - before the hearing started there was no chanting, no yelling, no rally cries, or demands for our rights, instead, the Capitol building was treated to this: (make sure you pause my music at the bottom so you can hear it :) )



A HUGE shout out to fellow homeschooler Rosie Siebenthal who was awesome enough to email me the pics!!!