Hello to all PAACH homeschooling families. I enjoyed getting to meet many of you at the PAACH convention and getting to take the time to talk with many of you about your homeschool journey.

Following Valentine’s Day, Easter, and with the end of the school year passing, I have been thinking a lot about love, and how much we as people desire to receive and give love. There are all types of love that we experience on an everyday basis. We love our spouse, kids, parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, and even our pets. We especially love God who gave us all the above to love. He put these relationships in our path to show his love.

Our love for God is not the same as our spouse, and the love of our spouse is not the same as the love for our kids and other family members. “We love because he (God) first loved us.” 1 John 4:19. There is no greater love than God’s as he gave us his son to save us for our sins and gave this as a gift for eternal life. It is like getting that love letter and gift on Valentine’s Day, but it is way better than flowers or a box of chocolates. He gifted us a way to eternal life and to be with him forever with the Bible as our love letter, and we get to celebrate this at Easter. The Bible articulates how much he loves us repeatedly.

God even explains to us what love is. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own ways’ it is not irritable or resentful’ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1Cor 13:4-7) This reminds me of what love is and what I should teach my children the true meaning of love. Love is not just an emotion that grows in sin or lust but that it reflects God. It also should not be wasted on worldly things but should be for God and the people that he gave you to share it with.

Everyone expresses love in different forms. God shows it in the Bible as well. The Bible has many examples of affection. There is being physical (God’s arms open wide), serving others (Jesus washing feet), gift giving (Gospel), and many more. We should be reflections of this love to our spouse and children. The beauty of homeschooling is that we get to teach our children this. We can teach them and show them how to model the patient, kind, humble, polite, tolerant, joyful, and truthful love described in 1 Corinthians.

As your school comes to end, the PAACH board desires for you lean on God and His Word, and to know that you have a community of homeschool believers that are here to help and support you during the summer months. We also desire to help you disciple your children by providing encouragement, wisdom, and resources that will enable you to be Godly parents who lead your children towards Christ. We pray that your family learns together, grows together with others in community, and glorifies Christ in everything you do. You are chosen to be a part of his family.

Carlos Gonzalez
PAACH Vice President

• Flip Flop Spanish
• Schoolhouseteachers.com
• Book Nook (Peoria and Washington locations)
• HSLDA
• CLT (Classic Learning Test)
• The Animation Course
• 7 Sisters Homeschool (NEW)
• ArgoPrep (NEW)

See Details

Malachi Andrew Cox

Malachi, son of James and Arkasia Cox, graduated from high school in May. He has been busy continuing to work at Casey's in Lacon making pizzas. He has recently been accepted to ICC where he plans to study HVAC. This summer he has started a mentorship program with a family friend. He also plans to work with his dad a few days a week getting hands on experience in the HVAC business. He plans to once again participate in Generation Joshua Civics Camp Statecraft in July. In his spare time he loves reading. His favorite authors are Andrew Peterson, Keith Robinson, and Bryan Davis. The last two authors he found attending homeschool conferences.

Timothy James Cox (TJ)

Timothy, son of James and Arkasia Cox graduated from high school in May. He has been busy continuing to work at Dollar General in Lacon. He will be going on a two week archeological dig with his mentor to the Biblical site Shiloh in Israel in June. He has currently taken up the hobby of RC cars and has invested in his first one. He will be saving this summer towards his gap year. He will be leaving in September for YWAM in Louisville where he will be entering a discipleship training program. At the end of the program, next spring, he will be taking an overseas missions trip.

Bladen Eugene Tisdale

Bladen, son of Steven and Rhonda Tisdale, has completed his senior year and graduated high school. He will be continuing his education in the fall at Illinois State University. He tentatively plans to study accounting. He is currently working full-time at Wal-Mart as a remodeler (sets up store displays.) He has participated in figure skating since the age of 3, earning a Bronze Graduating Senior certificate from USFS. In his free time, he enjoys art projects, playing creation games such as Minecraft, Terraria, as well as Deep Rock Galactic, and spending time with his 4 cats and 3 siblings.

Victory in Springfield! The house adjourned late on May 31st. What does this mean for homeschoolers? HB2827 is officially dead. Take the summer and celebrate the victory in this battle. It is because of all the hard work homeschoolers have put in this spring semester. Calling our reps and senators, attending ICHE cherry pie day, attending the committee hearings, and meeting in person with our legislators helped stop this dangerous bill. Sit back with a glass of lemonade and enjoy the temporary reprieve. However this has showed us we can not take our homeschool freedoms for granted. Keep your eyes to Springfield in the future and be ready to make a stand when appropriate. We suspect the sponsors will be bringing back this bill in some form next year's legislative session.

Arkasia Cox
PAACH Legislative Liaison

Check out these upcoming FREE events to preview BJU Press curriculum. For questions or more information, please contact Jessica Gonzalez at (309) 431-1747 or jgonzalezhwp@gmail.com.

• June 17, 2025 - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Courtyard by Marriott in Champaign, IL
• July 8, 2025 - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Hampton Inn & Suites Peoria at Grand Prairie in Peoria, IL

ICHE Family Camp will be held on August 21-24 at King's Camp in Chana, IL. Register online

Peoria Cooperative Academy invites you to join them for 2025-26!

Science Class Enrollment

All classes meet on Fridays at Calvary Baptist Church in Peoria. For more information, please contact Tracy Castro at pcasciences@gmail.com.

• General Science: 7th & 8th grade - meets 8:50 to 9:50 a.m. - Class fee $170
• Biology: 9th grade & up - meets 8:50 to 10:20 a.m. - Class fee $225

Choir Enrollment

Choir rehearsals begin September 5th and meet 3 Fridays per month in Peoria. For more information, please contact Becky Lawles at pcachoirs@gmail.com.

• Joyful Messengers: 1st - 4th grades
• Cantate Choir: 5th - 8th grades
• Chorale: 9th - 12th grades

Greetings PAACH homeschooling families. I hope your family has had a productive school year so far. I also hope your family is doing well as you seek to honor Christ in your home every day. Due to recent events along with the misinformation and growing discussion around homeschooling in Illinois, I feel it is worth revisiting the article from last October. Please read and think through who God is calling you to be in your home AND in the homeschool community.

I have been dwelling a lot on my theology of the family, especially God’s design for and sovereignty over the family. Much of this has come from reviewing struggles in my family and church over the past decade or more. I have noticed that it seems like too many Christians just do not have a good understanding of God’s design for the family or how involved God is in every aspect of the family. I want to make a few observational statements that I hope will challenge you to trust God more, not only in your family, but in the other families in your church.

Let me start with this: God has specifically chosen every detail of your family. He has given you the exact children He wants you to raise at the exact right time. Whether through natural birth or adoption, every child that God gives you has been “formed and knit together” with you in mind to parent and disciple him or her. (Ps 139:13-16) This same passage also says that God has written and planned out every one of their days. Another passage confirms that every person’s “steps are ordered of God.” (Ps 37:23) Paul tells us that God knows every one of us from before the beginning of the world. (Eph 1:4) Here is my challenge: 1) Do you lead your family in a way that shows you believe this? 2) Do your interactions with other families reflect this belief?

Your family: Scripture is clear that you are responsible to disciple your own children to know the Lord. (Deut 6:4-9) Scripture is also clear that you cannot save your children, but only point them towards God. Rather, it is God who saves them through the work of the Holy Spirit who opens the eyes of those he has chosen and leads them to Jesus’ work on the cross. As a parent, you have the opportunity and privilege to walk alongside them on their journey. You get to cheer them on when they succeed and pick them up when they fail. The relationship you build with them as they grow up does influence how much they will trust you to continue to guide and walk alongside them as an adult. It does not guarantee that they will walk a straight path or even a path that leads to salvation. What you can do is pray for them, teach the Bible, point them towards God, and love them with grace and mercy no matter what.

Other families: I have had the opportunity to come alongside someone else’s child to walk them back into the arms of his parents after he had walked away and made a mess of his relationships. I have also experienced other well-intentioned believers being too quick to believe the lies of a child walking in rebellion and to give very bad, unbiblical advice to that child. These poor advisers, instead of obeying scripture, end up both sinning themselves as well as steering that child deeper into sin. So, how should you respond when a child of a Christian family comes to you complaining about their mom’s or dad’s parenting? If your first thought is to agree with them or point them anywhere other than back to their parents, think again. You really ought to dig a little deeper to find out the child’s motives. Often a child is looking to be justified in their disobedience and far too often they find it. If you think there could be something to the child’s complaint, then scripture is clear that we are to bring accountability directly to a person in private first. The intent of going to that parent yourself may be to help them see a blind spot or even find repentance for a bad choice. It should never be to play “gotcha” or assume guilt and crucify that person. This requires courage, humility, often a bit of tact, and likely preparation in prayer. Our goal in the lives of other Christian families should be to bring scripture to their situation that will edify, encourage, or even bring correction. (2 Tim 3:16) It is biblical for experienced parents to help teach and train new or less experienced parents. (Titus 2) Remember, God has given that child specifically to those parents…on purpose. He does not make mistakes putting a child with parents who are “too strict.” It could be that child needs precisely the kind of parenting they are getting.

I hope these thoughts will challenge you to think through what you believe and grow in your family as you walk out your relationship with Jesus Christ. Please remember to be quick to listen and slow to speak. (James 1:19) Be slow to make assumptions or quick judgements based on hearsay. You want God to use you to encourage and build up the family. He may even use you to restore a family. Be careful not to get caught up and sow into the destruction of a family.

The PAACH board desires to help and support you throughout your homeschooling journey. We also desire to help you disciple your children by providing encouragement, wisdom, and resources that will enable you to be Godly parents who lead your children towards Christ. We pray that your family learns together, grows together with others in community, and glorifies Christ in everything you do.

James Cox
PAACH President

A legislative update from Springfield. HB 2827 passed the educational policy committee with some rigorous debate. It will move on to the House Floor for a vote with a possible amendment added. This week (March 31- April 4th) representatives will be in their district office and not in session on the floor. This is a perfect opportunity to schedule a meeting with your rep and ask them to oppose HB 2827. You can include personal stories of how this bill will potentially impact your family. We do not know when this bill will come to the floor for a vote. It could be as soon as April 7th. In the meantime also contact your senators and ask them to oppose HB 2827 if it reaches the senate. If your rep/senator already opposes thank them for their support for the homeschooling community.

Arkasia Cox
PAACH Legislative Liaison

As the notorious HB 2827 advances in Springfield, PAACH Legislative Liaison Arkasia Cox will address key issues Illinois homeschooling families face and her opposition to HB 2827 at the Peoria County Republican Women Luncheon. The PCRW Luncheon is scheduled for April 9th at Barrack’s Cater Inn, 1224 Pioneer Pkwy, Peoria from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. A delicious meal featuring BBQ beef brisket, slider rolls, diced potatoes, coleslaw, salad, dessert, coffee, and iced tea, will be served at noon. The meal costs $15 for PCRW members and $20 for non PCRW members.

RSVP online by April 6th and tell them you are with PAACH

If you have any questions, please text Anita Meeker at (309) 253-2098.

Note: Accommodation for special dietary needs may be requested if notified by RSVP due date.