Merry Christmas from the Bartosiks

Homeschooling in Bartosiks family

We homeschool Zuzia (the 4th grade) Janek (the 2nd) and Maja (the 0 class). The challenge is getting bigger and bigger not only because of the difficulty of working on three different levels, but also planning their time for developing their gifts and talents. Lack of curriculums for homeschoolers as well as schools experimenting on pioneers make homeschooling more time consuming and a bit stressful for Jola. We have no Christian School in Gdansk and formally our children are students of Christian Primary School in Poznan. It’s 200 miles away and they have to pass exams in the School in order to move to the next level. In January Zuzia is going to take three of five exams that she is obliged to take this school year.

Although it is a challenge for us we can see good fruits of it: knowledge and character of our kids and in our character. Besides teaching our children at home Jola gives English lessons 2 afternoons a week after my work. The news of the month is that we’ve got a dog! Children were very consistent asking us for it for years (about 4 years!) so we gave up. Nala sleeps in the hall and everybody at home has a duty to walk her out at least once a day. It seems we are going to get fit :) 

Public polemic with TV Supernanny

One of the famous Polish TV Show Star: “Supernanny” – Dorota Zawadzka criticized on her Facebook profile an article by  Doug Wilson about spanking which had been published on the website of our quaterly magazine “Reformacja w Polsce” and our church website (translation from Credenda Agenda). I wrote a response to that on my blog. 

The most popular web-service in Gdansk, Sopot, Gdynia (3 cities close to themselfes) published an article on their main page about the debate of “TV supernany and pasor from Gdansk”. I was surprised that most of 520 commentaries supported my view on discipline and childrearing. Alost 1600 people voted in the survey under the articles. 67% of them agreed with biblical view on spanking. Amazing.

I think it was very profitable thing because a lot of people in Poland are afraid to say what they think because of government legislation that’s been issued some months ago which defines spanking as a civil crime (violence). Thanks God it is not illegal to share publicly different worldview than Polish government. This is why that discussion was very important and necessary. 

Here is the link to that article.

About our homeschooling in popular Polish magazine

We debuted in the illustrated popular in Poland magazine for women :) It is a special edition "Moment for You". In the new issue they published an article (and pictures) about our family in the context of our homeschooling. This is actually my wife's Jola interesting story on this subject, which (according to the idea of the editor) starts with our engagement 11 years ago :-)

I published some photos below. Homeschooling in Poland is still something exotic but every year more and more families decide to live this way. In March 2013 we want to make a conference about Christian education and Christian homeschooling in the place of our Services. Please pray for that project and development of Christian education in Gdansk and in Poland.

Restoring fatherhood

Last Saturday I participated in the conference in Pentecostal Church about fatherhood and conversations went good. I had two lectures: 1." What God the Father is Like" and 2."Imitating the Father". 

There were 35-40 men, fathers, most of them between 30-50. I printed for them few articles about biblical parenting. All of them disappeared :-) It was great opportunity!

From January 2013 I want to start and develop regular monthly ministry for families in Gdansk (on the first Saturday of each month). It will be the lectures and seminars for husbands, wifes, fathers and mothers from our town (Gdansk has half million people) about: - fatherhood - motherhood - marriage - childrearing, Christian education etc. - biblical model of masculinity and femininity - masculinity and femininity in the church and in the culture.

In March 2013 we're going to make a conference (with few speakers) about Christian homeschooling and we want to invite all Christian churches from Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia (3 cities close to themself). All of the lectures will be recorded and publish on our church website, my blog (pbartosik.pl) and youtube.

 If you have any advices, suggestions which could be helpful please feel free to share with me. I would appreciate it. I ask you for praying for that ministry. Restoring marriage and family (especially fatherhood) is big, contemporary challenge in our country.

Pictures from the conference:

From our family

Our family - July 2011