The Joy of Collaborating

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Rejoice with us! We are celebrating this morning! Ray has been updating his high school American history curriculum since June of 2024, and last night John sent it electronically to the printer!! Yippee!! Praise God!!

Here we are on Zoom yesterday afternoon with John in St. Louis and Ray and me in our adjoining home offices.

Ray and I have loved our long hours of working together in the same Zoom room with John as we did tweaks and corrections and last-minute details. Mary Evelyn designed the beautiful covers. It is definitely a family and Notgrass History team affair with many long hours from many hands. We appreciate each one, and are especially grateful for the excellent contributions by our research assistant and proofreader and decades-long friend Dena who has worked way past her regular hours day after day. Thank you, friend!

We are still working on the lesson review questions, quizzes, exams, and the answer key but expect them to join their EA cousins at the printer in a few days.

One of my favorite things about working with our team is when we collaborate. At those times, I feel as if one plus one add up to much more than two. Collaborate means “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.” God did not create us to be lone rangers.

Remember what God said in the garden of Eden:

Then the Lord God said,
“It is not good for the man to be alone;
I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
Genesis 2:18

Even the Son of God needed the Twelve to be with Him and so He could send them out.

And He went up on the mountain
and summoned those whom He Himself wanted,
and they came to Him.
And He appointed twelve,
so that they would be with Him
and that He could send them out to preach . . .
Mark 3:13-14

When God built His church, He made it a group activity, not a lone ranger activity. The wise homeschooling mama gives her children opportunities to work on their own and opportunities to work with others, including siblings if she is blessed with more than one child.

• Put puzzles together together.
• Play games together.
• Cook together.
• Create art together.
• Do science and history projects together.
• Clean together.
• Serve together.

One of my favorite homeschool memories was when the children and I worked together to make a pink papier-mâché pig piñata for Valentine’s Day. We named it Pringles.

Little children want to “do it myself!!!!” It is good to learn how to do things ourselves and to learn the give and take—and the joy—of adding one plus one and getting a whole lot more when we collaborate, sharing the work and sharing the reward.

. . . but speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up in all aspects
into Him who is the head, even Christ,
from whom the whole body,
being fitted and held together
by what every joint supplies,
according to the proper working
of each individual part,
causes the growth of the body
for the building up of itself in love.
Ephesians 4:15-16

 

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