Living in Isolation – Part one

Dear Aunt Sarah,

Because of Jeff’s work requirements,we have to move into isolation, three hours from the nearest ecclesia. We’ve always been in active ecclesial areas and are worried not only about our own spiritual welfare but also about the children’s. Just this year, our eldest started primary CYC and was considering the ecclesial children as his best friends.

Do you have any ideas as to how we should handle the situation? We hope it will only be for a couple of years. If John refused the transfer, he would have been laid off and the employment situation around here is not good.

Lovingly,
Julie

Dear Julie,

At first,Uncle Tom and I felt we really could not help much. We have never lived in isolation, so we thought we could not relate to the circumstance. Then we remembered that for several years our children faced a similar situation to what you will have. They fell into a generation gap in the meeting and had no one near their age. Because of this, the CYC programs were weak during their formative years.

Furthermore, we lived 10 miles from the nearest ecclesial family. This meant that their day-to-day acquaintances were all from the neighborhood or from school. So I guess some of the things we did will be useful to you.

Family activities

We made a point of doing family Bible reading almost every day. For the children’s sake, we would take one book of the Bible and follow it straight through rather than skip between three different sections of scripture. They used different versions of the Bible depending on their age, starting with the children’s Bible, advancing to the RSV and then the KJV.

I would get out maps, make charts and flannel graphs when they were available. Uncle Tom would ask everyone, including myself, two rounds of questions from the reading, making them answerable but not too easy. During the reading, he would explain some points if he felt we were not understanding the section. We put a premium on understanding rather than length of portion covered.

There were a couple of things we did to make the schedule more palatable. We kept our sessions to no longer than 45 minutes and would occasionally miss a day if there was an evening activity such as a school concert. By doing this, we made the readings more of a joy than a burden.

Since the children did not have any friends their age in the meeting, we participated in a lot of family activities with them. Bike rides in the neighborhood and picnics in nearby parks were sometimes popular. We also had a lot of fun going to high school sporting events even when the children were little. The stands were not crowded and they could run around pretty freely.

Without extensive CYC activities ,we let those who wanted to participate in Little League activities. To keep the atmosphere from being too time-consuming, competitive and worldly, Uncle Tom managed the team and each game was a family event for us.

The neighborhood center

Human beings are social creatures. Recognizing that and facing a lack of meeting friends, we knew our children would have close acquaintances from the neighborhood and school. This bothered us because we were deeply concerned about the standards of the world. Swearing, bullying and emphasis on material things are the first things that show up. Then the major problems of alcohol, drugs, gangs, violence, stealing and promiscuity set in. In all too many of the families around us, broken homes, live-in boyfriends and working mothers contribute to an unsupervised and shaky moral environment.

We decided the best thing to do was to keep our children and their friends under our influence. Knowing we couldn’t successfully mandate that, we turned our home into a place the youngsters wanted to be around.

Outside, we put in a backyard pool, had a basketball net, a badminton court and an ice-skating rink. We not only put these things up, we did it right. The badminton court was lined out with chalk and surrounded by netting so the birdie would not go over the fence. The driveway was kept free of cars for basketball. The ice rink was started early, kept resurfaced and surrounded by foot-high boards. All of this meant that Uncle Tom sacrificed a nice lawn and healthy shrubs in the backyard and my flower garden took a pounding. But it was a matter of priorities.

Inside, we devoted the basement to the youngsters. There was a pool table with a ping-pong table top that could be put on, a table hockey game, several board games, shelves of suitable books, and when they became available, a VCR with a supply of acceptable tapes and a computer with games. The whole area was carpeted, paneled and attractively lighted with several lounge cushions scattered around. It meant we did not have our family room and Uncle Tom had his desk in the bedroom. When young people were around either indoors or out, I regularly served refreshments of drinks and snacks.

All of this took planning, effort and money and the sacrifice of some things we would have liked. But it worked. So many of the youngsters did not have a happy home environment that they delighted coming to our place.

Oh yes, we had our rules about swearing, bullying, etc. But over the years, I think we only had trouble with one youngster and even he straightened out after Uncle Tom explained to him what we were doing and why. They actually appreciated having a structured situation that was designed for their good and not just for the convenience of the parents.

Once our children graduated high school, there was a natural breakpoint and everyone pretty well went his own way. While we needed it, however, the home-neighborhood center worked.

I can’t say that any of our children’s friends have yet come into the Truth. They all know about Christadelphians and several long discussions were held. What we did accomplish was to keep our own children from becoming drawn to the world.

We mention the details of our approach but you would do things your own way dependent on your climate, home circumstances and other factors. One thing that will be the same, however, the idea will take planning, effort, resources and personal sacrifice. Anything that’s any good always does.

This letter has gone longer than I expected. I’ll have to write you again with some more things that might help in your situation.

For now, lovingly,
Aunt Sarah