In Perpetual Motion

How Our Family Works Together in Homeschooling and in Music Ministry

by Heather Fehr

I suspect that our family is like a lot of homeschooling families: continually busy, working at things that are necessary, learning and practicing skills that we think are important, and building things that we love. My husband James and I both had the privilege to receive a home education when we were of school age: James from grades five through twelve, and me from grades ten through twelve. We have been home educating our own eleven children for the last 21 years: seven of whom have completed their formal schooling at home and four that are still working on it. All of our children live at home except for one son who is married to a lovely gal with a precious new son of their own. For now, our older kids are happy to live at home until God leads them elsewhere. They have jobs and contribute financially to help cover costs. Besides homeschooling and outside work, God has also allowed our family to work together as a musical ensemble we call The Fehr Family Band.

When we started out as a couple and then a family, we didn’t plan to have a music ministry, but we did intend to home educate our children. As part of our homeschooling, we decided to incorporate music as one of the non-negotiable subjects that each of our children would participate in. When our oldest daughter was seven and our second child was six, we had the opportunity to enroll them both in a three-year piano music program called Music for Young Children. I went with them each week to the lessons and helped them practice at home. I’d been a piano/voice teacher before getting married and I realized that I could learn how to teach this program and then use it to teach my other children, as well as having outside students come to our home for lessons. Our youngest child, now ten years old, recently finished his three-year program of group music lessons and is now continuing to take private piano lessons. School wasn’t finished for the day until music practice was done. Practicing is still a big part of all of our
children’s lives. If you come to our home during the week, there is a good possibility that you will hear various instruments being played throughout the house, from the laundry room to washrooms to the furnace room and the bedrooms. It’s a pleasant cacophony of musical noise. I love hearing each one honing their skills, developing personal practice disciplines, and seeing
how they grow in character as they are diligent.

As time went on, the children began to be interested in instruments other than the piano. Since they had already begun to learn the language of music, learning another instrument was quite a bit easier. The three older boys chose to learn guitar, mandolin and banjo. After some time learning and practicing on their own, they started to play together. At a time in their life when they were also part of a community handbell choir, they were asked to play a song on their acoustic instruments at one of their handbell concerts. From there, a kind pastor who attended asked if they played for other events. He invited our family to play and sing some songs at a seniors’ get-together. Not long after, two of our girls started to learn violin from a local teacher. Other instruments that various children have learned to play are the cello, tin whistle, flute, Irish drum, harmonica, and ukelele. As everyone’s abilities improved, we were asked more often to play and sing at various events.This pushed us to start incorporating a larger spectrum of arrangements and songs into our repertoire. We would continually try to bring fresh new songs into our setlists for the new events we attended. This allowed us to keep growing in our abilities at a steady pace. We love the growing and stretching this causes! It has been interesting to see how the more music we do, the more we realize that we still have so much to learn.

Soon after we started singing, James’ parents, who used to travel in their own family music group, passed on to us their sound system and trailer for hauling it around. It really helped to learn to run sound for ourselves, although it involved a steep learning curve. We have been able to gradually add to our equipment, as well as use some of it to record a couple of albums. We are just starting to work on a third recording which we hope to be finished this spring. Meanwhile, we have kept diligently working at our schoolwork. We do a more traditional type of schooling in our home. We’ve used a few different programs that are set up with lessons so that I don’t have to do much preparation. School is Monday through Friday most weeks during the traditional school year. We start out each September working toward a set amount of work to be completed by Christmas. Then after a nice holiday break, we get going again in January with plans to be finished our season’s worth of schoolwork by the end of May. We don’t always get it completely finished, but it’s usually close. Then if we still have some left, we can do a little here and there when we have time in the summer. I had almost all of the teaching responsibilities for the first 12 years or so. Since then, as the girls have gotten older, they have helped each other and the younger ones quite a bit. I’m still very involved, but I do appreciate my wonderful helpers. Teaching responsibilities have evolved smoothly as situations have fluctuated, including dealing with health issues for certain ones, and adjusting to new and different busy seasons in our lives.

Summers have been very interesting and event-filled for the last few years. We have had the opportunity to present music at various jamborees and festivals throughout Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Our whole family jumps in the van or on our 1975 MCI bus as we travel together to events. We also have bookings on weekends throughout the school year. We love to sing about Jesus and what He can do. We love to make music together. We love to meet new people. And we love to learn and grow, because there are always so many opportunities for that!

A more recent opportunity that has allowed us to grow and learn has been taking on the responsibility for running the annual Deer Valley Meadows Gospel Music Jamboree held at a camp east of Red Deer. It’s been a fun challenge to learn how to run this successfully. This includes booking and working with many different music groups and volunteers, setting up and running sound, booking camp lodging and meals for attendees, buying and serving food for some of the guests, hosting and accommodating the music groups, arranging the event’s three-day schedule, and making promotional materials. This event is a very exciting time for all of us and we look forward to it every year! You can get more info at dvmgospelmusic.com in case you’d like to come and join us!

Many things that we hadn’t planned on have been added to our original home education plan since we first began our journey, but God has paved the way and opened doors. Besides reading, writing, and arithmetic and other standard subjects, we’ve been able to learn a lot about music, instruments, songwriting and arranging, and time management on many levels. With the help of friends and mentors, we’ve learned about sound equipment and its upkeep, as well as bus, trailer and vehicle maintenance and bus/RV renovation. We have made family harmony a high priority – the relational kind more than the musical kind. We’ve realized that there are so many opportunities for education outside of actual schoolwork. We’ve also found that it is possible to do a thorough job of traditional homeschooling while pursuing other interests and hobbies that have turned into a music ministry. It’s an exciting life! We look forward to the new adventures God has in store, and we will keep striving to be faithful in what He has called us to do.