By Martin Vervloet

I have noticed a trend with my own children as my wife and I have endeavoured to
homeschool them. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, but they continually ask us,
“Why do I need to know this, and will it matter when I grow up?” It’s a valid question and I
must admit there is a lot that I learned while in public school that was completely
irrelevant to anything I might do as I grew older. So, we focus on the basics; reading,
writing, arithmetic, and added to this we stress godly character and hard work. It is a
system that works for us and our grown children are doing well in their chosen field of
work. However, there is a broader question here that needs to be considered. That
question is, “What makes anything matter?”

After much thought I have concluded that there are five things that must be in place for
anything to matter.

1. There must be a God.
   • It only stands to reason that if there is no God and the atheist is correct, then life here on
     earth is only the random chance processes of evolution and we are only the end product of millions of years of time and circumstance. Life can have no meaning and death is the end of all life. Not all atheists are willing to concede this point but there are some who understand the meaninglessness of existence in a world without God.

2. This God, whoever He may be, must be actively involved with that which He created.
   • If God is aloof from the universe, either by disinterest or because He cannot do anything for it, then once again we are left with a circumstance that makes life pointless at best and futile in the extreme. I will add that a God who would use evolution over millions of years, as His primary means of creation could not be interested in His creation even in a general sense. He started the clock and now just watches it wind down.
3. God must be interested in each of us personally.
   • It may be that God is interested in humanity in a general sense and that He cares about the overall outcome, but does not care overly much about the individual components of humanity. His attitude might be- you win some, you lose some. Oh well, in the end I get what I want. This is cynical I know, but this idea exists in the minds of many people, the concept being that, “God does not care about me.” If this is true, then yes, even though there is a God who seeks out some overall end to our existence, in the end my life is not overly important and does not matter in the overall scheme of things. I will argue that for life to matter then God must care about me as an individual within His creation.
4. There must be eternity, either Heaven or Hell.
   • If all roads lead to Heaven, as some are inclined to believe, it really makes no difference what happens here in this life and so we must remove any ultimate meaning to what we experience while here. If on the other hand there is no Hell, then those that do not meet up to the divine code of entrance are simply eliminated. We came from nothing and to nothing we return. Well and good. Even the atheist is happy. I say, “No.” To remove eternal consequences will also remove any motivation that we might have to seek out the truth and pursue it. The scripture says that we will never seek God in our own effort, but even if God should show Himself to us, there would be no need to serve Him. I do not like using Hell as a motivation while I preach to encourage sinners to repent and much prefer the sights of glory, but the truth still remains.

5. There is one final prerequisite to finding lasting meaning in life. God must be able to deal with the problem of man’s sin.
   • It is not enough that God should simply overlook sin or excuse it. He must deal with it. The cost of sin is high, it is eternal separation from Him who is good. If we are separated from the good then there can only be the evil left to us. You will not find the solution toman’s sin, save in the Cross of Christ. He died, that we might live. His death is the payment due upon our sin, and I might add that His resurrection is the receipt upon that payment.

My conclusion is simple. In order to find meaning in life, we must come to the Cross, where the God of the universe came to die for each of us, that we might live and find true meaning and purpose in life. The Cross Is What Makes It Matter.

Dave and Aline Stasiewich began home schooling in Edmonton in 1983. That same year they began hosting informal meetings at their house with a small number of other home educating families. The numbers of people attending continued to grow, so the meetings were moved to the Mill Woods Recreation Centre. This group became known as the Christian Home Educators (Edm) Association. It would later adopt the name Home School Christian Fellowship and it continues to thrive.

Back in the mid-1980s many home educators lived in fear due to the hostile climate for people who didn’t send their children to public school. Some home schooling parents were visited by truancy officers, while others had to deal with social disapproval. These were not good times for home education (van der Ahé 2013, 4-5).

Dave and Aline Stasiewich met with the Minister of Education to advocate for home education, but it became apparent that a provincial association for home educators would be helpful in negotiating with the Minister and his Department.

Together with some other parents, Dave and Aline Stasiewich formed the Alberta Home Education Association (AHEA) in 1986. Pioneering home educator Merv Tuplin told this author that Dave and Aline basically initiated the whole thing.

AHEA was officially incorporated on November 26, 1986. The five signers of the request to register the organization under the Societies Act were Gordon Schiffner of Edmonton, Marie Erdmann of Calgary, Nora Harder of Medicine Hat, Carolyn Dykstra of Edmonton, and Stockwell Day of Red Deer. At the time, Stockwell Day was a rookie MLA in the Progressive Conservative government of Premier Don Getty. It is noteworthy that the signers represented many areas of the province.

Willing Non-Resident Boards

After its formation in 1986, AHEA was immediately busy with pressing the government to include provisions for home education in the new School Act. With the passage of Bill 27 (the new School Act) in 1988, the next item on the agenda for AHEA was the home education regulations. The directors of the association urged all members to write and call their MLAs, the Minister of Education, and the director of the Legislature’s education caucus, Halvar Jonson. Many members did call and write, clearly indicating to the government that home educators were concerned. As a result, AHEA representatives were invited to speak to the education caucus. After the AHEA presentation, the minister assured the AHEA directors that they would get some input into the forthcoming regulations (Stasiewich 1988, 1).

AHEA received a draft of the proposed home education regulations on November 4, 1988. The Deputy Minister of Education, Reno Bosetti, then called a meeting for November 15, 1988 for all home educators and their organizations to attend. AHEA urged every member to attend and indicated that the outcome of this meeting was crucial because the proposed regulations were not acceptable:

Many home educators did show up for the meeting. Ray Strom writes, “To the surprise of the department officials, the room was jammed with home educators. It was soon determined by those officials that home educators were a determined and serious group” (Strom 2003, 5).

The Home Education Regulation was released on February 28, 1989. AHEA immediately began trying to identify willing non-resident boards. Dave Stasiewich wrote to the members:

The search for willing non-resident boards turned out to be a very difficult task. Apparently, there was a kind of peer pressure among the boards not to accept students from other jurisdictions. A board that did accept students from other jurisdictions would be considered a “skunk in the chicken coop,” as Ray Strom put it. Thus home educators were stuck with their resident boards, many of which were unfavourable.

It wasn’t until 1991 that a breakthrough occurred. In September of that year AHEA discovered that the Assumption Roman Catholic School District #50 in Oyen was open to being a willing non-resident board. Harold Elias and Ray Strom from AHEA spent a considerable amount of time negotiating an agreement with that board. AHEA then prepared a notification form to be filled out and faxed to Assumption. With only three days remaining before the deadline for notifications to be received, over 100 students notified with that board (Strom 2003, 6).

This was the turning point. Notifying with a willing non-resident board was no longer just a legal possibility but a genuine reality. But entrenched interests were not pleased by this breach in the dyke. As Ray Strom related,