Through My Eyes (4 page)

Dealing with our dyslexia with wisdom, Mom not only affirmed that we were wonderful creations of God, with our God-given intelligence and abilities, but she gave us the confidence to learn as well. When subjects came more quickly to me, we could breeze through them, but if they were more of a struggle, we would slow down to focus on them. It was the same with each of my siblings—we were each able to discover alternate and better ways to learn, ways that were unique to us as students.

My mom would read articles to us from the newspaper, or have us read them ourselves as we got older, and then we would identify and discuss the character issues in them. We could always find something to talk about in most every article. As we ate breakfast together as a family, we would read through Psalms and Proverbs. Both of my parents were not just casually interested in our memorizing a large number of Bible verses; they required it. To help us, Mom would put the verses to music in songs that she had made up. Memorizing our verses paid off in a number of ways. One which was very important to us was that we knew we couldn’t play sports or watch our favorite Saturday-night program,
MacGyver
—we all loved
MacGyver
, because it was the only Saturday-night program in English that we got in the Philippines—until we had successfully recited our five verses for the week. And it never seemed to fail that there was usually some frantic Saturday-afternoon studying going on in our house as the time for
MacGyver
crept closer.

Another thing that I think homeschooling helped me with was that we all learned how to talk to adults at a much earlier age than some of our friends. Or at least it seemed that way to me. Regardless, the ability we acquired in being able to talk with and be around adults has benefitted me greatly. Somewhere in that homeschooling process and travels I developed a comfort level in being able to talk to adults, to properly and politely address them, and to interact with them in so many different settings. I think that’s because my parents made sure we were always included in most things they were involved in and around older adults. We weren’t just surrounded by kids like ourselves all day who were just speaking at our own level of maturity and content. We were challenged to grow in being able to build and have relationships with others—of all ages.

Don’t get me wrong. It was still school, albeit with really small classes: one teacher, one student. My mom gave us grades for every class. She was tough with the amount of work she gave us, but at the end of the day, she was a pretty easy grader, because she was always trying to encourage us. She did insist that we always take year-end tests, however, because she wanted an outside assessment of how we were doing. Also, she and my dad began to suspect I might have a chance at a college scholarship, so they wanted to make sure we all were exposed to testing.

People say you’ll miss out on things by being homeschooled, like the prom and other traditional activities that you experience in an institutional school setting. The truth was that we were always so active in sports at various schools that we usually got invited to other activities like proms or other dances and really didn’t miss out on the opportunity to participate in any of that if we chose to. Of course, there were things that, due to homeschooling, I probably missed out on. At times I wondered if there were friendships with other kids my age that I wasn’t experiencing. Ultimately, though, being very active in sports and church helped a lot with that, since we made many friends through those outlets.

In addition to the friends I made through church and sports, I made other friends through an organization Mom started, which she called First At Home, about twenty years ago. It started small—there weren’t many homeschool families at the time—but we had so many families that got involved in the years afterward that it became an integral part of the homeschooling culture. It involved participating together on a regular basis in various learning and recreational experiences. For example, we’d go on field trips as a homeschool group. So then we had all those new friends from other homeschooling homes that we got to know better and looked forward to being with, around Thanksgiving celebrations, and at numerous other activities.

For me, homeschooling helped keep my priorities in order and allowed me to work on the things that I wanted to accomplish at my own pace and on my own schedule. Later, in high school, if I had an opportunity to go on a recruiting visit to a college, I could take off on Friday and make up for it by doing more of the required work either ahead of time on Thursday or on Monday after I returned from the trip; and I never had to worry about missing a test. I would also schedule my workouts around my class schedule. I always could do everything I wanted to do athletically and academically because I was able to schedule things in accordance with the priorities that were built into me when I was growing up. And the neat thing was that I was able to do most everything I needed and wanted to do along the way, and that really helped me develop a sense of accomplishment.

It was during
those growing-up days, when we were engaged in our games and chores around the farm, that I also had my first experience with the death of someone who was close to me.

Uncle Dick went to be with Jesus. He had health problems from emphysema and a childhood bout with polio, but I had never anticipated him actually dying. It was a sad occasion. We all loved him, and while we knew that he was now enjoying the rewards of heaven, we missed him and still do.

As sad as we were, we soon learned that Uncle Dick would continue to live on in a way that paid tribute to the great man that he was. Several years before Uncle Dick died, Dad was on a trip to the Philippines when he learned that an unwanted baby, whose mom died in childbirth, would be thrown in the river if someone did not take her. My dad’s staff members Bert and Ray Gauran took her and named her Queen.

Dad has always been very sensitive toward widows and orphans, who the Bible says repeatedly we are to care for. So, when Dad heard Queen’s story and realized how many children there were in the Philippines with similar stories, he went to the board of his organization, BTEA, with an idea to address the need of these orphans. He wanted to start an orphanage that would raise them. The board immediately embraced the idea, understanding the biblical mandate to help widows and orphans:

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

J
AMES 1:27

In 1992, BTEA founded the orphanage in the southernmost part of Mindanao, Philippines. It’s a relatively small orphanage, with just under fifty children, but it is making a large impact in those children’s lives, caring for them and teaching them about Jesus’s love for them. By God’s grace we have had seventeen of our orphans graduate from college.

Much like my father, Uncle Dick understood the importance of helping those who are less fortunate, and when he died, he left a large portion of his estate to support the orphanage in the Philippines, which my parents then renamed “Uncle Dick’s Home.” It is a home of joy, providing unconditional and never-ending love to so many who need it. Renaming it in honor of the man who showed that kind of love to us and to so many others seemed to be the perfect tribute. I thought they’d have those little bottles of Coke and assorted flavors of popsicles for the kids who were living there, but Mom and Dad said they were going to take a different route on the meals and snacks for the children in Uncle Dick’s Home.

I loved the idea, but I was still sad that he had died. There was certainly a hole left in our family with Uncle Dick’s passing, a hole that was even more pronounced when Thanksgiving and Christmas came around. That hole would never go away, but it didn’t take long for the newly renamed orphanage to become a vital part of our family. Through the wisdom of estate planning, Uncle Dick has had a great legacy of impacting many needy children.

For much of my youth,
I played Pop Warner football at Lakeshore Athletic Association near where we lived on the west side of Jacksonville. Lakeshore is a stone’s throw from the St. Johns River but not near any lakes, as far as I could tell. It was a very strong and well-attended sports program that attracted a lot of top-flight competition and made me a better player. Initially I only played baseball at Normandy Little League and basketball in church leagues, but finally I wore my parents down with my begging and whining, and a few weeks before I turned eight, they finally let me play Pop Warner football.

The first week of football didn’t go all that well. I got sick every day at practice with headaches, dizziness, and nausea. I asked my mom if there was something that we could do or something that I could take, and while she allowed me to take something to calm my stomach and head after practice, she was clearly hesitant about making a habit of it.

At the end of that first week my parents sat me down. It was clear to them that if these symptoms didn’t stop soon, I would have to give up football. It was only a game, and they were not going to medicate me to play a game. My mom was particularly concerned, because she has dealt with Ménière’s disease all her life. It’s a condition of the inner ear that, for her, affects her balance. She wondered if I might have the same thing, especially since roller coasters, merry-go-rounds, and similar things have always made me ill.

Still, I didn’t want to give up football, but I’d learned that the scriptures make it clear we are to honor our mothers and fathers. My siblings and I were fortunate to have parents who made that easy to fulfill—at least we could see they deserved to be honored by us whether we always demonstrated it or not. But it wasn’t until later—when I wasn’t with them all the time—that I began to realize all the reasons, in addition to the instruction in God’s Word, that they deserved not only our respect and praise, but to be honored and loved. They cared for us, protected us, and nurtured us so that we could grow into the people God wants us to be. They guided us along the path on which they believe He had created us to walk. They did whatever it took to make sure following God’s wisdom and direction was the path we took.

Well, my mom prayed with me that evening. She and I knelt beside my bunk bed and prayed that God might take away whatever it was and heal me so I might be able to play football. If it was God’s will. That was always the standard for them, in anything they prayed for: if it was God’s will . . . they asked for it to be done. And for whatever reason you might wish to assign, after that night, I’ve never had another issue with my head while playing football.

Well, there was one issue. But that was much later.

Once I got over my initial sickness, the Lakeshore Athletic Association football program was a great place to grow up and compete. Not only did it give me my first experience at playing quarterback—the only position I’ve ever wanted to play—it also produced a lot of talent that flowed into the high schools all over the Jacksonville area and beyond. From my Pee Wee football team alone, we produced a number of Division I athletes, including guys who played for South Carolina, Louisville, Houston, West Virginia, and Florida. And there were others who might have made it that far except for falling by the wayside through low grades, drug use, or other problems that cut their athletic pursuits short.

After playing baseball for years at Normandy, at age eleven I was invited to play on a traveling baseball team, the Tidal Wave. Because they wanted us to sample and enjoy different sports and activities, my parents had always discouraged us from playing only one sport for the entire year; however, they did allow me to play on this traveling team. I played three or four seasons with them, and during that span we won hundreds of games, playing all over Florida and around the country. During the summers, we’d play maybe ten or eleven games a week—with two each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I remember many Sundays where we’d leave church and I would change into my uniform in the car as we drove to a game.

At various times during those years on the traveling team, I was invited to play for teams in other states as well. I remember a couple in particular: one in Georgia and one in Texas. Here we were, just kids playing baseball, and for the sake of winning games, these people were willing to fly me to different parts of the country to play for them. My dad squashed that idea before it ever had a chance to take off. He was concerned with the time it would take away from the family and school studies, and he also worried that my arm would get overworked if he wasn’t there to monitor my pitch count. He was a stickler for protecting our arms.

And, yes, he really did monitor my pitch count. After a great deal of talking with major league pitchers, Dad determined how much, in a game and in a week, I could throw without risking injury to my arm. One time in particular, Dad told our Tidal Wave coach, Matt Redding, that I had hit my pitch count. Before I’d joined the team, Dad and Coach Redding had already been good friends, which was probably why I was allowed to play on a traveling team in the first place, but this day, Dad was getting a bit upset with his friend, the Coach.

Dad walked over to him at one point and said, “Matt. He’s thrown enough.” He didn’t have to remind Coach about the terms for our participation on the team: only one pitching appearance per week, with a maximum of eighty-five pitches. Surprisingly, Coach didn’t immediately respond, and Dad continued.

“Matt, either go out there and take him out, now, or I will. And if I have to do it, then it’s the last time he’ll ever play for this team.”

No one would ever claim that God gave Dad the gift of subtlety or diplomacy, at least not when he feels strongly about something, and especially when he feels strongly about something that involves one of his children.

Coach took me out. That may be the only time that they disagreed on anything, which makes it so memorable; Coach was really good, and Dad trusted him with me.