Why Didn't They Leave?

Since August 29th, the nation has been riveted to their televisions, radios, and the Internet as we've watched the wrath and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina unfold in the Gulf Coast. One question regularly comes up. asked directly or indirectly, concerning those who experienced the onslaught first-hand: Why didn't they leave?

It's an intriguing question, and one that many have attempted to answer. The answers seem much more viable prior to the storm than after. People believed they could ride out the storm. Some did, but many lost everything, including their lives. Some believed they had to stay to ensure the safety of their belongings. But when the storm surge came and leveled those homes, it didn't matter how many people were "guarding" them. Some stayed because they were fearful of what would happen to ther belongings after the hurricane was over. Perhaps they prevented the looting of the riotous that have stalked the streets. Perhaps some of them didn't live through the storm to fend them off.

Why didn't they leave? For various reasons that seemed good at the time. But the reality is, their thinking was faulty. Their lives were more valuable than their bravado, their homes, their property. But for the hundreds, possibly thousands, whose bodies are being held in makeshift morgues until they can be identified by their nearest kin, that faulty thinking was deadly.

Through this national tragedy this weekend, I was reminded of another, even greater tragedy. But the question is the same: Why didn't they leave?

Statistics have shown that children who grow up in a Christian home, but attend government schools leave their spiritual roots by their early adulthood in numbers ranging from 88% to 92%. Only 8% to 12% will "survive" spiritually. Why didn't they leave? The answers to this question also seem more viable before the child's life is destroyed than after.

"We want them to be salt and light." Not only do the statistics prove this idea has failed; the reality is one cannot be salt and light when not properly trained. Academically no one is training their children to think biblically about history, science, math, government, secular attacks through subtle English reading assignments, etc. Youth groups aren't; Sunday school classes aren't; and if we were honest, the majority of Christian parents aren't either. In addition, no mission agency would consider a teen spiritually prepared to go to the mission field. Why do we think they are?

"There are Christian teachers in my child's school." That may be. But in 99% of those circumstances, those teachers who are Christian are not inculcating their students with a Christian worldview. Maybe they're hoping to be "salt and light," but it's not happening in the educational setting. I do know of one government school teacher who has taken his faith into the classroom He has written Bible verses on his whiteboard. He has shown decidedly Christian DVDs dealing with science to his class. He also is anticipating the day the ACLU makes it too uncomfortable for the school district to keep him on the payroll. The likes of him are extremely rare, however. Not that there aren't Christians teaching in government schools; just that most of them are not laying ther careers on the line for their faith. It's too scary. I don't know that I would if I were them.

"The school isn't that bad." Sometimes we need to ask questions differently. Rather than asking, "what's wrong with it," we ought to ask "what's right with it." Perhaps you read the story of the dad who, wanting to encourage total spiritual dedication in his children, made them brownies. But he added a "special ingredient": just a little bit of what the dog did in the backyard. Oh, not that much; only a little. The brownies weren't "that bad," were they?

Educating our children at home isn't the total problem solver. Our children, just like us, are sinners in need of a Savior. And even we who have been saved by grace still need to grow in that grace on a daily basis. But what educating our children at home as God commands in Deuteronomy 6 does accomplish is that it moves them out of the storm surge of secular education and the secular environment. It places them on the high ground of home - the place God created for children to be nurtured and framed (remember Ephesians 6?). It also forces us to be the parents, not to abdicate to "professionals."

Evacuating was not easy for the Gulf Coast families who did so before Katrina came. It meant leaving a lot that was familiar, possibly never to see it again. But they left with their lives intact, and the ability to move forward after the storm. Evacuating the government school system is not easy, either. For most, it means leaving a lot that's familiar. But it allows parents to move forward with their children intact, and their families intact as well.

Another statistic bears that out. According to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), home-schooled students of Christian families also leave the faith Of their parents. How many? About 6%. That's right. While 92% of government-schooled children of Christian parents will abandon their beliefs in adult life, 94% of homeschooled students will affirm theirs. So the question still is there for Christian parents of government-schooled children; Why don't they leave?

John Desaulniers, Jr. lives in rural Iowa with his wife and their four homeschooled teenage children. He is a territory account manager for Broadman & Holman Publishers, serves on the board of Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators (NICHE), and pastors Good Cheer Family Fellowship, a family-integrated church in Des Moines.

I was one of those 92% who left their Faith as an adolescent. My parents didn't go to Church much and didn't fight me when I didn't want to go. It was only until I sat down as an adult, read the Bible and the Catechism, did everything click in place. I realize that much of my disdain for Church was simply due to misunderstandings and poor examples of others living a supposed Christian life.

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