From Ordinary People to Extraordinary Leaders

Sheila Campbell

I am excited about my position here at THSC as the new Leader Liaison, and I feel it is a great honor to be the communications coordinator between the two sets of people that help sustain the home school community in Texas—THSC and home school support organizations. Your dedication and service help make home school families a success. I hope to serve you well as you work to provide encouragement, activities, and fellowship for home school families across Texas. 

So, who are support leaders and why do they volunteer to lead? They give generously of their time and talents to people who are often completely unaware of the time and effort it takes to organize and lead a group.  And why do they do it? I have often asked myself the same question: “Why have I served as a leader in our little group in Plainview for so long?”  Although I may think of many reasons, the real answer is simple; I did what I felt I needed to do.  At the time I may not have recognized it as a call from God or anything extraordinary; I simply saw a need and tried to fill it.  But as I look back now, I realize that, however small or insignificant the task may seem, it was God who set my feet on this course; it was God who opened my eyes to the need; and despite all my faults, failings, and immaturity, it was God who used what little I had to offer to encourage others.  Like most leaders, I may never know the far-reaching effects of that plan. 

Support leaders are ordinary people whom God uses to accomplish extraordinary things.  They help direct the hearts of the fathers back to their children, give mothers a vision to raise mighty sons and wise daughters, and encourage families to bond in a way that has been lost for several generations. When we as leaders invest our time in home school families, we are acting in faith that God will use the current generation, as well as the next, to change the present course of our country. Even if we are simply doing what we feel we must do and even if we are only helping one little family in one little part of Texas, we must remember we are part of a much bigger plan. Besides, that is what support leaders do; we help individual families remember that they are not alone but part of a great movement. 

I am reminded of Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” The writer of Hebrews goes on to list the great patriots of the faith, all ordinary men who lived extraordinary lives because they kept their eyes on what was ahead and did not return to the path that was comfortable or easy.  Verse 15 states, “If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.” 

Perhaps this passage in Hebrews inspired J.R.R. Tolkien.  Some of you will recognize the passage from The Two Towers, in which Sam is musing about the great heroes and great deeds in old tales and says, “I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say.  But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind.  Folk seem to have been just landed in them, but I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t.” 

If you feel like you have “just landed” in a leadership position and you wonder why you are doing this, remember that God uses ordinary men and women to do extraordinary things when they keep their eyes on the path ahead, trust in results that they cannot see, and choose to keep going. 

Hats off to home school support leaders all across Texas, the real Texas Heroes!

Meet Sheila Campbell

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