Amber and her family have lived in Woodbury for 4 years. Amber and her husband have 4 young children attending New Life Academy. This is their second year at New Life so we sat down with Amber to talk about her experience.
What has your experience at New Life Academy been like so far?
We have been absolutely blown away. We don’t have family in our area so this has become family. Since we’ve been here the kids have just grown socially and spiritually. It has been such a blessing. I cannot share about this place enough.
When you say you were “blown away” what were you blown away by?
I was blown away by the teachers and how much they really care for the children. Not just to teach them their A, B, C’s. and not only just to read or write, really just how much they cared about their hearts. How much they care about what kind of people are my kids becoming. My kids come home talking about Jesus. They come home talking about what they learned at chapel.
It kind of starts to permeate every area of their little lives. Which is in these formative years is so important.
How does that merge with your life at home?
I think it really impacts how they really even treat each other. We have four little ones. They learn about how do you think about others and how do you interact with other people. I can tell what they’re learning in the classroom is really translating to what they’re doing at home.
Explain the connections you are making as a parent.
For us we had 4 kids in less than 3 years so it was pretty intense for a while. We really felt kind of alone. Since we didn’t have family in the area. Jake’s from Wisconsin, I’m from Iowa so we are in the middle of both of our families. Since we came here it feels like we are part of a community. You really feel like you have this community because your kids are going through the same experience.
How does New Life Academy develop their character?
The character building is the thing that is the most important to us. In our society, in this day and age, it’s really rare to find a place like this. We’ve thought of moving to other areas of the Twin Cities but to be honest with you what keeps us out here is New Life. At this point I can’t imagine not having New Life in our family’s life. It’s really everything. When your kids have this ability to have a firm foundation when they’re little, I think it’s going to translate through to the rest of their lives. If we can form their hearts, the rest of it will take care of itself.
Since they are so young, is it hard to leave them in the morning?
When I drop my kids off in the morning, I feel so good about leaving because I know they are in good hands. The way I see the teachers caring for the kids is the way they’d care for their own kids. That’s what keeps drawing us back. We can leave the kids here and we know without a doubt that they’re going to be taken care of, plenty of attention, the class sizes are small.
What are your dreams for your children?
My dreams for my children are really that they would have the confidence and that just inner security of who they were created to be. That they would grow up knowing that they are loved, purposed and valuable. That they can then go throughout life and whatever God is calling them to do with their vocation that they would have that inner confidence because they were taught that, you know, in the very formative years of their life. That was a big decision. Do we send them to New Life. Obviously, it’s an investment. We could send them to school down the street, it’s Woodbury, it’s a safe community but at the same time they’re not going to get Jesus. I think that’s what really sets, in our minds, this place apart. Is that they have every freedom to explore Jesus and what he means to their little hearts.
