Christian families fined $7,500 for homeschooling.

What would you do if the government fines you $7,500 for homeschooling your children according to your beliefs?

That is a reality, unfortunately, in Germany, where mandatory school attendance means you have to attend a public opr government licensed private school or you are basically a truant. So Germany, unlike most werstern European countries, does not tolerate homeschooling and severelz punishes those who for conscience and for their faith's sake homeschool their children nevertheless (Acts 5:29).

Beside several cases of government harassment from the last 2 years, there are new cases even now. The government changed its strategy and tries to compel homeschoolers to send their kids back to public schools by fining them with extremely high fines that threaten the financial existence of those families. In particular there are two cases. One in Lüdenscheid and one in Bautzen near Dresden in East Germany. The Krautter family has received a notice this month to pay a fine of an equivalent amount of $7,500 (€ 6,000). I read a copy of the notice thez received from the school authorities and it reads like an attempt to intimidate them. Some of the supporters of homeschooling have gotten together and tried to send tiny little cent amount to pay toward the fine. Receiving dozens if not hundreds of small cent amounts makes it hard for the state bookkeepers to keep track of what's already been paid toward the fine. By increasing their workload we try to discourage them from sending out these enormously high fines against homeschooling families. The school authorites in east Germany have used the media to threaten further measures if the kids are not back in a government school. That would be a removal of custody for the children and a lawsuit against the parents for "neglecting their duty of care and upbringing of the the children." What bitter irony! The parents' intention for homeschooling is the fact that they do care and want to bring up those children right for the Lord. According to the modern German worldview children are to be raised as future human resouce for the economy. That's all they think about. They don't have the perspective anymore for raising up children for the Lord like Hannah did in 1. Samuel, for example. The Germans don't know about Psalm 127 & 128 or Ephesians 6:4.

Let us help create an outcry of outrage about this. If you can read German, you can go to my website at http://www.christenkurier.de to read up on the situation. I might get an interview with one of the homeschooling parents who actually speak English, too. I'll publish it here. So we can listen to their testimony of the government-mandated suppression of homeschooling in Germany. Thank you in advance for any help.