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Editor's Note: Below is a Staff Spotlight on Mrs. Rathbun that was published two years ago in The Cracked Pot. We have decided to re-publish this Staff Spotlight as a tribute to Mrs. Rathbun, who has accepted a new job and will not be teaching for The Potter's School next year. Hopefully, this article will show just how much she is appreciated at TPS. Thank you, Mrs. Rathbun, and may God bless your future career!

Part 1

Rebecca Rathbun (known as Mrs. R to her appreciative students) was born on August 10, 1961 in Spokane, Washington. When she was three years old her family moved to Moscow, Idaho, where she grew up. Her father attended law school while working full time, and her mother worked 16 hours a day. As a result, Mrs. Rathbun did not see enough of her parents as she would have liked. “I was raised mostly by my older brother and sister and the nuns at the convent where I went to school,” she said. “When I was six my mother stopped working and stayed home for a year. I loved that.” But the next year, for various reasons, her mother went back to work. Mrs. Rathbun missed her parents, and she decided while still very young that she wanted to stay home and be with her kids, and that money would never be more important than they were. God has honored and blessed this choice that she made – but that’s letting the story out.

 

Mrs. Rathbun worked very hard in school because she loved to be praised for good work and grades. Unlike a lot of girls she did well with math and science. Yet she found that academics couldn’t fill the emptiness in her heart. Mrs. Rathbun was raised as a Catholic, but as she grew older and experienced some family problems she came to the conclusion that there was no help to be found in Christianity or Catholicism. She concluded that atheism and evolution were correct. It seems God had other ideas.

 

Mrs. Rathbun came to know Jesus through a classmate whose life was radically changed when she attended summer camp and accepted Christ as her Savior. “In 8th grade everyone hated her; in 9th grade she was the most popular girl,” Mrs. Rathbun said. Jesus had made a difference in this girl’s life, and Mrs. Rathbun was curious about it. There was a lot of joy in this girl’s life that had not been there before. Mrs. Rathbun was also curious because this girl had struggled with some difficulties in her relationship with her family. The girl invited Mrs. Rathbun to her youth group, where she heard the gospel and realized that the biggest problem in her life was her own sinfulness. She was convicted by Matthew 5:21-22, which says that if you hate someone, you are a sinner and a murderer. Mrs. Rathbun recognized that she was guilty of bitterness and of hating her parents, and recognizing that “really hit” her. She asked her friends and the youth minister how to become a Christian, and one night in her room she asked for forgiveness and gave her life to Christ. As the years passed she was able to patch up her relationship with her parents, and eventually God used Mrs. Rathbun to lead her mother to Him.

 

While she was in high school, Mrs. Rathbun hoped to become a missionary doctor, so she decided to major in biology. At her father’s insistence, she went to Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA. During her time in high school, she had come to a creationist viewpoint. She found the college to be very feministic and liberal, and she received a lot of persecution from her biology professor simply because she was not an evolutionist. In order to go on to medical school, Mrs. Rathbun needed recommendations from him. One day he told her that unless she became an evolutionist, he would not write the recommendations.

 

A wise saying goes “When one door closes, another always opens.” Mrs. Rathbun saw that she could not major in biology if she wanted to make it to medical school. Yet she could major in chemistry because evolution was not an issue, and the chemistry department wanted her. She is gifted with the ability to make measurements very accurately, and she had been working for the chemistry department already, preparing solutions for chemistry students. She chose to major in chemistry instead of biology.

 

Part II

As she prepared to head into medical training, Mrs. Rathbun faced another choice. She saw that life as a physician would demand a lot of her time, and she didn’t think that she could become a doctor and still have enough time to care for the children she hoped to have one day. She decided that she would rather have time for her children, and so she returned home and discussed her decision with her parents. Although her dad was disappointed, he said it was all right if she chose not to become a doctor after all.

 

Once again another door opened. Mrs. Rathbun had had some experience teaching during her time in college, and she loved it. Instead of becoming a doctor, she went on to graduate school in chemistry and was certified to teach both biology and chemistry. But before she began teaching, Mr. Right arrived on the scene. She had known Mark Rathbun since they attended high school together. They also attended the same church – which was held in an auto body shop. “We just moved the cars out and set up chairs,” Mrs. Rathbun explained. “In the West, nobody minds untraditional things. That’s something that I don’t see that much in the Midwest or East. But back in our town, nobody blinked an eye when you did something unusual.”

Mr. Rathbun took her out for coffee one day several months after they started dating and proposed. “I thought he was just the cat’s pajamas,” Mrs. Rathbun laughed. They were married on March 9, 1986. God blessed their marriage with seven children: Stephanie (age 17), Spencer (age 15), Silas (age 13), Scarlet (age 11), Sheridan (age 9), Sterling (age 7), and Sarah (age 5). Although they had not intended to name all their children with “S” names, by the time Scarlet arrived they noticed a trend in the names of their first three children.  Since they “didn’t want Scarlet to feel left out” they just followed that trend in naming her and all their other children.

When Stephanie was old enough to go to school, Mr. and Mrs. Rathbun were encouraged by some home-schooling friends and a local Christian classical private school to look into classical education. They decided that Mrs. Rathbun was capable of teaching Stephanie, and Mrs. Rathbun has been home-schooling her children since then. She said that one of the best things about home-schooling is that she can be home with her children and meet her lifetime goal. She enjoys home-schooling because she is “kind of academic oriented”. Through home-schooling, she sees herself as meeting her early ambitions to be a missionary doctor. “I wanted to serve on a mission field,” she said, “and now my children are my mission field and I am serving them.”

In October of 2000 Mr. Rathbun became very sick. Doctors discovered that he had adrenal insufficiency, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Adrenal insufficiency causes a lack of the chemical cortisol and it is very serious. Mr. Rathbun had suffered from this loss for five months before it was diagnosed. Doctors say he should have died by then, but God often has a different idea where medicine is concerned. Mr. Rathbun is still ill and in a lot of pain.

Mrs. Rathbun now had to find work to support her family, because Mr. Rathbun could no longer do so. She was able to find work teaching a class of local home-schoolers and working at a factory as a lab technician, but she needed to get some other job. A friend of hers got her in contact with Janna Gilbert, the Operations Director of The Potter's School (TPS), who sent her for an interview with Dr. Wile, author of several science textbooks used by TPS. Gilbert and Wile were pleased that Rathbun could teach both chemistry and biology. However, Gilbert told Rathbun that she didn’t need another tutor at that time.

 

Part III

           

A few weeks later Gilbert called Rathbun and asked if she could help with one chemistry and two biology classes. Now Rathbun teaches four sections of biology and five sections of chemistry. Rathbun said she “loves working at TPS because the staff are Christians” and very supportive. She appreciates their friendliness and how she can share prayer requests with them. “I have a wonderful teaching situation,” she said. Laughingly she commented, “Imagine getting a job where you are hired to talk! I inherited the gift of gab from my dad. I never imagined you could earn a living from it – but I guess politicians know that.”

She is not an Apologia employee, but runs the courses as her own business. One of the things she really enjoys about teaching biology and chemistry is getting to know her students through the labs they submit and the questions they ask in class. She goes out of her way to be a friend to her students, and her laughter makes her classrooms a really cheerful place to be. Rathbun said the best thing about home-schoolers is their enthusiasm for the material being studied. Even though her courses are not always their favorite subject, they are ready to learn, fulfill the requirements and honor their parents. “In my experience, you just don’t see that enthusiasm or willingness to work. [These students] just work their tails off for me. You just don’t see that kind of an attitude anywhere else. I love my students. They’re terrific.”

Rathbun continues to help home-school her children while tutoring 111 other children online. In her free time – when she gets any – she likes to play her guitar. Her favorite music is bluegrass. She loves to sing and said that is her favorite pastime. She has honored at least one of her classes with her voice talent, composing songs to help them remember facts, or just joking around with some silly song. Her favorite book is “Penrod” by Booth Tarkington. She described it as  “a gut splitter” and a “great historical fiction” about southern Indiana. She likes the movies “The Gods Must Be Crazy,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility,” and “The Three Amigos.” Besides caring for her family, she also has two cats, Punkin and Patches. Patch, a calico kitty, earns her keep and even makes deliveries to the front doorstep. Punkin, on the other hand, “is just a big fat slob”.

Her favorite verse is Colossians 3:1-2. “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

Mrs. Rathbun’s life is a real tribute to God’s sovereign plans.

 

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