Walkersville Christian Family Schools (WCFS) was founded in 1983 by Gary Cox as a homeschooling outreach of Walkersville Christian Fellowship, the church at which Gary Cox is Senior Pastor. It was originally based in Walkersville MD, hence the name, but has since moved to Thurmont MD, where it ministers to families all over the state and beyond. It was designed to be an "umbrella group," providing support and advice for homeschooling families. Because WCFS strove to operate with integrity and legal transparency, it worked with the state to become an officially state-recognized homeschool organization, paving the way for many homeschooling families to be able to school their children in a legal way.
Over the years, WCFS has grown to be an institution of over 250 students. The first WCFS graduating class consisted of two students; now the average is a class of more than 20. God has provided many ways for WCFS to grow, and allowed it to play an integral part in the implementation of the Maryland education bylaws that are beneficial for all homeschoolers in the state. WCFS provides workshops, teacher training conferences, student testing, curriculum development, field trips, academic clinics, apprenticeships, and many other fun and educational activities.
In 2005, WCFS began an affiliation with the South Korean homeschool organization, Joshua International Academy. We have been able to help them adopt our organizational structure of operation and student coursework approval & validation. We are excited to have them as our Korean "branch".
For more information about WCFS, please click here.
A Ministry Appointed by God, not Man
(This
article was recently written as an update to an anniversary celebration of the
sending church that sent Gary and Sally into the ministry here in Frederick, Maryland. Gary thought it appropriate to
share it with the WCF/S family at large.)
Gary and Sally Cox thank the Lord as they
close in on 33 years of ministry in Frederick, Maryland, having been ordained and
released to ministry by their pastor, Gerry Smith and the then current elders
of South River Bible Church (SRBC) on June 13,
1977.
Gary and Sally have ministered continuously since then under the ensuing church
plant: Walkersville Christian Fellowship (WCF).
Gary & Sally began serving the Lord here
in Frederick, MD with our oldest child, Daniel, then aged two! Today, God has
blessed our family with a total of 12 children (ten living past birth), 5
spouses so far, and 14 grandchildren, counting the three unborn children due in
May and December. When we look back at
remarkable Providences, we mark our ministry launch and its continuance to
Pastor Gerry and the fellow-elders of those many years ago.
Being from earnest Catholic roots, Gary only had one childhood
ambition to be a missionary priest to Africa. At age 13, he left home
and joined a monastery. There his earnest expectations of fellowship with God
were disappointed and he left having resolved to avoid all pretensions of
religion that did not have an authentic spiritual reality. Gary was born-again in his
sophomore year of college. He
immediately dedicated his life to fulltime Christian service, and transferred
to Washington Bible College. Gary was attracted to ABC/SRBC
when Gerry Smith was a special chapel speaker at WBC. Gerry described his
church’s Biblical model of a “New Testament Church” and the 30 families he was
shepherding. Sally and Gary began attending SRBC full-time during Gary’s senior year of college at
WBC. During that fall, Gary had a personal faith crisis
upon hearing God clearly tell him “no!” to his missionary dreams of Africa which had been stirred up
by annual WBC Missions Weeks. Later, he was rejected for a ministry position at
a boys home and had his biggest wrestling match with God ever! God mercifully
granted Gary repentance and he surrendered to God his desire to
serve Him. Gary finally was willing to do
nothing “formal” if God would help him to be faithful in whatever service He
chose for Gary.
Literally, the next week, Deannie and Gerry
showed up at their little apartment telling them of the SRBC vision for
starting church plants with couples from the church. They also told Gary of the elder’s sense that
God had his hand on Gary¹s life for useful Christian service. Perhaps you can
imagine the stunning sense of blessing and calling Gary felt from the Lord with
such an immediate answer to his prayer of surrender. Gerry told them to wait
until after graduation before starting any field of service. (Gary had told him that he wanted
to quit college and start right then!)
Two weeks after graduation, Gary was ordained and Sally and
he were sent forth to Frederick County MD, with a job and housing in
hand. SRBC’s sending the Coxes to Frederick under Gerry’s leadership
was remarkable Providence # 1.
Remarkable Providence # 2 occurred nearly three
years later. In early 1980, the little WCF flock that had reached a peak of 54
persons suddenly dissolved to just the Cox family of 5. (That was the general
time-frame when the posted vintage photo was taken of Sally and Gary and three
of their children. They attended SRBC Sunday services for a time during the
first months of that year.) Sally and Gary immediately met with the elders on
Tuesday. They emotionally felt like disappearing from the area in embarrassment
of failure, the counsel of Gerry and the elders seemed to us as if God himself
had spoken directly to us. Never have we cherished counsel so dearly, nor felt
its impact more surely as long as we have served the Lord.
In
earnestness and humility, Gerry said that the elders had erred by establishing our
placement so far from SRBC geographically. Because of that, our importunity
could not be ministered to easily, and the promised support in evangelism and
outreach simply could not happen. Gerry spoke in the humblest manner,
confessing the elders fault, and suggested that perhaps it would be best to
stay in Frederick and, “Let God himself direct you in the
continuation of the church and ministry. Don’t close down and don’t attempt to
develop any outreach at this time. Let God be your teacher and learn to
minister to whatever sheep he sends to you. God knows your address and your
phone number and He is able to send you the sheep that He wants you to serve.”
It is impossible to express the force of those words upon us. As we drove home
we both sensed that God had spoken directly to us. Only God can count the
innumerable times we have repeated and comforted ourselves with that advice
over the years.
And so we did just that! Upon the elders
advice that Gary do secular work to increase
contact with the lost, he looked in the paper the very next day to find a truck
to restart the small construction company that he had used for financial
support during the Bible college years. The first sheep came that night,
Wednesday evening. (One of that family’s sons is the WCFS school administrator
today!) Those years were much blessed! Gary was freed from expectations
of what success should look like. He was enabled to do whatever his hand found
to do, and he did it with all his might! Sally and Gary ministered to that one
family for nearly two years before God added another family, then a third.
During those days, Gary learned firsthand how to
shepherd just one sheep! He was astonished at how demanding just one family
was! Gary would often wonder how anyone could serve in a
larger church with so many. We served three families for over 6 years before
any more were added. Often loving friends would suggest that we close down such
an “unproductive” work. What a blessed and amazing thing it was to have the
deep confidence of God having spoken to us so that we could remain faithful in
a little thing.
Over the years membership has fluctuated,
but the remarkable Providence has been the incredible
varied geography of people that found our address and phone number and came for
a visit for one day or many years. WCF has had visitors from literally all over
the globe. In the summer of 1982 Gary and Sally became impressed to teach their
children at home. With Gary, knowing the law and how to
organize a Maryland educational program legally,
WCF opened a home school program to enable the Cox children to be taught at
home. A SRBC family asked to enroll, and so after prayer and deliberation, the
elders and trustees opened the school program to Christian families across the
state. The result was the formation of Walkersville Christian Family Schools
(WCFS). During the summer of launch, Gary looked at a notepad that he had
written contacts and discovered nearly 1,000 names of people who had “found the
Cox phone number” from around the USA! How true were the words God spoke
through Gerry! 2010 marks WCFS’s 27th year of school ministry. However, we
still feel more like a fledgling shepherd at the foot of Jesus, still learning
how to minister to those that the Lord sends our way.
Due to WCFS' involvement with home-schooling
over the years Gary has spent many hours at the
legislature in Annapolis and at the Maryland State
Board of Education. He has been blessed to see God provide a legal structure
for home instruction using the WCFS system as the model for the entire state
(COMAR 13A.10). In addition, God has allowed him the privilege of speaking
truth to government officials over the years. Gary once had an angry
legislative secretary calm down by patient answers that explained the vision
for home schooling. Later, the secretary pointedly asked how she could be
saved! God turned an angry Assistant Attorney General at the MD BOE into a calm
friend who sought his counsel on the controversial issue they were working on.
Later, she presented the WCFS vision and policy for Christian Service in high
school as a model for community service in the public school
curriculum.
This kind of “shepherding” government
officials certainly was unforeseen and never sought for, but it is what God had
in mind! What a privilege to speak to government officials, and watch God turn
distrust and skepticism into honest inquiry about Biblical Christianity. One
official, the Assistant Superintendent of Schools for Maryland, co-sponsored a home-school
forum with WCFS and later wrote a note thanking Sally for her spiritual
inspiration and example, stating that she had left the Department in order to
do something worthy of eternity:
nurturing children in an orphanage! Another BOE director kept in touch
with Gary, telling him how proud she is of her daughter and
son-in-law who are home-schooling on the Eastern Shore. These unexpected contacts
have all been divinely appointed “sheep” assignments that God brought to us
over the years. Surely our feeble faithfulness in little things by God’s Grace
has yielded much richness of God's blessing these many years.
Even unto the ends of the earth God has
blessed! From out of the clear blue (God!) doors of effectual ministry have
opened. Gary has had the joy of visiting a few WCFS graduates
who are serving the Lord in China. His longtime desires to
serve God in foreign lands was answered in unexpected ways! A contact from S. Korea resulted in an invitation
for Gary to be the keynote speaker at the Christian
Education Convention of Korea, in Seoul. After accepting, Gary was feeling genuinely
unqualified and very insecure. Just hours before he was supposed to speak, he
was feeling increasingly out of place, a big mistake! When the Conference
Secretary asked if Gary would like to know why he
was chosen to speak, Gary desperately answered,
“Yes!” The Secretary went on to describe how they had begun praying for God’s
choice of a speaker the prior June. They had sent a pastor to visit different
home schooling organizations across the USA. He said that they had
spoken to all the large national organizations, yet none seemed to meet their
desires. In October, Gary spent a week with that
pastor tagging along with Gary in his everyday work. Upon
hearing of the manner which the Lord blessed the small WCFS ministry in working
out legal and legislative issues with the state of Maryland, Pastor Chen felt
sure that WCFS was the model they were looking to emulate in Korea.
Upon hearing this story, Gary was much relieved, he could
simply be himself ‹ God had blessed WCFS with respect and honor, and He had
chosen this field of service! The Keynote was wonderfully blessed. Afterward,
several other speakers asked Gary to speak during their time
slots! (Which he did ‹ all without any notes!)
What a blessing to watch God promote His own work, no matter how small! Gary was released in his spirit,
and remembered nearly everything that he had thought or said about home
schooling in the prior 23 years of service! Today, WCFS has 3 foreign affiliate
schools. Two in S. Korea and one in the Philippines. Gary has learned that there is a
big difference between a man desiring to serve God and that man being chosen by
God to bless! In this way, God gets all the glory.
[God] has also set eternity in the hearts of
men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know
that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and
nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. (Eccl. 3:11,
14; NIV)
With
Thanksgiving and Love in Christ,
Gary
and Sally Cox, and Family