SPEAKER BIOS
Barb Steely
Founding Director of AFAN
(Art For All Nations)
Homeschool Pioneer,
Mom, & Speaker
Barb Steely is the Founding Director of Art For All Nations, a mother, grandmother and minister. She and her husband Ken have traveled to more than a dozen nations to pray, preach and share the love of Jesus.
From a traumatic childhood of over 20 temporary or long term foster home placements, she was miraculously led to Christ as a child by a Jewish woman evangelist in the mid 60’s. This having sustained her for over 55 years, she has witnessed and been part of multiple moves of God through the decades.
Barb has taught in several Christian schools, homeschooled her 4 children (all accomplished artists in their own genres), and worked alongside her husband Ken for Christian church, school and homeschool rights in the 80’s where he Directed the Bill of Rights Legal Foundation in Washington state (founded by Michael Ferris before his move to Washington DC to establish HSLDA).
Still the acting President (stateside) for AFAN’s two art school campuses and an international base being established in Ireland, her heart is to reach and motivate as many who are willing to discover and use their creative abilities to touch, heal and inspire the hurting, the lonely, the lost to discover their worth ... all of us redeemable and made in the image of God - our Creator.
As a wife, mother, grandmother, minister missionary and speaker, she would like most to be known as a woman who loves the Lord with all of her heart, mind and soul. She believes the expression of art can reach across cultural and international boundaries to communicate the heart
and soul of artists.
Her heart is to see this opportunity for many in the days ahead, to see artists all over the world pursue their passions and share their gifts with the world!
Barb Shelton
Homeschool
Pioneer, Leader, Mom,
Speaker,
Course Instructor,
Author
Barb and her husband Dave have been married since July of 1975 (46 years,) Dave was a Kelso cop for 39 years, having retired in 2017. They are both loving his retirement! (Barb says she personally will not retire until her body gives up.) They homeschooled their 3 kids from birth, for 24 years, ending only because they graduated the youngest from our home school.
After (very reluctantly) reading Home Grown Kids by Dr. Raymond Moore, her thinking was turned up-side-down and in-side-out. She has been homeschooling ever since. She got out of “Egypt,” but it took some time to get “Egypt” out of her, which she did through much self education, letting the Lord lead her and change her paradigm.
She has since written 8 books on a variety of topics for homeschooling parents, spoken around the country at many homeschool conventions on many homeschool topics, led private Homeschool Oasis moms' groups in her home for many years, and created a homeschool course that she has been offering for over three decades. (Which is why it keeps "evolving" in technology.)
Her latest homeschoolish activities are focused on helping create a “net” to catch those coming out of the public school system, and offer them encouragement and resources - which is what HS Alliance is all about. Barb is delighted to serve you alongside the others leading the Homeschool Alliance!