The Power of Influence...

I was reading through portions of the books of Galatians and Acts in my bible this morning.  A section in Acts talked about Paul and Barnabas preaching to the Jews and Gentiles about Christ.  It's no secret that Paul and Barnabas were often targets of violence and persecution because of their outspoken beliefs.  Yet that abuse never stopped them from continuing on and faithfully teaching and preaching.  After speaking to a large group, Paul and Barnabas' words were spreading like wildfire.  Some Jews, of course, did not like this and began to plot against them.  While reading, I was pointed through my study to a verse to think more intently upon and study the context around it.  Here's where it get's interesting to me...

"But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region." -Acts 13:50

Who did the Jews motivate first to act against Paul and Barnabas?  Women.  And not just any women.  They were "God-fearing women of high standing...", women of influence.  Interesting.  I then read this statement in my study book...

For reasons we may never know, God entrusted womankind a most wonderful and terrible gift; the power of influence.

I've never thought about my influence being a gift from God.  In fact, if I really meditate on that, I would say that in thinking about influence, I would relate to it in a negative way - the terrible gift.  I think of people, including myself, to often use their influence to be manipulative or for personal gain.  It's not really a fair thought and I am somewhat embarresed and disappointed with myself that I immediately went that direction in my head with it.  But what if I used my gift of influence for positive and unselfish gain?  What would that look like?  My thoughts immediately went to my children and husband, and then ventured outward to the rest of my family, friends, and those I don't even know.  Suddenly I feel a weight on my shoulders that I am not doing what I could to influence others in a positive way.

What does the gift of influence look like in my home?  At a family gathering?  Out shopping at the grocery store? At church?  Wow.  God is pressing upon my heart to really think about this and take action.  At best, my influence should teach, encourage, nurture, love, and allow others to grow.  This is powerful and I am equipped and capable of doing all those things.  What a wonderful and unexpected gift. 

Summer of Sevice - 363 days...

As summer rolls on we continue to learn and grow from serving the Lord and those around us.  In keeping with our previous theme of helping to fight hunger, we chose a project that would directly affect our own community.  While researching ideas for our Summer of Service, I stumbled upon an organization called 363 Days. 

Each year, various organizations put together programs for Thanksgiving and Christmas to help feed, clothe and take care of those less fortunate. There is a remarkable amount of time, energy and money that goes into these programs. An honest question, pondered by those who participate is, "What happens the other 363 days of the year?"  363 Days was established with the other days in mind. Their starting goal was to help feed 150 homeless people in Minneapolis as many times a year as possible, with the ultimate goal of doing it every day of the year. Today, they are feeding about 2,000 people per day!

Volunteering for this organization is pretty simple, and perfect for children.  All you need is a commitment to purchase the supplies and find the time and place to make sandwiches...as many as you want to assemble.  I loved the idea of being able to do something so easy that could impact someone we might just see regularly near our home in the city.  The whole family was once again able to serve in some capacity for this project...and we even timed this one around a visit we would be having with my 4 yr old niece so we (especially the kids) could begin teaching and sharing with someone else the value of serving others.

We as a family had committed to supply 300 sandwiches to this organization.  I wanted a challenging number so it wasn't so short the kids didn't have time to process what they were doing.  Since my husband would be working the next day, he and I went shopping for the supplies (so he could participate in some capacity).  We bought 15 loaves of bread,  4 big packages of cheese, 12 packages of turkey slices and 2 boxes of ziploc baggies.  In the morning, I moved all the chairs away from the dining room table and set the kids up in an assembly line.  I let them come up with their own rhythm of working together and just helped ease some of the hiccups along the way.

As you can see, they managed just fine!

 

The three younger kids mostly assembled the sandwiches and the older two mostly packed them up and prepared them for delivery.

The kids also had fun trying to keep their little cousin on task.  They learned quickly that she needed to rotate her job often to stay interested, but she did a great job!!  We think her favorite thing to do was to line the sandwiches up in rows and count them!

Once every sandwich was sealed, packed and stacked we bagged them up and took a ride to a delivery location, which for us happened to be a small business that put a chest freezer in their office to store the sandwiches that come in.

363 Days then sends a truck around once a week to all the drop off locations throughout the city to pick up sandwich donations and stores them in their main freezer, which has the capacity to hold 50,000 sandwiches on any given day until they are ready to be taken out into the community to feed those in need.
 
It took us a little over an hour to make 312 sandwiches!!  That's 312 times someone will get a light meal because of our family.  A sandwich doesn't seem like much to most of us but I know many people are incredibly grateful to receive one if they are hungry and have trouble affording a meal.  Not only does the sandwich nourish their body, but I'd also like to believe that some of those people are touched by more than just getting food...maybe they learn about the love of God through others?  Or they receive a boost of self esteem and worth if they notice people take the time to make sure they are fed?  That's my hope.  It's pretty incredible the impact you can make in such a short amount of time...

Intentional Living...

One of the challenges I give myself spiritually, and as a wife and mother, is to choose the way I live my life as intentionally as I can.  It's easy to go through your days like a robot.  Or to follow the ways of the world and immerse yourself into what culture, community, or media dictates as "normal" or "ok."  I like to be different. Go against the grain. Challenge myself to be better. To have a reason for everything I do and to be sure that my reasons are in line with what my beliefs are.  I don't often give myself a head check to see how I'm doing with my intentions, though.

I'm a perfectionist.  I hate that about myself.  I crave order, demand it, actually.  And it can be crippling sometimes.  I haven't figured out why I am like this or why it's so hard for me to compromise.  I have some ideas, but I won't get into that.  That could be a whole other conversation.  But the craving, and exhausting clamor,  for perfect, order, glitch free, or whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish is getting in the way of me following through on my intentions.

When I decide to tackle an area of my life, whether it's exercise, healthy eating and cooking, home care, spirituality, serving my spouse or children, cleaning, jumping back into my career, whatever...I do it with amazing force and power.  I knock it out of the park...for a little while...until I, predictably, get burned out and somewhat frustrated that everything else in that list has been completely ignored and left behind.  And I end up with an amazing amount of catching up to do in those other areas in my life that I am responsible for.  And even though I am doing beyond great in one category of life, I end up feeling a little bit like a failure because everything else was left in the dust.  It's a ridiculous cycle I go through over and over that needs to be balanced.  Please tell me that I am not the only person who does this?!!

Yesterday, my husband called me on his way home from work after getting a text from one of our kids asking him to pick something up on his way because we couldn't figure out what to make.  The afternoon had gotten away from me and nothing was prepared.  He started the conversation by saying, "So I guess this isn't one of those days where I come home to an awesome dinner waiting for me on the table?"  Although it was totally lighthearted with no negative intentions, the guilt that welled up inside of me was pretty intense.  He was totally right, although he didn't know it.  That act of service...having an amazing home cooked meal on the table when he gets home...is one of my intentions.  It may sound old fashioned, but the results that come from it relationally within our family, and our marriage, are very sweet.  That statement from my husband let me know that action on that intention is important to him as well, for whatever reason it is for him.  Being an attentive wife and mother is so important.  I know this.  It's one of my most important jobs that God has bestowed upon me.  Getting caught up in other things, our unusual and unpredictable summer schedule, trying to find some semblance of a routine, and spending too much time thinking about how I can be a better person, and planning my perfection, has caused a lacking in my attentiveness. 

Today I am thankful for my husband and his witty remark about a lack of dinner on the table last night.  It unintentionally reopened my eyes to that list of intentions that I have and desire so greatly to balance throughout my life so I can be a blessing to those around me, and, be a reflection of God to others who watch me.  Thanks for the "head check" my love, you make me a better person!

Summer of Service - Kids Against Hunger

It's been a few weeks since I have updated on our summer of service but the lack of writing does not reflect a lack of service!  We are an incredibly blessed family.  We have everything we need and then some.  We never lack food on our table, and always have the ability to eat fresh, local, organic, in season, and variety at every meal.  We all take this for granted and we need to refocus ourselves back to the world around us and remember that not everybody has this.  It's easy to forget about others who may be suffering when you never seem to. 

Consider this…

• One billion people around the world live in chronic poverty and hunger.
• 40,000 children die each day from starvation and illnesses related to malnutrition.
• One-half of all deaths of children under age five are associated with hunger.
• And yet, the world produces enough food to feed every man, woman and child a healthy diet every day.

So with these facts in mind, we have been busy helping fight hunger near us and far away.

Our church sponsors an awesome program called Kids Against Hunger that was founded right here in the Twin Cities area.  The mission of Kids Against Hunger, a humanitarian food-aid organization, is to significantly reduce the number of hungry children in the USA and to feed starving children throughout the world.  The organization’s approach to achieving its goal - the eradication of world hunger - includes the packaging of a highly nutritious, vitamin-fortified soy-rice casserole by volunteers at numerous locations within the USA and Canada, and the distribution of those meals to starving children and their families in over 60 countries through partnerships with humanitarian organizations worldwide.  That's where we came in...we participated in a food "pack-a-thon" hosted by our church.

During our packing session we packaged Kids Against Hunger’s specially formulated rice-soy casserole into serving size portions to send to schools in Haiti.  The story behind why our church helps these schools was just heartbreaking.  Can you imagine having to choose to give your child up just so they can survive?  Neither can I.  There are so many families in Haiti that are so poor they cannot adequately feed their children.  When the children are old enough to attend school many parents are faced with a very difficult choice.  Send them to school to learn for their future, but likely end up malnourished or starved, or sell them off as slaves so they can work for food and adequate shelter and survive.  The meals we packed allow these children to be fed while they are at school...and the parents no longer have to choose to give them up for their survival.  Sometimes it is their only meal for the day, but it is enough to sustain them.

I particularly liked this day because the pack-a-thon was on a Saturday afternoon and we were able to serve together as an entire family.  My husband is a busy guy.  It's hard to nail him down sometimes, so he doesn't always get to serve with us because of his schedule!  But he was a trooper for sure on this particular day as his flight home, after being gone for 7 days, literally landed 25 minutes before we started packing food!  It was fun to walk into church and see him waiting for us with a big smile on his face, see the kids jump all over him, and then hop right in to something meaningful together as a family.  Loved it!

The kids thought this was a great activity.  The organizers did a great job making it a fun, casual environment.  They played music for the volunteers and intermittently educated us with facts about hunger and the children in Haiti that we were packing for.  This was also another great teamwork activity where everyone had to work together in a certain way to be efficient, fast, but also careful!

We talked a lot about the food we were packaging while we were working.  Of course being the label reader I am, and teaching the kids to do the same, we were all reading the nutrition labels of the food package.  For the most part we were OK with what we were packing, although, we might have been known to add an extra large scoop of the dehydrated veggies as well...see my partners in crime below...who me??!

We also talked a lot about how blessed we are to be able to eat fresh fruits and vegetables all day long and how that would be hard to only have grains and dehydrated foods as our only meal.  Although, Sarah thought the grains we were packing still smelled good and continued to sniff everything all afternoon.

Having such a large family, we took over an entire packing station as well, which allowed everyone to rotate jobs which helped keep them from getting bored but also learn the entire process of food packaging as well.

 

There were about 60 volunteers there packing together, including us.  Together we were able to scoop, sort, seal, box, and prepare for shipment just over 20,000 meals in 2 hrs!! 

The kids had so much fun on this service day.  It was a great project to teach them that not every type of service has to be hard, challenging, or physically difficult.  Yes, we were all exhausted, had sticky hands, food dust in our eyes and tired feet, but seeing the pictures of the children we were helping and participating in the process of making such a huge difference with just the sacrifice of two hours time was pretty impactful on all of them.  They all wanted the event to last longer.  We decided as a family we could do a repeat of this one on a regular basis as our church schedules this event about every 4 weeks!

Summer of Service - Special Olympics...

Last night the four younger kids and I went to the campus of the University of Minnesota to volunteer at the Special Olympics - Minnesota Summer Games.  I chose this activity for us for a very specific reason.  We have a few families in our life that have children with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities and I have noticed when our kids are exposed to these children, and also out in public, there is apprehension to get close and engage.  This is especially the case with our two youngest.  I get that.  Different is hard...and sometimes scary.  And even though I did have plenty of exposure with this growing up I learned to not stare or ask questions about other people's challenges and just turn and look away if I was bothered or unsure.  I want to be very intentional with my children when teaching them to accept all walks of life and want them to learn that God creates each one of us in our own perfect way and that even though it might be hard or scary sometimes, we need to accept, love and support everyone.

My goal for this service project was to make it fun and show our children that these kids and adults are just like us in many respects.  They like to have fun and have feelings too.  They can play, sing, dance, run, compete in sports, cry, laugh...just like us.  They just sometimes look, sound, and act it out differently...and sometimes not so differently!

Our job at this event was super simple.  Show up, have fun, and be a cheerleader.  We were there to support the athletes and make them feel strong, special, and equally as exciting as any other athlete out there.  It was the perfect job for the kids because it allowed them to sit and "stare" at these kids from afar and observe and absorb the differences without being offensive or rude.  It allowed us time to talk as a family about why it might be hard to be accepting of someone who is different, what about it makes us uncomfortable or afraid, and what we could try to do to get over that and honor God and His design for these individuals.  The questions and comments that the kids came up with while we were doing this were so intuitive and innocent. I loved it.  I could tell they were really thinking and processing a lot.  They were also rewarded with many waves and huge smiles from the competing kids as they heard and saw them cheering them on.  It was so precious.

I think the kids gained a lot from this evening.  Some of them still had a hard time getting close but I know it will take practice, time, and continued support from us as parents to keep them involved in the process.  They all enjoyed the atmosphere, being rewarded with smiles and waves of appreciation from the athletes, and to me, the conversations were priceless.  I showed the kids my pictures this morning and they were excited to see themselves in action.  I think Cameron summed it up quite nicely for all of us...

"I guess, in reality, there really isn't a whole lot of difference." 

Special Olympic Athlete...

My athlete...

Clearly, there is not.

“Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.” 

-Romans 15:7

Summer of Service - School Edition Part 2

We wrapped up our first week of summer serving at the kids' school again in one of the middle school teacher's classrooms.  The younger kids were a little tuckered out from our last project of moving books just two days earlier so I left this project up to the three older kids.  It was mellow, low key, simple, short, and sweet.  Just the balance they needed to keep them interested in continuing on with serving for the rest of the summer.

Cameron's French/English teacher asked for help in her classroom organizing, filing, sorting, and searching for lost books and re-shelving those.  This was a welcome and restful change from their previous day of service at school.

After reading their journals Cameron and Emma both had a good time just hanging out and helping.  Nothing profound came to mind for them this day.  I haven't gotten Annie to write for me yet, and I was a little worried about how she would do since she was our least happy on the book day and not exactly thrilled that I had pegged her to do another day of book work.  I was relieved to hear her say when she got into the car that she really enjoyed that day A LOT better than the previous one and that she was really glad she went.  She also enjoyed getting to know one of Cameron's teachers and told me a few stories about the conversations they had and how nice she was.

This report got my mind going a bit more.  I wasn't thinking about the benefits of them interacting with adults more one-on-one.  And getting to know a teacher one-on-one like that would probably open their eyes to the fact that yes, teachers are nice, yes, they are normal people, and yes, they have a lot to offer if you allow yourself to get to know them better.  Bonus!  This sparks my curiosity even more for the rest of the summer to see what more we can learn from others and how we can open up our world to them.

Summer of Service - The School Edition: Part One...

When planning our "Summer of Service" I knew I wanted to find projects that stretched our children emotionally but also some opportunities that taught them to give back to those who serve them directly on a regular basis.  So naturally, when thinking about this and where we should start our summer, school came to mind.  I chose school to be our first location to work together as a family for a few reasons.  One, it's familiar to the kids and a great place to get their feet wet while working for others they know, so they could start out serving comfortably.  Two, what kid doesn't love going back to school when summer is out and help their teachers...can you say "run in the halls?" And three, this school went above and beyond to accommodate and accept ALL of our children and our family when we were moving here last summer, has been incredibly flexible with us and our needs, and has continued all year long making sure everyone was adjusting and doing well.  It's an amazing community.  And even though it's a big sacrifice to have them attend here, it is worth it!  I cannot even imagine how much more difficult our transition would have been when we moved if we had not found this community to support us.

So with that I sent an email to our principal telling him of my plan and asking if there was anything we could do to give back to the school as the year was closing out.  He was kind enough to send the email out to all the staff and we were presented with two separate needs.  We took on both and split our time over two separate days last week.  After we were done with the first day, I took the kids to Target and let them pick out a new journal.  I want them to reflect on each project we do this summer and write about what they learn, what was hard or fun for them, and how they might be able to do something differently next time.  It was fun and eye-opening to read their responses to day one...which ended up being a lot more challenging and time consuming than we had anticipated, which was perfect!!

We were asked by one of the curriculum directors to help move old textbooks out from a storage room on the second floor of the school and over to the ice arena where they would be sorted through and given away to the community.  We had one mobile cart to use so we knew it was going to take several trips.  Sounded easy enough!  The first challenge was that the kids were so excited I had to stop them immediately to reorganize the effort.  I showed them how to stack the boxes and books properly on the cart so as to maximize each trip back and forth and avoid any catastrophic book spills on the way out of the building.

The second challenge was teamwork.  They had to figure out how to work together smoothly, and help each other out, without arguing.

The next challenge was sharing!  Everyone wanted to push the cart from one building to the next and we needed to come up with a plan so everyone could participate in that.

As we finished emptying out the storage room the rest of the building caught wind that we were there moving boxes and books and suddenly we were being summoned to multiple classrooms to pick up stacks and stacks of old books the teachers had yet to move out of their rooms.  Using our motto "serve with a smile" the kids took a deep breath and continued on working for two more hours as teachers kept adding their rooms to our list.

 

After a total of three hours of stacking, lugging, pushing, and pulling these kids managed to move over 1000 books from one building to another.  Can you see that tired haze in their eyes?

When looking through their journals it was cute to read what they wrote.  Here are a few of my favorite comments...

"I had a lot of fun but it took a lot of hard work and three hours of our day. Wow-Wee!" -Sarah age 8

"I don't know why, but looking back on it, the exhaustion felt awesome..." -Cameron, age 13

"Let me tell you, it was tiring and painful.  But then we went home and had some delicious chocolate cake!" -Lewis, age 9

"...it was a lot of fun and a lot of HARD work.  I think that it made mom a little stressed because the kids weren't doing it how mom wanted to do it, but it was all good in the end." -Emma, age 11

And there's my lesson...to lighten up and let them go with it.  There's incredible opportunity for them to grow and mature during these times of serving God and others and I need to remember not to stifle that with my own thoughts and ideas.  They are perfectly capable of analyzing the problem, coming up with an idea, and executing it together to get the job done.  This simple afternoon of helping out has taught us all a little something about ourselves.  I am thankful that I was able to glean from it as well.  It was a good day.

"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms"  

-1 Peter 4:10

A Happy Anniversary...

I was just thinking about my life a second ago, and I realized we've hit an anniversary.  One year ago, we packed up our family and moved to a new state for a new job opportunity for my husband.  When we left, we kept telling our apprehensive children "It's going to be a great adventure!" I think I was trying to convince myself of the same thing.  The whole move was pretty sudden and I really didn't have much time to think about it until we had already arrived!

I've grown and learned a ton this year.  And even though I was afraid to leave everything familiar behind and start all over again, I realize now, it was THE. BEST. DECISION.  I have ever made.  The transformations that have happened in this family are overwhelming, profound, and far beyond any expectations I ever had for us.

One of the biggest changes is within the relationships of our immediate family.  When you only have each other to rely on, you learn quickly how to do just that.  Our five children are much more close and attached to each other now than they ever have been. They are much more sensitive to each others needs and much more aware and feel empty when someone is away...even for an afternoon. 

Our marriage has grown and matured even more than the children.  With the new job came a whole new set of circumstances.  My husband is busier and gone a lot more as he starts up a new company here.  He comes home tired, excited, frustrated, starving, and any other feeling you might be able to come up with.  Suddenly, I was thrust into a whole new batch of roles that somehow I had overlooked previously.  And without the camaraderie of familiar coworkers and employees, I became a new sounding board for him, which I LOVE.  Just listening to him talk about his day, how he handles situations and watching him grow professionally with lightning speed has ignited a whole new spark in me for him.  I never realized just how wise my husband is.  He's brilliant, seriously.  He has amazing perspective and incredible creativity.  He thinks so out of the box, it sounds crazy, but somehow, it's exactly the thought that was needed to propel him and his company forward.  And since I have been given a greater view into the window of his work world, it has caused me to listen more deeply and intently to his perspective and out of the box ideas for us here at home.  Yielding to him and his decisions more and more has netted a wonderful sense of calm in me.  Let's face it, if you know me at all, you know I'm a control freak...so this has been a huge gift to me!

Allowing my husband to lead us into a new world was really difficult but has been so incredibly rewarding.  So much has been gained emotionally, professionally, spiritually, relationally, even physically!  I'm braver, more respectful, a better mother, a better wife, our family is healthier, more active, and we're much more in love with God and with each other.  What more can you ask for?

It was hard to leave the one city I have basically lived in my entire life (with the exception of a few random detours), and to leave our family and the ones we depended on (a little too much maybe?) to keep our household running.  It was hard to leave our friends behind.  And our church.  But we have found all of that here, plus so much more.  So thank you, my love, for encouraging us to grow at lightening speed as well.  I am so honored and blessed to be married to you!  I am really looking forward to what this next year brings for you, and the rest of us!!

 Checking out the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden one year ago...

Summer of Service...

After I put the kids to bed on the last day of school, I got to thinking about what was ahead.  And I realized...nothing.  No camps scheduled, no family trips 'til the end of July, and then add to that a husband who has a very loaded travel schedule for most of the summer...hmmmm.  With a completely empty summer upon us I began sifting through all those camp booklets, started researching 3 day getaways, and wondered if it was too late to sign up for art classes.  But then I remembered as I was glancing over the cost of these adventures, that I don't schedule these things for a reason...for five children...it's EXPENSIVE! 

Feeling defeated and beginning to panic over the thought of being their sole entertainment for the next 9 weeks I began to brainstorm.  What are some things I have been wanting to do with them that we don't have time for during the school year?  What do I want my kids to learn this summer?  Should we just go lazy and spend it by the pool relaxing?  No, they should stay focused and learn something.  What if we had a theme?  What if we took road trips throughout the state seeing in real life some things they had learned about in school this year...study some history...or sit on the banks of the Mississippi River and search for birds and owls?  Oh my God, what am I going to do with them ALL. SUMMER. LONG??  Wait......GOD? 

And with that thought, the "Summer of Sevice" idea was born.  I decided that we will do at least one service project/volunteer opportunity every week for the duration of the summer to help them get into the habit of serving God by serving others.  I am really looking forward to getting the kids out of their comfort zones a bit and spending this time with them!  We have so much to learn from others and we have never done anything like this before as a family so intentionally.  We regularly jump into many projects through church and school, and have supported friends and families with their ideas as well.  But actually searching something out is somewhat new.  And with the kids all finally old enough to handle just about anything in some capacity or another our opportunities will be plenty!

Our Summer of Service unofficially began last week.  Our oldest daughter started us out with a service project of her own.  For her last week of school she served with a few other classmates at the downtown Minneapolis YWCA in the childcare center, helping out with the daily activities with the Kindergarten class.   

She had a great attitude and was excited from the get go to participate.  One of her biggest challenges throughout the week was handling multiple children at once trying to snag her attention in it's entirety.  Practicing patience was something she needed to learn instantaneously.  You can't just lash out in frustration with a strange child like you can in the comfort and safety of your own home with your siblings where there is unconditional love!  

She enjoyed her experience so much that she emailed the center back and asked if she could continue to serve throughout the summer and was very disappointed when they responded that their volunteer schedule was full and she would have to wait again until next year.  Such a bummer!!  A week later she is still talking about the children she worked with and how much she misses them!

I'm very proud of my daughter for her enthusiasm and maturity during this week.  Every evening when she came home we talked about her problem solving strategies and how she handled different situations throughout the day.  She also kept a journal, which was a requirement for her class, documenting her experience.  It was a great start to her summer and a great start for the family to hear about her experiences so we can also glean from them!  I am looking forward to getting the rest of the kids involved in serving this summer and seeing how we all work together, mature, grow, and become more aware of the world outside of our own.  It's going to be a very good thing!  And, guess what??  Serving God and others can be FREE!!