Everyday Educator - Simplifying Advent: Serve Together
00:00:00.000 | (soft music)
00:00:02.420 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:06.480 | of the Everyday Educator podcast.
00:00:09.080 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:10.840 | and I am excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.380 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:17.800 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:20.720 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:24.060 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:26.300 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:28.480 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:32.600 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:36.720 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome,
00:00:41.480 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:46.480 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:50.600 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:54.840 | Well, welcome friends to this Advent season.
00:00:59.240 | I'm so excited that you have joined us for this podcast.
00:01:03.420 | I've got a suggestion for your family,
00:01:07.340 | actually for all of our families this Christmas.
00:01:10.560 | What if we intentionally spent time together
00:01:14.520 | doing the simplest things?
00:01:17.560 | What if we practiced some simple habits
00:01:21.760 | designed to draw us to one another,
00:01:25.080 | designed to start meaningful conversations,
00:01:29.000 | designed to provoke us to deeper thinking,
00:01:32.800 | maybe designed to encourage us to true worship?
00:01:36.620 | What if in this season of busy, busy, busy,
00:01:41.400 | we celebrated Christmas by praying together,
00:01:46.060 | playing together, reading together, exploring together,
00:01:51.780 | and serving together?
00:01:54.040 | So this Advent season, the everyday educator
00:01:57.540 | wants to practice these simple habits along with you.
00:02:01.980 | We're gonna be talking to others
00:02:03.460 | who want to try this plan too.
00:02:05.660 | You can listen in every Tuesday to ponder the next habit.
00:02:09.940 | And friends, I'm here to tell you, this is our last habit.
00:02:13.680 | We have finally come to simplify,
00:02:16.980 | Advent, serve together.
00:02:21.140 | And I have a dear friend, Jamie Hayes, with me
00:02:24.980 | to help us explore this simple way
00:02:29.320 | to practice Advent together this year.
00:02:32.560 | Jamie is a dear friend who's a long-time homeschool mom.
00:02:36.860 | She has served as a director with Classical Conversations
00:02:41.420 | and as an SR, and she serves right now
00:02:44.740 | on the curriculum development team alongside me.
00:02:49.060 | And so Jamie, welcome to the podcast.
00:02:51.500 | - Thank you, I'm excited to be here.
00:02:53.740 | - I'm excited to have you and to pick your brain
00:02:57.060 | a little bit, but I wanna start out
00:02:58.860 | with some easy peasy questions.
00:03:00.900 | First of all, what do you and your family
00:03:05.080 | love about Christmas?
00:03:07.860 | And I want to know, are you guys exuberant celebrators
00:03:13.060 | or quiet celebrators, or somewhere in between?
00:03:17.440 | - So I guess it all depends on how you define those terms,
00:03:23.460 | but I would put us between, towards leaning,
00:03:26.800 | towards the exuberant ones.
00:03:28.520 | - I can see that.
00:03:31.600 | - Yeah, we love just being with people
00:03:36.600 | and through this season especially.
00:03:40.500 | And so when our families can get together
00:03:43.980 | and we tend to play loads of cards and board games
00:03:48.800 | and watch movies that make my dad roll in the floor
00:03:53.800 | with laughter, and so we watch the movies just to watch that.
00:03:57.300 | - Yes, yes, yes.
00:03:58.740 | - And so just making memories,
00:04:02.780 | whether it be with family or friends,
00:04:05.140 | is something that we really enjoy about this season.
00:04:10.340 | - I love that.
00:04:12.640 | You know, people always say Christmas is a time for family.
00:04:16.200 | But I look around and I don't always see it.
00:04:21.260 | I see families going in a hundred different directions.
00:04:24.580 | Everybody going to their own Christmas party
00:04:27.140 | or their own Christmas whatever.
00:04:29.880 | So I love it that your family loves to spend time together
00:04:34.880 | doing things together.
00:04:36.700 | 'Cause it's possible to all be home at the same time
00:04:41.120 | and still not be together.
00:04:43.260 | So I like it that you say,
00:04:44.900 | and you've given us some good ideas,
00:04:47.020 | playing games, card games, and board games.
00:04:49.420 | My sons-in-law are game people.
00:04:53.340 | And so we play games together.
00:04:56.600 | We always have, even when they were just dating my girls,
00:04:59.840 | they introduced us to a lot of games
00:05:03.780 | that I'm sure I would never have played otherwise.
00:05:06.860 | And our family likes to watch movies together too.
00:05:10.580 | I sort of like it that we watch the same movies
00:05:13.300 | and so we all have our pet lines
00:05:15.720 | and we can all quote whole sections of the movie.
00:05:19.420 | I had a niece one time who was watching a movie with us
00:05:22.760 | and apparently her family doesn't watch movies
00:05:24.900 | the same way we do.
00:05:26.180 | And so after about the fourth chorus
00:05:29.780 | where we had quoted a section of the dialogue,
00:05:32.980 | she said, "Wow, do y'all memorize all the movies
00:05:36.660 | "that you watch?"
00:05:37.500 | It's like, well, maybe, I don't know, not intentionally.
00:05:41.140 | Maybe that just happens to classical educators.
00:05:43.740 | I don't know.
00:05:44.580 | - Yeah, yeah, we definitely just recently watched
00:05:48.020 | "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."
00:05:49.620 | - That's one of our big favorites.
00:05:51.700 | - And yeah, just all of us belting out the songs throughout.
00:05:56.460 | - Oh my gosh.
00:05:57.300 | - My dad's favorite lines,
00:05:59.100 | which are probably somewhat PG-13 rated now.
00:06:03.220 | - Yes, that's so funny.
00:06:05.900 | Every time I watch that movie for like weeks after that,
00:06:09.780 | I wake up thinking, bless your beautiful eyes.
00:06:13.300 | And it's just, I cannot get out of my mind.
00:06:16.340 | It's like a worm in my mind.
00:06:18.780 | So let me ask you this, Jamie,
00:06:21.260 | because you guys love to do family things together,
00:06:23.860 | I suspect that you have a good many family traditions.
00:06:28.940 | So what are some of your,
00:06:31.140 | yours and Mark's or yours and your kids,
00:06:33.460 | what are some of your favorite family traditions?
00:06:36.500 | How did they begin and were they intentional
00:06:41.500 | or unintentional?
00:06:43.380 | - So one of the favorites is guessing
00:06:49.940 | which gifts are whose.
00:06:51.900 | - Ooh, so they don't have tags on them?
00:06:55.180 | - They do not.
00:06:56.220 | All they say is one, they have four different words
00:06:59.900 | I will put on them.
00:07:01.740 | Want, need, book, cloth.
00:07:07.820 | - Gotcha.
00:07:08.820 | - And then they find out which wrapping paper is theirs.
00:07:16.260 | Once they've opened their stocking,
00:07:18.260 | there is a little piece of their wrapping paper
00:07:21.260 | at the bottom of the stocking.
00:07:22.940 | And so my kids just love sitting,
00:07:26.420 | our tree is really close to our dining room table
00:07:28.820 | and while we're sitting there at meals,
00:07:30.380 | they're like, yeah, I'm now convinced
00:07:32.580 | that the striped one's mine.
00:07:34.660 | Or the one with the snowman, hmm,
00:07:37.380 | that looks sort of like something that I'd like to have.
00:07:40.380 | - Oh, that is awesome.
00:07:43.980 | - So I enjoy just getting them involved
00:07:47.500 | in talking about the excitement of receiving gifts
00:07:51.180 | because we received a great gift many years ago, right?
00:07:55.460 | Of our savior being born.
00:07:57.540 | And so just building excitement around gifts
00:08:00.900 | is something that I've really enjoyed doing.
00:08:04.860 | And that one was intentional.
00:08:07.700 | I had a dear friend who was doing that
00:08:10.300 | when I visited her out West and I just loved the idea.
00:08:14.020 | And we've probably been doing it for 10 to 12 years now.
00:08:17.220 | And so my kids expect it.
00:08:19.500 | And now my grandkids are experiencing it,
00:08:22.700 | whether they'll expect it for the years to come.
00:08:25.140 | I don't know.
00:08:26.380 | They're a little young, but,
00:08:28.020 | and then the other thing that we actually just decided
00:08:32.340 | this year, because we have a couple of older children
00:08:36.540 | who no longer live with us and they have their own schedules
00:08:39.820 | and, or at least the schedule that I don't see, right?
00:08:44.940 | And so this year we decided the first weekend of December
00:08:49.660 | would be our weekend to get together
00:08:52.540 | to put up the Christmas tree and put up all the ornaments
00:08:55.860 | and talk about why we have this ornament or that ornament.
00:08:59.780 | And those ornaments are very intentional.
00:09:04.220 | We pick them because they either remind us
00:09:07.340 | of places we've been together,
00:09:09.660 | or there's one for every anniversary
00:09:12.740 | that my husband and I have had.
00:09:14.180 | We have them labeled on the back.
00:09:16.260 | It was which anniversary they belong to.
00:09:18.220 | And some of them deal with trips that we went on
00:09:21.420 | for that special anniversary or whatever.
00:09:23.420 | And then some are childhood ornaments, especially for Mark.
00:09:28.180 | He has a clay baked Christmas tree that's trying
00:09:32.060 | to swivel, shrivel into the,
00:09:36.340 | everything around the edges is just curling in.
00:09:38.740 | And so, but that one's special.
00:09:41.340 | He remembers the teacher at school
00:09:43.180 | that helped him make that one.
00:09:44.700 | And so, yeah, we enjoyed doing that.
00:09:48.940 | And then the last thing that I thought of was just that
00:09:51.540 | we do and have done since they were babies.
00:09:55.500 | So my oldest is 24.
00:09:58.540 | Since she, yeah, since she was a baby,
00:10:02.580 | we've done a Jesse tree that we actually made ourselves
00:10:07.180 | out of felt and made all the ornaments together out of felt.
00:10:11.300 | She was old enough to,
00:10:14.180 | well, I guess probably not since she was a baby,
00:10:16.100 | since the next ones were babies because she helped me.
00:10:18.700 | So she would have been about six.
00:10:20.500 | And so she helped me make all the ornaments.
00:10:24.620 | And every year we've gotten it out
00:10:26.980 | and we walk through the lineage of Christ
00:10:30.780 | and what has come before to prepare us
00:10:34.580 | for this day that we celebrate of Christ's birth.
00:10:37.820 | And this year and even years, the last couple of years,
00:10:41.100 | we've swapped it around to where we no longer tell
00:10:44.220 | the stories, but we just ask what the kids say.
00:10:47.380 | You tell the story, just from what you remember,
00:10:49.940 | tell us the story of what this one represents.
00:10:53.180 | - Oh, I love that, I love that.
00:10:56.860 | How do your kids feel about your traditions?
00:11:01.740 | Do they love them?
00:11:03.460 | Do they tolerate them?
00:11:05.220 | Do they advocate for new ones?
00:11:08.300 | - So there are some that don't fit everybody's bill
00:11:13.300 | of, yeah, let's do this yearly.
00:11:15.860 | But I do remember, I'm reminded the last two years,
00:11:20.860 | in fact, they've asked me already this year,
00:11:23.620 | you're gonna get that candy, right?
00:11:27.100 | That certain kind of candy.
00:11:28.980 | And I don't even know what they're called.
00:11:31.220 | It's some foreign thing that they like
00:11:35.180 | that I can get at a local store, thankfully,
00:11:37.620 | but I got it one year and every year since then,
00:11:40.140 | don't forget to buy those, those are so good.
00:11:42.860 | - Isn't that funny how you do it one time
00:11:45.660 | and it simply becomes a tradition to your children.
00:11:48.980 | - Yes, and I also do another tradition that this year
00:11:53.540 | I'm backing off of and I'm just really seeing
00:11:57.380 | if they're going to notice.
00:11:58.940 | So they tend to get socks in their stockings
00:12:02.700 | 'cause I'm like, what is a stocking without some socks?
00:12:05.580 | And also for years past, I used it just to be able to say,
00:12:09.300 | now we're throwing those away.
00:12:10.700 | They have holes, we're done with those, you have new ones.
00:12:14.260 | But now my kids are older and they throw their socks away
00:12:17.660 | as they get holes now and I'm like,
00:12:20.700 | okay, I'm not hearing the need for socks.
00:12:23.020 | But I was telling Mark the other day, I was like,
00:12:25.540 | maybe they just assume I'm gonna give them socks
00:12:28.100 | so they're not gonna tell me there is a need right now.
00:12:31.380 | - Right, right.
00:12:32.780 | - So I might be in trouble in 10 days or so.
00:12:36.180 | - That is so funny.
00:12:37.500 | I remember when I was little,
00:12:39.740 | did you get those like lifesaver storybooks?
00:12:44.740 | - Yes.
00:12:46.900 | - Every year when I was little, I got one of those.
00:12:49.680 | And so when I started having kids, I thought,
00:12:52.860 | well, everybody, they were just magical to me.
00:12:55.460 | I mean, we didn't have a lot of candy when I was growing up.
00:12:57.940 | And so to have all of those roles that were just mine
00:13:01.860 | was sort of magical.
00:13:03.580 | So I did that for my kids.
00:13:05.460 | And it was probably three years ago.
00:13:08.460 | My adult girls finally said,
00:13:11.060 | like, if you want to stop doing that,
00:13:14.000 | we would be okay with it.
00:13:15.660 | And I thought, oh my gosh, I did not have any idea
00:13:19.460 | that it did not strike them as magical as it struck me.
00:13:23.100 | But their life is full of more candy than my life was.
00:13:25.860 | - Right, yes.
00:13:27.300 | - That's it, it's so funny.
00:13:30.080 | Our kids love some traditions and some they don't love.
00:13:33.480 | But you know what I have discovered?
00:13:36.140 | It's the traditions of our family,
00:13:40.080 | the beloved ones and the tolerated ones alike
00:13:45.080 | that draw us together, that give us common memories
00:13:48.300 | and something to rally around and something to groan against.
00:13:51.800 | And so there's a lot to be said for all of those traditions.
00:13:56.440 | - I know, Jamie, that your family is very active
00:14:01.440 | in serving your community.
00:14:03.180 | I love hearing what y'all are doing,
00:14:05.420 | what benefit you're involved in
00:14:08.540 | and what project you have going on now.
00:14:11.600 | Are there some things that y'all do every year to serve?
00:14:16.600 | Is there a tradition that you do every year as a family?
00:14:25.700 | - So yes, we try to do as much as we can
00:14:30.700 | be a part of our community here.
00:14:34.500 | And one of the ways that we've found to do that
00:14:37.920 | is just that there are local businesses
00:14:42.940 | or nonprofits actually that we want to support.
00:14:46.340 | And financially is not always an aspect
00:14:49.760 | that my children at least can give you.
00:14:52.740 | And so we have found ways for, oh, we need extra people
00:14:57.740 | to help carry this banner in the parade.
00:15:00.260 | And so there's, in our little town,
00:15:04.140 | there's at least three parades every year.
00:15:06.620 | And so we are always at the top of the list
00:15:09.740 | for those nonprofits saying, hey, call us if you need people.
00:15:13.580 | And my kids enjoy walking or riding in those parades.
00:15:17.700 | And in fact, a couple of them are very disappointed
00:15:21.420 | when our schedule doesn't allow us to be in town
00:15:24.460 | for some reason or another.
00:15:26.780 | And so, yeah, doing the parade and then quite a few of them
00:15:31.140 | also do fundraising banquets and they need servers
00:15:34.980 | and they actually want children or teenagers
00:15:39.300 | to be the servers to get them more involved
00:15:42.340 | in community events as well.
00:15:43.960 | And so once again, we're just on that list of,
00:15:47.620 | hey, if you need servers and it works with our schedule,
00:15:52.100 | we will jump in.
00:15:53.260 | And so usually I'm in the background just instructing
00:15:57.220 | and but the teenagers are actually the ones
00:16:00.540 | that are serving the food or cleaning up or whatever.
00:16:04.700 | And so those are things that we do.
00:16:07.660 | And then this time of year,
00:16:10.260 | during our advent season, we try to instigate
00:16:15.300 | walking around and caroling once one night in December.
00:16:20.300 | And so we put it out on our local Facebook group
00:16:26.540 | just saying, hey, we're meeting in this grocery store
00:16:29.300 | parking lot and we have the song books
00:16:32.860 | and we have people who are organized
00:16:36.420 | and ready to take groups of like eight to 10
00:16:39.300 | down this street and this street.
00:16:40.740 | You meet at this time and you'll be put with a group
00:16:43.580 | and enjoy getting to know your neighbors
00:16:46.300 | that you're singing with,
00:16:47.580 | as well as the neighbors that you're singing to.
00:16:50.860 | So those are just some things
00:16:53.380 | that we enjoy doing together as a family.
00:16:56.820 | And it does help that for the most part,
00:16:58.760 | we are a musical family.
00:17:00.700 | - Certainly y'all really are.
00:17:02.380 | And that's something that,
00:17:03.900 | although I had a podcast guest just earlier this month
00:17:07.340 | who said, "Yeah, we always go Christmas caroling
00:17:09.980 | "as a family and I'm not sure it's a real blessing
00:17:12.380 | "'cause we're not really musical."
00:17:14.620 | But I think the warmth of somebody sharing
00:17:19.620 | a Christmas carol with you in an unexpected way
00:17:23.980 | is a blessing even if it's like a joyful noise
00:17:27.500 | instead of a heavenly choir.
00:17:29.260 | So that's a really, I love all of those ideas.
00:17:32.780 | I knew that you would have some really good ideas
00:17:35.860 | for families because really and truly one of the best ways
00:17:40.340 | for us to celebrate the season
00:17:43.260 | is to give the gift of ourselves.
00:17:47.900 | I love what you said earlier, Jamie,
00:17:51.260 | that it reminds us of the gift,
00:17:53.240 | the greatest gift of all that God gave to us
00:17:56.700 | in the gift of his son.
00:17:58.360 | And so giving of ourselves,
00:18:00.900 | giving of our time is really cool.
00:18:03.300 | So I love that.
00:18:05.260 | You went in a couple of different ways.
00:18:07.220 | I don't know if I had ever thought about calling
00:18:10.300 | a local nonprofit and volunteering to be their face
00:18:15.260 | in the parade, although our little town has a local parade
00:18:19.860 | and I do know that people along the parade route
00:18:23.900 | love to see kids and teenagers.
00:18:26.940 | And so that is an awesome way.
00:18:30.660 | And there are, you're right,
00:18:31.900 | there's so many banquets going on.
00:18:34.300 | Church banquets and nonprofit banquets
00:18:38.260 | and what a blessing to say,
00:18:40.380 | "Hey, I'll be your waiter or waitress."
00:18:42.700 | And that's such a great way for the kids to be involved
00:18:46.920 | and maybe to be drawn in to the mission of that group.
00:18:51.920 | It kind of is a soft introduction for them.
00:18:55.900 | - Yeah, whether it ends up being that group
00:18:57.740 | or just being aware, do you seek out
00:19:00.820 | how you can be a servant wherever they land,
00:19:04.460 | whether they stay nearby or in another town, yeah.
00:19:08.500 | - I think that's great.
00:19:09.660 | Let me ask you this.
00:19:10.500 | Did your family, the family you were born into,
00:19:13.100 | did y'all do missions when you were growing up?
00:19:15.940 | I mean, is serving as a family just kind of part
00:19:19.740 | of your DNA?
00:19:21.020 | - I wouldn't have said that while I was growing up,
00:19:27.260 | but looking back, yes.
00:19:29.760 | Did we go on mission trips?
00:19:32.300 | No.
00:19:33.720 | Not one.
00:19:34.760 | - Right, right, right.
00:19:36.860 | - But there was one year, and I come from parents
00:19:41.360 | who actually didn't give gifts to us growing up.
00:19:45.880 | And so, but they would every so often,
00:19:50.460 | and one I remember specifically when I was nine,
00:19:53.920 | they announced at the breakfast table to us siblings saying,
00:19:59.600 | "We are going to give you each a certain amount of money,
00:20:04.600 | but you only get to choose on who it is spent on
00:20:10.020 | or whom it is spent on."
00:20:13.380 | So I remember that one just very vividly
00:20:18.380 | at the time we were praying for a relative
00:20:21.660 | who had an issue that was abusive to their bodies.
00:20:28.580 | And so giving money to them was probably not wise,
00:20:32.860 | but as a nine-year-old, I just remember going,
00:20:35.520 | "They don't have much."
00:20:36.720 | But I didn't realize they didn't have much
00:20:38.900 | because they spent it on the wrong things.
00:20:41.200 | But my parents were wise and crafty enough to say,
00:20:46.640 | "Okay, we will give your gift to this person,
00:20:50.440 | but you need to know that we're not handing them money.
00:20:54.860 | We're actually going to go buy food for their household.
00:20:58.980 | We're going to buy clothing that we know that he needs."
00:21:03.000 | And that was just a fun day,
00:21:06.480 | the day that we showed up unannounced to their house.
00:21:10.560 | And I had probably seen this person at his worst.
00:21:15.560 | I was not secluded from the repercussions of his life.
00:21:21.480 | But I just remember him sitting on the front porch steps,
00:21:25.280 | just bawling and weeping when we showed up
00:21:28.980 | with just bags and bags and bags of things
00:21:32.200 | for the whole family.
00:21:33.800 | And then later on, I was not homeschooled,
00:21:39.860 | but private schooled.
00:21:41.360 | And my parents, especially my dad, would say,
00:21:45.200 | "You know what?
00:21:46.340 | You're going to only go to school four days a week.
00:21:50.260 | I'm going to tell your principal that,
00:21:52.420 | and I'm going to choose what you're going to do
00:21:54.540 | on the fifth day."
00:21:55.960 | And for years, I either went to two different homes.
00:22:00.480 | I went to my aunt's home who had, at the time,
00:22:05.220 | just her 10th and 11th child, they were twins.
00:22:10.220 | She was homeschooling from number four down to the last ones.
00:22:17.240 | And I would go and just minister to her.
00:22:20.560 | And that required my mom driving me there.
00:22:23.680 | It was a family thing,
00:22:25.000 | even though maybe I was the only one dropped off.
00:22:28.580 | And then the other household was a family
00:22:33.000 | that just found out their dad had terminal cancer.
00:22:36.860 | And they decided to go a more natural diet way
00:22:41.860 | to see if they could help with treatments.
00:22:46.480 | And so for about a year,
00:22:49.280 | because he's still living 27 years later-
00:22:52.880 | - Wow, that's awesome.
00:22:55.200 | - I would go every Wednesday and just scrub vegetables
00:23:00.200 | and help make the soup that he had to drink,
00:23:03.600 | juice a lot of veggies.
00:23:06.040 | And the Lord has just used that mightily in our family
00:23:11.040 | as my mother-in-law has had cancer twice.
00:23:14.660 | And I've worked alongside her.
00:23:17.400 | She decided to do the same type of thing.
00:23:19.680 | And so just the things that my parents decided
00:23:24.640 | to push us to, and I know my siblings have their own stories,
00:23:28.080 | but we were all pushed to,
00:23:31.300 | these things are important,
00:23:34.520 | but not as important as you making you aware
00:23:38.700 | that you can serve, you should serve,
00:23:41.120 | and here's some ways you can serve.
00:23:44.040 | - Man, those are some of the best outside the box.
00:23:49.040 | I mean, everybody thinks when you say
00:23:55.340 | serve your community, thinks about going to the soup kitchen
00:23:59.180 | or going on a local mission trip.
00:24:02.040 | But these, these are ways to be the hands and feet of Christ
00:24:07.040 | to a local family, to somebody whose face you know,
00:24:13.960 | to somebody whose life you could be a part of.
00:24:18.960 | You know, your life, your days could be intertwined
00:24:22.200 | with theirs, there could be some real community.
00:24:25.840 | You know, it's really funny, I can remember my mom
00:24:30.140 | when I was little, I was blessed,
00:24:32.680 | my mom stayed at home with us.
00:24:34.460 | And I can remember my mom, she called it doing for,
00:24:40.000 | she would do for older neighbors in our neighborhood,
00:24:43.960 | you know, older ladies who needed help to,
00:24:48.080 | back then we didn't have, I mean,
00:24:49.700 | people hung their wash out to dry,
00:24:51.560 | and so I can remember my mom helping those,
00:24:54.720 | we would do for those, and she would send me next door.
00:24:57.880 | Our, right next to us, we lived in a duplex,
00:25:01.140 | and the family next to us was an older couple,
00:25:05.680 | Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Mr. Smith became bedridden,
00:25:08.960 | and she would send me over in the late afternoon,
00:25:11.620 | and I would stand at the stove and skim the fat
00:25:16.620 | off of the broth, 'cause he couldn't have fat,
00:25:20.240 | he was only eating soup, and so I learned how to skim broth,
00:25:24.480 | I would go over every day, and I would skim the broth
00:25:27.760 | off of his dinner, and I got to fix his tray
00:25:31.760 | and carry it into him, and it was, like you said,
00:25:35.980 | just something that my mom, it was part of what she did,
00:25:40.500 | we just did for others, we did for neighbors.
00:25:45.320 | That's really cool, and you know, I look back now,
00:25:51.340 | and as a kid growing up, I did not think about
00:25:54.020 | that my mom was teaching me something important,
00:25:58.300 | it was just something that I did,
00:26:00.900 | or my mom showed me how to do it, we did it together,
00:26:03.160 | 'cause she was showing me how to do it,
00:26:05.600 | but now I understand that she was teaching me
00:26:08.880 | how to love one another, how we love one another well,
00:26:12.880 | and so, I don't know, Jamie, I guess I would just say,
00:26:16.360 | and I'm sure you would agree, that part of celebrating
00:26:21.320 | Advent in a simple way for families might very well
00:26:25.540 | be teaching your children how to love their neighbor well
00:26:29.440 | by serving them.
00:26:30.840 | So how have you and Mark, since y'all have been married,
00:26:35.520 | how have you and Mark drawn your kids into serving,
00:26:39.440 | and what kind of things, especially what kind of things
00:26:42.560 | did you do with them when they were very little?
00:26:45.660 | - So one of the things was just starting at home,
00:26:51.640 | helping them learn how to do chores,
00:26:54.100 | because if they could do it a minuscule amount,
00:27:00.640 | then they could go somewhere else and still do
00:27:04.180 | that minuscule amount, and I know that one of my teenagers
00:27:08.880 | right now has a local fast food restaurant job,
00:27:13.440 | and he came home one day, and he's like,
00:27:17.320 | "My manager wanted me to pass a note along to you,"
00:27:19.840 | and I was like, "Okay."
00:27:21.640 | He said, "Thank you for teaching him how to sweep."
00:27:26.400 | - Oh my gosh.
00:27:27.240 | - He said, "Until I became a manager, I didn't know
00:27:30.080 | "that you had to teach people how to sweep."
00:27:33.840 | He's like, "But I haven't had to teach your child,"
00:27:36.360 | and he does amazing, and so yeah, just doing chores,
00:27:41.360 | you never know who you're gonna bless.
00:27:43.960 | - That is so good.
00:27:45.720 | - And then we also, I remember when we would go
00:27:49.840 | to either events or somebody else's house for a meal,
00:27:55.740 | on the way there, we would just talk about,
00:27:58.600 | okay, where are we going, how can we serve them?
00:28:03.880 | They're letting, they've invited us into their house,
00:28:07.920 | and what are some ways that we can serve them?
00:28:10.120 | And I just remember one thing that my mom just instilled
00:28:14.540 | in us was, you don't leave the kitchen until the person,
00:28:19.540 | the hostess or the host, has told you,
00:28:24.320 | "No, I don't have anything else for you to do."
00:28:27.080 | Then you can go play with your friends,
00:28:29.240 | and so that was one thing that my mom just kept instilling.
00:28:34.160 | She's like, "Be at their side and just say,
00:28:36.360 | "I'm available if you have anything that I can do for you."
00:28:40.640 | And I also watched my mom host many events
00:28:45.640 | and have people come in and do the same to her,
00:28:50.120 | and she would always have this little list,
00:28:53.300 | either in her head or off to the side,
00:28:55.300 | that she knew if anybody had asked,
00:28:57.620 | it didn't have to be done,
00:28:59.760 | but it could be done and just be a little icing
00:29:03.140 | on the cake for the event.
00:29:05.140 | And so she would always have something
00:29:07.460 | that she could tell somebody else
00:29:10.300 | what they could do if they offered.
00:29:12.600 | And so, yeah, those things,
00:29:15.920 | we also learned to bake together in our kitchen.
00:29:20.440 | And when we lived in Virginia for a short time,
00:29:23.060 | we, for the first time and only time in our lives,
00:29:26.500 | we lived with neighbors right next to us.
00:29:30.360 | We live on a big farm now and nobody's really close.
00:29:33.480 | - Nobody's close, yeah.
00:29:35.120 | - So when we lived in Virginia,
00:29:38.240 | we started baking cookies around Advent season time
00:29:43.240 | and would just take them door to door
00:29:46.400 | and greet our neighbors,
00:29:47.920 | because sometimes we would just see them
00:29:49.800 | as we were walking into our house, wave across the way.
00:29:53.560 | But we also purposely tried to make something
00:29:58.120 | that the children were involved in making
00:30:01.860 | and then also go greet our neighbors
00:30:04.540 | just to let them know that we knew they existed
00:30:09.140 | and that they were worthwhile of thinking over.
00:30:12.080 | And so walking was fun.
00:30:15.640 | It was fun to live in that area
00:30:17.420 | for those two to three years that we lived there,
00:30:20.280 | just 'cause within a half a mile,
00:30:22.860 | we had a dozen houses that we could hit
00:30:25.840 | and get to know our neighbors
00:30:29.400 | and hopefully be a light to them,
00:30:34.000 | even in just handing them cookies and greeting them.
00:30:37.240 | - That's so great.
00:30:39.060 | It's a whole attitude.
00:30:40.560 | That's what I'm taking from what you're saying, Jamie,
00:30:44.180 | is that you and Mark have just really sought
00:30:48.480 | to instill in your children an attitude of service,
00:30:53.300 | that we can always be thinking about
00:30:57.260 | what we could do for other people
00:30:59.020 | or how we might minister to them in some way.
00:31:02.560 | And it may be in every day along the way ways
00:31:08.480 | and not in some big grand gesture
00:31:12.980 | that has lots of zeros attached to it
00:31:15.660 | or multiple day trips.
00:31:17.620 | It could just be an attitude of,
00:31:20.520 | I care about you as a person.
00:31:22.880 | How can I lighten your load?
00:31:24.820 | And I love that.
00:31:26.280 | I love that.
00:31:28.220 | What is the best thing for you about serving as a family?
00:31:33.220 | - Well, outside of just getting to be together,
00:31:38.560 | that would be just number one.
00:31:42.220 | It's seeing the growth in my children.
00:31:47.800 | And also just, we all compare whether it's good or bad.
00:31:52.800 | We do tend to be that species that does that.
00:31:58.600 | And they would come to us and they would go,
00:32:04.680 | oh, I wish this person would help me.
00:32:07.440 | And I was like, well, what did you say to them?
00:32:11.560 | Or what could you say to them to encourage them
00:32:15.240 | to do what you feel the need to do
00:32:19.680 | in serving your neighbors or your friends
00:32:21.880 | or wherever you are?
00:32:22.860 | And so I loved seeing that they realized
00:32:27.500 | that it can be a lacking in people.
00:32:30.100 | And so I think that pushed them to make sure
00:32:33.120 | that it wasn't a lacking in them.
00:32:35.840 | And then it also just creates a great love
00:32:39.880 | and concern for others like the scripture tells us to do.
00:32:44.640 | And as far as working together as a family,
00:32:47.480 | they actually get to see,
00:32:49.680 | hey, mom and dad can't do everything, but they're trying.
00:32:54.680 | And they will at least put their hands that can lift things
00:32:59.240 | or move things around to bless others.
00:33:03.200 | And also just working together,
00:33:06.080 | we can accomplish so much more
00:33:09.120 | than if just one of us goes or two of us goes.
00:33:12.320 | And my mom always would say to us
00:33:15.560 | when we would sort of go, ah, here we go again.
00:33:18.320 | She would just, or the chore list would come out.
00:33:21.400 | And we expected the chore list every Saturday, it showed up.
00:33:25.000 | And she would just right on the bottom
00:33:28.740 | of where she had signed us all the numbers of the chores,
00:33:31.480 | she'd say, remember, many hands make like work.
00:33:35.280 | You could be doing all of these on your own.
00:33:38.560 | And so that's just a really good reminder
00:33:42.160 | that I've tried to pass along to my children
00:33:44.680 | is that when we all work together,
00:33:47.640 | like we run a wood stove at our house during the winter.
00:33:51.560 | And so everybody, we just call out,
00:33:54.640 | hey, we're getting wood.
00:33:55.720 | And everybody is supposed to come downstairs
00:33:58.200 | because if all currently five of us run outside
00:34:03.200 | and get armfuls of wood,
00:34:06.160 | we probably only have to make two, maybe three trips each.
00:34:11.160 | But if it was one person, that's 15 trips possibly.
00:34:16.160 | And so it's a huge, huge difference.
00:34:19.320 | And so another saying that my mom said,
00:34:23.600 | or had actually on our wall to remind us
00:34:26.000 | was those who work together get to eat together.
00:34:30.260 | And eating was always a fun thing
00:34:33.680 | because we did it together around the table.
00:34:36.340 | But we had to work to get to that table.
00:34:41.600 | And so she was like, if we all work together,
00:34:44.200 | then we're all gonna get to eat together.
00:34:46.040 | And that's exciting.
00:34:47.440 | - It's that together part is that my mother-in-law
00:34:51.560 | had a saying when my husband was little,
00:34:53.800 | and she would tell them when we work together,
00:34:57.400 | work is just like play.
00:35:00.300 | Now, when my kids were really little,
00:35:02.760 | it was easier to convince them of that
00:35:05.040 | because we could work together in silly ways.
00:35:08.840 | We could walk in silly ways or we could sing silly songs.
00:35:12.040 | And when they became teenagers,
00:35:13.720 | they would sort of sometimes roll their eyes about that.
00:35:16.280 | It's not just like play, mom, it's work.
00:35:18.840 | But it's well taken that when anything that we do together
00:35:25.340 | builds our fellowship and builds our love for one another,
00:35:32.640 | and builds a sense of community.
00:35:34.420 | So I agree with all of that.
00:35:36.400 | And serving together, especially when we serve together
00:35:42.720 | at Christmas, it does a lot of different things.
00:35:46.400 | It draws our hearts together.
00:35:48.960 | Sometimes within our community,
00:35:54.740 | we'll call attention to what we're doing,
00:35:57.960 | not because we want accolades,
00:35:59.800 | but because it then gives us a reason
00:36:02.920 | to share the good news of Jesus.
00:36:05.700 | We do this because God first gave to us.
00:36:09.480 | And so how does serving help your family
00:36:14.480 | celebrate the season, Jamie?
00:36:18.100 | - So it's just like you said,
00:36:19.460 | it makes us realize all the more
00:36:21.820 | that Christ modeled to us how to do this.
00:36:26.320 | And that should make us just every more thankful
00:36:30.000 | for the Father sending him.
00:36:31.880 | And like our Jesse tree, I love watching my children
00:36:38.680 | or hearing them retell the stories
00:36:42.800 | and then see them make the connections of this had to happen
00:36:47.760 | and this person acted like this,
00:36:50.240 | which is a Christ-like reaction that I should do as well.
00:36:56.000 | And they just turn and say,
00:36:58.720 | "Is that why they're in the genealogy?"
00:37:00.920 | And I'm like, "Good possibility."
00:37:04.560 | And so it's just, it's a great reminder
00:37:08.640 | just of what a model and what a gift we've been given.
00:37:13.040 | - Yeah, I love that.
00:37:14.520 | Thank you so much for talking about this with me.
00:37:17.600 | I hope, listeners, that this series of Simplify Advent
00:37:22.600 | has been a blessing to you.
00:37:25.780 | I hope that your family has celebrated maybe more simply,
00:37:30.780 | but certainly more deeply this year
00:37:34.080 | what the Lord has done for us by sending his son to us.
00:37:40.640 | If you're looking for something else for your family to do,
00:37:44.460 | I know we had a couple of weeks ago,
00:37:46.720 | we had Simplify Advent read together.
00:37:50.800 | I've got a suggestion for you.
00:37:53.080 | If you're looking for something for your family
00:37:55.820 | to read together, our Copper Lodge Library series
00:38:00.700 | from Classical Conversations is a series
00:38:04.580 | that preserves history's best stories
00:38:08.300 | in books that you could pass down from generations.
00:38:12.740 | The stories in the Copper Lodge Library
00:38:15.440 | range from ancient Greek and Roman myths
00:38:19.060 | to modern folklore and even some classical literature.
00:38:23.820 | All those stories are filled with timeless truths
00:38:26.120 | that will really help you cultivate
00:38:29.180 | a moral imagination in your child, because here's a truth.
00:38:34.180 | What we read shapes who we become.
00:38:39.180 | So build your family's library with quality stories
00:38:43.080 | from Copper Lodge Library.
00:38:44.920 | If you wanna learn more about the books in that series,
00:38:48.280 | you can search for Copper Lodge Library
00:38:51.500 | on our bookstore's website
00:38:53.320 | at classicalconversationsbooks.com, all right?
00:38:58.320 | Jamie, thank you again for being with us.
00:39:01.440 | Listeners, Merry Christmas.
00:39:04.800 | (gentle music)
00:39:07.380 | you
00:39:09.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]