Serving in the Childrearing Years

We’re off to bear country to camp in tents this weekend… yippee! Best part is, we’re splitting the distance between our home in Bozeman and our Besties’ in Spokane to make a big party of it.

These friends are the kind that are just easy to be with. Effortless and authentic fellowship, zero pretense. Proverbs 27 iron-sharpening-iron friends. David & Jonathon friends. You’ve seen them on the blog here, here, here, and here. They are the god-parents of our children, and just plain super-awesome humans.

For example: Mama-half enthusiastically quit her day-job as an ear doctor after popping out the most darling little curly-topped nugget a year ago. As a woman with a heart afire for Jesus, she inherently knew that such a change in life did not automatically exempt her from serving the least of these. Upon moving to their new home a few weeks ago, a simple Google search listed social relief organizations in their area where she could potentially serve whilst simultaneously managing a home and raising their child.

Enter World Relief. Through this inspiring organization, our dear friends will host refugee families, as they resettle in their city, from all over the world. They just completed their first placement, a Congolese family who has spent the last 17 years in a Rwandan refugee camp. Sev.en.teen. Figuring the family would likely speak French and a tribal language, I coached Mama-half on some basic French greetings via text, as she prepared for their arrival. As it turns out, they speak several tribal languages, not French, so they deferred to basic gestures and non-verbal communication to get by until realizing that both men could speak Swahili (Husband-half of our Besties is originally from Kenya) and could converse with ease!

Check out this promotional video from World Relief, an organization I can certainly get behind.

World Relief Promotional Video from World Relief on Vimeo

Hosting international refugees is an outstanding way to serve during a season where families are typically homebound, anyway.

I also stumbled upon this article, penned by another mom doing something similar, with the time and talents that God has afford her, within her local community. Love it.

Not everyone is called to adoption, or foster care, or full-time ministry, or whatever– but there remain countless avenues through which we can serve others by opening our homes to those in need.