We’re on holiday! We decided to spend two weeks in the UK in our lovely camper van, Charis (yes, we named it). As we counted down the days, I imagined al fresco breakfasts, lunches and dinners, sipping wine and beer (of the non-alcoholic kind – a story for another blog!) outside our van, but I quickly came back down to earth when I ‘remembered’ this is the UK. We’re just over a week in and we’ve sat outside for breakfast a couple of times. John is outside right now and keeps shouting, ‘sun’s out, oh wait, it’s gone in’ ha-ha! You have to laugh, or you’d cry! Fortunately, we’ve learned over the years, as the song goes, to take the weather with us. We love reading and resting and so if we can do that, we’re happy. Would I prefer to read whilst getting a tan? Of course, but whenever you take a UK holiday, that’s a blessing rather than a given! I trust for all of you who are yet to go on holiday in the UK, the worst of the weather is on our shift. We’ll take one for the team!

 Now to the main point of this blog. Part of our trip from North to South was a weekend in South Wales with our wonderful kids and grandkids! We got to visit with them all over a meal or two, John & I got to baby sit our three lovelies, Ari (6) Tali (4) and Noa (18 months) a delight and a highlight of our hols for sure.

We also got to see them all in action! Chris and Justine at the church they planted two years ago and Sam and Beth in a gig. We came away feeling very proud of all of them. John had a few people ask him how we’d managed to raise such great children. This question led to this blog.

 How?

Do you really want to know what I think the answer is?

 Jesus.

 Were we perfect parents? Absolutely not. Do we have regrets and wish that we’d done some things differently? For sure – when I think about what I fed my children, I have regrets! I’ve learned so much about food and non-food in the last couple of years and I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that a lot of the stuff my kids ate wasn’t real food and don’t get me started on the number of sodas we all drank when we lived in Tanzania! – hindsight and education are great gifts! We regret putting ministry ahead of them at times, regret some of the ways we disciplined them, regret not including them in some of the huge decisions we made, and I could go on and I write it because it wasn’t because of what we did in those areas.

 Were Chris and Beth perfect children? Of course not. And if you’re waiting for me to write down their mistakes, sorry! Not gonna do it. 

 So, how have they turned into the Jesus loving adults they are today?

 John & I loved Jesus.

 

Even when our kids perhaps weren’t loving him as they are today, we still did.

Church was a huge part of our lives even when we weren’t in ministry, it was a non-negotiable part of our week. Chris and Beth never once said they didn’t want to go to church even though I know there were times when they wouldn’t have wanted to be there. It was our families’ culture.

 Daily times with Jesus were and still are a huge part of our lives. I admit, John had this nailed way before I did, but our kids saw us do this.

 We created a home where the words, ‘I love you’ were heard every day.

 We were the same people in church as we were in the home. It concerns me deeply when I hear kids say, their dad is a different (meaning nicer) man in church.

 When they slept, I would pray over them and tell the enemy he wasn’t having our children. Even when someone once told me, ‘They’ll go their own way for a bit and then come back to God’ I rejected it at once – not on my shift. Let me add, it wasn’t an easy fight, I had to work hard for the enemy not to have them, he fought dirty.

 One of them once said to me, ‘even though I had my struggles with faith, I knew Jesus worked for you and dad’ What a sentence!

 They couldn’t deny Jesus in us.

 You may have kids who don’t walk as you’d like them to, and I can’t say why that is for you, it’s not my story. I just tell you our story – 1. Because someone asked us the question and it got me thinking and 2.  Because maybe it might help you to think if your kids see Jesus working for you and if they don’t, start there.  They are never going to walk with Jesus if they don’t see you walking with Him.

 Being a follower of Jesus is the best possible way to live, and if we are blessed with children, then it’s our responsibility to model this.

 And if your kids know that Jesus works for you, but still don’t follow him at the moment, keep doing what you’re doing, don’t give up, it’s not the end of the story yet.

 We love what we do, we get to inspire people to become followers of Jesus every day. But, we know that our greatest achievement is watching our kids, their spouses and our grandchildren follow Jesus too and, whilst all the glory always belongs to God, I know that John and I played the leading roles under His directorship.

Until next time,

D x