PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 83 – HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR FAMILY TOGETHER?

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Episode 83 - HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR FAMILY TOGETHER?

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello dear wives and mothers. Here I am with you again and today I have a guest with me. Well, she’s not a guest. She is one of my wonderful friends, Alison Hartman. Alison was on my podcast way back, about 18 months ago and here they are staying with us again.

In fact they’ve stayed with us since then, but we never got together to do a podcast, did we? But today we’re going to do another podcast together!

Alison and her husband, Daniel, and the family are all here because on Monday they are going off to Israel with Sam and Serene. They had planned to take their two oldest daughters to Israel.

When Sam and Serene heard that they were doing that they said, “Oh we’re going to come with you, and we’ll take our two oldest daughters” because the girls are all about the same age. You’re all going to have such an amazing time.

You’re going to be staying in Jerusalem, aren’t you, and then you’ll be going out from there.

Alison Hartman: Yep.

NC: So wonderful. Well anyway, for those of you who don’t know Alison, Alison is the mother of ten children soon to have number eleven. In fact in March they will be having their eleventh baby.

Let me give you the names of her children. Don’t you love names? I love hearing the names of children, don’t you?

When we get new people coming on the Internet to get Above Rubies for the first time, there is a place for them to put their husband’s name and children’s names if they would like to do that.

Oh, I love it! I will say to my Above Rubies helpers as they are entering the names and doing the magazine for the new person, “Tell me any interesting names because I love to hear them!”

The Hartman children start with Makenna and she is the most amazing girl. How old is she now?

AH: Twenty-one.

NC: Twenty-one now? Oh she is amazing, and she has a lovely young man. God has been so good to bring them together.

Then there is Eden, Halle, Ethan, Asher, Levi, Emily Kate, Anna Lee, Solomon and Ezra.

They are just taking the two oldest girls, so their boys are all going to be staying over at the Allison’s. Those boys are going to be all looking after them selves. I can’t imagine what it will be like!

Even yesterday the boys shot a rabbit. They said the three of them shot it, but I don’t know which one actually did. Anyway, they’re going to have fun together.

I will have all of the Allison girls and the Hartman younger girls here so that will be wonderful. They all just love each other so they will have the most wonderful, wonderful time.

Alison and her husband Daniel have put on Above Rubies family retreats down in Panama City, Florida. This retreat is just the best that you could ever attend. You don’t have to live in Florida because families come from all over the country because they can get to the beach. It’s right on the beach.

It’s so wonderful. It’s in April so if you are up in the colder states and you just want to get some sun before it get’s to you, come down to that retreat.

Make a note of it. Have you got some pen and paper? This year the retreat is the 23rd to the 26th of April.

That’s the weekend, the main part of the retreat. But this retreat has become so popular that some of the families want to come for the whole week just to hang out together. So from Wednesday to Wednesday the 22nd to the 29th you can choose to come for the whole week and just hang out with other wonderful families and at the beach.

Then you are there for the main weekend. Some will just come for the weekend. You have your choice to do whichever you would like.

But you’ve just got to start planning to come. It’s so cool. Alison is the most amazing organizer and she just runs such a great retreat. It’s going to be so cool.

AH: It’s so fun.

NC: What have you got to say about it, Alison?

AH: I completely agree, it is the highlight of our family’s year. We look forward to it and it’s our vacation. Really, if you can agree with me, I think it’s almost become like a youth reunion. All these young people have come together.

NC: Oh yes, we have so many young people. Oh goodness me, when I saw all the young people getting together, I think that there were more young people than there were adults.

AH: I think so. They have so much fun. They don’t do a lot of sleeping. They stay up! But they have so much fun and they’re not just playing volleyball and swimming in the ocean, but they encourage each other and you’re seeing little clusters of them praying for each other.

NC: They go down to the beach praying together at night.

So how many volleyball courts are there?

AH: Oh goodness, probably eight? There’s a lot. We do competitive volleyball tournaments.

NC: Yes, yes, it’s so cool.

In fact, when I was growing up my parents also attended a Christian family camp once a year. It was the highlight of our lives growing up. I can just remember waiting for that camp to get together.

Of course you met people, you would get to know people, and that’s what’s happened with the young people. They have just got to know one another. Like your children are now best friends with all of our grandchildren here and other families.

AH: It’s just so encouraging to find other families that are like-minded because at home most of us don’t have that.

There might be a few families at church you can relate to, but these young people have become friends that my girls will be in their wedding one day. They’re going to be friends for life.

It is the same with me. I have met close friends that I will forever be tight with.

NC: Oh yes, it is so wonderful.

Colin and I, we actually met at this camp(in New Zealand) that we went to every year. So I am a great believer in camps being a great place for young people to find one another because it’s not easy to find a godly wife or a godly husband.

So for young people to come amongst families of kindred spirits, I mean, you know, you just see whatever God does or if He doesn’t, there is just that opportunity. It’s so beautiful.

AH: I think that we’ve had families come from as far away as New Zealand and Canada. Each of them has said, “It might not be next year because of money but we will be back.”

I think there’s just not anything you can do for your family as far as better use of time and money than getting together with twenty to forty other families that you’re really going to connect with and stay in contact with for years to come.

NC: Yes, so anyway, if you’re interested and want to find out more just, go to the Above Rubies website, aboverubies.org and check it out.

You’ll be able to find Alison’s phone number and give her a call or whatever. We just hope you can come! It would be so neat!

AH: They always book up. We have some openings now but every year we’ve filled it up.

NC: So that’s going to be exciting! While you’re here with us, Alison, let me ask you a question. You’re coming up to eleven children. How do you keep eleven children together from all these varying ages, Makenna, 21, right down to the little ones? How do you keep family togetherness? What do you do in your family?

AH: I think that’s just such an important thing, especially even if you have one or two children.

In today’s world it seems like every activity is created to divide the family, whether it’s church, whether it’s meals, whether it’s sports activities. I t see so many families, maybe not even intentionally, but they are just dividing.

Thankfully my husband is very particular about keeping us together. It’s so neat to see the younger ones being loved on by the older ones.

One thing, of course we do, is we have a family business. We literally live together, work together, play together. We’re blessed by the fact that our business has grown that we actually need all hands-on deck when we do our photography business.

When we’re in the middle of our busy season, which would be spring for us. Spring pictures we do live animals and then Christmas. Then we do about forty public and private schools that we have contracts with. So when we’re doing pictures, we literally can’t do it without a crew.

Well, as the girls have gotten older, we have not needed to hire out of family a whole lot. We can pretty much do Christmas and Easter season in house, meaning within our house.

NC: Amazing. Except now you’ve brought Makenna’s young man. He is a blessing, too!

AH: Yes, he is a blessing! He’s going to be even more of a blessing because I’ll have a baby in the middle of our busiest Easter season. For us, we’re about the only photographer in our area that does four different live animals for Easter so we will do about four hundred different photo shoots for about four hundred families.

Well, it’s impossible for me with a newborn to do it all so we’ll definitely need Josiah’s help.

But I get so many compliments on my girls with people saying, “Wow, they do great without you!” which is to me the goal, to clone yourself in your older girls where you can almost let them run it.

But going back to keeping us a unit, we used to go to a big mega church. I felt like every time we’d walk in the door it was like all these signs that were basically separating our family.

“Baby’s go here,” “Toddlers go here,” “Young people go here,” and “Teenagers go here.”

It just didn’t feel right. I know it works for some people but sadly I think most people do it because that’s what they think everybody should do.

NC: I think that sadly most of us become the victims of what everybody else does.

INTENTIONAL IS THE WORD!

AH: Yeah. I think we have to become, go-against-the-flow, kind of moms. You have to be INTENTIONAL about keeping your family together.

IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN ACCIDENTLY.
YOU HAVE TO DELIBERATELY SET UP A SYSTEM IN YOUR HOME
WHERE YOU DON’T GET PULLED APART!

We even have friends who have a big family and they say, “Goodness, it just seems like everybody’s in their own room on their device or with a different friend” or whatever.

Of course, that does happen, but I think as mothers and fathers we have to be deliberate about not letting it happen on a regular basis.

NC: I believe it. I think as you said that word there: INTENTIONAL. You have to be intentional.

We as mothers have such power in the family. Of course I think you know that one of my favorite affirmations is: “Things don’t just happen; you have to make them happen.”

If we just let our family go with the flow and what’s happening and even what’s happening amongst the Christian families, it will just sort of weaken.

Another one of my affirmations (I am thinking of affirmations because I believe affirmations are so powerful) is: When you have to make decisions about something for your family, this is what I say to ask yourself: “Will it weaken the family?”

“IF IT’S GOING TO WEAKEN THE FAMILY, DON’T DO IT.
BUT IF IT WILL STRENGTHEN THE FAMILY AND
KEEP IT TOGETHER, GO FOR IT!”

That’s how we determine what we will do. It’s a very easy decision. Is this going to cause our family to go in all different directions and weaken us as a family unit? Or, is it going to keep us together and strengthen it?

So you do what’s going to strengthen it. If it’s going to weaken it, forget it, even if it is what everybody else is doing.

Are we just going to be mothers who are victims?

Today so many of our young people are victims to society but we as parents become victims. We are victims to just what everybody else is doing. I believe we need to rise up as mothers of strength and purpose and vision and know what we want for our families and make it happen.

AH: Right.

NC: We do that which is going to keep them together, strengthen and build it. Amen?

AH: I think so many moms lately want to befriend their children, which there is nothing wrong with wanting to be friends with our children. My girls and I are the best of friends. But I try not to make decisions based on whether they’re going to like me.

You and I have talked a lot about cell phones and Internet and social media. I really think that’s one of the biggest problems in our families today and not just in public school or un-churched homes.

I’m talking Christian homes and Christian school young people are literally having their identity become what people think of them in social media. Their communication, their interaction, their relationships are completely based on their device. They have friends with people that the really don’t know. They are just “friends” with them.

I have a brother whose asking me, “What do you think about a cell phone?”

To me, I thought his children were too young. He opted for a flip-phone, which I was quite impressed because you can be a little more careful with your children with an old-school flip phone.

Like you and I were saying, even as adults I think it’s hard to have self-control with a cell phone and a smart phone and so how can we expect our little ones to not have self-control if we aren’t?

I’ve seen them in these public schools we do photo shoots at. They are in the second grade and walking around with a $900 smart phone.

NC: Truly? Are they allowed to do that in public schools?

AH: A lot of them. The teachers can’t say anything. It just depends on the state and it seems like the county we’re in depends on the school.

I’ll even say, “Wow, you guys are allowed to have your phones out?”

They’ll say, “Oh my teachers don’t care.”

NC: Really? So how do they even teach them when they’re most probably looking at their phones?

AH: They do it in the name of . . . “Oh it’s safety to be able to get a hold of your parents.”

But what did we do growing up? We went to the office and called our parents if we needed them. It wasn’t this unlimited access to the Internet.

You go to a restaurant and see this family of however many or even a couple. Almost eight out of ten of them are primarily on their phones, separated from each other. They may look like they are together, but they are all doing different things.

NC: They are completely separated.

AH: Again, it’s something that I struggle with and so I can’t imagine if I gave my 13-year-old boy a cell phone.

NC: How do you do it in your family?

AH: My 21-year old obviously has a phone but I completely trust her integrity.

My 17-year-old has a phone.

I have a rule that if I say, “Hand me your phone” they have to hand it to me at any moment and I have to check everything.

My 15-year-old and under do not have one and in our circle of friends that’s even unusual that they don’t have one. Every now and then we’ll run into a family that says ”My teenagers don’t have one either” and it’s like, “Yes, yes! We’re the same way!”

One thing that influenced me a lot in this area was we went to a conference a couple of years ago and Josh McDowell, who is a well known speaker and author, said that he speaks all over the world and parents ask him a very common question.

They will say, “At what age, Josh, should I get my child a smart phone?” and they’re genuinely asking.

His answer to them is, “As soon as you’re ready for them to be looking at pornography.”

So if you’re ready for your eight-year-old to be looking at pornography, then get them a smart phone because that’s most likely what’s going to happen. They may not even mean to.

I remember we were researching something about weight boarding because we were looking at some equipment to buy for our boat and pornography popped up just by typing in something water sport related.

It was amazing. We were like, “Whoa! This is awful!”

Thankfully, we were sitting by the computer and were able to turn it off quickly but a 10 or 13-year-old, they don’t have the good judgment yet.

Even good children that you’re trying to raise well, I can’t see them making a good decision. I can’t even see 13- year-old making a good decision and thinking, “Hmm, --this is probably not what I need to be looking at.”

Maybe they would but why take that chance?

So my answer would be never.

NC: You need to have some maturity.

I have here Chalice, my beautiful granddaughter who is recording for us at the moment.

You’ve only recently gotten an iPhone, haven’t you? How recently did you get your iPhone? You just used the family one before that didn’t you?

Chalice Allison: Five months ago.

NC: Yes. So here she is, twenty-year-old girl . . .

CA: Nineteen.

NC: Nineteen, just coming up on twenty years old and she’s just got her own.

CA: I didn’t want one.

NC: And you didn’t even want it! Yes. I actually can remember about six years ago when Colin and I were ministering in the UK taking meetings there.

We went to each United Kingdom country and we took Chally with us. She was only 14 then. It was such a delight to have her with us.

One day I was sitting on the bed, preparing for a message and I was going to talk about social media. I remember, but you may not remember, Chally, but I said to you, “Now Chalice, you’ve got your iPad for your school work there and you know, what would you do if something came up that was bad? What have your parents said to do?”

I’ll never forget her response. It just came out of her. She didn’t think. She just said, “Oh Nana, I would vomit! I would be horrified!”

I thought that was so amazing because it was as though she had something there inside her. It wasn’t that she had something there from the outside; it was in her, that she would be repulsed.

I think our children have got to get that. A lot of parents will put perimeters on their iPhones and stuff for their children and that’s good. But the most powerful protection is what they have on the inside.

I think that comes from us as parents because the Bible talks about abhorring that which is evil and loving that which is good (Romans 12:9).

We have to have that attitude as parents. There is something about us that abhors evil. We don’t just tolerate it and say, “Well that’s not very good.”

No, when there is evil or we hear about something that is obnoxious and abominable to God we will state it and say, “Yes, God hates that! It’s a slap in the face to God! We don’t want anything to do with that!”

We are adamant and we are passionate about hating evil.

I think somehow our children can get that in their spirits. Inside there is a hate for evil. As Chalice said as a young girl then, “Oh, I would vomit!”

I think that’s important. It’s sad to say that I don’t even see that a lot in the general sort of Christian young people today. They don’t seem to have that. They’re caught up in the world.

There has to be something if so many have iPhones (and so many have them) that they know how to use them, but as you were saying, even us as adults . . . Now I know myself. I am so passionate for the Word of God. I love the Word. I live in the Word. I love to have my Bible and read it.

I also read it on my iPhone because I have my Strong’s Concordance app, which I love because I can look up any word in the Hebrew and Greek. I am using it all the time.

But when I first wake in the morning, what do I do? I have to make this happen. When I first turn my iPhone on, I have to go to the Word. Now, there are so many temptations because, “Ding, ding, ding!”

These crazy messages come in and I think, “Boy, I better check that message.”

Do you know, it takes all my self-control to say, “NO. I’m going to have the Word first”?

AH: That’s so good.

NC: Now, okay, that comes from maturity and from my absolute passionate love for the Word. What about the young people who have not got that maturity yet?

They can say, “Oh well, I’ll read the Bible on my iPhone.”

They go to read it and, “Ding, ding, ding!” Messages and this and that are coming from everywhere and they are just going to be pulled apart.

Today, goodness me, we just somehow let things take over, don’t we?

I hate it how everybody brings their iPhones to church to read their Bibles now, because I know that they’re not all reading their Bibles.

Usually I’m sitting in the front seat because I’m a front-seater. I believe in being in the front because you sit at the back and you’re just looking around.

But on the odd occasion where I come in late and I’m sitting in the back I will do some observing.

Oh my. It’s horrific. I see people and they haven’t got the Word open. They are looking at messages, looking at Facebook, looking at all their stuff IN CHURCH!

It is abominable. I just wish we could get back to everybody bringing their Bibles. They are opening up their Bibles and they won’t be tempted.

It’s not that they are bringing their iPhones to do it but it’s all those dings and bells and messages coming through and they are so tempting.

AH: Notifications, yeah.

NC: Yes.

AH: You know the creator of these iPhones; they do have that in the back of their mind. This is very purposeful.

NC: It is such a distraction. If we as mature adults have to fight those distractions, what about our children?

Even as our children are getting older the time comes when in this world, because it’s just part of life, that we do have to teach our children how to learn to use cell phones.

I use mine as a tool, a tool to get out the truth because they are getting out so much junk and deception and lies and stuff that is so anti-God on social media today. Why can’t we, as God’s people, get out the truth? If we can use it as a tool like that and you see it as a tool to get that out, but who does that? Very, very few people do.

I think we can even teach our young people to do that. They can begin to write stuff that’s standing up for truth and get it out on their Facebook pages. They can share stuff that’s good and powerful.

We don’t just give them an iPhone. When they get to the age when they can have one, we prepare them so that they know how to use it and how to have discipline.

AH: I think everything in our family should look different. Not necessarily for difference sake but we should teach our children to be against the flow and not be followers but be leaders.

To me it’s encouraging when I see a young person that’s sharing a Scripture or sharing something that’s encouraging on social media because so many posts are so negative and destructive.

It can be used for the good. I mean, we couldn’t do our business without social media.

Going back to something you had said about keeping the family together and if it’s destructive to the family then don’t do it, I just thought of a couple of things that typically you think would separate the family but, in our situation, we’ve tried to make it the opposite.

Sports, in most family’s world, would be a very divisive activity. You would have one child on a soccer field, and you have another on a volleyball court at the same time.

Mom is grabbing dinner with one and Dad is grabbing dinner with the other and you just constantly are all over the place. Some families even do year-round sports where they’re literally in a sport all the time.

Some families have said, “We’re just not doing any sports and anyone who does sports is wrong.”

We have a couple of daughters that are really talented in volleyball and some boys who are really good in soccer and they enjoy it.

We have tried to look at it as how can that bring our family together and it literally has.

We go to every single game as a family. You can’t miss us at these games! We have our children, we have our bananas, and thermoses, and we show up and you can’t miss us being there!

NC: You show up with your Pro-life shirts on!

AH: Yes, yes, we have our “Choose life” shirts on!

NC: Alison designed a Pro-life T-shirt. On the front it says, “Choose life” and on the back it says, “A person is a person no matter how small.”

I love seeing when you come as a family and everyone has a shirt on. In fact, you can contact Alison and get your family sized up! She’s got a shirt for every size.

AH: Yep, every size.

And so we made volleyball become a family sport. We put a court in our backyard. We play as a family, and we go to games as a family.

NC: Actually, we put in a volleyball court here at our place about 18 months ago.

AH: You had to keep up with the Florida people!

NC: Then you guys came up not long after we put it in. It was July 4th. Of course you are really into volleyball and all of our grandchildren were just getting into it. Of course they didn’t like getting beaten by the Floridians, so they really had to practice.

But I think it was one of the best things we did here. Then you guys went home and put a court in!

During the spring, summer, and fall I can look out here at night and because we have lights out there on the court, I can see the young people out here on the hilltop playing till ten o’clock at night, out there playing together.

It is so wholesome and so wonderful.

AH: There’s no reason why you can’t do things like that as a family. Even if the dad is not as good as it as the children there is no reason that you can’t do that as a family.

I think families that play together stay together.

NC: Most of our families here don’t actually GO to sports.

AH: Well you guys live so far from everything!

NC: I know, we do but they PLAY sports. They play volleyball but if they’re not playing that they’re playing soccer on the field or they’re playing other things. They are doing sports together all the time.

You don’t have to do it the way everybody does it. We are so victims.

I think we have to get out of the victim mentality of just thinking, “Okay, this is what you do” and you don’t have to.

There are other ways and you can think of other ideas. The thing is keeping your family together. That is the thing.

AH: I see a lot of families rarely eating meals together. That’s something again, going back to the word INTENTIONAL, that isn’t easy. There is nothing easy about it.

I had a client write to me a couple months ago and say, “I see your family always together on Facebook. I’m so envious of that.”

I asked her a few questions about what she lets her children do. She would have to make a lot of changes she may not be willing to make.

You may have to take that iPhone from your 10-year old. You may have to stop some friendships that they’re pouring themselves into. You may have to purposefully have a family dinner.

Our family dinners don’t look like everyone else’s. We’re not sitting at home and baking bread and then sitting down to the meal. Sometimes it looks very different than other families, but we almost always have dinner all together. That’s something that my husband is really, really firm about.

NC: He makes it happen.

AH: Yeah, you have to make it happen.

It may be at ten o’clock at night or it may be at four o’clock at night because you’re all leaving at different times but he feels like, and I feel like you have to, like you said, make it happen.

NC: I think I talked about this last week when I was talking about table tips. That’s one law that we have in our families that we don’t allow. If there are iPhones in the family, you don’t bring them to the family meal table.

They are such a competition and such an interruption, too, to our family togetherness.

AH: Again, you can look like you’re together but you’re not together.

NC: And that’s the wonderful thing about the table. It’s the drawing together. It’s not just the eating of the meal but it’s the fellowship together, isn’t it?

I hope that you remembered that from last week and perhaps you are making that a part of your meal table, too, that you don’t have iPhones there.

Anyway, time is coming to an end in this session, but I’d like to do another session.

AH: I think in summary of that segment was just the things that typically will bring the family apart, you can use those same things to bring your family together.

You don’t have to make the excuse of, “Oh, we can’t have dinner together” or “My children play sports” or “We go to church.”

No, you can use those same activities to bring your family together.

NC: Amen.

“Lord God, We thank You that we can chat together about these things and that although we are chatting here, we are coming into the homes of all these precious families.

“I pray Your blessing upon them today, that the things that we’re sharing will be an encouragement to them and You will pour out Your Spirit upon all these precious wives and mothers.

“I pray that You will put a new strength in them and a new vision and anointing to do what is right, to strengthen and build and keep their families together. Help them to be strong to say no to all the things that weaken families today.

“Lord, I pray that You will make them strong, anointed, and godly mothers in the midst of this deceived world in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

The previous podcasts where Allison shared:

No. 9
POUND YOUR STAKES DEEP!
Introducing Allison Hartman from Florida. Allison and her husband, Daniel have 10 children and run a family business. We talk about how she fits this all together and how keeping the family together is their greatest goal as parents.

One of the most powerful things we can do to build our nation is to strengthen our marriages and family lives. In every decision and plan we make in our family lives we should first of all think: Will this strengthen our family life, or will it fragment our family life? We must get into the habit of choosing what strengthens the family.

No. 10
ARE YOU RAISING YOUR CHILDREN TO SPEAK?
Allison Hartman and her 19-year-old daughter speak with me on this podcast. Allison shares how she and her husband managed to get out of debt and build a debt free home. McKenna speaks about her life in a big family and how she has built strong convictions into her life.

We talk about raising children to speak in the gates. Dear mothers, we are not only feeding and clothing our children. We have a huge task raising them to speak—speak clearly, speak with conviction, and speak with boldness, and who will one day be ready to speak with the enemies in the gates! Children who will know how to stand when they face the enemy, and “having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13). Be inspired as you listen.

No. 88
LIFE, DEATH, COURTING, WEDDINGS, AND A TRIP TO ISRAEL!
The Hartman and Allison families are home from their great trip to Israel. Allison Hartman shares about their life-changing trip and how it can affect our lives.