PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 177: CELEBRATE WITH YOUR FAMILY

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 177 – Celebrate with Your Family

Wendy Shaw is with me again today. We talk about the joys of family celebrations. Celebrating for big things and little things. And also, the joys of hospitality.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello everyone again! It’s always great to be with you. And guess what? I’ve got Wendy Shaw with me again! Isn't that wonderful? Well, just as well she doesn’t live too far away. We’re out here on the hilltop in Primm Springs, and they’re living in Franklin. So that’s only about an hour away.

But Wendy was saying, “Oh, there were so many other things that I forgot to share about.” So, I said, “OK, let’s do another one!” So, here we are together again! It’s just so good, isn’t it, to talk with other families, mothers who have been raising their families for many years. And all the different ideas that they have.

We did mention in one of the last podcasts about my book, The Family Meal Table and Hospitality, which is out of print, but which I will be reprinting. I promise to have it. I just promised Wendy.

I won’t have it advertised for this coming magazine, which I’ve just about got finished, and should be at the printers soon. I’ve got three books going to be advertised in this one. But the next magazine, I’m going to have it ready! Can you believe it, Wendy? She's been telling me for so long because it ran out of print.

The printers, they folded up, so I had to redo it all again. It wasn’t just say, “Print so many more copies again.” I have to start again, which I want to, because I want to update. I’m always wanting to update things.

Wendy, tell us, what’s the first thing that you were thinking about that we forgot to talk about?

Wendy: Hey, Nancy. Well, I’m so thankful for your influence. It’s always an honor to be able to talk to you. I do love living near you so I can see you so much more often.

Nancy: Oh, yes! The last time, after our podcast, guess what we did? Evangeline appeared on the scene. She said, “Let’s go picking muscadines!” Or muscadines. I say “Muscadines.” What do you say?

Wendy: I just learned what they were. Muscadines?

Nancy: I say “Muscadines.” These glorious big fat grapes that are so unbelievable! So, we went muscadining! And it was so good! Came home with these wonderful grapes. They have big thick skins and lots of pits in them, but my, they are so good! I’m not sure what adventure we’ll do today.

Wendy: It’s always fun to be over here because there is always an adventure. The muscadine picking was amazing! They are so sour. They’re sweet inside, but sour outside. The seed is sour. I guess some people just eat the inside. I ate the whole thing. It was so good! I also tried the tamarinds. Is that how you say it?

Nancy: I had also bought some tamarinds from the Middle Eastern shop, from the Kurdish shop where I often shop to get my meat, and get all our Middle Eastern food, which we love. I had bought tamarinds, which, oh! they’re just such a wonderful, strong, tarty flavor. It was the first time you’d seen them, wasn’t it?

Wendy: Yes. And I love them now, so I went to a Mexican grocery store in Nashville. They had four bags! They taste like dried apricots. I was looking up the benefits. They’re so amazing. Great anti-cancer and high in vitamin A. It’s actually a meal suppressant too. If you eat it, it curbs your appetite. It has all these random things as part of, I already liked the taste.

Nancy: And they last because they’re dried. So, I think I’ll be buying more next time I go in, too!

Wendy: They look like bean pods or seeds, so I would never have thought it was actually something edible. They’re really interesting. I’m so thankful for that.

But yeah, it’s fun to visit with you and talk with you. You’ve heavily influenced our family culture. In part, a lot of what you have printed in your magazines, and your books, and your resources, and your conferences, just creating that Christ-like culture in your family that honors God. I’ve used everything. We take what we can and incorporate it and make it our own, and personalize it, and follow where God’s leading us to do.

There’re some things that are a theme that we have taken away and wanted celebrations. To be able to celebrate everything and anything. There are specific ones that we do commonly, birthdays and graduations, anniversaries and marriages. But then, those are the passages that give us also victory. We like the small victories to the largest victories. It covers everything, from little Joshua losing a tooth. “Yay!” They get so excited about that. Let’s celebrate that. Make a big deal about it.

Nancy: What would you do to celebrate that?

Wendy: We would probably get our favorite things, our favorite meal. It would just be a time where we all gathered together and have joy and rejoice. Whether it’s memorizing Scripture, or accomplishing a goal, any time we can all get together and focus on what’s good and right, and lovely, and pure, it seems that God has done it.

Then it’s a time to reflect on Him and be thankful because God says rejoice. “Again, I say rejoice.” There’s always so much in Scripture about having joy. We want to enjoy everything. Even when there’s a time of mourning, it says, “Joy comes in the morning.” So, absolutely, celebrating everything.

There’s a website called NationalDayCalendar.com. It’s really fun. It has these random things that are national days, like some things I never even thought of. Today is actually National Chocolate Day. So, we would personalize that and have dark chocolate. That’s our favorite. We would definitively do that. And tomorrow is . . .

Nancy: Oh, I didn’t know there was a National Chocolate Day! Wow! I’m going to find out and remember that for next year!

Wendy: Yeah, it’s really fun to see what it will be. Tomorrow is National Oatmeal Day, so we probably won’t be celebrating that. My kids, my children do not really like oatmeal so that would be one we skipped.

But there’s just fun things to do, to be creative and say, “Hey, this is something that we can do, and it’s good. So, let’s enjoy life.” There’s a lot of times where there’s situations offered to us. “Let's go see this movie,” and it’s not something that we would see. So instead of having always, “No, we can’t do this,” we say, “But we can do this! So, no on this movie, but yes on this movie!”

Or “No on this event, but let’s do this event,” and create something that maybe we didn’t do before. We can start a new tradition. But just creating those happy moments, and those times where we can have fun with everyday life.

Nancy: Oh, that’s so great! I think I’m going to look up that NationalDayCalendar.com, because it can give you ideas, new things to celebrate. If you’re just a mother, what a terrible statement! “You’re just a mother!” I didn’t mean to say that!

I meant to say, “If you’re just a mother with little ones, and those little ones around you, you’re just starting off your celebrating days.” But do start celebrating. The only thing you will find is that as your children grow, there is more and more to celebrate. As more children come along, then there’s more and more to celebrate. Now, here I not only have children, but grandchildren, and not only grandchildren, but great-grandchildren.

So, wow, my calendar just gets fuller and fuller with celebrations. We had a baby shower last week which was so beautiful. Now I see in my calendar for this month, three baby showers, all within about a week of one another.

And then, another couple have just got engaged. Cherish and Ben got engaged on the weekend, so that was so exciting! They’re planning now to be married on the fifth of February in the new year. Of course, when someone gets married, there’s engagements, and then there’s wedding showers, and then there’s the wedding.

Then there will be baby showers to come. Of course, more and more are getting married, so there’s going to be more and more showers. And more and more celebrations, and more and more birthdays. It's amazing.

Out there in the world, there’s a lot of people who, they don’t even have a heart for family, or an understanding of the joys of family. They think, “Wow, we’ll have our two children. We’ve done our bit. That's it.” You cut everything off. “Goodness, we’re finished with that!”

They don’t realize they’re cutting off a life of joys and celebrations and parties! I mean, wow, the more children you have, and the more the years go on, there are just more celebrations and more parties! And life is just so filled with joy and excitement and glory! Don’t you believe that?

Wendy: Oh, absolutely. It’s fun to include other people in that, too. We can usually encourage each other and edify each other, just by celebrating each other’s events. Yes, absolutely.

Nancy: Of course, now, we’re coming up to Thanksgiving. I know you’ll all be celebrating in your different ways. We have found that, you know, we start off celebrating. In fact, for us, when we came to the States, it was a very new thing for us to celebrate Thanksgiving. We don’t have that way down in New Zealand where we come from.

But we are so glad that we are now American citizens and that we can celebrate Thanksgiving. We started off doing it, but as we have continued every year, and family has grown, we keep adding new traditions. We began, as the children began to get a bit bigger, we would have a tug of war. That has now been, well, of course, we have our great, big, wonderful, glorious, amazing Thanksgiving dinner.

We usually, in our basement area, where we have all our social gatherings, I think last year we had a sit-down meal (we love to have a sit-down meal) for about 85. But that wasn’t all the family because some of them couldn’t come. It may be just as well because we couldn’t fit in anymore! I don’t know how we’ll manage this year. I think by next year, Sam’s barn will be finished, and we’ll have a bigger place to celebrate, because the family just keeps growing and growing.

So, we have a glorious meal. We’re not like a lot of average families in this state who sit around and watch football. We don’t do that. We love to celebrate! To celebrate, you’ve got to really eat. Of course, with so many people, we have so many turkeys, and so many pieces of lamb. Others are bringing beef. Everybody brings something, so the food is amazing.

After our meal, then speeches. We always have speeches. They’re usually the best thing in the whole day, when people will get up and share about something that’s happened through the year, or even something that is on their heart. Most of the speeches are so powerful. You would think you were at some amazing conference or something!

But, anyway, then we’ll go outside, and we have our tug of war. Children, girls against boys, and then, of course now, it’s young people against the adults. Of course, it used to be the adults would win, but now, the competition is so strong. We’ve got all these tough guys. Often, they’re winning. We keep on having that competition.

We have egg-throwing, where we have these raw eggs we have to throw to one another. We get further and further apart, until we have the winner. We’ve got to have all these amazing things for the younger ones. Sack races and three-legged races.

Then we’ll come in, and often we have arm wrestling. Then as the evening is coming on, we’ll then have dessert, because we can’t eat dessert at lunchtime, because we’re too full. Then we get out the food again, and we have dessert together, and loads of things after that.

But you’ve got other things you want to say!

Wendy: I love listening to other people. I love listening to what you do. Anyone, like you were saying, we can so much glean from each other about how everyone does something a little differently, or a little different way. It's so fun. I love it.

So, OK, so another thing that I wanted to share about, the amazing things that I’ve incorporated in our family culture from all your resources, is having a revolving door of guests with many different backgrounds. People, all different kinds, besides our friend’s family.

The Bible talks about those who can’t pay back, those who can’t have you over themselves. We could also bless ministries or even strangers who are also. . . I hope one day that we would find out that we served angels. That would be really amazing. But we have some, as the Lord leads. I would encourage everyone to just follow that, because you never know what that will lead to.

We’ve had some pretty life-changing things happen because we just reached out to someone. That went to someone else, and it really influenced our family. One example is just following God’s leading. Kevin was on his way to school one day and along the highway there were Amish.

Nancy: So, where were you living then?

Wendy: OK. Thank you. This was in California.

Nancy: I didn’t know you had Amish in California!

Wendy: We don’t! But we lived next to Yosemite National Park, which is a tourist destination for global, and all around the world. There were continually people from all over the world who would be in the town, this gateway to Yosemite. When he was on his way to school, even though we homeschooled, he was teaching at a public school.

He was travelling there, and he saw these Amish walking with suitcases along the highway. He was so fascinated. Where were they going? What were they doing? He pulled over and rolled down his window. They looked at him, like “Who are you?” He found out that they had laundry in their suitcases, and they were walking from their hotel to a laundromat. They were just right there. They were going to be doing laundry.

So, he said, “Come over. Can we have you over to our house?” He told them a little about our family and gave them our number. I was surprised they called and said, “We’ll come over.”

We went to pick them up that night and brought them over. It was so fun. It was such an amazing visit. They said, interestingly, what convinced them to come over, was when Kevin shared, “We don’t have a TV.” They thought that was a safe house to be at.

After the dinner, they went back home and shared with their family and friends. We became known as a safe house to go to. So, we got calls from a lot of other people to come over too. It was just so fun. One of the ladies made a dress for our daughter, Holly, and sent it to her, a little Amish dress. So, so fun.

It’s just random things like that, where you feel, “Maybe God’s leading me in this direction,” and you follow through with that. Our little efforts, God works through, in a great way.

What we encourage other people to do is to reach out to people who you feel have made a difference in the impact that you see God working through their life in amazing ways. This can bring home to your children and have them learn how different God works in two different people.

There was a musician who we had her music. We did listen to Scripture. Our children just absolutely loved it. Her name is Judy Rogers. We called her and said, “Hey, can you come over?”  She was in Georgia, and we were not even expecting her to say yes, but she did. So, we flew her and her husband out, and said, “Hey, we want to know you, because we like what you’re doing, and bless you.”

We asked if she would do a concert at our house and invited a lot of people over. Then we had a few days with them. Judy gave Macy her first guitar lesson, which at that time, our family was just a lot of violin players. So that really changed the course of the direction of our band at that time.

Nancy: I think that’s very interesting. When you reach out to other people, you do it to bless them. But in the end, you’re the one who gets blessed.

Wendy: Oh, always. Yes. And the interesting thing is that this is a story of how God works. She liked what Kevin did with his Bible quizzes. She printed it in her newsletter. This newsletter went out all over.

We got a call a few weeks later from this older lady, asking for Kevin. It ends up that she lived a few streets over from us. Her name is Cora Mae. She’s a godly older woman and we adopted her as our grandma. We would have her over a lot and go to her house and serve her. It was interesting. We would have never met her had we not had the Rogers over from Georgia. But that was a really good connection.

That was 13 years ago. Just recently, the Rogers celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary out here. We got to meet up with her children. Now I’m friends with her daughter who lives near us in Tennessee. So, it’s really amazing how God makes the connections, how He uses each other to bless each other and to bring glory to Him. We never know how many years later that impact can still be felt, and what He will do through that.

Nancy: Oh, exactly! I think hospitality is . . . A lot of people think, “Well, some people, they’ve got their gift of hospitality, but I’m not really very good at this.” I think often it’s the way that you were raised. Many people are raised with very insular homes. They’re not being used to other people in their homes, so it’s a new thing for you to do.

I was blessed in that I was raised in a very, very hospitable home. I mean, if anybody came to our door, my father would be there. “Come on, come in, come in! Come and sit at our table!” He’d be getting out the food. He just loved to bless everybody. So, I was used to, OK, this embracing lifestyle, which is the lifestyle of the kingdom of God.

Even if we haven’t been used to it, we have to realize that when we come into God’s kingdom, we’re coming into a whole new way of life. We’re coming out of the old kingdom, this kingdom of selfishness and living unto ourselves, into a kingdom where we live for others. Often, it’s a totally new way of life. Sometimes we just have to start, little by little. But I would encourage you to start. Even if you ask one person to come to your meal table because it is the lifestyle that God wants us to live.

I remember writing, many years ago, three things about hospitality.

Hospitality is a biblical doctrine that starts in Genesis, and weaves through the pages of the Bible until the last book of Revelation, where we see the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Whosoever will, is invited. The whole last chapter of the Bible is whosoever will, come! Come! Those are the words, even in the very last chapter. These are the words of God. “Come! Buy milk and bread without money or price,” it says in Isaiah 55:1.

These are the words of Jesus, “Come unto Me.” They’re the words of the Holy Spirit. They should be the words of us, the bride too.

Hospitality is an extension of our mothering and homemaking anointing.

We have, you know, lovely mothers, you’re blessed to have a home. It’s a sanctuary for you to raise your children. But it’s also a place that God has given you to use for His kingdom.

Oh, a home, I believe the home is the greatest place in the world to impact people for God. To invite people to your home, to your table, but I think we impact people in a greater way, because it’s more personal. It's more real than maybe just inviting them to a church service where they sit and listen. Yes, that’s good, but in fact, often, you’ve got to get people to your home first, before you even have the right to ask them to a church service!

But the home is so powerful. Realize that your home, God has given it to you to use for His glory, to draw people closer to Him, to draw them into His kingdom.

Thirdly,

Hospitality is not an option. It is the lifestyle of the kingdom of God.

I mean, there are so many Scriptures in the Word about hospitality. Sometimes it will be asking someone for a meal. Sometimes it’s having them stay in your home.

I remember when we moved to Australia from New Zealand. We were pioneering a church on the Gold Coast of Australia. We had so many people, not only coming and going, but living in our home. All our children were home. Some of these people were pretty interesting. I remember one guy. He was one of the first guys who landed up in our church when we started to pioneer there on the Gold Coast of Australia.

He was this great big black guy. He wasn’t American black, because he had, I think, because we were Down Under, he had Island and Aborigine in him. But he was a big guy. He’d just come from a life of gangs. He knew no other work than being a bouncer. All he knew was how to go and bounce people out of nightclubs. Well, we were on the Gold Coast of Australia, filled with nightclubs. Plenty of work there!

But he came to know Jesus. Of course, in the beginning, he was pretty raw. But Colin invited him. He had nowhere to go. “Come and live with us.” Oh, I could tell you so many stories. But anyway, this guy lived with us. If he heard a knock on the door, he would say, “If that’s the heat, don’t tell them I’m here!” He was used to getting pulled up by the police. He called them “the heat.”

Every night, he would come to Colin and me and say, “Can you pray for me?” as he’s going out in the night to bounce at these nightclubs. He still didn’t know how to get another job. So here we are, praying over this guy, to bounce! My, you get one kind of knock from him, and you’ll go ten feet out the door!

That was back in 1982. Well, here we are. 2021. And although we’re here in America, we will still get calls from this guy who became an evangelist and who has walked with God all these years. And who is still winning souls to the Lord. We’ll get this voice on the other end of the phone. “It’s Brian Israel Thunderbolt Booker here.” His name was Brian, but he changed his name to Brian Israel Thunderbolt Booker because he became so on fire for God.

When you met him, he’d put his arms around you, and he would say, “God love ya, Jesus love ya, I love ya, and God bless you!” Your whole ribs would be squashed to pieces!

Of course, in the early days, it was pretty hair-raising. We had other guys, another hippie, and other people who came from the most amazing backgrounds. And yet, God was so good. Here we were, with our children, and yet, they were never actually affected negatively. In fact, they had that same, because growing up, they had the same sort of attitude that, yes, we want to bless people.

I remember one day Colin and I were out. We came home and the children, well, I guess, they were early teens or something. But anyway, they said, “Oh, So-and-so came to see you. They needed counseling, but we thought, ‘OK, we’ll do it. So, we did the counseling!’” They were used to that kind of thing and all kinds of people coming.

Wendy: I think that’s another idea for a book for you. Write all your experiences. You know, hospitality is . . .

Nancy: But you know, it’s not always perfect. I remember us on the Gold Coast as well, because we’re pioneering this church. It was a lovely family who came one Sunday. We thought, “Oh, we want to really encourage them and get to know them.”  The normal thing that comes out of our mouth is always, “Come! Come and have a meal with us! We’d love you to come.”

So, we arranged it for, I think it was the Monday night. But I got so busy, I forgot all about the fact that we’d invited them! We were just having our meal round the table. It was a pretty full table. We had people living with us. Always had people living with us. I don’t think we’ve ever had a time when we haven’t had people living with us!

And here we are, Colin and me. I’m 80, he’s 81, and we still have people living with us! You know, most people are sort of doddering on their own by this age. But here we are.

So, anyway, we were all sitting around. In fact, it was one of those naughty nights. Oh goodness me, I can’t even believe it! I don’t believe in ever putting a pot on the table, but I remember that night I even had a couple of pots on the table. I think someone wanted leftovers, so I just brought the pots over. Oh, so disgusting! But, you know, we were just family.

And there was a knock on the door. I went to the door, and there was this family, all dressed up so beautifully to come to the Campbells for their evening meal. And a lovely dish in hand to help with the meal.

Well. We’d eaten everything. And here they were! What could we do? Well, we just had to apologize, and sort of clear the table, and suddenly get some more food onto the table. But I don’t think we ever redeemed it because they never came back to the church! [laughter] So, I’ve blown it plenty of times!

Wendy: We had an experience similar to that where we had invited a couple over. We forgot. It was a lunch. We had just had lunch and put everything away. Then they came to the door, and we just realized at that moment, “Oh, no!” So, we had a second lunch. We got everything back out again and fixed something. It was really fun.

Nancy: You know, a lot of times, we don’t reach out in hospitality, because we think, “Well, help! How can I? I mean, we’ve got our . . .” What do you do to keep your money all in order? What’s the word? Budget! Yes, a budget.

OK. So, everybody has their budget. Well, I don’t really know about a budget. Forgive me, ladies. I have never ever done a budget in my whole married life. Goodness me! What an example are you, Nancy Campbell?

Well, I’m sorry. Because if I had done a budget, we could never have lived the way we lived. Because if I had done a budget, I don’t think we’d have ever been able to ask anybody to our home. We’ve always forgotten about budgets. We never ever thought of a budget in our lives! We just lived, and we’d just say, “Come!”

So, we’ve lived beyond our budget. And God provides. I don’t think He provides when we try to be miserly and live unto ourselves. But you see, God aligns Himself with hospitality, because He is a hospitable God. He now dwells in us, and He wants to be hospitable through us. We just have to forget about budgets and just say, “Come!”

It’s amazing. I believe God has always provided. Well, maybe not in just elaborate times. In fact, I think that we all have, or will, if we haven’t yet, have the experience of Paul, who said, “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound.”  There are times in your life of abounding. There are times of hardly scraping through.

We’ve had many of those times. And yet, even in those times, we’ve never gone without. God is so good! He is so faithful! I remember one time, and fortunately, it was someone we knew. It was actually my dear friend, Val Stares, who is the director of Above Rubies in Australia. She and her husband just came by. It was lunch time.

But, oh, we were going through one of those scraping-through times. All I had in the house was potatoes. Nothing else! I thought to myself, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll invite them for lunch, because I can’t just give them potatoes.” And then I thought, “Well, no! How terrible to not invite people when they’ve come to your door. So, I said, “Hi! Come in! Well, I’ve only got potatoes, but come and sit down to our meal of potatoes!”

Well, we sat around that table, and we had such a great time of fellowship. The amazing thing is, Val has never ever forgotten that meal, where we only had potatoes! They have been to our home hundreds of times, and I don’t think she’ll ever remember all the beautiful meals I’ve cooked for her. But she remembers the potatoes! [laughter] Often those times are remembered more than all the more elaborate times.

Wendy: Oh, yeah. That brings memories because people mostly want the fellowship more than the food.

Nancy: They do!

Wendy: Yes. That is, a hospitality guestbook is what our go-to is for a newly married couple, to get them going on that. It’s fun to look back over the years and see all the different people who have come over. Remembering we lived those experiences and know that that has been such a blessing for us to be able to reach out to them.

Nancy: Yes. I know. Do you keep a guestbook all the time?

Wendy: We have one, and we don’t always remember to use it.

Nancy: Yes, that’s been my trouble. Oh, I wish I had kept a guestbook. When I think of over 58 years of marriage together, and the people who have been to our home. We would have to have a hundred guestbooks. But do you know, I always forget the guestbook. I’ve missed out on remembering them all! I think it is a great idea.

Our time is gone again! So, do you think we could do another session? I think there’s some more things we were going to talk about. Wow! OK. Let’s pray, shall we?

“Dear Father, we thank You so much for Your Word. Thank You for fellowship. Lord, we’re fellowshipping together now, even over this podcast, although it’s not one-on-one. It would be even greater if we were face to face.

“But Lord, we know that You consider fellowship so important. Encouraging one another is so important. So, I pray that, Lord, every precious one listening today will be encouraged. Be encouraged to just reach out beyond themselves a little more, and to reach out to those who are lonely, hurting, just needing a blessing.

“Oh God, we pray that You will give us a heart for others, and a heart to open our homes. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

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