It was a busy Saturday morning. I had a service assignment at 6am in the morning and then a dress rehearsal with our community choir that is presenting Handel's Messiah next week. The day before, my 20 year old daughter had returned home from an 18 month mission for my church (yay!!) and we were busy getting ready to have a bunch of family come in for a welcome home celebration this weekend. Oh yeah, and I ended up dealing with some kind of stomach bug at 1am Saturday morning, and my husband has been fighting a cold. It's been a bit hectic over the past few days, to say the least!
So yesterday I get home from a full morning and decide that I've just got to lay down for a nap. My husband is in the kitchen puttering around, and sounding like maybe he's getting ready to make some homemade bread. I didn't think too much about it because it's very typical for him to make homemade bread. It's kind of a relaxation exercise for him. We are used to hearing the humming of the Bosch mixer, seeing the cloud of flour dust in the kitchen, and anticipating the smell of fresh baked bread an hour or so later.
Flashback to 1987 when my husband was getting ready to leave home and fly (for the first time in his life) to Spain to serve his own full-time mission for two years. He knew that he would miss his Mom's homemade bread, so he asked her to teach him how to do it. His mother, a well-seasoned bread maker, had been creating homemade loaves about twice a week for as long as he could remember. My husband's parents were humble farmers, and operated a small dairy and beef operation in Idaho that eeked out just enough of a living to help them raise their family of ten children. Suffice it to say that these two people that raised my husband are gold. I have watched them spend nearly every minute of every day, since I have known them, working hard and sacrificing their own needs and wants to raise a big family, serve in their church and in their community, and filling the world with music and love.
My husband's family in the mid-80's. He's 2nd from the left in the back, next to his sweet bread-making Mom.
But I divert ... let's jump forward to 2017. We have been reading the #LightTheWorld suggestions every evening as a family, right after we do our Lego advent calendar, read a story from the Christmas book my mother made a couple of decades ago, and right before we kneel together in family prayer. Sometimes reading through these daily #LightTheWorld suggestions and watching the little video is very impactful, but honestly, sometimes it just kind of feels like a duty that we read through and then forget by the time we wake up the next morning. So earlier this week I added something to our routine. I started asking if anyone had something to share about an experience from that day where they had applied or experienced the current day's #LightTheWorld suggestion. This got everyone's attention, especially because the first time I asked... crickets!
Image source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/455567318534585529/
Adding this little daily accountability has really helped our children (and ourselves) to think a little harder about actually trying to do something about our Light The World challenge each day.
So yesterday, I had come home from this very busy morning and decided to lay down for a nap. My husband was in the kitchen making homemade bread, and I just said hello and then headed to my lovely bed for a rest. I woke up an hour or two later, smelling fresh bread wafting throughout the house, and hearing my phone notifications dinging. I glanced at my Facebook feed to see what was up, and saw that my husband has posted the following:
Are you hungry? Today the #LighttheWorldCampaign is based on the scripture that says I was naked and you clothed me. I have a proposition. For those of you who live in my area that are willing to donate $10 to my campaign to help the poor and needy in Kenya I will deliver a loaf of homemade bread that I am making. If you are not in the area you can still donate to my campaign. This offer is good to the first 10 people that donate. We help them by teaching them how to lift themselves out of poverty. https://choicehumanitarian.rallybound.org/choice10k/lonnyward/
My heart was touched. Here I am sleeping the afternoon away, and my wonderful husband, who's not feeling any better than me today is busy serving others and lighting the world in his typical way. But again, I am not surprised. As I mentioned earlier, it's no surprise to see him baking bread. It's also no surprise to see him serving others. My husband is the type of man that many women only dream they could find. (Not that I'm biased or anything!) He is always thinking of everyone and everything else besides himself. In fact, I have to remind him to sit down and watch a show with me, or take a relaxing bath and read a favorite book. He just always wants to be up working hard, not for himself, but for others. Like parents, like son.
In fact, this man of mine is so devoted to service that he gave up a promising career in the corporate agriculture industry to retool himself and network with those in international development until he was able to finally make service his full-time job. It wasn't an easy road either. Seriously, only those who have attempted it can fully understand. Think about it. How can you get a full-time paying job with a charity? It's not easy at all. They certainly want your skills and your volunteer hours, but most of them run on donations and have very little money to pay for salaries for those who want to make volunteerism their career. Not to mention the fact that donors don't want to hear about their money going to pay for salaries instead of going directly to the poor, and that's completely understandable. I feel the same way! Yet if you want a well-run and well-managed organization that actually makes a difference and helps bring about lasting change, you have to have at least a few people who are full time facilitators.
Needless to say, when looking for a career in the international development field, we had to figure out a way to do it while still keeping our own family fed and clothed. In fact, the whole process took about four years of under-employment until my husband finally landed a full-time permanent job with a wonderful company. During those lean years, we wondered if we were just insane as we used up all of our own resources and savings and learned to have true empathy for those we were hoping to help as we became recipients of the generosity of others for a short period. But it was so worth it! I firmly believe that sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven, and wow every minute of sacrifice is worth it when you are able to see the lives of others changed forever.
Back to the story... When I saw the post my husband made and some of the responses he was already receiving from family and friends, I got myself out of bed to see what was going on. Entering the kitchen, I found a counter full of loaves of homemade bread wrapped and ready to deliver. (He had said in his post that he was limiting the offer to the first ten people that responded, but we've got to make another batch today and probably tomorrow because he has more deliveries to make!) It's just neat to think that this little tradition his Mom started so many years ago just to feed and love her own family is now helping to feed and love people in faraway Kenya, and a dozen other developing countries where my husband has traveled. We never realize how large our reach is, and how each little thing we do can make great big things happen down the road.
Guatemala, Feb 7, 2017: "Last Saturday I taught these wonderful ladies to make bread. We did not have bread pans so we just used a cake pan. It was very good and the ladies were very excited to learn how to make it. Thanks again to my wonderful mother who taught me to make bread."
When we gathered for family time last night and got to the part about our #LightTheWorld challenge, we had no problem coming up with something to share about how it had been implemented that day. Everyone in the family had participated in either helping make the bread, cleaning up after the project, delivering it, or eating some of it. (Yeah, I was one of those who benefited from eating a slice and not much else, haha!) But then I did reshare it on my Facebook page and now I'm writing this. So I guess I helped after all. We're a good team, this man and I. 💖
Let me just sum this up by sharing a bit of advice. I have truly found throughout my life that it is only in reaching outside of ourselves that we can find the true joy that everyone is running around so furiously trying to find. It is only by looking for others whose burdens we can share that we will truly find peace from our own burdens. I know this principle to be true from my own experiences with following it, as well as my failures when I have focused only on myself and found sorrow in life instead of joy.
"Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:34-40
How will you #LightTheWorld today?
JS
To learn more about Light The World 2017, visit https://www.mormon.org/christmas/25-ways-25-days
To learn more about the non-profit my husband works for, follow
