As a new year begins, many of us find ourselves contemplating resolutions and seeking guidance for the year ahead. In a powerful conversation on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, host Yvette Hampton welcomes Heidi St. John to discuss New Year’s resolutions, the importance of faith, and the role of parents in shaping the next generation. In this post, we dive into the insightful conversation, highlighting key takeaways and Heidi’s thought-provoking advice that will inspire and encourage you on your own resolution journey.
Recognizing God’s Plan and Trusting Him:
Is our nation overdue for judgement? Heidi St. John believes that our nation has tested God’s mercy for too long, and is now reaping the consequences of his judgement. This realization serves as a call to action for Christians to seek God’s will in all areas of life, their personal faith and obedience education, how they are stewarding their families, how they are interacting in culture, how they are engaging in the civic process, and how they are living out the great commission. Heidi states, “Our job is to say ‘yes’ to God and allow Him to guide us, even when we feel scared or inadequate.” This reminder challenges us to step out in faith, trusting in God’s in his strength, rather than ours, to live out his purpose for our lives. Despite the difficulties and uncertainties we may encounter, we can find strength knowing that God is ultimately in control and will work “all things together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
Finding Strength in Weakness:
“The Bible says that his strength is found in weakness. And so I love to tell homeschool moms, do you feel weak right now? Congratulations. You’re exactly where God wants you because he wants the glory.”
Heidi St. John
Heidi recognizes the pressure parents often feel to be perfect. Addressing this struggle, she encourages honesty and authenticity in parenting, stating, “It is okay to be transparent with our children about the challenges we face in life.” As parents, we can find solace in our weaknesses by leaning on God and allowing Him to work through us. By acknowledging our need for His grace, we can model humility and dependence on Him for our children.
The Power of the Word of God:
Heidi St. John’s newly released book, “Mom Strong 365,” is a 365-day devotional that beautifully exemplifies the importance of grounding our lives in God’s Word. Describing her motivation behind writing the book, Heidi shares, “I wanted to offer a tool for encouragement and strengthening faith in moms, pointing them back to Scripture and the work of Jesus in my own life.” The devotional serves as a supplement to Scripture, providing daily encouragement and reminders of God’s goodness and faithfulness.
Engaging in Community and Civic Responsibility:
Heidi and Yvette also discuss the importance of being informed and involved in our communities, particularly when it comes to politics and education. Heidi emphasizes that Christians belong in every sphere of influence, including politics, education, and entertainment. She encourages Christians to engage in the political process and participate in local elections, such as city council and school board races. Heidi remarks, “Our involvement is crucial, even if we don’t always win. It is about being faithful and speaking up for biblical values.”
Making Time for the Lord:
“It’s amazing to me. I wake up in the morning and my Bible weighs a thousand pounds and my phone weighs two ounces. And I think it’s our human nature… It’s so important that we’re honest about it because it’s a spiritual battle. So from the minute we wake up in the morning, we need to understand that it’s the enemy’s number one goals to keep us from communicating and talking with and leaning into our relationship with the Lord.”
Heidi St. John
One recurring theme throughout the conversation is the necessity of carving out time for the Lord amidst the busyness of daily life. Heidi acknowledges the challenges of finding time in a packed schedule and the distractions that come with it. She shares, “We need to prioritize starting our day with the Lord, as it sets the tone for the rest of the day.” Heidi’s reminder prompts us to be intentional about spending time in God’s Word, understanding that it is vital to know Him and pass on our faith to our children.
As we embark on a new year filled with unknowns and daunting challenges, we pray that these insights will offer perspective, encouragement, and inspiration. The power of recognizing God’s plan, finding strength in weakness, immersing ourselves in His Word, engaging in our communities, and making time for the Lord all contribute to a life that glorifies Him. Let us embrace this New Year’s resolution journey, knowing that God goes before us and that He equips us for every step along the way.
Recommended Resources:
Check out Heidi’s new book, The Mouse & The Sea, from Brave Books!
MomStrong 365: A Daily Devotional to Encourage and Empower Everyday Moms, by Heidi St. John
More books from Heidi St. John
Heidi St. John – Off The Bench Podcast
More from Heidi St. John on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast
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Discussion Questions:
1. How can we respond biblically to the sinful culture we live in, while still maintaining hope and trust in God?
2. Discuss the role of fear in hindering our faith and obedience. How does God’s word tell us to address fear?
3. How do comparisons and the pressure to be perfect affect parents? How can we cultivate a healthy perspective in our parenting?
4. How does social media impact our ability to focus on our individual callings and stay true to our faith? Is it possible to be intentional about using social media in a positive way?
5. Have you ever experienced closed doors that later led to better opportunities? How did you navigate through those difficult times?
6. How has your understanding of walking with God and trusting in His plan evolved as you have grown older and more mature in the faith?
7. How do you balance being transparent with your children about the challenges you face, while still instilling faith and trust in God?
8. How can we prioritize spending time with the Lord in our busy schedules? Share any practical strategies you have found helpful.
9. How do you ensure that you are passing on your faith to your children? What intentional steps do you take to instill a love for God and His Word in them?
10. What are some trustworthy resources you have found for staying informed about politics and culture? How do you discern truth in a world filled with misinformation?
Heidi New Year
Yvette Hampton:
Hey, everyone. This is yvette Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. It is 2024. It is a new year, and I am so excited that you are with me. I cannot think of anyone better to kick off this new year than my good friend Heidi St. John. We've had a great time chatting before we hit the record button.
Yvette Hampton:
And if you guys, I know most of you are probably familiar with Heidi, because if you've seen our movie Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution (Free Streaming Link), Heidi is in it a lot. Like her voice is the main voice in the movie, and God used her in amazing ways to just fill the narrative of that movie and share her wisdom. And so I know most of you are already familiar with her, but if you're not, you're going to love getting to know her this week. Her family is amazing. They have so many things going on. Lots of ministry to families, to homeschoolers. They do tons and tons of fun stuff. And so we're going to get to know her this week, and we're going to talk about some really fun things.
Yvette Hampton:
It's, of course, a new year, so we're going to talk about New Year's resolutions. And I think oftentimes we think of those in regards to how can we better our lives, like, what things can we do to improve our lives, to improve our families, to grow in our relationship with the Lord. And so we're going to talk about those things this week. We're also going to talk about her new book called Mom Strong 365. If you're watching, you can see this on the video and it is a 365 day devotional. And I've had a really great time going through that for the past several months. And she just shares so much of her wisdom and it's all, of course, based in scripture. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that.
Yvette Hampton:
I want to talk a little bit this week about the upcoming election. This is another election year, and so I don't know what we're in for this year. Of course, no one knows, but Heidi has been entrenched in the political world. And so we're going to talk about how we can navigate this with our kids and encourage them through the process of walking through another election and how the Lord can use us to do that. So it's going to be a fun week. Heidi, welcome back to the podcast. It's been a little while since you've been on, and for those of you who are living under a rock and maybe they don't know who Heidi St. John is, introduce to us yourself and your family.
Yvette Hampton:
Well, happy New Year.
Heidi St. John:
First of all, we made pretty it was touch and go there for a while. So happy New Year to you guys. It's good to see you, as always. People ask me sometimes, what do you do? And it's easier for me to say what I don't do maybe than what I do. But Jay and I think the main thing is we've been married for coming up on 35 years. We have seven children and four grandbabies so far, and we've been homeschooling for a very long time. I'm the author of nine books and the host of the off the Bench podcast. I run a ministry for women, a Bible study ministry called Faith that Speaks.
Heidi St. John:
And so we produce brand new Bible studies there every single month. And of course, I speak for a living, so I'm out on the circuit doing a lot of women's conferences and that kind of thing. So very busy. We also run the Homeschool Resource Center here. We have about a little over 700 students that come to firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center every single week. So that's a lot of fun just to see God doing that. We have a passion to see people walking in right. Relationship with the Lord in a culture that's really on its head.
Heidi St. John:
It's on its head spiritually, it's on its head politically. And I think God puts us here for such a time as this.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah.
Heidi St. John:
So that's a little bit about me. It's really great to be back and to see you guys and always love hearing what God's doing through you.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah, thank you. Well, it's so much fun to partner with you from different parts of the country in reaching homeschool, families and Christian families, because I know, like us here at the Schoolhouse Rocked podcast, your whole mission in life is to help families to disciple their kids. Right. To help parents to point their kids to Jesus. I mean, that's really what it's all about. It's the only thing that really matters. And so I love the body of Christ and how the Lord just partners us with one another in different parts of the world, really. And you guys are doing a fantastic job of doing that.
Yvette Hampton:
In Vancouver, Washington, I know you mentioned that you're going to be speaking at, I think you said, eleven homeschool conferences or somewhere around there this year. Where can people find out about where you're speaking?
Heidi St. John:
They can just go to HeidiStJohn.com/events and it's easier to find me there. And sometimes if we add things to the schedule, everything gets put there. So HeidiStJohn.com/events.
Yvette Hampton:
Awesome. Okay, well, we'll of course put all those links in the show notes. So let's talk about New Year's resolutions, Heidi, because now you've had a few years of experience as an adult, and even, I think into our teen years.
Heidi St. John:
We start thinking about, oh, what are.
Yvette Hampton:
Our New Year's revolution?
Heidi St. John:
Yes.
Yvette Hampton:
And as I think through that, I think so often, we always want to improve all the things that we think need improvement. Right. We have kind of our bucket list of here's what things I need to change. I don't know why we wait until January to do that, but it's like starting a diet on a Monday, right? You can't start a diet on a Thursday. So you can't start a New Year's resolution in October. I mean, it has to be in January. Let's talk through those. As you talk to people, what are some of the top New Year's resolutions that you would see people jumping into?
Heidi St. John:
Well, I mean, I think for the Christian community, we want to hopefully grow closer in our walk with the Lord. I was just speaking the other night with my son in law, with one of my sons in law, and he was saying to me that a really good friend of his had said, listen, if we make a doctor's appointment and we have to be there, we say we're going to come at seven in the morning, whatever, then that's what we do. We know that we keep that appointment. He said he really has been challenged to make that appointment with the Lord and keep it as if it was a doctor's appointment or a dentist appointment or any kind of appointment that we would keep. He said, I need to have this ongoing appointment with the Lord. And that really encouraged and blessed me a, to hear it coming from my son in law, but also just, it was an encouragement to me to say we need to take it seriously. It's like, motherhood, we want to treat our motherhood. This opportunity we have to raise children as if it were a career, because it is.
Heidi St. John:
And so to me, I think that's what I hear the most. But I always tell people when we put the bar so high that we know we're going to trip trying to get over it. Usually what happens is we start for a little while, we're maybe good for a week or two, and then we get discouraged because we can't keep up. And then that discouragement leads to frustration. Then we finally just quit. Something I learned from my husband a long time ago was especially when it came to being in the Bible or even exercising, he's like, listen, just start small. We can do anything for five minutes a day. If you haven't been in the Bible, maybe the best thing is not going to be to start off with Jay Arthur's deep dive.
Heidi St. John:
Maybe it's just going to be, hey, I'm going to make this appointment with the Lord and I'm going to keep it. So I feel like that's the most important thing. We're living in extraordinary times and we need to know the Lord. We need to know his word. We need to know what it says. We need to be able to defend it. We need to know that God has a plan. And you learn that by being in His Word.
Yvette Hampton:
One of the things I've learned from you, Heidi, and I'm sure you're probably not the first person ever to say this, but years ago I remember hearing you say, we can't pass on to our kids what we don't possess. And just that rings in my head all the time is that if I'm not in the Word and I don't know the word of God and I don't have a relationship with Jesus, how can I possibly pass that on to my kids? Right? It's different than know, I love this kind of spaghetti sauce and my kid likes that kind of spaghetti sauce. That's okay. That doesn't make any difference in the realm of eternity. But when it comes to knowing the Word, we have to actually know and understand the word of God if we're going to pass that on to our kids. And that means that we have to be in the word of God in order to pass that on to our kids. Heidi, as we're looking at just the culture that we're in and we're looking at New Year's resolutions and we're looking at growing in our relationship with the Lord, one of the things that I was reading the other day in the book of John and John, chapter eight, verse 31 and 32 really stood out to me. And it says this, it says so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
Yvette Hampton:
And I recently was thinking about the song Amazing Grace and how my chains are gone. I've been set free and there is no better way to be set free than to know the Lord. So I would love for you to talk just very quickly, give kind of a brief overview if Heidi St. John were to get up in the morning and it's time for her to get into her busy day. Because, Heidi, you are quite possibly the busiest person I have ever met in my whole life. But it's amazing because the Lord is doing incredible things through you. But you're busy. You are busy.
Yvette Hampton:
How do you find time with the Lord? And when you are spending time with the Lord each day, what does that look like for you?
Heidi St. John:
Well, the first thing, I always feel like it's important to just say I am not in the Word every day. I want to be, but just like everybody else. Sometimes I wake up and I realize I'm late for an orthodontist appointment or something happens with my kids or I'm just lazy. My sin nature takes over. I told an audience not too long ago when I was speaking in Texas that it's amazing to me. I wake up in the morning and my Bible weighs 1000 pounds and my phone weighs 2oz. And I think it's our human nature. I think it's so important that we're honest about it because it's a spiritual battle, right? So from the minute we wake up in the morning, we need to understand that it's the enemy's number one goals to keep us from communicating and talking with and leaning into our relationship with the Lord.
Heidi St. John:
So that helps me a lot, is just to recognize this is a spiritual battle. And it is absolutely. I think if we could see what was happening in the spiritual realms with our natural eyes, we'd be on our faces before the Lord. So when I'm remembering that my very favorite thing to do is just to find a quiet place in my room, I've got a nice little nook in my room that I like to go sit in and just bring a cup of tea and just spend a little bit of time reading the word and the just asking the Lord, lord, what do you have for me today? So that I can yield my plans for his, because he's got his plan and I've got mine. And so what I want to do is walk in right. Relationship with him. And so that really is how I try to start my days again. I take a lot of encouragement from my husband, who's been good at this for 35 years.
Heidi St. John:
I rarely ever see him in the morning without a Bible in his hand. And it's that consistency that we want to promote, even to our children. Like you just rightfully said, we can't pass on what we don't possess. We can't give what we don't have, we can't pour from an empty cup. And we know, as mothers, particularly in a culture right now, a lot is being required, and we want to go to the Lord for that. So for me, when I am on my game and walking with the Lord, that is my time to do that. It's just setting my alarm clock and actually getting up early, which is not my natural this is not me in my natural habitat.
Yvette Hampton:
Right.
Heidi St. John:
But when I'm up early, there's something really precious that happens between me and the Lord. And also I get a jump on my day, which I really appreciate. Those first couple of hours in the morning are really precious.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. So important. It is a habit that we have to form. We have to be disciplined and intentional about it. It's like brushing our teeth, right?
Heidi St. John:
Yeah.
Yvette Hampton:
I don't know, sometime last week. This is really gross and personal, probably, but it was like, halfway through the day, and I was like, why do my teeth feel so gross? And I don't remember what happened that day, but something happened where I had to get up and get moving right away, and I forgot to brush my teeth. I brush my teeth every day. I'm really particular about brushing my teeth every morning, every night, sometimes in the middle of the day, too, depending on how the feel. And it was like lunchtime, and I was like, My teeth feel so gross. And I realized, oh, I didn't brush my teeth today. That's why they feel disgusting.
Heidi St. John:
Yeah.
Yvette Hampton:
And it's like that with reading god's word, right, where we get halfway through the day and sometimes it should at least feel like something's off, like something's just not quite right. And I will sometimes realize I got up just like you. I got up and running. Now, I do have a habit and most days, almost every day, I get up and spend time with the Lord. But there are those days too, where I just like you said, something happens, I've got to respond to something really quickly and I think I'll do it later. And the later comes very hard to do it later. It is so hard, very hard.
Heidi St. John:
I mean, we can have the best of intentions. We say, I'll get back to it. But once the day is running and the phone calls come and the kids need your attention, know all the things, it's hard. And so, at least for me, if I don't do it first thing in the morning, chances are pretty good it's not going to get done at.
Yvette Hampton:
Right, right. And you have those people like Garritt, my husband, he is a night owl and so he reads his Bible at nighttime every night. It will be 02:00 in the morning and he will read and he can stay awake. I'm like, how can you do mean I would get know in the beginning and then I would be out completely asleep, not able to read another word.
Heidi St. John:
Me too.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah, I guess it depends on your body rhythm and if you're a morning person or night person. But either way so yes, we do need to know that. And I think one of the things that makes it so important is so that we know the word of God and we know how to respond to this crazy culture in which we're living. And I want to park there for just a few minutes because as we're reading God's word, as we're studying, as we're teaching it to our kids, how can we and our kids respond to everything that's going on around us? I mean, there's so much craziness going on that sometimes.
Heidi St. John:
I just want to.
Yvette Hampton:
Curl up in a ball and just say, I don't want to go outside, I don't want to go to Walmart, I don't want to look at the ads, I don't want to face the sin of the world going to the mall. I hate going to the mall because me too. A flashing neon sign of sin. And I don't know what it is about the mall, but how do we help our kids, in addition to being in God's Word each day, how do we help them respond to this insane sinful culture in which we're living?
Heidi St. John:
Well, I think part of it is just recognizing that God has a plan and that plan is working itself out. The Bible teaches us that the world is literally groaning under the weight of sin.
Yvette Hampton:
Right?
Heidi St. John:
So we know that this is not going to get better until the Lord comes back, but we have a job to do. I spent three and a half months at the end of this last year teaching women at Faith. That speaks through the Book of Revolution and it always ends up being such an encouragement for me because you can see a God sees the sin, he's not unaffected by it and it grieves his heart. And one day soon, the Lord's going to come back and he's going to set things right. And we know that's going to happen and we also know that we have a responsibility to walk rightly with Him. I want my kids to know that. And we saw this in COVID. I mean, you saw how much I rebelled against all the things that were happening to the country in the middle of the Rona.
Heidi St. John:
But the reality is, I want my kids to know we don't live by fear. God's people live by faith, right? Proverbs says some might trust in horses and some might trust in chariots, but we don't the children of God. We trust in the name of the Lord. So whether it's COVID or a car accident or cancer, you're not going home a day before the Lord of Heaven's army says, already decreed that you're going home. And what that does is it sets us free to live not in fear, which clouds our judgment and I think can keep us really from doing what God wants us to do. But we can actually walk this thing out in faith, knowing that my days are going to be fulfilled according to God's plan and purpose for my life. And so I try to model that for our we. Jay and I have done some crazy know, I ran for Congress a couple of years ago and that was terrifying.
Heidi St. John:
And I remember my grandmother telling know, you can do anything. Just do it afraid. And the truth is, it doesn't really matter what the headlines are. It only matters what God says in his word. And so we want to be wise, but we don't want to live in fear. And if there's one thing that I think has really taken the church hostage in the last, probably decade, it's fear. It's fear of social retribution. It's fear of losing people in our church because we actually preach the whole council of God, not part of it.
Heidi St. John:
And we live in fear, but God says that we're not to do that. It's actually disobedience. And so I spent a lot of time as a speaker reminding people of what God says in His Word. And interesting to note also the very last chapter and the very last paragraph of the Book of Revelation, where God outlines eventually what separates people from Him for all eternity, right? And obviously it's that we didn't accept Christ into our life, but he starts listing the sins that he hates. You know what the very first thing on that list. Is it's cowardice.
Yvette Hampton:
Cowardice. Yeah.
Heidi St. John:
It matters. And I think we're going to get a chance to stand for our faith and God wants us to stand. So if anybody ever needs, like, a real shot in the arm for what that looks like, read through Revelation.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. Oh, man, I love that your grandmother talked about just doing it in fear. Do it scared. And we've said that before, even in regards to homeschooling because so many parents, they don't want to homeschool because they're afraid. And I get it. Trust me, I get it. It's scary to homeschool, especially when you're not a teacher. You don't feel like you're equipped.
Yvette Hampton:
You don't feel like you're organized. You don't feel like you're smart enough. You don't feel like you have all the things that it takes, but do it scared and then trust the Lord. It's the best way to do it because then we have to completely depend on Him for all the things. Right.
Heidi St. John:
And you likely don't have what it takes, which is great.
Yvette Hampton:
Right?
Heidi St. John:
Because the Bible says that his strength is found in weakness. And so I love to tell homeschool, moms, do you feel weak right now? Congratulations. You're exactly where God wants you because he wants the glory. And ultimately that's what it's about. It's not about getting to the end of our homeschool journey and just going, hey, I found this amazing curriculum and therefore now I'm a successful homeschool mom. No, it's about the Lord and finding his strength in the midst of weakness, crying out to Him and saying, father, I couldn't do this if it wasn't for you, and then turning our eyes heavenward. And as we do that, our children see us doing it. So as they grow up and leave our home, they're not going, well, if I don't have success with that particular curriculum or I don't have success in that particular program, then I'm not going to be successful.
Heidi St. John:
No, you need to lean into the Lord and God wants to give you the victory. And to me, that's one of the most exciting things about Christian homeschooling. It's like, wow, look what God's doing.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. He gets all the praise and the glory for it in the end, and it is the absolute best way to homeschool. Well, Heidi, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad to have you back with me today.
Heidi St. John:
Thanks for inviting me. It's always fun.
Yvette Hampton:
We're always having a hoot and hollering good time. I love it when you say that. We do have a hoot and hollering good time. You are a fun person to be around. And the St. John clan, man, you guys, they are quite fun.
Heidi St. John:
Let me just jay. I'm a little biased, but they're awesome.
Yvette Hampton:
They are fun. You have the most entertaining family gatherings of, I think, any family I've ever met. Well, not that entertaining. Just fun entertaining.
Heidi St. John:
It's interesting, too. As they're getting older, I was just telling you, a few months ago, we celebrated my husband's birthday, and so all the kids came, which was great because they're busy now. They're grown. They got lives of their own. So it's hard to get everybody together in one place. It was just kind of fun for me to sit back and just watch them. One of them was playing guitar, and the other ones were talking, and Summer was playing with the grandkids, and I was like, man, the last 35 years just went by really fast. And the fruit now, right? We spend most of our lives in the know.
Heidi St. John:
We're just sowing sowing, sowing it feels like it. And then all of a sudden, you start to reap. And Jay and I are definitely in a season of reaping right now, and it's a lot of fun just to see our kids grown up and walking with the Lord. And it's good. Yeah.
Yvette Hampton:
And you know what? Sometimes it's really hard as we're planting those seeds.
Heidi St. John:
Oh, man.
Yvette Hampton:
And I know from knowing your family, one of the things I hate about podcast, social media, all the things is that people seem to think, like, oh, all those other people have it together, and their family are all perfect, and the don't mess up as parents. Their kids are perfect. They're well behaved. They're all the things. And we have this fantasy that everyone else is doing it right and we're somehow doing it wrong. And then that's when the enemy comes in and he comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and he wants to destroy us by helping know, making us think, well, you're not good enough. You're not doing it right. Your family is not as good as the St. John family or as good as the Hampton family or whoever your neighbor might be. And the we get discouraged, and that's when we want to throw up our hands and give up. And so that's a really difficult comparison.
Heidi St. John:
Is a thief of contentment, right?
Yvette Hampton:
No kidding.
Heidi St. John:
It steals your jay. And honestly, I think you and I have talked about this before, but even for someone like me, people can look at our family and think, oh, they've achieved a fair amount of whatever success, whatever you want to call that. I guarantee you there's always somebody that I'm looking at who I think, oh, they're doing it better than me. Or I have these moments where I just feel like I'm a terrible mother, or, Gosh, I wish I hadn't said that on the podcast. Or I think when we start looking at ourselves, hopefully through the lens of scripture and just start again, say, Father, let me just do what you've called me to do in my life. So that the success that I find is the success that comes from knowing that I'm pleasing you in my life. That makes the whole scenario kind of turns it on its head and reminds us what's really important because we got to stop social media. Everybody's putting their A roll up there.
Heidi St. John:
Well, we don't live in the A roll world. We live in b-roll.
Yvette Hampton:
Right?
Heidi St. John:
Yeah. And I think it's important. It's why it's the reason I love so much ministering to mothers, because I like to remind moms, listen, bad days don't make bad moms. We've had a lot of them.
Yvette Hampton:
It's good.
Heidi St. John:
We got to be honest. I'm a huge fan, as you well know, of just being honest and just telling the truth. Like, this is the way it is, and people are either going to love you or they're not. And at the end of the day, I'm out for the approval of the Lord, and I think that helps kit helps our kids, too, when they see us. Jay we're out for the approval of the Lord.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. Sometimes we just want to put our hands over our ears and go, la la, I can't hear you. I don't want to know the truth about anything. And the truth is still there. Reality is still there. We have to know how to navigate that through that with our kids.
Heidi St. John:
And you can't have I mean, in the culture that we live in now, which is so social media driven, it's become really hard just to be quiet in our own lives and just do what God's called us to do, because we're always looking all the things that everybody else is doing. And sometimes people will say to me, how did you write all those books and raise all those children and start the Homeschool Resource Center and podcast and all things? And my answer is very simple. There is a peculiar grace over our lives for what God has asked us to do. And everything that we do, Jay and I do together. It's been a family calling in our lives for a really long time, and if it wasn't for the fact that Jay and I do it together full time, we wouldn't be able to do it.
Yvette Hampton:
And so we need to look and.
Heidi St. John:
See, hey, Lord, what have you asked me to do for this season? And then you realize that things change, right? You and I were talking about this before we started recording, like, I'm entering a new season of my life right now. And so the question becomes, Lord, what is it going to look like for the next 20 years? And then we lean in and he'll show us. It's amazing walking with the Lord.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. And our job is to simply say, yes. Yes, Lord. Use me however you want to. Use me to impact my family, to impact your kingdom. What is it that you want from me? And he'll let us know. I mean, he's going to open doors. He's going to close doors.
Yvette Hampton:
He's done that with you in a million different ways. He's opened and closed doors. And I know that there's been times, even in your family where. You just were devastated because something didn't pan out the way you wanted it. You had been praying so hard for something to happen and God closed the door and you were like, but why, Lord? And then it was because years later he had something better.
Heidi St. John:
Yes. And he does that.
Yvette Hampton:
He does.
Heidi St. John:
Yes. And as I think we grow older, I'm into my fifty s now. And I think my walk with him has become more precious as I've gotten older because I realize how quickly the years go by, right. They really are fleeting. And so we want to walk not behind him, not out in front of him. We're always like, Catch up with me, Lord. I've got this great dream that I want you to follow. But just learning how to walk with Him, that's kind of what we got to you.
Heidi St. John:
Talking about yesterday, is that commitment to say, Lord, I'm going to meet with You, I want to hear from you. Take my life and mold it into what you want it to look like. And when we allow the Lord to do that, life becomes an adventure.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah, adventure is a good word. Yes, an adventure. It is an adventure and just learning to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. And again, because our kids are watching us walk through this. They're watching us walk through our relationship with the Lord and the struggles that we go through. And it's okay to tell our kids. I mean, we don't want to be the humdrum, oh, life is so awful all the time. Nothing is ever going right.
Yvette Hampton:
We don't want to be that person. But it's okay to say to our kids, you know what, this is a really hard season that we're in. But the Lord knows and he sees us and he hears us. And so we're going to continue trusting Him. And having our kids walk through that with us will prepare them so much better for adulthood. Because spoiler alert, this world's not getting any easier. Right? Our kids are walking into some hard times.
Heidi St. John:
And I think this is probably a great segue into talking about politics because I really do think that our nation is ripe for judgment. And the only thing that has to happen for this nation to fall into judgment is for the Lord to remove his hand of protection from it. And we basically kicked him out. We kicked him out of our government, we kicked him out of our schools. In many cases, sadly, we kicked him out of our churches and the world. I mean, Geopolitically, the world is on fire. We've got an election coming up in 2024. A lot of people don't even trust our election system anymore, which, by the way, you still have to vote.
Heidi St. John:
Doesn't matter if you don't trust it. My friend Mike Ferris is always telling me, what's the surest way to lose a fight? Oh, I know. Just don't show up. Up that's the surest way to lose the battle. And so we need people to be engaged. But even in the political heat of battle, we have to remember we do our part and then we just say, father, not our will, but yours. And I think it's the same with whether we're talking about what's happening geopolitically, certainly in the world what's happening in Israel. I mean, these have been a rough, rough couple of months.
Heidi St. John:
Six months, actually. The last six months have been very difficult. But God is still on his throne, and his plan is not going to be thwarted. Our job is to go, okay, Lord, it's 2024. We're here for such a time as this. What do you want? That's why I always tell people, get off the bench, get into the game. You're here, you're here. So the question becomes, Lord, yvette, you could have been born 100 years ago or 100 years from now, but God in his mercy and in his wisdom said, no, this is time.
Heidi St. John:
This is event's time to be out here in my timeline. And so I want people to engage in the process and not be afraid of it.
Yvette Hampton:
We need to show up and vote. We need to be on this battlefield. And man, so often on this podcast, we talk about Ephesians 610 through 20, about putting on the full armor of God. That is what we're to do as parents, right? We are to put that armor on them. We are to teach our kids not just put on the armor, but we're then to teach them how to fight. And we're to teach them how to fight biblically, which is why it's so important to have a biblical foundation set for our kids, which is why we're homeschooling them, right? It's not anyone else's job to do that. That's our job as their parents, is to set that foundation for them. But then as we're setting that foundation, we are armoring them up, not just with their armor, but also mentally, we're armoring them up as well.
Yvette Hampton:
Talk about that. How do we teach our kids to engage in this culture as we're entering into another election? How do we armor them up emotionally for this?
Heidi St. John:
Well, I think the first thing is they're going to be looking at us. They're going to be looking at their parents. So if we're watching the news every day and freaking out, if we're just wringing our hands and oh my goodness, actually, I learned this from one of my know years ago, who know, mom, this is the world I'm actually going to. And every day I hear you say, well, things have never been worse. This is know, look, the country's on fire and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Joe Biden can't string two coherent sentences together, which is actually true. And I was discouraging know, and I really had to kind of take a good look in the mirror and say, is this really what I want. Do I want to discourage my daughter? No, I don't want to discourage her.
Heidi St. John:
I want her to realize, I want her to find her voice in the culture. And so I think we need to be really careful as parents if we're constantly watching the news, constantly got whatever news is on your SiriusXM channel, in your car, you're always watching on YouTube or whatever. I think that's wrong. It's a wrong approach. We need to have balance in our lives for our kids, and I think they also need to see that civic engagement is really important. We launched a 501 C four called Firmly Planted Action in the late summer of last year. And the idea is to encourage a new generation towards civic engagement in our country. People will say, Well, Romans 13, we're not supposed to disobey the government.
Heidi St. John:
My goodness, what a misapplication and a wrong headed understanding of Romans 13. In this country, we are Caesar, and we have the opportunity, a very unique opportunity to participate in the process. And so I want my kids to follow my or Paul said, rather follow me as I follow Jesus. And so that's what we're doing as parents, right? We're setting the tone for our kids. And so about eight or nine years ago, I started going to school board meetings. I mean, long before it was cool, I was going to school board meetings.
Yvette Hampton:
And long before you were considered a terrorist?
Heidi St. John:
Yeah, long before I was considered a domestic terrorist. But partly because people say, well, why would you do that? Your kids aren't in the public school. Because it should matter to us what's happening in the public school. These are tomorrow's teachers, these are tomorrow's doctors and lawyers and judges. These are the people that are going to be determining your quality of life and the quality of life for your grandchildren. And people will say, well, Christians shouldn't be in politics. Boy, I could not disagree more with that. We belong christians belong in every sphere of influence.
Heidi St. John:
Someone will say to me, well, politics is dirty, so is the church. What's your I mean, as long as we live on this earth, jesus said to take dominion. And so Christians belong in politics, we belong in education, we belong in entertainment, we belong in all these spheres of influence. And when we decided to step out, particularly as it relates to politics, evil filled the vacuum. That's what will always happen when the light is removed, darkness will fill the vacuum. When I was running for Congress a couple of years ago, I went to probably 200 churches in the Congressional district.
Yvette Hampton:
That I ran for.
Heidi St. John:
It was a huge district, right? So it stretched from eastern Washington all the way out to the ocean. And I would reach out to these pastors in these churches, say, Hi, my name is Heidi St. John. I'm a Christian. I'm running for the Third Congressional District I'd love the opportunity to come and speak for your women's Bible study or do a Q and A at your church. You know how many churches yvette would let me do that?
Yvette Hampton:
Two. Not many.
Heidi St. John:
Yeah, two of the out of 200.
Yvette Hampton:
Wow.
Heidi St. John:
Shocking. It's so disappointing. And this is not we wonder Christians wringing their hands. We've lost the culture. No, you gave the culture up.
Yvette Hampton:
Right.
Heidi St. John:
We didn't lose anything. We forfeited it.
Yvette Hampton:
We didn't lose it.
Heidi St. John:
It may be that the 2024 elections are just a garbage election. I don't know. We end up with another four years of terrible leadership. I mean, the last four years have been devastating for this country. Devastating at our southern border, devastating financially, devastating socially, devastating spiritually. Why? Because God's people have disengaged.
Yvette Hampton:
Right.
Heidi St. John:
And I want to encourage people to get involved. And I hope that was my big takeaway from my run for Congress. God didn't ask me to win. He asked me to run. We need to be listening. And I may never know why the Lord asked me to do it, but I know that I did what I was supposed to do. And so even if we don't win, I mean, this is really important for your audience. Even if we don't win, we need to participate.
Yvette Hampton:
Sure.
Heidi St. John:
And we show that to our children, and they're going to follow our example. If we sit it out, they will, too.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. I think, too, that so oftentimes people mistake. They see people in politics who say, I'm a Christian, and then they think, Well, Christians are messing it all up, so Christians shouldn't be involved in politics. And I think we need to look really carefully and clearly at those people. Some of them are Christians. Some of them are truly disciples of Christ. They really are committed to loving the Lord and to following his lead. Brooklyn, last year, she was part of the Senate page program in our local state in Oklahoma.
Yvette Hampton:
So she got to go to the Capitol building. She was there for four or five days, I can't remember, and she got to walk alongside one of our senators. His name was Nathan Dom. And this man is a Christian, and he has conviction, and he basically goes against everyone else. It's insane. But he's like, this is what the Bible says. This is what I believe. We got to actually have him and his wife over for dinner a few weeks after Brooklyn was with him as a page.
Yvette Hampton:
And it was just really neat to hear his heart and just for him to say, I don't really care, and you had said this earlier, I don't really care. I'm not here to please man. I'm here to please God. But so many people in our political realm, they call themselves Christians, but they are not true followers of Christ.
Heidi St. John:
And so we need to pastors too.
Yvette Hampton:
Absolutely.
Heidi St. John:
Yeah.
Yvette Hampton:
So how do we discern that?
Heidi St. John:
Well, I think you look for fruit. Jesus said, you'll know, the by their fruit people say, well you can't judge that's, right? Wrong. We're actually called to wise and righteous judgment. We should be looking at the fruit of the lives of the people that are called to leadership in this country. And that's true whether it's the leadership of a local church or the leadership of a congressional caucus, state leadership, national leadership. There are a lot of Christians and a lot of conservatives or so called conservatives that I called the showboats. They're just showboating around and they don't care about the country. My friend Rick Green said that you can tell a politician from a patriot very easily.
Heidi St. John:
A politician is concerned about the next election. A patriot is concerned about the next generation and we need to be concerned about the next generation. And when you see people looking to get know Fox News every night of the I'm, those aren't people that I'm very interested in supporting. I will say this, I think that this past October when we got Speaker Mike Johnson installed as the speaker of the House, that was a mercy from the Lord. I know Mike Johnson. He's an incredible human being. A lot of people were like, I have no idea. The fact that people didn't know who he was to me was a bonus because he's not out there showboating around and trying to push himself out there.
Heidi St. John:
He's actually been doing the work of the people. Obviously coming from Shreveport, Louisiana, which is kind of an amazing thing. This is the first speaker that's ever come from the state of Louisiana. But the main thing I want people to know about him is he loves the Lord.
Yvette Hampton:
And that's what we need.
Heidi St. John:
And we need to see a resurgence of patriotism and of walking out our biblical convictions. It was men and women, many of them who love the Lord, who said to the King of England, sorry, we're going to live our own lives. We're going to worship in freedom. And we're giving that up as we've decided as the church that Christians don't belong in politics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Listen, policy, politics determines policy and policy shapes a nation. And so if you don't want to be in the conversation of what shapes your nation, then by all means get out of politics. But if you do, if you want to be in on the conversation, find out who's running.
Heidi St. John:
And also we're going to be talking a lot this year about the presidential race because it's going to suck all the oxygen out of the room. But I can tell you right now that the races that matter more than any other race, it's not the presidential race, it's your local jurisdiction, your local municipalities, who's on your city council, who's on your school boards, for goodness sake. You want to get this woke ideology out of your schools, look and see who's sitting on your school boards. We've got to do better than just once every four years. Everybody gets in a fight about a president and we're slowly just losing our country one little paper cut at a time. And those paper cuts are happening not at the federal level, they're happening at the local level. All politics is local.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. And we need to be on our knees with our kids. I mean, this is a great year, you guys, to just literally fall on your knees with your kids and you pray. If you've got a bunch of kids at home and you cannot get involved, you don't have the time. And that's legitimate. It is. You're homeschooling your kids. You don't probably have the time to be on your school board or to run for local office or whatever, but you do have the time to pray.
Yvette Hampton:
And not just the time. You have the responsibility to be on your knees with your kids, read through scripture, pray with them and walk through this process with them over the next year. And Heidi, I so appreciate sharing your story about you and your daughter and how she felt fearful like everything know, oh, it's all so horrible. God is in control. And so our kids need to know that really quickly because we've got to tie up this episode. But really quickly. Where do you go to find your information? Like as I'm thinking of the places where Garritt and I look to to find the truth of what's going on is the John, you know, off the bench podcast Culture Proof with Will and Miki Addison. They're fantastic.
Yvette Hampton:
And then you mentioned Rick Green. So wall builders with Rick Green and David and Tim Barton. Those are all great avenues for figuring out and finding out just truth like what's going on in the culture, what's going on in politics, what is happening in the world. Are there any other things that you can recommend, places, resources that people can go to to find out what the truth is of what's going on?
Heidi St. John:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I would encourage people to go to firmly planted action. That is the nonprofit 501 that we are running right out of Washington State. So we're going to be giving scorecards for candidates this year. But also one place that I have been going for a long time is called my Faith Votes. So myfaithvotes.com people can click on their state there, they can find out what's going on in their state, who's running, and they will give recommendations. You can register to vote can you can get election reminders. You can figure out where your polling locations are.
Heidi St. John:
Unfortunately, in Washington State, everything we do is mail in ballots now, but boy, we need to get away from that. But that's probably one of my favorite places. So I'd say go to Myfaithvotes.com and then check out firmlyplantedaction.org.
Yvette Hampton:
OK, we'll put those links in is firmlyplantedaction.org is that national or is that just for your local area?
Heidi St. John:
Yes, it will be national. We're starting local, but we'll be making recommendations for national races as we become aware of them and asking for help from across the country.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah, that's awesome. That's a good jay for homeschool, families to get involved is.
Heidi St. John:
Yes.
Yvette Hampton:
Know what's going on in your local and your local area.
Heidi St. John:
And you rightly pointed out, I mean, we're in different seasons, and it may not be somebody's season to run for office, but every season, I don't care if you got five or six or seven little kids around you like I used to, you've got to know what's happening. So don't use the excuse of having I'm in a busy season with my kids to stick your head in the sand and not vote and not get informed. It only takes ten or 15 minutes to go to someplace like Firmly Planted Action or my Faith votes and find out about your candidates so that you can be an informed voter. Because trust me when I say the left in this country, which has a demonic agenda, they are playing the long game. And no more excuses. If you can't run, you can absolutely pray. And if you can't run, you still need to be informed. And there are lots of really great organizations to help you do that.
Yvette Hampton:
And people do have time. You know how I know? Because people have time to be on social media. If they have time to be on social media, they have time to take a few minutes each day. Spend time, of course, in God's word first, but then know what's going on locally and globally as well.
Heidi St. John:
Yeah, it matters. I mean, all the things that are happening in the Middle East right now is largely happening because America is weak. Why is America weak? Because we have a weak president, and we have weak leaders in Congress. That's why. And we've got to turn this thing around.
Yvette Hampton:
I feel like I could talk to you for hours and hours. I mean, we have done that.
Heidi St. John:
I know we have done that. You did kind of live at my house for a little while.
Yvette Hampton:
Yes. Well, okay. We should explain that. As a matter of fact, that's a good segue into your book, because it was back it was the summer of 2019 when we were filming for Schoolhouse Rocked, and we were with the St. John's for, I don't know, two and a half or three weeks. We lived in your basement. They threw us in the basement, you guys. Can you believe that? They were like, Just get down in the basement.
Yvette Hampton:
I don't know, give us some space heaters. No, I'm just kidding. Their basement is like another whole house. I mean, it's absolutely incredible.
Heidi St. John:
It's my mom my mother in law's house.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. Yep. I was going to say it's Heidi's mother in law's house. And she was so gracious to allow our family to stay in her downstairs house. And we were so grateful for that. So that was fun. And while we were there filming for the movie, you were writing a book. And I so vividly remember several times through the course of those weeks, I would walk upstairs, walk into your living room, and you were just sitting on your nice cozy sofa in your beautiful little living room, and you were writing and you were writing this book.
Yvette Hampton:
And it was a 365 day devotional. Now, if you remember that time that I said, that was back in 2019, that was a while ago. And so you were writing this book. And it was just so fun because I had just walking kind of through that process with you for just those few weeks, and just the heart that you had to write, encouragement and truth, it was just pouring out of your pen. And I know this has been just a work of your heart that the Lord has given to you. If you're watching on video, this is the book. It's called Mom Strong 365, and it is a 365 Jay devotional. And so you started this.
Yvette Hampton:
So maybe talk just a little bit through that process, because obviously the book recently came out, right? It didn't take you three years or four years, I guess that would have been four years.
Heidi St. John:
It didn't take you four years to write a book.
Yvette Hampton:
But talk through the process of how did this all unfold? And talk a little bit about the book and why you wrote it.
Heidi St. John:
Well, I wrote it because Tyndale asked me to write it. They said, Would you be willing to write a 365 Day Devotional? And I was like, well, absolutely. I love three hundred and sixty five s. I have a bunch of them myself. I'm a huge fan of devotionals. And so I started writing this Bible, promises for Moms came out in March of 2019. And so I basically just turned my attention right after that and just started writing again. And the process is actually really long because it wasn't long after that that I announced my run for Congress.
Heidi St. John:
And so that was a huge undertaking. And that slowed down my writing quite a bit. And then, of course, the Rona slowed down all the printing press and all the things. So it really was I was telling you before, becoming Mom Strong was like 89,000 words. This is like 100,000 words more than that. So it's a huge project. So basically it's 365 400 word articles that are in this book. A lot of them just personal stories from my life and trying to put scripture to a lot of the things that the Lord has brought us through.
Heidi St. John:
But the process for me, I think this was my 9th book and another one came out. I just released another one called Born on a Battlefield spiritual Strategies for Moms in the Trenches. And people can find that on Amazon or over at my website. But I think there's something powerful about putting pen to paper and just asking the Lord to help you encourage people. Because a long time ago, my then literary agent said to me that books multiply the ministry of the message that God puts on your heart, because you can write a book and it's out there forever. We're all still reading Oswald Chambers for its highest I mean, there's so many books been out there for a long, long time. So to just it was my way of being able to encourage moms just to stay in the fight for their families and their faith. And I really thought, like I told you before, I thought this would be a piece of cake for me to write this book.
Heidi St. John:
Turns out it is a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And there were days that I didn't have anything left to give. I didn't have anything to write and have anything to say. And then there were other days when God would give me ten of them. I sit down and write for hours and hours, and God would give me ten of them. So I hope people really enjoy it. If you like 305 day devotionals and you don't mind listening to me, it's very relational.
Heidi St. John:
Everything I write is that way. I'm not a very fancy writer. They tried to make me fancy, and I just can't do it. So it really is just kind of a gift, I think, from my heart to the heart of moms who just need a little shot in the armor every morning to say, hey, God loves you, and he's got something good for you. Hang in there.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah, well, it's great. You've done such a great job with it. I've really enjoyed reading through it the past few months. And what I love about it is on Monday we talked about the importance of spending time with the Lord each day and digging into Scripture and, of course, every devotional that you have in there, because it's a devotional. Book, you point it back to Jesus, back to Scripture, back to how he's worked in your life and how we can use some of your experiences to encourage us as moms as we're reading this book. And so it's not a book to replace God's Word, but it's a fantastic supplement. And I actually like that they're short devotionals because some devotionals are long. I'm like, I don't have 30 minutes in addition to reading my Bible, right? I don't have an extra 30 minutes to go through a devotional each day.
Yvette Hampton:
But these are just they're like one to three minute reads. I would say most of them, but they're powerful. So I asked you, Heidi, if you would grab your book and read the last one, because I think the last devotional of the year is so powerful, and I want to kind of just set the stage for this because it's called The God of New beginnings. And the verse that you reference in this is Isaiah 46 ten, and it says, I will accomplish all my purpose. And when I read Isaiah 46 ten, I thought, that's so interesting because one of my favorite verses is Psalm 46 ten, which says, be still and know that I am God. And I had never correlated those two before. Oh, they're both 46 tens. But it's so good.
Yvette Hampton:
And God is a God of new beginnings. And as we're jumping into this new year, mamas and those dads who listen to this podcast be encouraged. And so I'm going to have Heidi read just the last part of the December 31 devotional because I thought it was so powerful and I thought better to have it read by the author herself than by me. So, Heidi, could you read those last two paragraphs for us?
Heidi St. John:
Yeah, I'd be happy to. A new beginning is here. God tells us in his word that he is the God of new beginnings and that he will accomplish his purposes as we follow Him. The question is, will we lean into each new season and walk closer with God, or will we go our own way? Will we allow the Lord to teach us new things, take us new directions and open new doors? By the grace of God, we will. The new year will hold IEW challenges, but it will also hold new blessings. Hang on tight to the Lord precious mom. The God of new beginnings will accomplish his purposes in you and in your family as you walk with Him every day. Good things are coming.
Yvette Hampton:
You can count on it. I love it. I love that the Bible ends with come Lord Jesus, right? I mean, that's the end of Scripture. And the this is not Scripture itself, of course, but I love that you end it with good things are coming, you can count on it. Because we know that the Lord is coming. We know that he is. And so we know that no matter how difficult things get in our lives, that good things are coming. And God has a good plan for all of us.
Yvette Hampton:
He is so faithful. And so things are hard. We go through seasons, and sometimes our seasons are not as hard. And then we go through other seasons that are excruciating, and we feel like, can I take my next breath?
Heidi St. John:
This just hurts too much.
Yvette Hampton:
But good things are coming. And the reason that Heidi knows and the reason that I know that good things are coming is because God told us in His Word that good things are to come. And so we can trust his word. Again, her devotional. It's called mom strong 365. And you guys, it's a big book. I don't know if you can if you're watching the video. When I got it in the mail, I was like, Whoa, that's.
Yvette Hampton:
So much bigger. For some reason, I thought it was going to be like not like a pamphlet, but I didn't expect it to be so meaty, and it's meaty and it's full of wisdom. And I love that you write from your personal perspective. I'm glad that you're not a fancy writer. As you say, there is a time and a place for that. And I do like fancy writing sometimes, but I love that this is just your own personal story. It's your own personal experiences of what God's taken you through. So definitely check it out.
Yvette Hampton:
We'll put links, of course, in the show notes to it so you guys can find it. It's called Mom Strong 365 by Heidi St. John. And it's a daily devotional to encourage and empower everyday moms, and that's who we are. So thank you, Heidi, for the heart that you have put into providing this book and this encouragement for us, for our audience. You've done a fantastic job. Thank you so much.
Heidi St. John:
Thank you.
Yvette Hampton:
It's exciting.
Heidi St. John:
It's exciting to see it finally in.
Yvette Hampton:
I bet. I bet. Did you choose the COVID and the colors for it? Because I love the colors. It's like an aqua and yellow.
Heidi St. John:
So Tyndale does that. I mean, obviously I have a say in it, but they based everything. So this is part of the Becoming Mom Strong series of books. It's a family of books, and they all have similar colors. So if you were to put them all together on the shelf, everyone would go, oh, those go together. So they rocked the color, and I said, oh, that's nice.
Yvette Hampton:
Kit went something like that. It's beautifully done.
Heidi St. John:
I love Kit. Thank you.
Yvette Hampton:
They're some of my favorite colors. Really quickly, as we're kind of closing up, talk with us about the Homeschool Resource Center. It was so much fun. As you and I were talking before we hit the record button, I was telling you, I said, I have two friends who are desperately wanting to open up a homeschool resource center in different parts of the country, very similar to what you've done. And so you have a new resource center that opened up just this school year at the beginning of this school year. Talk about it. What's going on with that? How is God working through that ministry? Yeah.
Heidi St. John:
So if people watched my movie, the Schoolhouse Rocked movie with you, you guys came and recorded with me there at the Home School Resource Center. And we sold that building this last summer, and God graciously provided a brand IEW facility for us. We have over 700 students that are here right now, and we have classes here. So five days a week, four days a week, we do classes. And on the fifth day, we have a homeschool cooperative that meets here, and then the theater program meets in the afternoon. But the idea is that if you wanted to homeschool your kids, we're going to take away every obstacle that might be that you might perceive rather is in front of you. So we've got every kind of class you could possibly imagine here. So if a mom came in and said, listen, I just learned that my school district is teaching our kids, gender is just a social construct, which I guarantee you they are teaching that to your kids.
Heidi St. John:
And she says, I just can't take it anymore. But I wanted so badly for my kids to be in choir, and I don't want to have to teach an algebra class. Well, great. We have an algebra tutor for you. And we have a choir and we're teaching everything from the constitution to calligraphy here at the Homeschool Resource Center. We have a thriving dance program. We have a really neat theater program here. And the whole goal is to create community.
Heidi St. John:
So we have what I call the four C's of Christian Home generation here at the center. The first one is community, and we need each other. And I think we've seen this now over the years. The second one is classes. So we offer those classes here, we offer curriculum. We have a bookstore here and then coffee, and then obviously Christ, I guess that's five C's. So when moms come here we actually just started this year to do a lunch program. So moms can actually come when they leave.
Heidi St. John:
At the end of the day, they can either pick up tacos for lunch or whatever, and at the end of the day they can pick up a take and bake meal and take it home. So what we're trying to do is.
Yvette Hampton:
That'S my dream, Heidi, I'm telling you.
Heidi St. John:
What every time I try, you know, what the moms would really like, I always think, what would I have really liked? So if they've come here and they've spent the day because this is not a school, it's not a drop off, all the teachers here are independent contractors. So what we do basically is just open up the space and then we vet the people who want to come in and teach. And if we go, yeah, that looks like a good fit, then we'll give you a classroom and put you on the calendar. So that's how it works here. But yeah, it's pretty cool. So if you come like on a Monday and on your way out, for 15 or $16, you can pick up a meal to take home with you, pop it in the oven, and then you don't have to go home and figure out dinner. So we're really just trying to make the lives of homeschool families easier. We recently started doing conferences, so we're very excited about that.
Yvette Hampton:
Actually.
Heidi St. John:
In February. Phil Gunger, Mark Gunger's son, is coming here to do laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage. So that's happening in February. We're going to start doing events here which know very excited about just marriage conferences and homeschool events and that kind of thing. We're teaching people how to get involved in civics. So the Homeschool Resource Center is a very busy place, and I always tell people in the middle of COVID it was the happiest place in Washington State because we did not close down. We stayed open. We just felt so like the Lord was saying, do not do that.
Heidi St. John:
Don't close. And so we stayed open, and the ministry just grew and grew and grew.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. And for those who were not following you at that time, it's not like you lived in a free state like Oklahoma, like I live center. You were in Washington. You were in the center of crazy lockdowns, neighbors calling cops on each other. I mean, it was crazy for you. It was crazy for everybody. But there were certain parts of the country where it was insanely.
Heidi St. John:
Well, it goes to leadership, right? It just goes back to leadership. We're going to get the government that we allow. And unfortunately, in Washington State, we've been overrun by leftists, and that's the truth. But God is doing amazing things here, and where it's the darkest, the light shines the brightest. And we're seeing renewal and revival come to families. We're seeing people come to Jesus. We're watching parents pull their kids out of the public schools here at a record rate incredible, maybe even higher than most of the states in the country right now. And we're trying to give them something to run, too.
Heidi St. John:
So I always tell people there's a big difference. I would consider myself at the tail end of the pioneer movement of homeschoolers, and we were really running to something. We saw something that was going to be extraordinary for our family. So we pulled our oldest daughter out of public school, and I was the mom who, you give me a little red wagon, I'm going to go down to the library. Well, you can't go to the libraries anymore. The libraries are woken awful. And I always tell people, stay out of the libraries now. And these families are not running to something.
Heidi St. John:
They're running from something. They're running from an educational system that is morally and spiritually and academically bankrupt, and we want to give them something to run, too. So there's a lot of life happening here at the Homeschool Resource Center, and we're excited to see where God takes it in the years to come.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah, it's so know. One of the things, and I'm sure you've seen this as well, since COVID heidi, is that exactly what you said.
Heidi St. John:
Is that it used to be that.
Yvette Hampton:
Homeschoolers are running to something. Now people are running away from something, but many of them don't know what they're running to or what they're supposed to run to. So they're like, running frantically, going, I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. I don't know how to homeschool my kids. And many of them don't have jesus. And so we have seen Garrett and I and our family as we have just navigated through these last few years since COVID that this is an incredible opportunity for witnessing and discipleship, is to bring these younger homeschool moms and sometimes older homeschool moms and just, you know, let us tell you about oh, and PS, here's a really great Christian curriculum. And it's such a beautiful opportunity to share Jesus with families who were in the public schools, who never would have stepped foot into a church.
Yvette Hampton:
But you've got this homeschool resource center now that they're going to because it's something to do, it's somewhere for their kids to go, it's help for them and then you're having an opportunity to show Jesus to them.
Heidi St. John:
Well, at the end of the day, it always has to be about Jesus, right? So everything we do here points people to the gospel and to me, what an exciting time to be a Christian. What an exciting time to share the gospel with people that are around us. And people are looking around. I mean, the world's on its I think, you know, you don't have to be a Christian to see that even non Christians are very frustrated by what's happening. So we see this as a means to an end. And the end, of course, is Jesus. And if we can introduce people to Jesus, if we can help parents disciple their kids in the ways of the Lord, then that's what we're going to do. And God provided this building it's worth saying, I mean, God provided this building for us debt free, so we closed.
Heidi St. John:
I mean, the total was probably over 17 million that it cost to get into this building. And God did it so kind of amazing.
Yvette Hampton:
Yeah. He is so faithful. It's. The Great Commission played out truly. I think oftentimes we think, oh, we need to go out know Africa, we need to go to somewhere.
Heidi St. John:
Africa is sending America now.
Yvette Hampton:
Right. We're in so much trouble here in the United States. Like actually, yeah, we would think that we have to go somewhere else to fulfill the Great Commission and we don't. We can do it right here in our own neighborhoods by being involved in our own homeschool communities and helping to point those people to Jesus. So it is such a privilege that we have to be able to do that and praise God, we still have the freedom to homeschool our kids in every state. It may not always stay that way. And that goes back to being involved in what is going on in local.
Heidi St. John:
Government to get I mean, I think we're going to see really big challenges if we don't stem the bleeding of our liberties in this country. I think we're going to see attacks on homeschooling. I think we're going to see attacks on Christians. The rise of anti Semitism in this country is very alarming and we need to get involved, now is the time.
Yvette Hampton:
Yep, it sure is. Well, Heidi, thank you so much for being with me this week. You are an absolute joy and a treasure. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your voice and your encouragement. Is there any last bit of encouragement that you would like to share with our just?
Heidi St. John:
I like to tell people, don't walk this thing out in fear. God has you here for such a time as this. And your place on God's timeline is no less significant than any of the other people that have served God over the ages. God has a plan and a purpose, and I'm excited to see it unfold.
Yvette Hampton:
Amen. Me too. It is exciting. It's an exciting time to live. God is at work and we are part of history right now and so are your kids. We are here for such a time as this. That's exactly right.
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