Yvette Hampton, host of The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, had the opportunity to interview Elizabeth Johnston, The Activist Mommy, for the podcast. In this episode (airing February 18th) Yvette and Elizabeth discuss the importance of impacting our culture for Christ through the advantages we have as homeschoolers. They also discuss the upcoming Day of Mourning, a pro-life rally taking place in Albany, NY on Saturday, February 23, 2019.
Elizabeth Johnston is known as The Activist Mommy. She is an activist vlogger, speaker, and author who educates and inspires the public on the burning social and moral issues of the day that are important to families. She and her husband Patrick, who is a medical doctor, author, and movie producer, have been pro-life ministry leaders for many years and home educate their 10 beautiful children. The growing threat to America’s children and the vicious attack on religious liberty is what dynamited Elizabeth out of her comfort zone to inspire a nation of belittled conservatives and Christians to “come out of their closets” and boldly take their country back. Elizabeth daily triggers the left by confronting the lies of abortion, feminism, Islam, and the homosexual agenda with wit and snark like only she can, and she regularly posts viral commentary videos which have netted over 70 million views. Elizabeth has been featured on many major media outlets, such as Fox & Friends, The New York Times, The Blaze and Christian Broadcasting Network, as she has become a thought leader on topics of importance to families. The pulse behind all her activism and cultural commentary is her love for her family and her Savior, Jesus Christ.
Grab Elizabeth’s new book, Not On My Watch: How to Win the Fight for Family, Faith and Freedom, here.
–Interview Transcript–
[Yvette Hampton] – Elizabeth Johnston is The Activist Mommy. I know many of you are already familiar with her. If you’re not, you will be after this interview. I’ve actually had you on my list, and Garritt and I have talked a lot about bringing you on the podcast, and then last week, you came out with something called Day of Mourning, or last week was actually the first time I heard about it, and I said, we need to have her on now, because I want people to know about what you’re doing. Tell us a little bit about you and your family and then let’s talk about what it is that God is doing through you guys.
– Sure, we have, my husband and I, we have 10 children, 10 living children. We lost six through miscarriage, and my husband is a medical doctor. He is a family practitioner, sees all ages, and we really knew before we were married that we wanted to have a large family, and homeschool our children, so we were very blessed to already be in alignment with those things before we got married, and we have always been very active in pro-life work. My husband used to actually speak at homeschool conferences and kind of recently, in the last couple of years, pulled back from that a little bit, but he would speak a lot, actually, on the subject of vaccinations at homeschool conferences, warning about the vaccinations that are made from aborted fetal tissue.
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[Elizabeth] – And warning people that we have a moral obligation to avoid those and my husband has actually always been the speaker and I’ve been carrying the diaper bag, following him around to speaking engagements. A lot of people don’t realize that and he was the preacher and the speaker and I was busy having children. I’ve always been very adamant about, and really encouraged a lot of moms to say no, to a lot of outside things and focus on discipling and training your children. Especially during those younger years. Not getting yourself too stretched out in too many places, even when they’re ministry related, and great things, they can steal a lot of your time and a lot of the focus that needs to be on your children and your husband. And that’s what I did for 20-years. I really poured every ounce of myself into my kids and my husband and then something very organic happened to me. two years ago that I never dreamed, never planned on being a public figure and it’s just opened doors that I have been walking through, trusting God to use me along the way, and I know you’ll probably have more questions about that but that’s just kind of a background on our family, and my kids are amazing, super-supportive. We are homeschool parents, obviously, and they’re up there, hopefully doing a little bit of homeschool right now upstairs. I’m in the basement right now so that’s the great thing about this platform, is that most of what I do, I do right from my house. When I started filming videos from my van, or bus as people like to call it, my 15 passenger van, that was something that I could do from my home and everything is right here on my iPhone, and I’m able to still keep my commitment to my family, but also influence culture, so it’s really neat in the social media age that we live in.
Get Elizabeth’s new book, Not on My Watch today.[Yvette] – Yeah, well you are certainly having a huge influence in culture. God has given you a platform that, like you said, you never planned to have. He literally just put you there, and you’ve run with it. And your family has run with it along side of you. I know that your family works with you and you guys are doing a lot of things. Let me say this real quick. One of the verses that just over and over again, and I’m certain with you, has just gone through my mind, time and time again over the past several years, but really over the past couple of weeks with this whole decision in New York, is 2 Chronicles 7:14 and it says, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” And we are in a land who is desperately in need of healing right now. We are feeling the pains of our sin and the decisions that are being made by people and so God has put you in a position where he has given you a voice to speak loud because there are those who are speaking very loudly, and we need to speak louder, and so I’d love for you to talk about some of the things that you are doing, that is really impacting culture. I know one of them is you’ve got coming up in the next couple weeks what’s called the Day of Mourning. Will you talk about that first and give us a glimpse of what that’s going to look like?
[Elizabeth] – Sure. When the gruesome New York law was passed, of what was that, it’s been a whirlwind, it’s that a week and a half ago?
Two weeks ago. My inboxes were all just absolutely slammed. Something happened when that law was passed, that just incited such righteous anger in God’s people, and just everyday American citizens, and they were begging me, when are you going to New York, and what are we going to do about this? Is there a response being planned? And you know I am one mom who has 10 kids. I’ve got a bunch of kids here in my house to homeschool, and I’ve only got one child out of the house. And I do not have a staff. I am not well-funded. I make a little bit of money doing what I’m doing. I’m sitting around waiting for one of the big pro-life organizations to mount some organized response to this, or resistance to this and I just haven’t seen anything and so, I strategized with some pro-life leaders who are friends of mine and said, let’s get our heads together and let’s seek our heavenly Father and see what we come up with and we landed on a Day of Mourning because really, our solution here ultimately is not going to be a horizontal solution. It is going to be a vertical solution, with our Heavenly Father. It is going to be repentance and mourning over our sin. It is going to be God healing our land. It is going to be God granting us repentance and nationwide revival that will cause bars to empty and strip clubs to empty and abortion clinics to empty. This is something that only our Creator God, himself can cause to happen, and it has happened multiple times in our nation. People do not know their history. They do not know their revival history, and they don’t understand that, yes, it is dark right now, but there are ways in which our nation, it was in darker times, was in times morally that were even more disturbing than now, when mock bible-burning services were taking place, mock communion services, when you literally could not find one Christian on a campus like Princeton or Harvard, back in the 1800’s, when if you were a Christian, and you wanted to meet with fellow Christians, do you know, they were in hiding in these universities. They were meeting in secret. Now, that’s worse than it is today. And God swept through our nation through men like Charles Finney, and others, and brought a new Azusa Street revival, different revivals in our nation, that completely transformed our culture in such a powerful way that you and I now are still benefiting from the light of those revivals that took place in our land. That is what we need to see and it starts with repentance and prayer, and weeping and mourning over our sin. And so we landed on a Day of Mourning. We believe God has given us this vision, and He has powerfully and tangibly confirmed it over the last week to us. I was amazed to learn just two days ago that there is an event on February the 23rd happening in Orlando, Florida where 60,000 people are going to be gathered in a convention center in Orlando, part of praying for revival and repenting over this so, I mean I didn’t even know. We had already planned the Day of Mourning and I had no idea this was taking place. Another woman got a vision from God and called for a three-day fast that just ended yesterday. Do you know what she named it? A Time for Mourning.
[Yvette] – Wow.
[Elizabeth] – And ours is a Day of Mourning. God is speaking to his people. All across the world, and all across our nation, here in America, and the theme is, you better repent. You better mourn. And so, that is our response. We are calling for a nationwide time of mourning, whether you live in New York, or not. And the way you can participate is with four things: on that day, February 23rd, we are asking that everyone wear black. Do not shop. Close down your businesses, if you have a business of any type. If you cannot close down your business, we’re asking you to pray about taking your paycheck for that day and donate it to a pro-life ministry that you trust. And lastly, repent for the sin of abortion. Gather in a church. We’re asking pastors to open up your church doors, and have your church available for prayer, or call a special service on the 23rd for prayer, which is on a Saturday, and a special meeting of prayer. We have on our website dayofmourning.org, a place where you can donate, because we have expenses that are accruing fast. We have a place where you can print out the sign to place on your door, that explains why you are closed on the 23rd. But on top of the nationwide call, we are heading straight into the devil’s den, to where this law was passed in Albany, New York and would you believe that God has given us as a venue for our event, we are literally going to be in the convention center underneath where the state house is, where the legislation was signed and celebrated, and I’ll tell you, it’s as if God is saying, Satan thought he crushed you, but he didn’t understand you are seeds. We are going to be seeds underneath the ground, that although we have been crushed, and feel defeated by this legislation, and it feels like we’re moving backward, not forward, with the pro-life agenda, we are seeds underneath the ground that are, yes, crushed, but we’re gonna grow. We’re gonna rise out of this, and I believe we are gonna see finally, an end of abortion as a result of this very devastating law that was signed in New York.
[Yvette] – Yeah, I think so, too. Garritt and I have been talking a lot about how it’s just gone too far. And I think for those who are making these decisions, and making this legislation, they’ve taken it just one step too far, to where now, like you said, it’s not just Christians and conservatives who are saying, wait, enough is enough, but there are a whole lot of people who are taking notice of this and saying whoa, wait a minute, you’re talking about full-term babies here? I mean, there’s no question whether or not that is moral or immoral, and so I think they’ve taken it too far. I mean, it was already taken too far, obviously. Roe v. Wade and the murder of any baby at any stage, but now people are starting to wake up and they’re starting to open their eyes, and they’re starting to say, whoa, wait a minute, maybe it’s not just about women’s choice and it’s not about, this is my body and I can do whatever I want with it. There’s so much more to it than that. You know, you talk about revival and we often talk about revival, and our nation needs revival and I think we’re heading in that direction. I mean, it’s one of the reasons we’re filming this documentary. It’s called Schoolhouse Rocked-The Homeschool Revolution. That’s the full title of the movie, because we feel like homeschooling is so much a part of that revival. It’s not the only part of it and it’s not the only answer. Jesus is the answer, homeschooling is not. But homeschooling is certainly part of that because homeschooling gives us the opportunity to bring revival into our own families and then send our kids out to then impact the world that God has put them in, and he’s put them here for such a time as this. They are here for a reason, on purpose because God has a plan for their lives to impact his kingdom, and I think homeschooling provides just a beautiful way for us to do that with them.
– Absolutely.
[Yvette] – Another verse that continues to come to my mind, that I’ve been reading through, I’ve been reading through Ephesians, and Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good work, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” And, it is absolutely time for us to get on our knees and to pray, and to plead with God to have mercy on our country, and on those who are leading this country, and making these horrific decisions. How can we as homeschoolers go about, and obviously, people who are not homeschooling can have an impact and make a difference, as well. But I think, with homeschooling, it gives us a different opportunity because we’re with our kids all day, and we have more time as a family to do things, so how can we do that? How can we really impact culture for God’s truth, and come alongside of you, and help you with what you’re doing?
[Elizabeth] – Well, first of all let me just say that I wholeheartedly agree that the homeschool movement is, in and of itself, part of the solution, and part of what will bring revival to our nation. Homeschooling is very counterculture, and it is very necessary in this day and age when children are trying to be good little cultural Marxists in school, and their minds are perverted by graphic sexual education, and things such as that, so no question, you have to get your kids out of the public school system. I mean, you have to ask God to help you find a way to get your kids out, and to provide, and meet your needs, and make sacrifices in order to protect your children from those who do not wish their best. I’m not talking about the teachers in the classroom, necessarily. They’re wonderful Godly teachers. There is an agenda that is so much bigger than the teachers, that the teachers cannot overcome. They’re not able to overcome. And that agenda is after each and every one of our kids, and wants to steal their faith, steal the faith that you have passed to them. And I just want to give a hearty amen to that, so there’s no question in my mind, in anyone’s mind that that’s where I stand. And then, as far as getting involved in the culture, that is something that is definitely lacking amongst the homeschool movement. I think that too often we feel as homeschool parents that we’re okay, and that our kids are okay, and safe, because we are properly protecting them from the negative forces outside, and so it’s easy to just focus on ourselves, our family, our homeschool friends, and leave it at that, because we are all busy, and we feel like we maybe can’t take on more, but it is very concerning if you think about, for instance, the fact that all of the millions of people who are not choosing to homeschool, and unfortunately they’re not going to, we’re gonna try to convince as many as we can, but there are going to be millions of people who don’t choose to homeschool. And for those individuals, they are tomorrow’s doctors, and leaders. They are tomorrow’s judges, tomorrow’s educators. Just think about that for a minute. Think about how that affects all of us. So if we completely pull away into a corner, and we’re not still influencing what’s taking place, even in the school systems, we are really dooming our culture. And so that is why, for instance, I have been so active as a homeschool mom, whose never had a child set a foot on a yellow school bus, never had a child set foot inside a public school, I have aggressively fought the graphic sexual education, and the LGBT sexual education in the schools, because I realize there’s no hiding from this, filtering down, and affecting all of us, ultimately. And so that is important. I want to say for our family, personally, a major part of how we’ve raised our children is to let them crash with the culture, let them crash heads, if you will, with the culture. We have from the very beginning, our kids’ infancy, taken them for instance, out to abortion clinics where we pray right there on the front lines as women are driving in to execute their babies, and pay to execute their babies. Our kids have been right there with us, outside on the front lines of these abortion clinics, watching Mommy and Daddy save babies, watching Mommy and Daddy love women, watching Mommy and Daddy throw baby showers for these women when they choose life. Watching Mommy and Daddy rebuke sin, and rebuke the men and women who are getting paid to kill these babies in cold-blooded murder. That has forever changed our children. That will always, never leave our children, and always affect who they are as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, because they know that for Mommy and Daddy, this is not something that we do on Sunday, and then we don’t do anything else with it. This is something that we live everyday, and that is important enough for us to actually go out, and be the hands and feet of Jesus to others, and so, that is a great way that people can get involved. Get involved in your local crisis pregnancy center on this abortion issue. Take your kids out and pray in front of an abortion clinic. There is an abortion clinic 30 minutes to an hour from almost every person within the sound of my voice on this podcast right now, and you can make an effort even if it’s once a month. That is life-changing for your family.
[Yvette] – Yep, and that’s something you can do during the week, when other people are in school, learning everything contrary to what God has said is true.
[Elizabeth] – Yes.
[Yvette] – And what a beautiful opportunity to be able to show your kids, look at the impact we can make in God’s world.
[Elizabeth] – Our kids beg us.
[Yvette] – cause He’s given us the time
[Elizabeth] – They are disappointed when, just this last Saturday my husband has just been working some grueling hours, and then I’ve been really swamped with this event that we’re planning, Day of Mourning, and we did not go out when we normally go out on Saturday morning, and the kids are so disappointed. One of my teenagers headed out anyway, and she’ll grab a couple of the kids and go anyway, but it just becomes their passion. Instead of Xbox and Minecraft and the garbage that kids are addicted to now, our kids are kind of addicted to ministry. They’re kind of addicted to reaching out to others, because they know what it feels like to be used of God. Don’t you want your children to know what it feels like, to see a life saved, a life transformed. Once you feel that, and experience that, what is Minecraft?
[Yvette] – Yeah, cause they realize there is something bigger than them in this world, and there are things that are worth standing up for, and sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s scary, but do it scared.
[Elizabeth] – Yeah, courage requires some risks, and nothing that anybody’s done that was nation-shaking or brought about revival, was ever easy. Imagine being William Wilberforce, fighting slavery, not just for five years, not just for ten years, this man went at it for just the longest time, and had so many set-backs, and so discouraging and his own people turning against him, and he stayed the course, he was faithful, and he always came back and pushed again, and pushed again and he finally saw the end of slavery and we’ve got to catch a vision for seeing an end to this bloodshed. Our country is resting under the judgment of God right now, because we take our babies and we sacrifice them to a God called convenience. He may not be technically the god of Moab, but we are no better than the savage Mayans and Aztecs that your homeschoolers are reading about in their history. We are no different. We are just as guilty, and just as their cultures have been destroyed, God will destroy ours if we do not get serious about repenting and about being the salt and light of the world and the hands and feet of Jesus to our culture.
[Yvette] – That’s right. That’s absolutely right. I would love for you to talk really quickly about, you have a new book that’s coming out right now, as a matter of fact, I think when this airs, I think it’s going to air in February 18th, your book will have just come out, and it’s called “Not on my Watch: How to Win the Fight for Family, Faith and Freedom.” Talk real quickly about your book.
[Elizabeth] – I’m really proud of it. I really think it’s gonna inspire a whole lot of people. It’s written in story form, so you’re gonna hear a lot of background, and a lot of story, and a lot of things that I’ve done, that maybe people didn’t know we’ve done, like how we’ve shut down sex brothels, and really given Teen Vogue the black eye
[Yvette] – I love that story.
[Elizabeth] – And ways that I was involved with the Kim Davis situation, the lady that wouldn’t sign the homosexual marriage license in Kentucky. So many different stories, but we teach so many principles as we tell these stories, but I really believe it’s going to be inspirational. Mostly, just to let people see how somebody who’s just a simple homeschool mom, 70 million video views later, and just so many different things that we have done. Seriously, it’s not been because of money, and it’s not been because of anything, but just, I believe, stepping out in faith, and when you kill that lion and that bear, like David did, God will give you bigger things to slay, like Goliaths. And this is something that we can all do, and so I think that people will be encouraged that all the Little ‘Ole Mes out there, that are reading and watching, that God can use you mightily, too. People need inspiration right now. People are scared to speak up, and I think that they’ll find that inspiration in this book.
[Yvette] – Well, I appreciate that you have been obedient to the call that God has put upon you and your family, to be able to do that, because oftentimes He calls us to do something, and we’re scared, so we choose not to do it. And we serve in other ways, but we choose not to step out and do the hard thing. Because it’s hard.
[Elizabeth] – It is.
[Yvette] – And we want our life to be comfortable, and we want our kids to be comfortable and safe, and you’ve really put yourself out there. And I love that about you. I love, just your passion for life, for Jesus, and for impacting this world. So thank you so much for what you’re doing. I want you to share two things, then I actually want to read a quote. How can people find you, and then how can people support you financially in what you’re doing?
[Elizabeth] – Activistmommy.com has all of my blog articles, and my videos, and it has a place where you can donate and subscribe to get my emails. And then please though, more than anything, this is not about me. I want to take this opportunity to say please go to dayofmourning.org. We have got to pray and repent. We’ve got to end abortion, and we have expenses on this rally. We need to raise 20,000 dollars to pull off this rally, and it needs to happen fast.
[Yvette] – Okay, well so for those of you who are wondering what you can do, and how you can impact lives, that is a great way to do that, right now. We will put the links in the show notes
[Elizabeth] – Thank you.
[Yvette] – For people to be able to do that, and to support you financially. I think people so often don’t realize, even if it’s a dollar, if you have no money, if you have a dollar, or five dollars, or ten dollars, that adds up so quickly. And so often people think, well, you know, I don’t have a hundred dollars, or fifty dollars, or a thousand dollars. It doesn’t matter. You support this with whatever God has blessed you with, and puts on your heart and he will multiply it, and then pray. So we’re just calling all of you in the homeschool community to pray. Step out in faith. Step out and do what God has called you to do, whether it’s through this ministry, or fighting abortion, human trafficking, whatever it is, whatever God’s put on your heart. Take a stand and do something, and do it with your kids. It is the beauty of homeschooling. We have time, and we have the ability to do that. Really quickly, I just want to read a quote, and I actually put this up on my Facebook a couple of weeks ago, and this is by my really, really good friend, Aby Rinella. This was when the whole legislation was signed in New York a few weeks ago, and she sent me this text and she said, “Why do I homeschool? Because today my children will be at home with me, learning about the catastrophic events that happened in New York. About the evil that happens when we deviate from God’s design. And about how we have a God that mourns because he loves his people. They will be home with me, praying for the preborn babies, rather than in a public school system that tells them they get to choose for themselves what is good and evil, rather than looking to God for truth.” And that is what we get to do with homeschooling. We get to speak truth into the hearts of our children. We may not perfectly teach them math, or English. They may never know how to parse a sentence. I’m pretty certain my girls will never learn how to diagram a sentence, because I really don’t want to teach them that. I don’t know how to do it myself. And that’s okay because when they come face to face with their creator, He is not going to ask them how well they could diagram a sentence. He’s gonna say, what did you do with your time on Earth, and I want him to welcome my girls into his glorious Heaven because they took a stand, and they surrendered their whole lives, and their whole hearts to Christ, and done something to impact His world. So thank you again, Elizabeth. I am so grateful for you. Thank you for what you’re doing. We will be praying for you.
[Elizabeth] – Thank you.
[Yvette] – Keep doing what you’re doing.
[Elizabeth] – That means the world to me. We really do need a canopy of prayer around us right now.
Find out more about Day of Mourning here.
Grab Elizabeth’s new book, Not On My Watch: How to Win the Fight for Family, Faith and Freedom, here.
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