Thank you friends for being so patient over the last few weeks as I have virtually disappeared. I have been super busy trying to help our six year old daughter accomplish her dreams and goals. I know what you are thinking, “She’s six… how big can her dreams really be?” Well, today, I finally get to tell you what we have been up to!!! I am SO excited!!!
Today, we are launching Faith Like A Child, Inc. AND releasing my second book, The Staycation Jar!
When we found out we were going to be first time parents, we knew above all else we desired to instill in our children to love God and love others. As one-way of teaching these principles to our children, we have developed a tradition in our family called Love Projects, where we intentionally look for ways we can serve others, in hopes of reflecting the love of Jesus that lives within us. As our daughter Jordyn prepared for first grade this year, we asked her to think of a big Love Project she could do that we could incorporate into her schooling for the year.
Now, when we made this suggestion, Todd and I were thinking along the lines of gathering and filling boxes for Operation Christmas Child, or providing Christmas gifts for a family in need. However, Jordyn came to us with way BIGGER dreams of what she wanted to do. In fact, the first big Love Project she came up with was to send a family to Disney World after their fifteen-year old daughter finishes chemotherapy for brain cancer. (I’m going to go ahead and thank Ty Pennington and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for that one!)
We admit it took everything in us not to try and get her to think smaller. However, for some reason we stopped, and instead of immediately saying “no”, “that’s too big”, or “honey, that’s just not practical” (as we have in the past, like when she wanted to invite herself to Bethany Hamilton’s house so Bethany could teach her how to surf), we asked her how she would make this dream happen. Her big green eyes got even bigger, and she immediately rambled off eleven different ways she could raise money, the people she wanted to talk to, and how she wanted to make this happen.
We were stunned and had a decision to make.
Were we going to allow her to proceed, or were we going to sway her in a different direction, a more “reasonable” direction?
We realized as parents, we needed to stop putting our own limitations of what we think is and isn’t possible on our children because we have lost our ability to think and dream big. Due to our life circumstances, and the struggles we have faced, we have set up our own personal boundaries of what we think is or isn’t doable. But, these are our issues, not theirs. Why not let our children dream big, then come alongside them, support their ideas, and their precious hearts?
In saying, “YES” to Jordyn, we are experiencing the pure beauty in her child-like faith, because she has absolutely no limitations, no boundaries, no financial concerns (or concept of money), and no idea of what is or isn’t possible. She simply wants to do something special for families and therefore she is finding ways to make them happen, in a way only a child could do.
In fact, me writing The Staycation Jar was one of her original fundraising ideas to help turn her dreams into reality. Others include lemonade stands, garage sales, setting a glass jar at the end of our driveway for people to put money in, and inviting her friends over to our house so they can pay her to play games with them.This book is a quick read eBook filled our own staycation experiences and 200 Family Fun Ideas, with 50 ideas in each of the following categories:
Creative Meals - This idea came from a long-standing family tradition of doing Crazy Dinners. The ideas here range from Ice Cream Sundaes for breakfast to eating Candy Apples and watching Snow White.
Main Events - The main events will be the major activity for the day. The ideas range from Theme Parks to Air or Water Shows.
Silliness - This category was my attempt to add some laughter and spontaneity to our days. Our ideas ranged from water fights (ours started inside our house – whoops!) to having everyone talk in robot voices for fifteen minutes. (It was originally an hour, but that was very quickly reduced!)
The Love Project was my love’s idea and truly became our favorite category each day. As the week went on, this was the activity we all most looked forward to doing together as a family.
Faith Like A Child, Inc. has been created as Jordyn’s way of helping others. Big or small, the ideas are all hers. We are simply supporting our daughter, and helping her implement her ideas. We’d love for you to follow her journey and learn along with us.
The Staycation Jar can be found on Amazon for only $2.99 with ALL proceeds going directly to Faith Like A Child, Inc.
