Resources from the Episode: 

Most of us would never describe ourselves as victims.

And yet — if someone asked you where you feel resentful, or stuck, or like things just keep happening to you no matter what you do — you'd probably have an answer pretty quickly.

That's what this week's episode is about.

Lindsay Wright is back, and she's walking us through something called the victim types — six different ways that we show up in a victim orientation without ever realizing that's what we're doing. Not because we're weak or broken, but because these patterns were useful once. They helped us manage fear, avoid pain, survive hard seasons.

The problem is they also keep us stuck.

AUDREY: Welcome back to the podcast. I’m Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission Driven Life and founder of the Mission Driven Mom. I’m so excited for you to join me today as I have a great conversation with Lindsey Wright. Now, most of us don’t think of ourselves as victims, except that we do often show up as one of six or seven victim types in our real lives without realizing that we’re doing that. And that’s what we’re going to deep dive into today. So Lindsey, thanks for being here.

Super excited to talk to you. Just as a little bit of background, let me explain the context of what we’re going to talk about today. The drama triangle is something that not a lot of people know about, but it’s an insanely helpful framework for seeing how you’re getting stuck in your life. There’s a persecutor, a victim, and a rescuer in this drama triangle that we all kind of fall into. And yet in the end, when we’re in drama, we often feel stuck because we are actually being a victim without realizing that we’re being a victim. We call this problem orientation and we call it our problem story.

Now you and I — if you think about it for a minute — you’ll realize that you know plenty of people in your world who complain and struggle with things that just aren’t a problem for you, that that would just not be an issue for you in your life. Well, that’s what we call a problem story because it’s not a problem for everybody. It’s a problem for you, or it’s a problem for them, because of who they are, because of how they think, because of what’s showing up in their life.

And there are certain reasons why that’s a problem story, which we can talk about another time. But this is the framework for what we’re going to talk about today: that we get stuck in our lives in problem stories. Maybe it’s a rebellious child. Maybe it’s the loss of a job. Maybe it’s a spouse that asks for a divorce. Or maybe it’s something simpler, like you just can’t seem to get the weight off and you’ve been trying for years and you are sick and tired of it. You just incessantly complain about how you can’t lose the weight because you’re a victim to your weight. And so these problem stories keep us frustrated and irritated and angry, or whatever the case might be.

And we want to talk to you about how you might be showing up in this problem story as a certain type of victim. Lindsey’s going to help us understand why knowing a little bit more about what victimhood is and the different types of victims can be insanely helpful as a catalyst to help us see what we’re doing to ourselves a little more clearly, and be the first step toward getting out of this problem story and getting the car back on the road and moving again.

So as a little bit of background, if you’ve been around very long, you probably recognize Lindsey’s face. She’s been with the Mission Driven Mom from the beginning. She’s phenomenal. She’s brilliant. She helped vet content for the Academy, helped get it built, has mentored hundreds and hundreds of women for us, has spoken on our stages, and I just can’t even begin to say how much I love her and how incredible she is. She has taken on the job of mentoring women who are going to be attending our Mothers of Creation event this fall. Bless her for that.

We have an online community and we talk about these victim types in detail. Women are mentored in them in preparation for coming to this event. So she’s going to share with all of you today a little bit of what’s been going on in that community and why it makes such a huge difference. So the first question I want to ask you today, Lindsey, is: why do the victim types matter? Why do they matter, do you think, in general? And specifically, why do they matter to you?

Lindsey: The victim types matter because they just help to bring awareness to something we might not realize that we’re doing, or patterns of thought and behavior that we don’t realize that we’re perpetuating. And so there are these victim types. I think if I were just to ask you, “Where are you being a victim in your life today?” your automatic response would be, “Well, I’m not,” because we don’t want to believe that about ourselves. But if I were to ask you, “Is there anywhere in your life that you feel resentful?” that might give you some clues, something that you could think about. And then if I were to say, “Well, there’s a way of being a victim that the feeling you get is this resentment,” and tie that back to the specific victim type, I think that’s a little bit more helpful in helping us to see these things, these things that we’re doing in our lives.

AUDREY: Why does it matter to you personally, then? Have you had that experience?

Lindsey: Yes. It’s so fascinating to me. The more that I learn about the victim orientation and the creator orientation, and I look for that in my life and I find it. But then — because I don’t just stay there, and that’s part of what we’re doing in the fall. We don’t want to just stay in the victim orientation. We want to learn how to get out of it. But awareness is that first step. And so when we become aware and I can start to see those things in my life, what’s happened is that I’ve been able to make changes in my life. I’m not stuck in some of the places that I was stuck in before.

I feel more empowered. My relationships are better. Like, everything is better. My thinking is more clear when I can notice these things about myself and then also know what to do when I see them.

AUDREY: Agreed. And we’ll get into this here in just a second. But just for me, knowing the title of what I’m doing — of how I’m being a victim — helps me see why I should just do the opposite of that. And there’s so much rich context that you’ve helped build around all of these victim types, and you can explain that to us. But just the title for me is so helpful because then it gives context around my attitudes, my behaviors, the way I’m approaching things. And it’s hugely motivating because I don’t want to be a doormat or I don’t want to be a chameleon. I don’t want to be that thing. And so it stimulates me to want to get out of that victim mindset and be different.

Lindsey: Yes. And when you can name something, then you can start to create order. That is part of the process of creation — you have to name it.

AUDREY: That’s a great point. Identify it, and then you can move on to the next steps. Yes, super helpful. All right. So let’s head into this. Can you give us a little more context around how you would answer the question: what is a victim type?

Lindsey: So all victims have a few things in common. All victims have something that they’re afraid of. All victims don’t want to take responsibility for something. All victims blame. There are certain characteristics of just this victim orientation in general. But these types of victims are helpful because they help us to see some of the nuances. They help us to see that there are a few different flavors of being a victim. And they’re a little bit different in the thoughts. So one of the things I’ve done is I’ve tried to connect a thought and a feeling to each of these victim types to help us understand it a little bit better. And so the thought and the feeling, there’s nuance there. And then the tool and the truth that they need to get out of it is also a little bit different. So when we can isolate this certain particular flavor of victim that we are participating in, then it’s helpful because then we know the next step. We know how to get out of it.

AUDREY: Yeah. So with that in mind, let’s just walk through each of these and you can kind of give us some context and framework with some of the things that you feel like are most vital to understand about each one.

Lindsey: So one of the first victims that we talked about in our Mothers of Creation community is the avoider. And I know from conversations that you and I have had, we both really struggle with the avoider.

AUDREY: Yep.

Lindsey: And I want to say that it’s not — we’re not bad people because we have this tendency. It’s just something that we do. It’s something that maybe we picked up — just the way we handle pain and struggle. It worked for us then, but now we know better, and so we’re going to do better.

AUDREY: So when you were just talking, Lindsey, it made me think that maybe for our listeners one of the things that might be helpful to think about is that one aspect of the victim type is the way that you respond to fear. So something is happening that you don’t want to have happen, that you don’t like, that you’re afraid of. So what do you do about it? How do you respond to it? And like you said, for me, one of the common ways that I respond to fear is to avoid. But then the problem is that later on I look back and regret that I didn’t do something. And maybe doing something would still have been doing nothing, but at least it would have been a conscious choice instead of a reaction. Because I feel like the victim types are reactionary. Maybe that’s a reaction to those feelings of fear, maybe it’s a reaction to other things too, but anyway — so go ahead and give us some examples so that we can have some context.

Lindsey: So the avoider — there are four possible reactions. You just reminded me when we were talking about reactions. And we’re all, I think, familiar with these: you can fight, you can flee, you can freeze, and there’s a fourth one that I learned about from David Emerald, and that is to appease. So you’re going to appease the people in the situation so that that conflict can go away. And so — take the avoider, the victim type of the avoider, and their reaction is to freeze. That’s the reaction. And they’re reacting to an anxiety that they have. They’re not necessarily reacting to the problem itself, they’re reacting to the way they feel about it. And they think, “I can’t do this. I can’t face this. This is too hard,” and so they freeze. Like you said, they don’t address the problem. And well, what happens when you don’t address problems? They get bigger. Then the anxiety gets bigger.

AUDREY: Yeah. If you don’t face that anxiety it will just continue to get bigger and bigger.

Lindsey: Yes. And so that’s where we get the avoider. They’re just avoiding those hard things that make them feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed. So what other aspects of the avoider can you share? The avoider feels stuck. And a lot of victims will feel stuck, but the avoider really feels stuck because they froze, right? They’re not moving forward. And they’re really afraid — say you have a relationship where there’s a hard conversation that needs to happen. The avoider is afraid that if they have this hard conversation, first of all that it’s going to be really uncomfortable — which is true, it is going to be really uncomfortable — that they’re going to lose control, that they’re going to lose the security, and maybe they’ll lose that relationship. So they’re reacting to that fear, to that anxiety, instead of making a proactive choice to deal with something.

And isn’t there a truth that each one of the victim types needs to know? So what is it for avoiders?

So the avoider needs to know that right now is what I can control. Sometimes an avoider will do something that seems like action, that seems like they’re addressing the problem, but actually isn’t. So they start to get into the future, they start to make plans. Say the problem is that your house is always a mess. What does the avoider do? Well, instead of addressing the actual problem, “Oh, I’m going to plan. I’m going to make job charts. I’m going to set up incentive systems.” They spend hours and hours doing all this and it feels like action.

AUDREY: Oh, that’s so me. Yes.

Lindsey: But I’m not actually — it’s not going to change anything. And how do we know? Because a week into this new job system, it’s not working anyway. Not that no one should ever plan, but if you’re feeling reactionary and freezing as an avoider victim to a hard situation that you feel anxious about, if you remember the truth that right now is what you can control, then you will just get busy cleaning the house. Just clean the house. In the five hours it took you to create that new job system, what could you have done?

AUDREY: Yeah. And then some of the anxiety starts to be alleviated as you take action and you remember that you have more control than you think you do. And you can be planning in your mind while you’re cleaning, I suppose.

Lindsey: Sure, yeah. The difference is — because planning is good, we all need to begin with the end in mind — it’s when you’re using the planning to avoid the doing, that’s when it’s a problem.

AUDREY: I can see that in myself, that as I avoided, I liked to make plans, but actually nothing was happening right now. Yes.

Lindsey: Yes. And one of the tools that we teach is radical acceptance of your current circumstances. Maybe my house is a little messier than I would like it to be because I’m a very busy mom. Maybe I have young children, or maybe I’ve just had a health crisis, or whatever. And so accepting where I am now, the season that I’m in now, and then controlling what I can control right now, here in the present. That’s how we can make that shift.

AUDREY: I love it. Okay, let’s contrast that one with another one and go through each of those, and then maybe we can finish out by just touching on all of them so people just have some frame of reference for each of the types.

Lindsey: Okay. I want to do the quitter next because just like the avoider, the quitter’s reaction is to flee. They want to get away from it. They don’t even want to try. They just want to get as far away from it as possible. So what might that look like? It could look like not getting out of bed in the morning to take care of your family. Or think of a young child — I have a young daughter who struggles with some things, so she just doesn’t want to do them. “It’s too hard.” She just doesn’t do it. So the avoider is kind of pretending like they’re doing something about it because they’re making all these plans, but the quitter just says, “I’m done.” They’re just out. They just quit the thing — quit the sport, quit the lessons, quit the conversations, quit the relationship. Just walk away instead of engaging. Yeah.

AUDREY: Okay, I think I see that. And what are the other aspects of the quitter as compared to the avoider?

Lindsey: They’re not necessarily thinking, “I can’t face this,” but more like, “Why do these things always happen to me?” or “This is too hard.” So a little more self-pity. We’ve got another victim type that I think really embodies the self-pity, though I think all victims to a certain extent feel badly about themselves. But the quitter will start and then decide it’s too hard. The avoider won’t engage at all. The quitter starts and then stops. And it comes from some misbeliefs: that I’m not capable, that the world is too hard, that the world is fixed, that there’s nothing that I can control.

AUDREY: I loved your example about the music lessons, because most of us have maybe experienced that, or our children have, and we can see the pattern: we do this thing and then it gets hard and we quit. That actually is super helpful, because I was just thinking about two different kids of mine and different experiences that happened in their past when they were in lessons. One kept saying, “I want to stay in, I love it, I’m going to do better next week,” but then didn’t practice. So the avoider: making plans for the future, saying that they want this, but just not digging in and taking control of today. And then in other circumstances a child would sign up and go like mad for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, but it would be unsustainable, or it was just so much harder than they thought it was going to be, and so they would just quit. So I can see the differences. In both cases they’re not showing up for themselves in something that they said they wanted, and not taking responsibility for what they can control and moving forward with something methodical happening. But they did manage an uncomfortable situation differently.

Lindsey: The quitter’s deep fear or anxiety is that they’re going to make a mistake. And they’re so afraid of making a mistake that they’re just going to stop now and then they don’t have to deal with that. So it kind of sounds a little bit like the avoider, and they are similar — they’re all victims. We’re just teasing out some of the little different nuances. But what the quitter needs to know is that they can practice the principles, that they can do the things that they know will work, and wait for the results. They can patiently keep moving forward to the best of their abilities and trust that as they do — as you practice the piano every day — it’s going to get better. It’s going to get easier. Principles will always deliver if you’re persistent.

And the tool for the quitter is that they can practice those baby steps. Sometimes you or your child had this idea that they are going to be the best pianist in the whole world. And they want to be perfect now. And that’s why they get frustrated — because they imagined in their mind that it’s going to be great, that they’re just going to achieve it and it’s going to be easy. They don’t realize the work.

AUDREY: And the child I was thinking of as a quitter — that is so fascinating because that exactly corresponds. They have an idea, they get excited, and it’s too big, it’s too much too soon. They’re not realistic about the process that it’s going to require and the daily choices that have to be made. And then because they’re here and the goal is so far out of reach after a few attempts, it just feels too impossible to get there. So they’re done. They just quit.

Lindsey: Yes. But if we would just remember baby steps. Nobody is going to be the best at anything the first time they try it. Just baby steps. Just putting one foot in front of the other. That’s how we get there. We just have to remember those baby steps.

AUDREY: Oh my goodness, I can totally see that. So we’re getting a little bit low on time. Let’s just run through the rest — give us the titles and just a little bit of context around the rest of these victim types.

Lindsey: Sure. So we talked about the avoider and the quitter. We have the martyr, and I think moms especially relate to this one. The martyr uses suffering as proof of their love or their value. If they’re suffering, then you know that they are a really good person. And I don’t think they’re making it up — I think they actually feel like they’re suffering. But isn’t it kind of like wearing that suffering on your sleeve to garner attention or empathy?

AUDREY: Yeah. Or carrying this chip on her shoulder. “Why am I the only one that cares this much about this thing?” “No one says thank you. No one helps with the dishes.” Which is a way of avoiding responsibility — right? Because to train and educate and organize so that people will participate takes real work.

Lindsey: So the martyr just stews in resentment and self-pity. That’s really one where we see the self-pity come through. And then we have the doormat, which is what it sounds like. The doormat’s fear is conflict. They don’t want it, so they’re an appeaser. We talked about those four reaction types. The doormat is an appeaser. They don’t want the conflict, so they’re just going to appease, which means that they are going to abandon their own boundaries in order to avoid conflict. We just go along to get along. And then they just get walked all over and they start to feel exhausted and hopeless.

AUDREY: And it can make the situation — I guess any of these make the situation — it’s all drama. And like you’ve talked about avoiding responsibility, but I feel like a big part of what all of these victim types are avoiding is the work of thinking and taking responsibility for actual, true problem solving. “I’m going to just not think about it and avoid it.” “I’m just going to give up because it’s too hard.” “I’m just going to lay down on the floor and let everyone take care of me.” “I’m just going to do whatever you think.” These are all ways of avoiding deep pondering and the work of finding truths that could liberate you — of telling yourself the truth.

Lindsey: Victims do not tell themselves the truth. That’s for sure.

AUDREY: Great point. Okay, a couple more.

Lindsey: I may add a few more before our celebration event because I’ve been thinking about these things. But a few more today. We have the dummy. The dummy either fights or freezes, and they’re the ones who don’t feel like they can solve their problem. So they’re inviting a rescuer — somebody come solve this problem for me because I’m not capable of solving it. Or they just want you to stop talking about it. “I don’t know what to do.” End of story. End of conversation.

AUDREY: That actually reminds me of someone. A lot of times when I’ve tried to have problem-solving or root-getting conversations, it’s: “I don’t know” — silence. “I don’t know” — silence. “I don’t know” — silence. That’s a good way of avoiding responsibility. And maybe part of that is — I mean, I think they all have their issues with self-image — but in this particular case, they just don’t see themselves as capable problem solvers.

Lindsey: Yes. And then there was one more, and that is the chameleon. This is an interesting one. The doormat abandons their boundaries to avoid conflict. The chameleon abandons their identity to gain belonging. This is the people-pleasing person. Whatever group they’re in, they assume a different identity to fit in with the group. And the problem with that? They don’t know who they are, and nobody else knows who they are either. How can we interact with each other if nobody knows who you are?

AUDREY: Wow, that’s profound, Lindsey.

AUDREY: While you were talking about this, I just realized that the inverse of this can also be super helpful. Just in those titles alone, women will recognize themselves. But then the next thing they can say is: “And when I do that, I’m being a victim.” And that is so helpful because you recognize that it’s not a helpful or healthy way of being, it’s not where you want to stay. And as you understand these different aspects — the feelings that accompany each type, the truth that goes along with it, and the tools that they need — then if they can identify that behavior and recognize that as a victim way of being, they can walk themselves back out of some of that with those tools.

So as we finish up, what’s the first step? What is something that you recommend that women do when they’re just becoming oriented to these victim types?

Lindsey: Well, I’m going to quote David Emerald. He says — and this is from his book, Three Vital Questions — “This transformation begins by recognizing one’s own drama.” So that is the first step: just to become aware. To know first of all that there’s a victim orientation and a creator orientation, and to name it. Have those things to name it, and then start seeing it. That’s what’s been really fun as I’ve kind of done a deep dive into this material — as I’m in it and I’m thinking about these names, I can see them. I can see them in movies, in books, in relationships, and especially in myself. So that’s what we’re doing in the community right now: trying to develop this awareness so that we can see it more quickly. And then the more quickly you can see it, the faster you can change it.

AUDREY: Wow. That’s powerful. That is awesome.

AUDREY: Well, if you can see — I think anyone listening can see that Lindsey knows her stuff, and she continues to flesh this out. There’s an in-depth training that we did a few months ago that lives in the community. There’s ongoing mentoring in that community. Lindsey, I think you have another training coming up here pretty soon, and all of those are recorded in that community.

But the best part is — if this has been interesting and stimulating to you, if you want to understand it better — we would invite you to sign up for our Mothers of Creation MDM Celebration that will happen September 26th in Provo, Utah, in a beautiful big ballroom hall in a library. We will spend a whole day together talking about all these things in great depth. And leading up to that, the moment that you sign up you will have instant access to that community and to Lindsey. She will answer all your questions. You can watch these past recordings, you can attend this upcoming training, and you can begin to orient yourself around this whole chart — which is available in there. She’s adding to and fleshing it out and improving it all the time. And you can begin to understand and name for yourself how you are showing up in your life as a victim, why you don’t want to do that, and how you can work your way out of it.

Just understanding these victim types is a huge, mega tool set for that. But then at our event in September, we will walk you through the entire framework for going from problem orientation and problem story to being the creator in your own life through disconnecting and reframing that problem story. So we hope that you will join us for all of those things, and we can meet you in September. But again, thank you for joining us. Hopefully understanding a little bit about these victim types has been helpful for all of you, and we will see you next time.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode: 

I asked my husband Blaine a question at the end of our podcast conversation this week.

I asked him what all of our work in learning to understand and live principles has been worth to our family.

And he got quiet for a second, and then he said he thought it was “immeasurable.” That there “are too many benefits to name.” Then he said something that stopped me in my tracks:

“I think we still have a family because of it.”

This week on the podcast, Blaine is here. And we are talking about our marriage — the real version. The rocky years, the finances, the addiction, the therapy that didn't work, the day things got bad enough that we both finally woke up.

We are sharing it because I know there are women listening who are right where I was — committed to their marriage, committed to their family, but feeling stuck and completely powerless to change anything.

Welcome to the Mission Driven Mom podcast. This podcast is for moms just like you, who want to learn how to glorify God through finding and embracing true principles, discovering and developing your greatest gifts, and using them to serve your family and community.

Alright, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission-Driven Life and founder of The Mission-Driven Mom. I'm super grateful to have you with us today, and the best part is that my husband is here. We are going to talk about him and me and our marriage and our family, and what it has to do with you and your marriage and your family.

So we're just going to start today by talking. Blaine, tell us a little bit about yourself. Just who you are, what some of your hobbies are, what you enjoy doing, so they can start to become familiar with who you are.

Blaine: I'm Blaine. Nice to virtually meet all of you. I am married to Audrey, and we have six kids. I have a life of sales and construction experience, and I love hobbies. I love to hike, I love to read. Shakespeare's my favorite. I play the viola, I'm in an orchestra, and I love to learn languages. And remodeling. I do love construction.

Audrey: So much. And gardening.

Blaine: That is true. Yeah. So many things. But I like construction more than gardening, though, to be honest.

Audrey: Yes. Alright, so then tell us a little bit about how long we've been married and some of the words that you might use to talk about our marriage and about me.

Blaine: We've been married 32 years. Is that right?

Audrey: Yes. That's good.

Blaine: And words about you? And us? I would describe us as people that are really trying to find out the truth. Our mission statement is "The truth shall make you free," so that's what our lens is always trying to find. If we have something that is difficult in our lives, it takes us sometimes a long time, sometimes it doesn't take very long, to try to find out what's the truth that's really going to solve this problem or make us so we can accomplish this thing that we want to do. So that's kind of our pursuit always. And then we find out sometimes we went down the wrong path. We didn't do it quite right, or we could improve it, and so then we try to improve it from there and level it up even higher.

Audrey: That's true. Would you agree? Except it hasn't always been that way.

Blaine: Oh. I think we've always been the kind of people that want to improve as individuals, but we didn't always have the tools and the language that you just used, for sure.

Audrey: No. And I think I would also say just about us, just our marriage in general. To describe our marriage, I would say that we've always been good friends, and we've always really had a lot in common and had a lot of chemistry and enjoyed each other's company, but it hasn't always been easy to navigate the marriage. And there have been rocky and rough times for sure.

Blaine: It's true. I've been happily married for 32 years, and I think you're at 16 now, right?

Audrey: Yeah, that's your favorite thing to say. It's unfortunately true.

Blaine: Which makes it sound like our marital problems were all your fault. That's definitely not true. But we had good enough times that you stuck in there with me. We did have a lot of good things that we did over the years and good times together. And we've always respected each other quite a bit. And we were very motivated to keep the marriage together, to figure things out, but we didn't always know the way.

Audrey: So let's go back. We want to talk today to couples who are maybe in some of the same situations that we were in when we were younger. Couples that love each other, that want to stay married but don't always know the way forward. Not because we have a lot of marital advice, but because we have an academy that empowers and arms women and mothers and wives to know how to better navigate and negotiate themselves. So we thought we would just take a little trip in time today with you and go back through some of our experiences together and how the concepts and principles and language and tools that we have had the privilege of putting into our academy made a difference for us, and specifically how they made a difference for me, and through me made a difference for us.

How would you describe me and what I was going through before this all began when we just had our three little ones?

Blaine: I thought everything was hunky-dory, except for all the problems we had. But you... I thought you were all chillax, everything was good. But then things weren't good, and you were like... I just remember you walked around saying, "I'm so intellectually bored. I need to be intellectually stimulated." And I kept saying, "What does that mean?" And you just had this constant frustration. You were longing for something, and I understand what it is now, but I didn't know then.

Audrey: Well, neither did I. That's why you kept going around asking. I mean, you asked it all the time. I wanted some depth. "I just need something. What do I need? What do I need? What do I need?" I wanted some mental challenge.

Blaine: And so I remember that. With my addiction, we both struggled a lot. I struggled a lot more, I think. But how to not take it personally... You were always really good to me and patient with me, but I think you still struggled more at the beginning than you did later on.

Audrey: What do you mean?

Blaine: Struggling with being married to an addict. You had no idea what to do. And then later on you felt more empowered and you handled it better.

Audrey: What else would you say about that time in our life? Other challenges we had going on?

Blaine: Finances. How to handle finances. How to parent the best we could. You had relationships that sometimes were real sticky and you weren't sure what was going on and how to handle them with extended family and even some friends. That caused a lot of heartache at times.

Audrey: Yeah. I felt like at the time, and this is one of the reasons why when we found this education and this pathway forward of something to do and try, I just knew that we were both in it. We weren't going anywhere, and I knew that we were both trying. I mean, you were so dedicated to me staying home with the kids. I said many times, "Should I go work?" And you were like, "No, no, no. I will figure it out. I want you to feel like you can stay home with the kids and be there, especially when they're young." So we were in it in that regard, but I also felt like we lacked unity in a lot of ways. Like, we weren't really always on the same page financially. We didn't actually talk about parenting strategies much. In navigating our relationship, we fought way more than I want to admit.

Blaine: Yeah, we did fight. But I think our commitment to God and our commitment to each other really anchored us and kept us afloat.

Audrey: I feel like one of the most important things, like hanging on to faith, is that it kept us from expecting the other person to fill every hole in our lives. Like, we understood at least that much that there were certain spiritual needs and other needs that God could only meet for us or that we could only meet for ourselves. I think there was a little bit of understanding of that. I don't remember us having arguments about, "Well, it's your fault," this or that. But on the other hand, when we felt rotten, it was easy to blame each other. Like, "You're the reason I feel rotten," or, "Our finances are the reason," or, "Extended family is the reason."

Blaine: And I was kind of fragile because of my ego. So you would bring up finances and I'd blow up because I was embarrassed that I wasn't taking better care of you and the family. We didn't have more money and more things. And that was tough for me. And it was tough for you because then there was an argument. You're like, "Why do you always blow up? We're just trying to have a conversation."

Audrey: Yeah. And then I would cry, and then I would want to blame you, and sometimes I would. I didn't have any idea how I was contributing or what it was that I could do about it or the different perception changes that I could have. Looking back and kind of being in that moment again with you, the best way I know how to describe it is really just feeling so powerless. Like, I go to church, I say my prayers, I live a good life, I do good things, I followed the prescription of marry and have kids, and now this was my dream, but it doesn't feel like I'm living in my dream. It just feels messy and confusing and hard, and I just didn't have good tools to know how to see it differently and be different myself.

Audrey: The big moment, the wake-up call, we would probably both say is...

Blaine: When you slapped me.

Audrey: Yeah. What do you remember about that day?

Blaine: I remember being a normal man. Things were fine. I've learned that the wife feels it a lot more intensely than the husband, and things were fine from where I stood. And then when you slapped me, I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. Wait, there's a major problem here." That's when I woke up and thought, "Oh, we're in trouble." Serious trouble. So that's why I prayed, and that's why I found a counselor and went and took you there, because I didn't want to lose you. It's ironic in the sense that we don't know what we're doing. We love this person. We want to be with them, but we're doing things to push them away. That's the irony.

Blaine: But when you learn some principles and some things that empower you, then all of a sudden it just changes everything. You're like, "Okay, well now I'm not pushing them away. I'm actually drawing them towards me because I have these tools that I didn't know before."

Audrey: And part of it, I know, is that we didn't understand who we were. You didn't understand who you were.

Blaine: Yeah. And I didn't understand who I was. And so we're blaming the other for something that's impossible for them to do. They're not wired that way. All the times you would say, "Why don't you just plan something?" I was like, "I'm not a planner." I mean, it just doesn't come natural to me at all. And so once you realize that, then almost instantly things got a little bit better because you're like, "Oh, he doesn't ever think about it until you bring it up." So that self-discovery was really helpful.

Audrey: And you know, ironically, what a lot of listeners might not know is that you actually have a marriage and family therapy degree. You actually went through that degree program. You actually worked with couples for a couple of years. So you really do have the inside track. Not only did we go as a couple to marriage therapy, but then you turned around and were on the other side of it.

Blaine: Ben Hardy says something really interesting about therapy. It's very helpful for a myriad of reasons, but it's backward-looking. Therapy really focuses very heavily on the past, and it can be very helpful to look at your past and rewrite those stories to be more empowering, but it's limited in that regard. And what happens in marriage therapy is that it's the least successful of all therapeutic approaches, largely because you're in the room with somebody else and it's easy to blame.

Audrey: Yeah. And like you said, when we went to therapy, communication was the biggest emphasis. And after we'd gone every week for a year, I remember the day we pulled up and we kind of looked at each other and were like, "I really don't think she has anything else to teach us. We've kind of cycled through. She's talking about the same things again, and I just don't think this can take us any further."

It gave us a couple of tools. That was pretty much it. The biggest benefit of therapy was that Blaine called. It was the fact that you called up and you wanted to go, and you were willing to go and spend the money, that I knew, "Oh, he's committed. He really does want to make this work. He really is willing to do whatever we need to do." And that was hugely helpful to just know that. But in terms of that making a huge impact on our marriage, ironically, it just didn't.

Blaine: And that's part of the reason I don't do marriage counseling anymore, because it was so frustrating. They would sit there and blame the other person. I had some remarkable stories where people changed, and it was awesome. But I also remember one time a lady came in by herself, and I said, "Look, I have a question for you. Are you just coming here so you can check off the box to say you went to therapy so that you can then divorce your husband?" And she just... I nailed it. She didn't want to be married anymore. She didn't want to do any work to change. She just didn't want to be married to him anymore, and she wanted to be able to say, "I was the good spouse. I went to therapy."

Blaine: But I found also that you were doing MDM and having greater impact on marriages than I was having. And you weren't working with couples. You were working with individuals. And people would say, "You saved my marriage." And I was like, "You saved their marriage? What'd you do?" But there was no marriage therapy. And it's because one plus one is two, but if you change one, then the answer's no longer two. If you become a better you, the whole relationship gets better. And that's hard to do because it's easier to blame. It's easier to say it's their fault than to look at your own stuff. But that's where all the empowerment comes from. That's where you feel so much better because you feel like you actually have answers. You actually feel empowered and feel like you can do something instead of just letting whatever happens to you happen to you.

Audrey: So we'd done the therapy. It hadn't really helped. What we knew is that we were both committed to this marriage, and we wanted to figure it out, and I was really grateful to know that, but we just didn't have answers. And then here I am, wandering around the house, not knowing how to manage the extended family situations, the pornography issues, you were gone a lot, finances and all the things. So I just wanted answers, and I felt lost in motherhood. I didn't have a huge sense of self even before marriage. I wandered around a major university for three years, went and did mission work in Europe, and came home and married. But being married, I knew that I loved you, and I knew I loved the kids, and I didn't want to go anywhere, but I needed some kind of something.

And I didn't want to go get a full-time career. I thought about going back to the university, but I was going to have to go to school full time. So we find this classical liberal education because of our sister-in-law. I'm talking to her about this. For a year I've been wandering around the house saying, "You don't know how to help me. You don't know what to tell me. I don't know what else to try. I've tried courses. I've read books. We've been to therapy. I don't know what else to try." So then we find this little school.

I know one of the things that women come back to us with in terms of wanting to join the academy is that a lot of husbands will say things like, "Well, if you're going to spend money on yourself and on an education, it should be so that you can earn more money for our family." I know that we were back and forth about it a lot, and it was a huge financial sacrifice for us. It was going to take time. It was going to take money, and I felt I had done my due diligence and researched it, but I wanted it. Where were you at in that moment? How did you feel about spending the money and me taking the time?

Blaine: I just felt bad for you because I knew how frustrated you had been and how you were longing for something, but we didn't know what it was. And every time I paid tuition, I was like... It was all out of pocket. No loans or anything. Unaccredited. But you know, looking back, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Because with the kind of education that we have now, ironically, I think people are able to earn more money. They can think deeper. And if they do need a certain credential, they'll be better. They'll understand things better. They'll be able to fit the career better with who they are because they'll understand themselves better. But then all I knew was that my wife needed something, and let's try this. And I was quite intrigued, to be honest. They were talking about Cicero and Dante and Shakespeare and Dickens, and Plato and Aristotle. So it was intriguing to me, but I was still worried about the money, for sure.

Audrey: So we get started. I take classes online, and then we have that live class a couple of years in. You show up, we're reading Seven Habits, and we realize we have no family mission statement. We aren't even thinking about it that way.

Blaine: That was you. You're the planner. You're the one that's like, "We don't have this."

Audrey: I was like, "I didn't think about it. The corporations have mission statements, right?" And of course we're thinking about personal mission statements, and then I realize we don't have one. And it was a principle that I was able to latch onto that felt like, "Oh, this is actually something that we could do that would start to build more unity. We could have a shared vision." And it was Covey that was talking about principles. He even mentioned natural law, but I wasn't keyed into it until later when we read Locke, and that's really when the concept of natural law really presented itself as this unique, original idea that I had been totally unfamiliar with. And so one thing led to another.

Even though those college classes didn't introduce me to most of the things that are in the academy now, it introduced me to frameworks and concepts and turned me on to the types of learning tools I needed to gain. I was taught and mentored in how to lead Socratic discussion, and I started to understand the kinds of readings that you should engage in and why, and how you would go about doing that. And then as I dove deep into the natural law and we got this mission statement of "the truth will make you free," then eventually somewhere along the line we connected the dots. There must be financial principles then. There must be addiction recovery principles then.

Blaine: Yeah. And even when you were doing your marriage therapy, you were like, "Well, there must be marriage principles." And you ran your whole program on those 12 marital principles.

But I think one of the attractions to me was to see your confidence rise. It skyrocketed. Because you were in your element, in your strengths. And just the light that you had, and the impact it was starting to have on you, not just the confidence, which was huge, but how the things you were thinking about and the connections you were making attracted me more to it. I was like, "Man, there's some real meat here. There are some real answers that we're starting to get." And so it was easy to pull me into it because of the impact it was already having on you.

Audrey: Wow. That's cool. I don't know if I've ever heard you say that that way.

Audrey: As we finish up here, let's talk for just a minute about some of the concepts and principles that made their way into the academy and talk about how they changed me, changed you, changed us, changed our family for the better. And then we'll end with what you might say to couples, and especially husbands, whose wives are turned on to this program and are considering doing it and feel concerned about the investment.

So first, let's back up a bit. In level one we're learning how to love and like ourselves, and we've got those three core first principles of self-care and self-discovery and self-management, or self-leadership. What are some of the concepts and principles, or stories, that you could relate or examples you could give for discovering those?

Blaine: Well, I remember one time when you got really angry. I don't know if you've ever been that angry before, except for maybe when you slapped me. And you told me the next day you felt like you'd been poisoned. And that was a change. You said, "I will never allow myself to go there again." And it was just a step up in the self-management. You weren't going to allow yourself to do things like that because it didn't do any good. It just made you feel horrible.

What was the self-discovery that made such a difference for you and for us?

Audrey: I think self-discovery is so important. I mean, what does it say above the Lyceum door? "Know thyself." It's huge. I don't think there's enough emphasis on it in our society. People do stuff and they're frustrated. So many people, like me, frustrated for years because they're not in their element, not in the place where their gifts and their strengths are.

Blaine: And for you, for mind mates, you just need to talk. You want to talk to people about things, about ideas. And that's really empowering to understand. I was like, "Why does she want to talk?" Always wanting to talk, talk, talk. But it's important to you. It helps meet a need. So you give yourself permission to do it, too, so you have an outlet, so you actually feel better.

Another thing you did is you got more serious about exercising and making sure that you met your needs. Because Adler taught you about needs and what proper self-care is. Once you started doing that, you improved. And that improved your emotional state. I think exercising is going to help probably more emotionally than physically, though it will definitely help physically. And so that was really helpful.

And you'd always prayed and studied scripture and been in church, so you did a good job on your spiritual needs. But you took it up by meeting these other needs that weren't so natural to you, which helped you, which helped us. And you were a better mom, more patient, because you felt better because you'd met those needs.

Audrey: You know, we mentioned how so much of therapy and marriage tools and everything people talk about is around communication. But actually, for us, gaining an understanding of principles did two really important things. One thing it did was, instead of Blaine being right or me being right, it was the principles that are right. And so it took a layer of friction between us away. So often we've been in conversations that have gotten a little heated, and we've been able to say, "Okay, but what's the principle here?" And we can check ourselves and say, "Maybe I'm wrong. Let's go try to figure out what the principle would be here."

And then the secondary thing that's so important is that we have all this shared language. I mean, if you've been listening to us these last few minutes, we have all these words and all this language about drama and victimhood and creator orientation, or whether it's self-deception or whether it's telling yourself the truth, or whether it's meeting your needs. And we're able to correct each other, I guess is maybe the word. But it doesn't bother me. It's not coming from an accusatory place.

Blaine: Like you just said, you'll say, "Audrey, you've got to meet your needs or you're going to crash." Or I'll start crashing and you'll be like, "You feel this way because you're not meeting your needs well enough." And I'm not accusing you. I'm just stating you're not in line with true principles, and therefore you're reaping the consequences.

Audrey: Yes. And so it's been just... I can't even emphasize strongly enough how incredibly liberating and empowering it has been to have all of this shared language around how to live out these three first principles of loving ourselves. Because now we both love ourselves better, and when we love ourselves better, we can love each other better.

Blaine: And I think any husband should encourage his wife to do this program. And I'm not saying that for any reason other than for your benefit and her benefit. It's going to benefit your wife, and she's going to become a better person. She's going to feel better. She's going to feel empowered, and you're going to like that, and you're going to want to follow because you don't want to be left behind. And just the goodness and health and wholeness that comes from it is so attractive. You'd want to be that way too.

Plus, if you're like me, you don't want the problems I was having. I wanted to overcome those problems. I wanted to be a better man, a better husband, a better provider. And all this has done is made it easier. We still have our stuff. We still have things to work through because we're human. But we can catch it, and we can arrest it, and we can pivot and go the right way so that pain is avoided, which used to cause weeks or months of suffering. Sometimes it would be an argument for a few days, or those poor choices would have consequences going on for a long time. And now a lot of times we can just see it. We can think deeper. We know ourselves, and we can course-correct.

Audrey: And I think there's so many ways in which this enhances love in a marriage. As we both meet our own individual needs, there are many things I can't do for Blaine. I can't strengthen his relationship with God. I can't make him more fit. I can't help him learn a language or read a great book. I can't help him manage his anger or frustrations or self-pity. Those are all things he needs to do for himself, which is why we need the tools to know how to lead ourselves emotionally, how to manage our hearts and our minds, how to meet our real needs.

And then the self-discovery component layers the marriage with this beautiful understanding of each other that's so much richer and deeper. Because instead of expecting or wanting him to be like me, I value that he's different. I want him to be different because I understand that his difference complements me and that it makes us stronger together. And I see it as a strength instead of a weakness. And instead of blaming him, I encourage him to be the person that he is to the fullest. I feel like all of those things have deepened the love that we have for each other.

Blaine: I remember one time we were going on a trip. I don't remember where we were going, but you're like, "Why don't you help out?" And I was like, "What do you think I've been doing?" You said, "I'm in here in the kitchen all by myself." And I said, "Did you check the sprinklers? Did you mow the lawn? Did you make sure everything was locked? Did you check the temperatures on the AC? Did you check the pool?" And listed all these things. She's like, "Oh." It was just a case in point of how differently we think. And now she's like, "Oh, you're a man. You think differently." It was just empowering, and we've kept that and used that as we've gone forward.

Audrey: And because of the things that we've learned and understand, I was able to say, "Why aren't you helping me?" or "Could you help me better?" rather than, "You're such a loser. Sleep on the couch tonight." Because we had a lot of couch nights in this marriage.

Blaine: And I've learned more patience because of it. I learned that you weren't attacking me. You were just trying to talk about things, your concerns and stuff like that. And it's exciting. It's more exciting now than ever because we've gone so far, and we keep knowing that if we hit a problem, we can tackle it and we can beat it. We have the toolbox. We can just grab the tool we need and run with it.

Audrey: Husbands, if this is something that your wife is willing to tackle, if she wants to embark on this adventure of self-discovery and self-leadership and really do the work of self-management and understanding herself, you have everything to gain, which Blaine said. And everything will be different in your family culture. I mean, we didn't talk about it, but just the way that we parent, the type of family culture that we've been able to build, rests on a foundation of understanding. There are so many countless stories I could tell about understanding my children better and valuing them more and encouraging them in their strengths and unique gifts and talents. Everyone has benefited.

Blaine: And the thing that I think is so incredible about the academy is that you've really built it for women in the real world. You see these books that say, "How do you get a book through? You read it four times." Like, who has time to read it once? But you've got it to 20 or 30 minutes a day. That's all the more time, because it has to be done that way so it percolates and they really get it. And it's not going to overtake their lives at all.

And you're going to see immediate results, I think. Right off the bat, you're going to see something. They're going to implement something that they learn, and you're going to be impressed. And they're just going to continue to do that as they work through the academy over the months and years ahead.

What Has It All Been Worth?

Audrey: As we end, Blaine, one last question for you. What has all of this been worth to our family?

Blaine: I think that's immeasurable. I think we have a family still because of it. Because it would've been real easy to make me the problem. You know, addiction was the problem. I wasn't the problem. I was suffering. I was wounded in battle. And I had such a poor self-image because of my addiction that you could do no wrong. I really used to think, "I'm sure she has faults," but because mine were just glaring so huge, I couldn't see them.

But you didn't give up on me. And so that was ginormous. I mean, it's helped us in all our relationships with extended family. It's now helped me rebuild relationships with my children that needed to be healed and improved. It's helped us with our finances. We had financial stress for years and years and years. It's helped us with your hip, where you could hardly even walk. And through prayer and study and hard work, finding the answers, you didn't have to have an operation and you're back to normal. I mean, it took almost a year, but there are just so many benefits.

And just the peace of mind and the enjoyment that we have in our lives. We know who we are, so we do things that bring us joy. And we've given ourselves permission because that's who we are. Before, sometimes we felt like, "Oh, I can't do that. It's wasting time or whatever." And we understand now, no, we need leisure time, and we need to be in our work and... I mean, I just can't answer it fully. The benefits have been astronomical. Just incredible.

Audrey: Well, thank you for coming and talking to us today and sharing a husband's perspective and a man's perspective on how women can gain the tools to manage themselves. And when they manage themselves, everything changes for everybody. I know that firsthand, and you know that firsthand. So hopefully what we've said today helps someone out there.

Audrey: Thank you so much for joining us today. We are so grateful that you were able to be here. If you want to learn more about what goes on in the academy or what the natural law is or how principles work or any of the things that we've talked about today, you can join me in a free training that I'm doing coming up soon. The link is in the description below or at themissiondrivenmom.com. I'd love to see you at that free training. Thank you again for being here and joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode: 

Over the last month, I've been sharing stories from some of the women inside MDM Academy.

These are not women who had more figured out than you do. 

They didn't start with extra money, extra time, or some kind of unshakeable certainty. They started exactly where a lot of us are, with a feeling they couldn't quite name, a family they were trying to show up for, and a quiet little voice in the back of their head whispering, is this really it for me?

They just said yes to the next small step in front of them.

Today's episode is all three of their stories woven together, because I think together they say something none of them could say alone.

You're going to hear from Karen, who felt called to serve orphaned teenagers in Mexico, talked herself out of it for years, and then one day got an email from her husband with the subject line: it's time to go. She sold her house. Sold her stuff. Moved her whole family to the jungle. And she is building something I believe is going to change a lot of lives.

Then you'll hear from Lindsay, our head mentor inside MDM, who came to this work feeling completely lost, despite having accomplished every goal she had ever set for herself. A mom of five who had done everything right and still felt like she was floundering. What she found here changed not just her own life, but the way she leads her family, her homeschool, and her church.

And then there's Brenda. A community builder who has spent decades watching what happens when women stop trying to do it all alone. She has brought her kids across the country, started schools, coached founders, and will tell you with the most joyful, completely matter-of-fact energy that together, there is nothing we cannot do.

These are your people, friend.

Welcome to today's podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, and I wanna tell you something before we get into today's podcast. Over the last month, we shared several interviews with some of our MDM Academy members. Inspiring stories about the impact that doing this work has had on their lives and their families and the world around them.

The women you're about to hear from are not extraordinary in the way we usually mean that word. They did not start with more money or more time or more resources or more certainty than you have right now. They started exactly where you are, with a pull towards something they could not quite name, a family they were trying to show up for, and a quiet voice in the back of their minds.

Is this it? Is this what's here for me? And they said yes to that next small thing, and then the next one, and then the one after that. And today I'm bringing you the highlights of these three conversations stitched together into one episode because I think together they tell a story that none of them could tell alone.

You're gonna hear from Karen, who felt called to serve orphaned teenagers in Mexico, dismissed the idea for years, and then one day got an email from her husband with the subject line, "It's time to go." She sold her house, sold her stuff, moved her family to the jungle, and is now building something that I believe is going to change a lot of lives.

Then you're gonna hear from Lindsay, our head mentor inside MDM Academy, who came to this work feeling like she was floundering. A mother of five who had accomplished every goal she had set for herself and still felt lost. What she found here changed not just her own life, but the way she leads her family, her homeschool community, and in her church.

And then you're going to hear from Brenda, a community builder who has spent decades watching what happens when women stop trying to do it alone. She's dragged her kids across the country, started schools, coached founders, and will tell you in the most joyful matter-of-fact way that together there's nothing we cannot do.

These are your people, my friend. I'm excited for you to listen.

Karen

And then that was the last I heard of him. I did hear that he did end up at one of the centers. But it was more and more kids like this that would contact me. I'd find out what they were doing, and I just thought if we could be in Mexico, like we could do something for them. Like from out here, I feel like we can...

I mean, we did some fundraisers to try to find things that the orphanage needed. But what they — I felt they needed most was to be heard, to have these opportunities to pursue the interests they had, and to make an impact for good. They really, like all the ones I met, really wanted to just make the world better.

They wanted to break these cycles. They didn't wanna be the same kind of people that their parents were. Oftentimes they were in these orphanages because their parents were in addictions, and they couldn't take care of them. They wanted something better and different. But often when they would go back out into the world, that's what they knew.

They didn't really know how to do things in a different way, so they would go back to these patterns. And I thought, in my heart, I thought if we could just live in Mexico. But whenever I would bring it up to my family, they were like, "Well, that's impossible. You know, my husband's job is in the United States, and he likes it, and he can't work remotely. He's a therapist, so that's a hands-on thing, and we have a life here." And so it just seemed like an impossible thing, but it would come into my mind every once in a while. We could do so much more if we could provide something there, because obviously we can't bring them to us — as much as I would like that.

I did look into adoption a few times, and that was really difficult for Mexico. And it wasn't gonna make the impact for all of the kids that I want to make. And so I think that drive home, that prayer, that sincere prayer just started something. I can't even explain exactly what it was, but because it was so sincere, something happened that just made the ball start rolling in a direction where this would be possible.

As I was looking into options of what to do, I thought maybe we could go sometimes in the summer. That's what we started doing — creating different programs, figuring out ways to help these kids. And every once in a while I would say, "But if we lived in Mexico," and they're like, "Oh, here you go again." And so I kinda just stopped at that.

And then one day out of nowhere — this was a huge surprise to me — my husband sends me this email and the subject line said, "It's time to go." And so I started reading it and he said, "I've been praying about this, and if this is something that means this much to you and that you really wanna try, then we should just go and try it as a family. Let's just all go and see what we can do."

And so that was a huge miracle, 'cause that was so unexpected. And so he decided to take that leap, and we just sold our home and sold our stuff and we went to a couple internships first. So we did an internship in one orphanage in Tijuana, another one in that same orphanage that we often visited, and then we moved — which is where we bought land. So we had bought the land a year earlier after deciding to do this, planning to move out there.

Audrey

All right, incredible stuff. What Karen just described — that moment of offering herself to God with no plan, no guarantee, and no roadmap — that is not a rare thing. I've watched it happen over and over again in the lives of women who have done this work. But here's what I want you to notice. It didn't start with mission.

It started with Karen working on herself, reading, learning, asking harder questions, sitting with the discomfort of a calling she wasn't sure she was ready for. The mission was the fruit of the inner work, not the starting point. And that's exactly what you're gonna hear from Lindsay next. Lindsay came to The Mission Driven Mom not because she had a vision for her community or a project she wanted to launch.

She came because she was floundering. She had everything she had set out to accomplish — she had accomplished it — and she still didn't know who she was or where she was going next. And what happened, what the work of learning to think differently did to her relationships, her courage, and her ability to lead — I think it's actually really gonna resonate with you.

So I'm excited for you to listen to this next part.

Lindsay

But I did feel — I did feel like I was floundering a little bit. And you've talked about this before, and I resonate with it, that you get lost a little bit in the motherhood. It's consuming. It's often thankless, although everybody appreciates the mother — they don't always say it. But I just remembered just floundering, I think would be the word. Just not knowing what to do, where to spend my time, and feeling a little lost, and maybe even a little bit depressed. I just didn't know, okay, where do I go from here?

And joining the MDM community, going through Level One — you're putting yourself together. You're making your physical needs a priority. You're making your mental needs a priority. You're studying, you're learning. That intellectual stimulation really is meaningful and gives life a lot of meaning, as you're learning, as you're making friends and discussing things, and putting your spiritual house in order. And then one of my favorite parts of Level One is just the self-discovery. So learning what am I good at? What are my natural strengths? And how can I develop them?

I remember when we were learning about the drama triangle, and that was such a paradigm shift for me — just to have the words for it. That creator is the opposite of victim. And I didn't necessarily think that I was a victim. I didn't think that I was steeped in this victim mentality, but I was in the middle of some big drama at the time, and it was so helpful to see the different roles that were being played, and the roles I was playing in the drama cycle, and to know what to do to change that. So that was a big deal, and I'm still learning, still working on it. There's still multiple ways — subtle ways — that we show up in this victim orientation every day.

And so I'm super excited. I've been diving deep into different ways of being a victim, and it's been fun to just get more depth to this understanding of the drama cycle, and how to be a creator.

I think for me, it's been a journey of getting my heart and my mind to talk to each other. Our heart — that's where our values are. That's where we feel things. That's where we have desire and motivation. And then in our mind is the logic and the reason and all those things that we associate with the intellectual life. And I've always been very much in my mind, very intellectual. That's how I approached the world. Give me a book so I can know what to do.

Through the academy, I'm learning — and I'm still learning — how to tap more into the heart, how to tap more into my values. Like, I know what my values are. How to pay attention to those feelings. How do we know we're in drama? It starts with a feeling. How do we relate with people? It starts with the heart, right? And for me, it's that communication between the heart and mind that is just a better way to approach life — with both of them being active instead of just the one.

We get to know ourselves on a deeper level in Level One. And so understanding my unique strengths, and also the strengths of others, because we're not the same. And I think sometimes in the past I had thought my way is the best way, and expected everybody to be like me. And so now I have this greater appreciation that actually, I really appreciate when people are not like me — because they bring balance to me. They fill in the gaps for me.

And so I really love that we have these different unique strengths, and also this idea that we can see these strengths. I think I had seen some of my strengths as weaknesses. Or I just hadn't understood them. Why am I this way? Why do I do this, and why does it cause problems? And so, on both sides of that coin, learning to see myself differently is definitely helping my heart and my mind to align better. But also my heart to somebody else's heart is more in alignment, because I feel like I can see myself more clearly, and I'm learning to see others more clearly.

Audrey

Everything Lindsay just described — the alignment between her heart and mind — none of that happened because she found the right system or the right book. It happened because she found her people.

And that is what I wanna talk to you about in this last conversation, because I think it might be the thing we underestimate the most. You can have the right framework, you can have the right principles, you can even have the desire to change, but without a community of women who share the language, who can tell you the truth when you ask for it, who will push back when you're lying to yourself, and cheer wildly when you're not — the growth is slower, lonelier, and so much harder to sustain.

Brenda Haas has spent her career watching what happens when women build that kind of community with intention. She's built schools, coached founders. Her first homeschool was with her oldest when she was not even five years old. She traveled with her kids to places most people would think was impossible, and she'll tell you without hesitation that none of it would've happened if she had tried to do it alone.

So listen up to Brenda.

Brenda

There was a huge difference between before MDM and after MDM. So yes, you and I were connected, and I knew about MDM, and I was excited to get on that path and start that. And so I wanted to grab all these women that I loved — that were in my group, that I was so connected to. I loved their kids. I loved them. We all really knew what each other's values were and where we were coming from, and I was like, "Let's all do this journey together. Let's do it." And we did.

That was an incredible year for us, and I think that one of the reasons why was because it was great content. The content itself really encouraged these great, deep conversations. And it wasn't fluff. It wasn't just this superficial, let's rehash the events of a book and let's see if we know what the timeline was and can name the characters of a fiction book. That was not what it was. It was actually discussing character and values, and how a character would apply to us, and how we saw our values mirrored in them or not mirrored in them — which led to deeper conversations, which led to this beautiful...

There was a vulnerability that had to happen in the class, and that came over time. It's not like you just jump in with a group of people and automatically have that. But it did grow, and it grew steadily, and we were able to celebrate the things that were different in each other, and also celebrate the things that were similar, and honor each other. So we really learned to hold space for other people, and be excited about their stuff even if it wasn't our own, because we knew they would turn around and do the same thing.

And I think that one of the things that I look back on — and I joke with my students now that I'm an old lady, right? Well, I'm 55, and we joke around about it, 'cause I'm older than their mothers, most of them. But I look at my 40s as this incredible time of growth for me, and MDM was a huge part of that. I felt like a grown-up when I was going through MDM. I felt like these are questions, and books, and content, and things that matter, and that are actually gonna make me a wiser person. So it was exciting to dig into it, and I saw the growth in myself, and it has made a huge difference in me.

It also made a huge difference in our community, because I wanted the moms at the time — that were the moms of my children's friends — to have the same stuff that I had. To have that same stable platform and the confidence in who they were, because that gets passed on to their kids, and then to the family cultures, and then the community. It was beautiful. It was awesome.

Brenda, Lindsay, and Karen. I hope you enjoyed their amazing stories. And I can tell you that there are many other women with similar experiences who started working on themselves and then found that they were much more brilliant and capable and powerful than they ever imagined that they were. So with all of that in mind, I hope that this was inspiring to you.

I hope it will help you on your own journey. And if you'd like to know more and you wanna better understand the program and the principles they learned that made this huge transformation in their lives, I'm gonna do a free training next week, June 11th, and it's gonna be 8:00 Eastern. It's called How to Stop Feeling Powerless and Become the Expert in Your Own Life.

And we will dive into some of the frameworks and key concepts that you need to know in order to begin your own transformation like these women have had. I would love to have you join me there. The link is in the description, and you can also sign up at themissiondrivenmom.com. Thanks for joining me today, and I'll see you next time.

Resources Mentioned in Episode: 

I want to tell you about a woman who changed my life.

Her name was Corrie Ten Boom. And since I read her story for the first time in The Hiding Place, my life has never been the same.

She was a fifty-year-old watchmaker in Holland when the German occupation began. Ordinary in almost every way. Small income. Simple life. No influence and no power

And yet, she and her family saved the lives of over 800 Jews during World War II.

When I knew all she and her family had sacrificed for absolute strangers, I wanted to know: "How do you build a family like that? How do you become the kind of person who, when the moment comes, risks everything to do what is right?”

The answer, I've come to believe, is that Corrie wasn't trying to be a hero. She was just trying to be faithful. She loved God. She governed her heart and her mind. She learned to live by principle. She served the people right in front of her.

And it multiplied into something that, eventually, the whole world felt.

On this week's episode, I walk through Corrie's life. I demonstrate how she lived every single one of the 7 Laws of Life Mission, quietly and faithfully, long before the war ever came to her door.

Here's a little of what you'll hear:

This story is one of my favorites.

Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission Driven Life, founder of The Mission Driven Mom, and we get to do something really fun today, which I thought certainly we had done before, but I looked through the podcast, and we have not done it. We're going to do a mission-driven story of Corrie Ten Boom, a woman who absolutely changed my life.

Reading The Hiding Place for the first time really was a total game changer for me. It shifted my mindset. It changed the way I thought about myself and my family and my life, changed my goal sets. It was really profound, and today, we're just going to touch on the life of Corrie Ten Boom as she lives those Seven Laws of Life Mission.

We haven't done this for a little bit, so I'm super excited to get started. All right. Here's how I want to start, with a story that's really profound about her.

A Story of Bravery: Corrie Ten Boom and the Jewish Family
Near the beginning of the German occupation of Holland during World War II, Corrie Ten Boom, a 50-year-old spinster, was visiting Jewish friends. In the middle of their discussion, the children called from upstairs for their father to put them to bed. He quickly excused himself, and Corrie could hear their romping play and laughter. As she listened, reflecting on the deep love that was present in their home, a realization suddenly struck her with intense force.

This family was in grave danger. More and more frequently, Jews were going missing from their homes and jobs, but now she awoke to the fact that this family, her dear friends, could be next. At any moment, the Gestapo could knock on this door, raid the house, and separate the family forever. With this awareness came an overwhelming sadness and an anxious desire to help.

As she waited in their living room, she wondered what she could possibly do. Her life was simple, her income was small, and her resources were few. She felt she had little to give, yet she was willing to do what she could. In that moment of great bravery and generosity, she said a silent prayer and offered up all she had. "Lord, I offer myself for your people in any way, any place, any time."

This family saved the lives of over 800 Jews during World War II voluntarily, when most of the people around them did not. They found out about the resistance, they joined, and they risked their lives and eventually gave their lives to save the lives of strangers. And what I wanted to know when I first read The Hiding Place was, how do you build a family like that? How do you build a life like that? How do you build a character like that, to be the person who would be different than all the people around you?

I can't judge anybody that was there because I've never been through anything like that, and I genuinely don't know what I would do. But I wanted to be like the Ten Booms. I wanted to be the family, the individual, the mother, the woman that would welcome people into my home at the risk of my own life. And they eventually did. Many of the family members did give their lives for complete strangers.

So I want to go through the life of Corrie Ten Boom and just touch on the Seven Laws of Life Mission and walk you through that path that the greats have followed to become the men and women who did change the world.

Corrie wasn't out to change the world. Corrie was just trying to be the best woman she could be. She was trying to listen to her conscience and live by principle and follow God and His mandates and serve her fellow brothers and sisters on earth. And yet in that pursuit, their family became world famous and has changed the lives of millions of people, including me.

So let's touch on these Seven Laws of Life Mission today through the lens of the life of Corrie Ten Boom and talk about some of her stories. And I'll give you some resources when we're done for how you can continue to learn more, because she's incredible.

She was born in Amsterdam, Holland, on April 15th, 1892. And I want to just go through and tell you some stories from each of these times in her life about how she lived each of these laws.

So Law One, of course, is to love God by establishing your divine center. And she definitely was someone who, from childhood forward, established her divine center in God.

She said, "Love for the Jews was spoon-fed to me from my very youngest years." Daily prayer for the Jews began when Willem Ten Boom, her great-grandfather, started having daily prayers in their home for the Jews in 1844, and continued for three generations. For 100 years, until 1944 when they were arrested and put in concentration camps, they prayed every day.

Not surprisingly, Corrie stated, "As a result, deep respect and love for the Jews became part of our home life." They knew that praying wasn't enough, though, and as Corrie herself later taught, "We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God's work on behalf of the people for whom we pray."

So from the time that she was little, she was taught that prayer was vital, that she needed to read scripture daily, say prayers daily, and to be willing to do whatever God asked her to do. Her father, Casper, came downstairs every morning at 8:10 and gathered his family around him all the way through her twenties, her thirties, her forties, her fifties, because she never married and always lived at home. And they read scripture and prayed together every single morning.

I want to tell you a couple of stories from Corrie's growing up years, experiences that she had that helped her better learn to love God.

One day when she was disobedient in school and was sent to the headmaster's office, instead of going there, she ducked into a closet and waited hours for school to end. She was certain that she would be dismissed from the school and had no idea what she should do. She believed it would disgrace her father, as he had helped to found the school. When she heard the bell ring, she made for home as quickly as her legs would take her.

Once there, she poured out her heart to her sister, Nollie. She told her everything. Then Nollie suggested that Corrie pray and ask for forgiveness. This was already a clear indication that at a young age, these girls had been taught key spiritual truths well and knew the importance of heeding them.

Since forgiveness had been asked, Nollie had another idea that might help. She remembered her father's scripture reading and excitedly asked Corrie, "Do you remember that boring Psalm that Papa read at the table, where every sixth or seventh verse were the same words?" She quoted Psalms 107: "Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distress." She said, "Why couldn't we do the same?" And so they did. The young schoolgirls, taking their father's words and example to heart and crying unto the Lord, fell asleep comforted. The next day, to her joy and great relief, Corrie met the headmaster, who only gave her a slight reprimand and sent her back to class.

So when they were in trouble as young schoolgirls, they used spiritual principles and tapped into God's grace to help them overcome this problem that they had in school. So amazing.

When she was a bit older and she fell in love for the first time, this was an experience where she also had to learn to put God's will first in her life.

During her high school years, a visit to her older brother in college led to a chance meeting with a friend of his named Karel. She was immediately captivated. Happily, Karel showed interest in return, and though they saw each other rarely, each time they met, the relationship deepened. After spending the day together at her brother's wedding, Corrie felt there was hope for a future with Karel. Months later, they connected again, walking and talking day after day, until, "Suddenly we were speaking not about what Karel was going to do, but about what we were going to do." Corrie knew then that Karel was the one for her.

When the family returned home, they tried to gently help Corrie see that Karel came from a wealthy family and, although he may talk romantically with Corrie, he would marry within his social standing. Refusing to believe it, Corrie hoped on, even after Karel stopped returning her letters. Finally, the fatal day arrived when Karel brought his fiancee to meet the family. Devastated by the news, Corrie tried to keep her composure and be polite until she could escape to her room. There, she wept and wept until hours later when her father came to talk to her.

He extended an invitation to Corrie: turn to God, let His will be done. "God loves Karel, and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy." Corrie knew that if she was willing, if she truly loved God and knew His way was the best way, she would turn to Him and let His will be done. "My task just then was to give up my feeling for Karel without giving up the joy and wonder that had grown with it."

She mustered all her strength, and with all her heart she whispered an enormous prayer: "Lord, I give you the way I feel about Karel. Give me your way of seeing Karel instead." God answered her prayer. The next time she saw Karel, Corrie realized that the pain was gone. Love was still there, and she could honestly wish for his future happiness. She also felt peace in what she believed to be God's path for her, to never marry or have children of her own. She was able to be willing and put God at the center of her life, come to know Him, and live and love His laws because she centered her life on God.

Now, Law Two is striving for self-mastery by loving yourself. A big part of self-mastery, a big part of loving ourselves, is self-discovery. So I'm going to tell you a couple of stories in Corrie's life from when she's younger and a little bit older, and she discovered some important things about herself.

As a young girl, Corrie felt intense empathy for the poor and homeless that walked the streets near her home. With the encouragement of her parents, she prayed for them, and she tried to find ways to help them. Once, when Corrie saw a homeless but drunken, mentally ill tramp being teased and taunted by a group of children, Corrie stood up to them with such power that they quickly scattered. The tramp approached her and kissed her on the cheek. Far from scaring her, it endeared this man to her even more. "And a deep concern for the feeble-minded was fostered in me," she said.

Little did she know that the seeds were being planted and traits developed that would enable Corrie to accomplish one of several missions she would eventually feel called to do, working with and teaching the mentally handicapped. Years later, when she was running her own program for the mentally handicapped, her father showed great reverence and respect for her work. He once told her, "Corrie, what you do among these people is of little importance in the eyes of men. But I'm sure in God's eyes it is the most valuable work in the world."

Another way in which we learn to love ourselves better is we discipline our heart and mind. When Corrie was alone in her room grieving over losing the love of her life, her father gave her priceless counsel on how to face her trial: turn to God, forgive, and keep loving. He was right, and Corrie aligned her life with those truths and disciplined her heart and mind in order to better love herself.

One other instance I want to tell you about is when Corrie gained more self-discovery and learned something more important about herself.

This took place years later when Corrie and Betsie, still unmarried and living at home, had assumed adult roles in the family. Betsie helped in the watch shop, and Corrie managed the household. Although they both enjoyed their work, when Betsie became ill and her illness lingered on for several months, it became necessary for Corrie to take over many of her duties in the shop.

To their delight, they accidentally discovered that Betsie loved beautifying and caring for their home so much that she was sneaking out of her bed to clean, paint, and organize. In the meantime, Corrie couldn't get enough of managing customers, balancing the books, and learning watch repair. Their father was delighted with their discovery and encouraged them to make the change permanent, much to everyone's added happiness and fulfillment. And one of the things that came from this that's really remarkable is that in 1922, when she was 30 years old, Corrie became the first licensed female watchmaker in Holland. She loved it and did it for the rest of her life, until after the war when she assumed other duties.

Now, Law Three is to love truth, and this means that we live according to principles and align our lives with them. I want to tell you one instance where Corrie came to understand the nature of true principles and aligned her life with them.

When she was a little girl, she and her best friend were troublemakers. She said, "I was no angel. Mischief was my middle name, and Dot, my cousin, was my best friend and a willing partner. If I didn't dream up a prank, she would." Then one of their pranks taught Corrie the importance of obedience to principles.

One day, as they walked to school, Dot showed Corrie a dime she had found which was broken in half. This was a lot of money to them. They could buy 10 pieces of candy, a rare treat for poor girls. Without saying a word to each other, they proceeded together to the sweet shop on the way to school. They ordered their candy, and then Dot picked it up as Corrie arranged the dime on the counter, making it look like a whole piece of money. Then they bolted for the door.

As they rounded the corner just outside the shop, they could hear the owner shouting at them. They ran even harder, never looking back. But Corrie learned her lesson. She later said, "We felt so guilty, and for weeks avoided going by the candy store. The candy didn't taste very good either." She committed herself to living a life of honesty after this experience. She had learned the importance of that true principle.

Law Four is loving humanity by becoming a servant leader. Here's a really remarkable story about when Corrie used everything that she had learned, her self-education, her understanding of other people, her love for them, her self-discipline. All these ways in which she had lived the Laws of Life Mission came to bear in this particular instance when she was truly a servant leader.

During World War II, Nollie, the only married Ten Boom daughter, lived with her husband and children in a home across town. In an effort to do what she knew to be right, she had risked her own and her family's lives by taking in several Jews. Eventually, her home was raided, the Jews were discovered, and she and the Jews were promptly arrested and imprisoned. After 10 days in the Haarlem jail, she was transferred to a federal prison.

Through underground channels, information made its way back to Corrie that the doctor in the federal prison was humane and occasionally made arrangements for release of prisoners based on medical conditions. Corrie was determined to do what she could to try and ensure her sister's discharge from prison, so she went to visit the doctor. She thought, "But what could I say? How could I get into the good graces of this man?"

As she pondered the difficult position she found herself in, Corrie remembered a principle she had recently learned from Dale Carnegie in her reading of How to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie had recommended that when you're trying to get to know someone, you should find out about their hobbies. She looked around the room and noticed three beautiful Doberman Pinschers in the lobby of the doctor's office.

With her many years of experience in meeting new people, the German her father had so skillfully taught her, and this latest knowledge gleaned from a good book, Corrie made her introduction to the doctor impressive, sincere, and memorable. She said, "How smart of you, Doctor." "Smart?" "Yes, to bring these lovely dogs with you. They must be good company when you have to be away from your family." The doctor's face brightened. "You like dogs then?" They launched into a 10-minute discussion where Corrie racked her brain for everything she had ever heard or learned about dogs.

This began an interaction that made a deep impression on the doctor. He could tell that Corrie genuinely cared about him, which caused him to care about her and her loved ones. Although he was taking a big risk, eventually he intervened on behalf of Nollie and had her released from prison for medical reasons.

These are the fruits of living Law Four, of loving humanity and becoming a servant leader. Corrie could have come to the doctor in tears and pleaded her case. She could have focused entirely on her own fears and troubles, but she knew better than that. She was a servant leader. This was manifest in her ability to see the doctor's troubles and extend true empathy before she told him her own. She thought about his circumstances, serving his government in a foreign country, far away from family and home. She thought about what was interesting and important to him. She spoke to him in his native tongue, which put him at ease and made the conversation easy for him to carry on. She knew how to do things on his terms, to show genuine interest in him before she asked for anything in return. The reward was immense: the life of her beloved sister, Nollie.

Another instance of loving humanity is to be a lifelong learner, to continue to expand our understanding of ourselves, of the world around us, and of the people that we interact with. Corrie was definitely a lifelong learner.

After graduating from high school, Corrie knew that her lifelong learning was just beginning. She said, "I began to want to be somebody outside the protection of the Beje," her home. "The first thing I did was launch into an intensive study of many subjects." She didn't have the money to go on to college, but she knew her education shouldn't end. That had been modeled for her.

Once, when she found herself sick in bed for five months, she used the time to further her education by studying her brother's college texts in religious history. This enabled her to discuss these ideas with him and her father, which she loved. She also attended missionary retreats every summer and was inspired through them to start a study group in her area. At one point, she also took time to study art and music on her own and visit all the museums of the famous Dutch masters. Later, when a Christian school opened in her area, Corrie eagerly signed up for seven classes and diligently studied.

She expressed the long-term effect of her family's commitment to self-education when she said, "We all wanted to know more about other lands, different languages, and people from contrasting cultures. This interest was stimulated by visitors from many countries and by reading good books."

One of the things that happened in the Ten Boom home was constant exposure to people of all different beliefs, worldviews, and world religions. Father held a book club for people of all different faiths. They prayed for the Jews daily. They read periodicals, magazines, and articles in multiple languages from multiple places around the world on multiple subjects, and then talked about those ideas with people that came to their home. And they loved all people. They did not care where they came from, what their beliefs were, whether they were poor or rich. They loved them all the same. What a beautiful example her parents set for loving humanity.

Now, Law Five is to hear the call. And one of the first things that you have to do is know what God is calling you to do.

Having accepted the fact that she would never marry, Corrie took classes, worked hard on her self-education, and cared for her mother for several years. She also worked in the watch shop full time. At about the time she took over the watch shop, she felt that she wanted more purpose in her life. She prayed, "Dear Lord, can you use me in some way?"

God heard her desire and sent the answer. One day, while attending a meeting of the Christian Union of the Lady Friends of the Young Girl, Corrie was tapped on the shoulder by an older woman. "That's work for you, Corrie Ten Boom." "No time," Corrie answered, thinking of the house, the shop, the Bible studies in schools. "Talk it over with the Lord," the woman said. And that was exactly what Corrie did when she went to bed that evening.

The next day, she told Betsie about the meeting and how the Lord had laid it upon her heart to do something about girls in their early teen years. Betsie loved the idea and was immediately on board. They put their heads together and began to make plans. She said, "We had no money, no experience, but we started." And that is what Law Five is all about: hearing the call.

And then, of course, Law Six: to courageously execute. They did start their girls' clubs. Corrie also started a group for the mentally handicapped. She had been doing Bible studies. She was continuing her lifelong learning. She was working in the family watch shop. There were many obstacles with these girls' clubs.

When they started out and began their girls' club, they started at a park because they had nowhere else to meet. They would talk and play and then share a spiritual message with the youth, but it quickly became obvious that this was not a good permanent solution. They had no privacy, poor weather disrupted their meetings, and they struggled to keep the girls' attention. They had no money for a meeting room and didn't want to charge the girls any money, as some would be excluded from participating due to poverty. They asked around town about a possible location with no solutions forthcoming.

What could they do? It would have been easy to stop there. She had heard the call. They had given it a go. She could just say, "Sorry, too bad, we can't do this." With no building to meet in, it looked as if the girls' club could go no further. Yet they persisted. They kept meeting. They kept asking, and they didn't give up.

Miraculously, a benefactor who owned a home in town said he was willing to rent to them for an extremely small fee because he was impressed with the high moral purpose they were pursuing. With multiple rooms to use, the club could grow more quickly. Excitedly, they moved forward. They asked the girls what classes they would enjoy and used the smaller rooms of the building for these classes and the larger center room for everyone to meet together. Some girls wanted more athletic activities, so they rented a gym one night a week and worked out together.

Corrie said of this time, "God bless the work. Yes, we made mistakes, but in spite of our blunders, the clubs grew in numbers and in strength." They continued to courageously execute. They went forward despite obstacles, despite people trying to stop them. They formed their own cooperative, which they called the Club of Friends. And in fact, their girls' clubs grew to be an international organization. It crossed borders. They had several thousand girls involved in other countries as well. It was a really remarkable work.

And then World War II hit. And like I began this podcast, Corrie devoted herself to the Jewish people any place, any time, doing anything that God would call on her to do. And so they lived Law Seven: doing it again and again.

They started harboring Jews. They eventually saved the lives of over 800 people. And by February of 1944, they were betrayed. The home was invaded, and they were arrested. By the next month, their father was put in prison, and he died there. By June of that year, Corrie and Betsie were placed in a concentration camp. And in September of that year, they were moved to Ravensbruck, a very famous, large concentration camp.

There are many beautiful stories of the miracles that took place when they were in these concentration camps and the way that they were able to spread the word of God and read scripture together. There is this beautiful episode where Betsie tells Corrie to thank God for the fleas and to thank God in all things. Corrie doesn't want to, and she finally learns later on why that was so important. And then by the end of that year, Betsie died in the concentration camp, and Corrie was miraculously released on a clerical error.

She went home. She tried to engage in the work again, because the war didn't end until mid-1945. She found that she couldn't do the work, and she knew for sure that God had been helping her to do the work before. She then started going around and speaking and sharing a message of forgiveness. As the war ended, she could see that people needed to learn to forgive and to rebuild their lives.

Betsie had a beautiful vision in prison about a home that they would acquire to help victims of the war, and that miracle did come to pass. Corrie started this home for war victims, and then she began traveling the world. She was invited to speak over and over again. She had her own journey of forgiveness, and she shared that message with others. In 1953, she published her first book, Amazing Love, and then in 1971 the famous book that spread across the globe, The Hiding Place, with millions of copies sold. In 1988, their home, the Beje, was turned into a museum, and Corrie eventually immigrated to California, where she died in her nineties. A truly mission-driven life.

A woman devoted to God, to His natural laws and principles, to a life of mission, of hearing calls and answering them, of devoting her life to making the world a better place. And she didn't try to change the world. She just changed herself. She governed her heart and her mind. She found principles and lived according to them. She became a true servant leader and served those around her, those that she could serve. And eventually, their path, their mission, their work has changed millions of lives.

So if you want to learn more, I would recommend my book, The Mission Driven Life. Go grab a copy of that. We still have the audio available for free on the website at themissiondrivenmom.com. It is going to come down soon, so take advantage of that if you haven't already gone and grabbed your audio copy. It will teach you those Seven Laws of Life Mission and take you through a lot more stories of Corrie and her whole family living these laws and so many miraculous stories. My book focuses on their lives before World War II.

And then read The Hiding Place for the story of what happened to them leading up to those last couple of years before World War II and all of their experiences during the war and beyond. Corrie Ten Boom is an amazing example, someone who has changed my life. Many nights I go to bed, and when I climb into bed, I think of her side by side with Betsie on those wooden rafters in the concentration camp with nothing, having given her life over to God and thereby bringing so many souls to Him. It's just incredible the life that she lived, and I try to be grateful for my blessings and remember how much others have sacrificed to make the world a better place on my behalf.

I hope that her story has been inspiring to you. I hope that you'll pick up those two books and go learn more at themissiondrivenmom.com. They will give you Corrie's whole story as well as the whole Ten Boom family. And you can learn better how you can begin to walk that path of life mission yourself and plug into those Seven Laws and be transformed by them and follow in the footsteps of her and many other great men and women. Be an ordinary person, just like I am, who is empowered to do extraordinary things through these beautiful laws. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I will see you next time.

Resources Mentioned in Episode:

It's my birthday today. And every year, since it falls right around Mother's Day, this ends up being one of the most self-reflective times of year for me.

So today I want to tell you a story. My story.

I grew up in a home full of love, but books weren't part of our culture. 

I made it through twelve years of public school without ever hearing of Anne of Green Gables, the Little House series, or Narnia. And then my senior year, I got a teacher who actually wanted to make me think. 

We read The Brothers Karamazov, and that book cracked something open in me that I didn't even know was closed.

It took almost ten more years (and three babies) before I found the kind of education that asked the right question. Not what did you learn but how is this supposed to change you?

That question changed everything.

On this week's episode I share all of it: where I came from, what I was missing, and the dream I carry for every mom who finds her way to this work. Here's a little of what you'll hear:

I invite you to listen to this episode.

I’ve never shared this part of my journey and I hope it resonates with something inside you.

It's my birthday today. And every year it lands right around Mother's Day, so this time of year tends to make me really reflective. I find myself thinking about where I've been, where I'm going, and what I really want for the women in my life -- including you.

I want to tell you a story today. A personal one. And then I want to share a dream with you -- a dream I've been carrying for a long time.

All growing up, I was a pretty decent student. I didn't love school, but it was just part of the reality around me. It was the world I lived in. It was what everybody did. You get up in the morning, you go to school, you do the homework, you pass the test. That's just the nature of reality, right?

By the time I got to high school, though, I was pretty disenchanted by the whole experience. I started asking the questions that so many of us ask: Why in the world do I need to study calculus? Who cares what year the French and Indian War started? Why does Hamlet matter so much?

And I did what everybody does. I kept going. I kept doing the work so I could get into a good college, because somewhere along the way I'd come to believe that college was the real goal of it all. That's where education got good. That's where learning was actually fun.

And then my senior year, something happened.

I got a teacher who was different from any other teacher I'd ever had. He wanted to make us think. And he cared about what I thought. It was the first time in my 12 years of public education that I began to ask the right question -- how my learning was supposed to change me.

We read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and that book changed my life. I know that might sound dramatic, but you have to understand where I came from.

My father grew up in a tiny town with a graduating class of 10 people. He went to one semester of college, then came home and married his high school sweetheart. After five children and about 11 years, when their marriage was failing, he met my mom.

My mom also came from a small town. Her father was an alcoholic who had abandoned the family, and she had one sibling -- a sister who was schizophrenic. She, her mother, and her sister scraped by all growing up. They cooked on a wood-burning stove in the 1960s. My grandmother never even learned to drive.

When my parents married and had five more children together -- I'm the oldest of that group -- with no good income-earning skills and a growing family to provide for, we struggled financially, especially when I was young.

Now, I want to be clear about something. There was a lot of love in my home. I never thought of myself as poor or going without things. My older siblings from my dad's first marriage visited every summer, and I always looked forward to seeing them. But the net result of all of it -- the backgrounds of my parents, the circumstances we were in -- was that lifelong learning, self-education, and reading were simply not part of the culture in our house.

I knew my mom sometimes read romance novels. My dad would occasionally mention a sales or self-help guru he was following. But I don't remember there being very many books in our home at all.

In college, the Anne of Green Gables series was released, and my girlfriends gathered for a sleepover to binge-watch them all night. It was only at that sleepover that I even heard of Anne of Green Gables. I had no frame of reference for that whole experience.

I had never heard of or read the Little House books. I thought it was a TV show. I had never heard of the Narnia series. These were books that were left out of the public school program, so I was never introduced to them.

And that is why, when I read The Brothers Karamazov, it hit me so hard. I didn't know that books like this existed. Books that spoke to the deepest parts of me. Books that discussed the most important questions of life. Books about people who were seeking truth, grappling with real temptations and real struggles.

I had no idea the impact that true classics could have on a person. I didn't know they could help me understand myself, build my character, or become better. It was honestly pretty magical. And the only thing that had ever spoken to me in that same way before was scripture.

After high school, it took me almost ten years to discover liberal arts education. There I was, 30 years old with three babies in tow, just getting started on my real education. But it didn't matter. Because I knew it could give me what The Brothers Karamazov had given me: truth, virtue, beauty, character, and deep personal growth.

So that's my story. And here's my dream.

My dream is that every mother and every woman would have what I received.

You and I both know that our culture is declining. We see it in the media, in our educational programs, even in our leaders -- things moving further and further away from what is right and true and good. We worry about our children. We worry about the future.

And so many of us feel powerless to change any of it.

Who am I? I can't tell you how many times I've asked myself that. I'm just one person. Just a stay-at-home mom. Just a working mom. Just a single mom doing her best to hold everything together. I can't fix the world. I can't even fix dinner.

But here's the irony. When we work on ourselves, we make our culture better. Because we raise the next generation, and they are watching us every single day. Who we are, who we are becoming, and the example we are setting -- it means everything to them. And to our culture.

And the best part? We don't have to do this alone. We can link arms and lift ourselves and lift our families, and that will lift the culture.

Here's what I know. You and I did not get the education that empowers us to discern and live by truth. We were not taught how to take the best works ever written and harness their lessons for our lives. We didn't receive the training we deserve -- to be self-educating for life, to know what to read and how to read it, how to discern truth in our culture, and how to be changed for the better by it.

We weren't taught the tools for understanding and practicing principles. And that deficiency in our education -- that gap in our ability to meet our real mental and spiritual needs -- is a huge roadblock in our personal growth. It makes it harder to lead ourselves and our families with confidence and clarity and purpose.

So my dream is that every woman and mother will learn how to think differently. Because when we think differently, our beliefs change. And when our beliefs change, everything changes.

My dream is that our families will be strengthened and our communities will be blessed. That there will be more truth and goodness in the world because of our presence in it -- as mission-driven women who know how to harness truth to heal ourselves, our families, our communities, and the world.

So please join me. Please take your education and your personal growth more seriously. Please link arms with us in making the world a better place. I know we can do it -- one mother, one woman at a time.

And if you're ready to start, I'd love to invite you to spend the day with me this September in Utah at our Mothers of Creation conference.

You will be surrounded by women just like you -- on this same mission to develop themselves and link arms in lifting our culture. You will leave with renewed hope and excitement, not just for your own future, but for the future of our nation and our world. You'll walk away with real skills, tools, and principles for putting your own life in better order. And I promise you will leave empowered with clarity about your next steps -- and new friends to walk the path with you.

As my birthday present to you, I'm offering $50 off -- but only through tonight. The link is in the description.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring. I'll see you next time.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

I want to introduce you to Lindsey.

She's a mother of five, a homeschooler, and one of the most principled women I know. But when she first came to MDM, she described herself the same way so many of us do.

Floundering. A little lost. A little depressed. She had accomplished everything she had set out to do and then stood there wondering, okay, now what?

On this week's episode, Lindsey shares what changed for her. And I think you're going to hear yourself in her story.

Here's a little of what she talks about:

That last one is so incredibly precious. Because I know how rare it is. And I know how much it changes everything when you finally have it.

Come listen. Because Lindsey's story is the kind that can shift something inside you.

Audrey: Welcome back to the podcast. I am Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission- Driven Life and founder of the Mission-Driven Mom. And like I have been talking about, we are hearing from some women who are going to share their experiences with learning to better love themselves and God, and the impact that had on their relationships, their community immediately around them, and the larger community around them.

Audrey: Today, we have Lindsay Wright, who it is an honor to know. For those of you that get involved or have been involved in MDM, she is a mentor for us, head mentor, and she helps train the mentors. She is incredible, but she had her own journey with these principles, like we all do. And so we are going to begin at the beginning with her story and have her start by talking to us about who she is. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Lindsay, and then where you were at before MDM.

Lindsay: Sure. Thanks for letting me be on the podcast. I love the opportunity. It is hard to remember what life was like before, so I am a mother of five. My oldest is almost twenty-four. And then my youngest is twelve. And you have talked about this a lot, too, in those early days of motherhood, when they were all young. I loved it. That was my dream job, to be a mother. In fact, I had some big goals for life. I wanted to be a mom, I wanted a college degree. I had those big goals, and I had accomplished all of them by the time I was in my twenties.

After that, you are in the thick of mothering, which is fantastic. But I did feel like I was floundering a little bit. And you have talked about this before, and I resonate with it, that you get lost a little bit in motherhood. It is consuming, and it is often thankless, although everybody appreciates the mother. They do not always say it. But I just remember floundering, I think that would be the word. Just not knowing what to do or where to spend my time and feeling a little lost. Maybe even a little bit depressed. I just did not know, okay, where do I go from here?

Discovering MDM and Level One

Lindsay: Joining the MDM community and going through Level One changed that dramatically. In Level One, it starts with the idea of natural law, like these principles that there is truth and that we can know it, and that we can use it to make the changes that we want to make and to know what those changes even are. And so in Level One, you are putting yourself together. You are making your physical needs a priority. You are making your mental needs a priority. You are studying; you are learning. That intellectual stimulation really is meaningful and gives life a lot of meaning as you are learning, as you are making friends and discussing things, and putting your spiritual house in order.

And then one of my favorite parts of Level One is just the self-discovery. So learning, what am I good at? What are my natural strengths? How can I develop them? How can I use them to help other people, like we said, to influence the culture for good? It was just life-changing.

Audrey: So, can you give us a specific story, or event, or principle that you feel like made a difference for you?

Lindsay: I remember when we were learning about the drama triangle. That was such a paradigm shift for me, just to have the words for it. That creator is the opposite of a victim. And I did not necessarily think that I was a victim. I did not think that I was steeped in a victim mentality. But I was in the middle of some big drama at the time, and it was so helpful to see the different roles that were being played and the different roles I was playing in the drama cycle. And to know what to do to change that.

So that was a big deal. And I am still learning. I am still working on it. There are still multiple subtle ways that we show up in this victim orientation every day. And so I am super excited. I have been diving deep into different ways of being a victim, and it has been fun to just get more depth in my understanding of the drama cycle and how to be a creator.

Audrey: Lindsay has been mentoring our Mothers of Creation group. When you get a ticket to the event this fall, then you are in an online community with us, and she is mentoring that group. And so it has really been a lot of deep diving into those principles and phenomenal concepts being talked about. So that has been awesome.

Audrey: This idea of the root word of "commune" and what it means to commune better with ourselves, to commune better with God, to have better communication with ourselves and with God, and then the extension of having better communication and community around us. So before we head into the community piece, I am curious, first of all, how do you feel like your relationship with yourself transformed? How did that communing and that better communication, the principles that we work on at MDM, what can you articulate about the change in yourself?

Lindsay: I think for me it has been a journey of getting my heart and my mind to talk to each other.

Audrey: What do you mean by that?

Lindsay: Our heart is where our values are. That is where we feel things. That is where we have desire and motivation. And then in our mind is the logic and the reason and all those things that we associate with the intellectual life. And I have always been very

much in my mind, very intellectual. That is just how I approached the world. Give me a book, tell me what to do, so I can know what to do. And through the academy, I am learning, and I am still learning, how to tap more into the heart, how to tap more into my values. Like, I know what my values are. But how do I pay attention to those feelings? How do we know we are in drama? It starts with a feeling. How do we relate with people? It starts with the heart. And for me, it is that communication between the heart and mind that is a better way to approach life, with both of them being active instead of just the one.

Audrey: Fascinating. So would you say that part of that process has been to align your thoughts more with who you really are or what you really value?

Lindsay: Yeah, for sure. Like I said, we get to know ourselves on a deeper level in Level One. And so understanding my unique strengths and also the strengths of others, because we are not the same. And I think sometimes in the past I had thought my way is the best way, and I expected everybody to be like me. And so now I have this greater appreciation that I really appreciate when people are not like me, because they bring balance to me. They fill in the gaps for me. And so I really love that we have these different, unique strengths.

Also, this idea that we can see these strengths. I think I had seen some of my strengths as weaknesses, or I just had not understood them. Why am I this way? Why do I do this, and why does it cause problems? And so really, on both sides of that coin, learning to see myself differently is definitely helping my heart and my mind to align better. But also, my heart to somebody else's heart is more in line because I feel like I can see myself more clearly, and I am learning to see others more clearly.

Audrey: So, how does it help you see others more clearly? How has the development of your relationship with yourself and these principles that you have learned, how has that bled over into your other relationships?

Lindsay: Part of it is that I do not expect others to be like me, like I said. So simple, but so profound. And I want to add that it is not just, I think a lot of us might say that truth, and I think people listening might be like, “Yeah, of course.” But there is something very profound and permanent that happens when you actually understand the ways that we are different. You do not expect them to be like you because you understand truly, deeply that there are different ways for other people to fundamentally be, and that there is value in that, and that it is important that they are that way.

So often, we take our way of being, and we think it is the only way, the right way, because it works for us, and we elevate our applications to the level of principle. And then we start judging other people because we are saying, oh, they are not living the principle. And actually, it is just a different application. And as I learned to see myself clearly, then I can start to see that difference in application. I can see where we are the same, I can see where we can build those bridges. But then I can also value the differences in others.

And I think this is something I have just realized recently, because I am seeing myself more clearly, I do not need others to validate me. I do not need others to be like me. I am just comfortable being me. And that just, it is just like letting go of a lot of baggage. It is just a lightness, a confidence in my way of being. And I am still learning. I am so far from perfect. But yes, there is a self-acceptance there.

Audrey: You mentioned something, and I was thinking about what you were saying just now, and how at one point, I remember a few years ago, you bought, is it a painting or a picture of a bridge? And there was something about that that resonated with you. What was that?

Lindsay: It is actually a part of my mission statement. I came across this idea of bridges in Level Three of the Academy. This idea that is how we can have influence for good, is when we can see the things that we agree on, that we can see the things that are the same. It builds a bridge of understanding. And it allows us to work together. It allows us, it is that thing that allows us to appreciate the differences. And so I actually made it part of my mission statement.

Audrey: Let us hear it.

Lindsay: Here is my mission statement: Seek and speak truth with love. Build bridges through education. Strengthen faith, freedom, and family through servant leadership. So that idea of the bridge just has all those different meanings in it for me. It is a place, it helps us to move, it helps us to get from one side to the other. And for me, education is one of the ways that we get to the other side. It is one of those ways that we learn to build the bridges.

Audrey: There are two things I was thinking when you were saying that. It is such a beautiful image for the bridges we all want to build with the people in our lives that we want to be closer to. And the sense of greater community, being able to cross back and forth and connect with anyone and build those relationships or heal relationships or improve relationships that seem stuck or stale or injured.

And it is such a beautiful idea that as we see ourselves more clearly and as we understand the ways that everyone is different, we actually feel more unity. It is so much like the body that Paul talks about in the Bible, that we are all part of the body, we are all needed, whether you are an ear or a finger, each one is important and valuable.

And the kinds of tests and assessments that we take in Levels One and Two are really eye-opening for that in a practical sense. But I was also thinking about how you were saying that you aligned your heart and your mind, and that you see the value of building these bridges to build greater levels of community and to build relationships. And what is actually happening to you in all of these different ways is that you are thinking differently. And that is one of the things that we talk about a lot. A lot of people are telling all of us to be different. There are a lot of influencers in this information age, and they are saying you need to do this, that, or the other. But we are clearing out all of that. Like you talked about, the difference between principle and application, is someone's recommendation a principle or an application? How do you discern that? And once you know it is a principle, how do you apply that properly and how can you use those principles that you learn to change the way that you think? Because if you change the way that you think, then you change the way you believe. And those new, better, healthier beliefs that better align with truth then naturally bring about those healthier relationships.

Lindsay: Yeah, exactly.

Audrey: So how would you say all of this has impacted your home, the relationships in your home, the little community that you are in every day?

Lindsay: I think it has helped save those relationships at home. My oldest daughter, in particular, we are very different, and it was causing a lot of contention. Before, I learned to recognize in what ways are we the same. I had to start there. What is going well? What is good about this other person? Where are we the same? How can I understand this other person? But then also add that other element of, okay, here is where we are different, and here is why, and here is why that might cause a little bit of conflict. And then here is how we resolve it. And so it was thinking differently about that relationship in particular.

But then it is every child on down the line. I feel like I have been able to see the good in them because they are all different. I have five children that are all completely different, and I have been able to see the good in them, to help them to see their strengths, to help them work through false beliefs, to help them understand these core ideas that will help them to be successful, that will help them to be happy. And I feel like instead of being an emotional voice, I am more of a voice of reason. I feel like they listen to me and respect the things I say. They do not always agree with what I say. But there is a level of respect there because I think they have come to learn that mom is going to come to this in a principled way, and I can trust her. I do not have to agree with her application. But it has been a strength, I hope, for all of my kids.

Audrey: Oh, I love that. And one of the things that we talk about sometimes that I think we have both experienced in our homes is it takes away much of the friction, because exactly what you were saying, that now everyone is on a unified hunt to get at the heart of what is really going on and to see a principle that everyone can then do something about, instead of this push and pull of, I am right, you are wrong, or it is my way versus your way. And fighting down at that level of application rather than principle. And once they get that, because I am sure your home is a lot like mine has been, over time this language of principles starts to infuse the home. And then you have a better way of talking about what is going on and what the problems are.

Lindsay: And not being afraid to confront the things that need to be confronted. If there really is a problem, in the past I would have avoided it, and the problem would have just kept getting bigger. I am an avoider. That is one of the ways to be a victim. And now, because my thinking has changed, because I have a more solid foundation and principles to back up the things that I want, I have more courage to do the hard things that need to be done, to have those hard conversations that sometimes need to be had. I have more clarity about what actually needs to be said or what needs to be changed and why it needs to be changed. It is not just because I said so, but it is actually because this is causing disorder in our family. That is how we know a principle is being broken, right? Because you get the contention, you get the disorder, you have this lack of peace. And so to be able to recognize it and then have the courage to deal with it and to know what to do to deal with it, I think has been very empowering.

Audrey: That is awesome. What is it that gives you the courage? Why do you think your courage has increased?

Lindsay: For me, I think it is the principles. It is knowing those things that we ought to do, those things that will, in the long term and often in the short term, lead to peace and happiness and success. Just knowing that there is an answer and that we can know it.

Audrey: Yes. And a corollary for me has just been hope. I am much less likely to fall into despair and to feel like I am broken or that the situation is broken. In fact, I have someone close to me right now who is really struggling in their relationship with themselves, and it has taken a while for me to help them see that that is actually the root of the problem. And it is so interesting because they finally recently have been coming to terms with, I actually do not really like myself. I have a problem in my relationship with myself. And then they started saying, but now I do not know what else. That is all I know. That is the head I have been living in all these years.

Lindsay: And it served them, right? They developed those behaviors and those thoughts because at one point it seemed to be helpful. It was a coping mechanism. I have those too, and I have had to learn that I do not have to create stress in order to get things done. I do not have to white-knuckle my way through everything. I actually can trust, and like you said, lean into that hope. And so those old thoughts are no longer serving me. And I can do things differently, and then we can show our kids, yes, that thought served you in the past, it protected you, it helped you get through things. But you are different now, and so you can think differently now.

Audrey: And it is so interesting because they got to this point of accepting that there was a problem, and I could see their countenance lift a little bit, like, oh, maybe there is hope. But then this worry of, but I do not know what to do. I do not know what to make different. And I was like, look, frankly, you are past the hardest point. Accepting that you do need to change, and that in fact you have misbeliefs and wrong beliefs and that they are not serving you anymore, and that it is time to make a change, is actually the hardest point to get to. Just like admitting that you have been acting like a victim can be the hardest point to get to. And actually, with some decent tools and a little bit of guidance, with some good principles, now that you know you have been believing lies, now you can just believe the truth. You can just find and acquaint yourself with the truth and start thinking more of the truth, more of the time, and it will start to correct itself.

Audrey: So really beautiful. Okay. It has had this positive impact on your relationships in a myriad of ways, creating more unity, creating more self-acceptance, and courage on your end. So harder conversations have been had, more principles have been lived, and you have had a lot more acceptance of not just yourself, but of the people around you as a consequence of better accepting yourself, which is ironic. You felt more unity, more sense of community unity. Unifying the identities, like we talk about.

Audrey: So let us talk about the community outside your home, relationships with friends, with extended family members. I know that you homeschool and you have a homeschool community, and some of them have been involved as well. And then you do things at church. What stories or experiences come to mind in terms of, as you have been lifted, you have been able to lift your family, and it has also lifted the greater community around you in some important ways?

Lindsay: Yeah, so I think the biggest thing that I see is that I have the ability to influence for good. I have learned to say things, to articulate things with a focus on the principles. And so people are more likely to first of all listen to what I am saying, but then also recognize, “Oh, that is right, that is good, that is a good point.”

So for example, just recently, I am in my homeschool community. I used to be in more of a leadership position, but right now I just teach classes. And I recently have been helping to create our class schedule for next year. And I could see, because of my experience, and I have been with this community for a long time. I am one of the oldest families there, probably been there as long as or longer than most. I have taught and I have done the leadership positions, so I have some experience. I can see things. Plus I have this great education that I am getting through MDM and through the classics, through the great books. I can see patterns of human behavior and I can see the principles, what is going to lead to long-term success and happiness and stability.

And so I felt that as we were in a committee discussing these classes for next year, I was able to provide some really powerful insights and things to think about. I brought up vision. Where are we going? What is our vision? What is going to create that stability? Whose responsibility is it to get an education? First of all, it is the student's responsibility. But for a child, the parent is also responsible. So I was able to say things like, how can we put the responsibility back where it belongs? Because some of the systems and some of the policies have gotten away from the original vision, and they have gotten away from putting the responsibility where it belongs. Understanding the role of the community and the role of the classes and the role of the teachers and the role of the student. Just a clarity. So I feel like I was able to bring a lot of clarity and a lot of good questions to the conversation and to help people see things that maybe they were not aware of or had not seen before.

And I think that is true in all these relationships outside of my family. I have learned to say things in that principle-centered way. I have learned to be articulate, and plus I am confident in myself. I do not need their approval, I do not need their validation. They can disagree with me. They could not do it. But I am able to influence and to uplift and hopefully make things better in any area that I am working in.

Audrey: So you were able to lead out with principles and articulate some principles which then created shared truths that would resonate with them, so that you could bring them on board to some core truths and then ask empowering questions, principled empowering questions, that helped them to explore possibilities and to think a little bit better about how things could be different. And what did you feel like came out of your ability to now better articulate those principles and to bring them back to truths in their pursuits?

Lindsay: I think that is what surprised me the most, that since I started the MDM Academy and as I have continued to get a really great education, the thing that surprised me is that people actually do listen. They actually want to hear the things that I say, and they generally agree with them. Oh, you are right. It is those first principles that are these intuitive things written on our heart. And all you have to do is just point them out and people are like, oh yes, that makes sense, that is so much more clear.

Lindsay: And so I feel like, why would anybody listen to me? I am just a mom. All those things. The fateful words, just a mom. But I have these experiences and I know I have this ability to influence, to lift, to encourage, to make things better. And things that seem obvious to me, just because I have been living with this new way of thinking for so long, are not obvious to everybody else. And so I do feel like I am somebody that has something to offer, and that people listen and they want to hear what you have to say because it resonates, because you are speaking in truths.

Audrey: That is incredible. That is so powerful, and I am so glad that you said it the way that you said it. Because I get it, for those who are listening, if you are totally where Lindsay and I were at and it is like, do not even talk to me about being a leader and being an influence and helping my community, because I am so steeped in what is going on at home and I feel so overwhelmed on the daily that I cannot even. And that is okay. That is totally okay, because we have experienced it firsthand. We know, we get it. That is what motivated us to start doing the work.

It is just that when you learn to think in principled ways, people will just naturally seek out your leadership, your help, your insights, your meaningful questions, your feedback, because it is so needed, so rare, so different from the other voices that they are hearing. It resonates with them so much, and they know how badly they need it. And it nurtures something in us because it is written on our hearts, because it is how we were created. And people know intuitively that they need more of that and they have not known where to find it. And then you start providing this new perspective and way of looking at things and it is so refreshing because it is not divisive. You are not calling anybody out, you are not making any judgements. You are not telling people that they are wrong and they need to change. You are simply saying, let us look at it this way. Let us get down to fundamentals. Let us start from the ground up and then let us figure out what truths we share, how we can build on them, and what applications are best for our community.

Audrey: Whether that is your church community, because I know you have also brought these principles into your church community, and I know it has made a difference there. And I got an email the other day from a student who was so gracious and sweet. She just said, I just got asked to do some leadership in my church, and I would never have been able to do this a few years ago. And I am a little bit, honestly, a little above my pay grade still. But I am excited for the opportunity, excited to bring the principles in, and I only have the self-acceptance and the confidence and the courage to do it because I have learned to think so differently. And I am excited to bring that to bear in that situation.

Lindsay: And it is interesting as we start and continue on this journey, those experiences and those opportunities just seem to show up. That next level of growth that you need just falls into your lap one day and you learn and you grow and you lead out and you serve. And then the next thing shows up. But it just happens naturally. It is not forced. It just becomes a natural outgrowth. I feel like the opportunities in my life right now are just a natural outgrowth of who I am becoming.

Audrey: I think it is a fantastic journey. I love it. It reminds me of something I have been building out in this training we did once and are going to do as an encore. Links are in the description for those that want to come. I was combing through some old testimonials and one of the women was saying that the academy requires a vulnerability and self-honesty that can feel scary, but it is really because we are pulling up the roots. We really are getting at the heart of things. And when you root out the lies you have been telling yourself and the misbeliefs you have about yourself and about God and about the world and about others, and you clear that up, other things just start to clear up and it creates room for more of those things that you need.

And then you know yourself better, and you look around you and you can see. I hear often from women who have been through Level Three and graduated, and they are doing so many incredible things, holding retreats and putting schools together and serving in their communities and nonprofit organizations and helping the homeless. And it is not, so often when we do not have that self-acceptance and self-love and we do not know our gifts and talents and we have not worked to develop them and we are not principled in our thinking, it is so easy to still see the need maybe, but just shrink from it and be certain, I could never do that. But there is this new level, and that is why as we work on ourselves and we raise the quality of the relationship we have with God and ourselves, then it enhances the relationships in our home, and then there is more unity there, and then there are more people helping and more people encouraging.

Audrey: And I would guess you have had this experience, Lindsay, but I have been surprised on multiple occasions where my kids are almost pushing me out the door like, no, you can do this, offering their encouragement, and saying yes, we are excited for you, yes, this is awesome, yes, you can do this.

Lindsay: They love me and our relationships are better, so that is part of it. But I know that part of it is also that we are so intimately linked. They see themselves in their parents, right? Like we take a cue from our parents, and when our parents are more adventurous, when they are taking more risks, when they are more confident, when they are making a difference, it heightens our children's confidence too. Like, I am part of them. I come from them. If they could do that, maybe I could. Maybe that could be me. Maybe there is more to me than I thought. Maybe I could level myself up as well. That example is so priceless, and you just cannot put a value on it. It is a gift, and they want you to succeed because it means they are more likely to succeed too. Your success is their success too. And so it is a beautiful journey to bring them along on the projects that you feel called to and that you engage in, whether people are asking you or whether you are stepping out and offering yourself. They are both needed and beautiful, and it is such a gift that we give them that they see us doing these hard things and they see our example.

Lindsay: And yes, they are rooting for us. And they see the change that has happened in us. And then they have that hope that they can do those things for themselves. And that is one of the questions that comes up, how can I spend time doing this academy thing and not being with my children? Does it leave my family out? It feels like mission excludes motherhood. And it is true that it does take a little bit of time away from the family. If I have to read something, I have to step away. But when I come back to the family, I am better. And then that allows them to be better. And then like you said, we just bring them along and now we are all better together. But I had to lead out as the mom. I had to change me first before I could have that kind of influence in my family.

Audrey: So let us, unless you have other stories that you want to tell, I would love to, before we finish up, hit on your personal friendships. One of the things that has been one of the biggest surprises to me, and you were there, helping all along the way, building out this curriculum, and I gathered up all the best stuff that had helped me, and of course I just hoped it would help women. One of the things that surprised me the most is the caliber of women that it has attracted. And that is not because all the best women sign up. I think it is just because they become the best women. But I would love to hear your personal experiences with your MDM community, your MDM friendships and the quality of those, what difference it has made for you in your personal life to be just part of this group of women who are on this journey together.

Lindsay: It is a lot of fun to have friends, to have a group of women that we have a common language with. First of all, we can talk about things like the drama cycle, like empowering questions, like telling yourself the truth. And we understand what we are talking about. So we can have those kinds of conversations. We also have in common that we have learned these things and we have studied these things and we are trying to get this kind of education. And so the conversations that we have are not just, how is the weather? It is meaningful, deep, transformational, even, conversations when we come together. And I get this perspective and this perspective, and then we come together, okay, what is the truth? And how are we going to live that? And so it is energizing, I think, to just rub shoulders with this caliber of women who are strong and confident and doing good things in their homes and doing good things in their communities. And their example inspires me. Just like our children are inspired by our example, these women inspire me. I want to be better and to do better. And so it is really, I think energizing is a good word for it.

Audrey: Yeah. And comforting.

Lindsay: Yes. And comforting. You are not alone, because there is a level of vulnerability required. We try to bring that into our workshops as well and to our community feed. And we do not, of course, everyone only shares as much as they want to share, and we have systems in place to make sure that nothing inappropriate happens or that we do not get far off track. But there is this level of vulnerability and

self-honesty that, because that is what we are doing personally and because that is what we are doing in the program, we bring to those workshops and discussions. And it is comforting to see that others struggle the same as we do. And it is encouraging as they pick themselves back up and try again. And then we really do offer each other ongoing encouragement. When we feel stuck in the content or stuck with ourselves, there are other women to empathize, but then also maybe pose a good question that will help us think about it differently. And that is sometimes one of the most helpful things we can do for each other.

Audrey: And I have told this story, I think maybe even recently on the podcast, but it is probably worth repeating. When we had the Mothers of Principal event and I went to one of the Airbnbs that some women had rented who had come into town, and I overheard, I was just sitting there, I overheard some women next to me talking. And one of them was complaining about something and the other woman said something back about her complaining, and then she turned to her friend who had not been in the academy, but had come to the event, and said, yeah, it is bittersweet because we all know better than to act like victims. And so in this space we cannot act like victims and just complain about stuff all the time. We have to try to say our piece and then move on and be creators. Like we all know we are supposed to be creators instead.

Lindsay: Yeah. It is a culture that is encouraging you to be your best. We empathize, we get it, we will say encouraging words, but then we will also hold you accountable. You cannot get away with faulty thinking anymore. But we will also coach and question and help you. We all have problems. None of our lives are perfect. We all have hard things that we are dealing with. Nobody gets away from that. But we can come together and ask questions, help to identify the principles, hold each other accountable, and just encourage each other to keep going, that it is worth it, and that we can do it.

Audrey: Yes. It is such a valuable community. And exactly like you said, to watch women who have gone through this process, and it is not like Audrey is not magical. She does not have superpowers. I am no different than you, really legitimately. We just have been through this process of changing the way that we think about God and ourselves and the world. We see the world through this lens of natural law, which brings us ongoing hope and optimism that we can find answers, that truth will make us free. And then we dig into material that helps us to think differently on an ongoing basis.

And to your point, what you were saying a minute ago, Lindsay, we have a schedule built out of thirty minutes a day for a reason, because that is what all of us can probably find. But it is also super important that you have that ongoing drip, and then you just ponder. And you just see it. And you just, it opens your eyes and then you look for it. And half of the battle, if not more, is just seeing it. Then you have some tools and some guidance to help you walk through it.

And having those women in front of us all the time, that is why I bring you and other women on the podcast. Amy was here and Katie was here. It works. It just works to learn to think this way. If I can do it, you can do it too.

Lindsay: That is exactly what I am saying. We can do it. You can do it too. It is work. We are not going to sugarcoat that. Anything worthwhile in life is work. That is what it is. And so we are here for the long haul. We take a long time, we do a slow drip, and we

get to know each other and we build actual friendships. And many of these women know each other in real life, they hang out in real life. I have had many women talk about, I found my people when I came here, or these are some of my closest friends now. Which I think for you and I both is also true.

Audrey: Yep. Absolutely.

Audrey: Alright, any last words of wisdom to anybody who is listening to this and wondering what their next step should be?

Lindsay: If you are feeling the call to come and be a part of this community, to go through the academy, to gain a better understanding of truth and how you can know it and use it in your life, then listen to it. I think part of the nature of truth is that it compels action. We cannot, once we know the truth, we cannot not act. And so if this is something that is resonating with you, it is something to take some time and to listen to and to pursue.

Audrey: That is a great way to put it. Thank you so much, Lindsay. You are, thank you. We are grateful for you every day. For those who decide to join us in the academy, you will get to know Lindsay, so that is a bonus. Come join us.

Audrey: And for those of you that want to come to the encore training, it is going to happen soon. The link is in the description. We would love to have you there. If some of these things are resonating with you and you are feeling like you want to know more and learn more and get involved, we would love to have you at the event in the fall. And if you sign up soon, that is better because Lindsay is mentoring that community. Come join us. We are sending out some awesome emails. There is a recorded workshop you can watch. You are going to learn all about the six types of victim, and you are going to be part of a community immediately that is nurturing you and helping you to prepare for this Mothers of Creation event in the fall.

We would love for you to come. We would love for you to bring your friends, your sister, your mother, your aunt, your cousin. Share in this experience together. Build community with them through this principled lens and learn how to step out of victim and be a creator. So thank you so much for joining us today. We are so glad to be here and serve you. Have a wonderful day. We will see you next time.

Resource Links from Episode: 

I want to tell you about a wonderful woman named Brenda.

Brenda is 55 years old, a mother of six, grandmother of seven, and one of the wisest, most joyful women I know. She has been homeschooling since her oldest was five years old. She has started schools, built communities, coached founders, and dragged her kids across the country on the kinds of adventures that sound impossible until someone actually does them.

But when she first started homeschooling, there was one thing that absolutely terrified her.

Poetry.

I am not joking. 

She looked at the whole beautiful, overwhelming calling in front of her and thought, okay, I can do this. And then she got to poetry and decided, nope. 

We are not doing poetry. 

If the Lord wants my kids to love poetry, He is going to have to find another way.

And then He did.

A woman showed up in her little homeschool co-op who loved literature. She took Brenda's two little girls, who were maybe eight and six at the time, and she turned them into poets. Glitter. Crowns. Laminated placemats. The whole thing. Her passion was contagious, and those little girls caught it.

Brenda told me that moment changed everything for her because it showed her something she had forgotten: she didn't have to do it all by herself. She just needed her people.

I think about that a lot when I talk to women who feel the pull to do more, be more, give more, and then wonder if they even have what it takes.

Maybe that's you right now.

Maybe you feel called to something, your home, your kids, your community, your church, and you are showing up every single day, but there's this low hum underneath everything that sounds a lot like, Is this enough? Am I enough? Where do I even start?

I recorded a podcast episode with Brenda this week, and I think you need to hear it.

Audrey: Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission- Driven Life and founder of Mission-Driven Mom, and today I have a dear friend, an incredible woman, Brenda Hawes. I'm super excited for you to meet her. I'm going to tell you a little bit about her professionally. She is an MDM student. She has done some of the academy and had a great experience. She'll talk about that in just a minute. But in addition to that, she also builds communities. She is a professional community builder, if that is a thing that you could have as a title. She started her own homeschool group back in the nineties, back in the other century, because we're so old. And then she just grew into that. She started helping Commonwealth schools. They grew, and it grew into her own company, New Commonwealth Schools. She helps communities all across the country to grow and thrive. Super passionate about education, the ideals, and the principles that help us to grow and develop individually and in our greater community, in our families, first and foremost in educational spaces and beyond. And she is the mother of six and the grandmother of seven. So that's pretty awesome. 

So meet Brenda. She's incredible. We've been friends for a long time. I adore her. But we're going to talk more about community again this week and why it matters so much. So let's start with this, Brenda. I already know that you knew about MDM because you knew me.

Brenda: Yes.

Audrey: And we were doing masterminding together. It was super cool. I was working on this passion project, and you got excited and got involved. So tell us a little bit about it. Maybe we will work from the MDM perspective first and go into the greater question of what community means at large and the communities you work with. What was happening in your home, in your life, in your community before you adopted the MDM program into that? And what kind of a difference or a shift did you see through that process?

Brenda: I'm going to back up just a little bit. Okay. First of all, thank you for having me. This is so fun when we get to connect again. So I've moved around a fair amount and

have been homeschooling ever since my baby was five, so from the very beginning. And some of the places that I've been have had really rich homeschool communities. And by that, when I talk about rich, I'm talking about being able to sit down and have a really amazing conversation with the other moms at the park, or the other moms in the co-op, or somebody that I meet who happens to homeschool. Can we have a really in- depth, meaningful conversation? And I've been in places where that was true, and I've been in places where that was not true. In fact, one place we lived, I told my husband, that's it. I've done my year here, and I can't do this anymore, because all these moms wanted to talk about was stuff that I felt like had no real impact on our children or on our lives or on the community. It was no deeper than, “What's your latest math curriculum?” And I was so sad. I missed that level of feeling like I was growing every time a conversation was happening.

Audrey: Yes.

Brenda: And so we moved back to someplace where we'd been before, and then we ended up here in St. George, actually, where I am now. And it was a great community, great women, smart, wise, wonderful mothers, and people who really cared. And it was awesome. But there was a huge difference between before MDM and after MDM. So yes, you and I were connected. I knew about MDM, and I was excited to get on that path and start that journey. And so I wanted to grab all these women that I loved, who were in my group, that I was so connected to. I loved their kids, I loved them. We all really knew each other's values and where we were coming from, and I thought, “Let's all do this journey together. “

Audrey: “Let's do it.”

Brenda: And we did. That was an incredible year for us. And I think one of the reasons why was because it was great content. The content itself really encouraged these great, deep conversations. It wasn't fluff, and it wasn't just superficial. It wasn't just rehashing the events of a book and seeing if we knew the timeline or could name the characters from a fiction book. That was not what it was. It was actually discussing character and values, and how a character's choices would apply to us, and how we saw our values mirrored in them or not mirrored in them. That led to deeper conversations, which led to this beautiful vulnerability that had to happen in the class. And that came over time. It's not like you just jump in with a group of people and automatically have that. But it did grow, and it grew steadily, and we were able to celebrate the things that were different in each of us and also celebrate the things that were similar. We really learned to hold space for other people and be excited about their things, even if they weren't our own, because we knew they would turn around and do the same. 

I think that one of the things I look back on, and I joke with my students now that I'm an old lady, right? I'm 55, and I'm older than most of their mothers. But I look at my forties as this incredible time of growth for me. And MDM was a huge part of that. I felt like a grown-up when I was going through MDM. I felt like these are questions and books and content and things that matter and that are actually going to make me a wiser person. So it was exciting to dig into it, and I saw the growth in myself, and it has made a huge difference in me. It also made a huge difference in our community because I wanted the moms who were the moms of my children's friends to have the same foundation I had, to have that same stable platform and the confidence in who they were. Because that gets passed on to their kids, and then to the family cultures, and then to the community.

Audrey: Yeah. It was beautiful. It was awesome. 

So one of the things that I've been talking about on the podcast lately is the root word "commune." The root word for communion, communication, and community. The root word "commune" actually means to unite your identity. And I've been talking about how all of these components connect, and I love that you said you could see your differences, but then you could celebrate them, and then you could see what was the same and celebrate that too. So my question then would be, did you feel that as your community focused on truth as an adventurous quest, and as they had the courage to become more vulnerable and open up in new ways, that there was more of that unity, that feeling of being more united in your identities, seeing each other more clearly, and wanting more of the same things and working together more harmoniously?

Brenda: A hundred percent. Because not only did we start to see those differences and those similarities, but because we were opening up and being vulnerable, we found that it was a safe space. And I don't think you really find safety without being vulnerable first. You have to test the water, dip your toe in, or jump in all the way, whichever way you're going to do it. You have to be adventurous in order to find out if a space is safe. And what we found was the space was safe. 

And then what we were able to do, because we trusted each other, is as a community we were able to work together outside of the MDM classroom. As a group of women who were running this community, we were able to open up and say, "This is how I feel.” It's different than how you feel, but it's how I feel. Because now we felt safe in saying those things, sharing those different opinions, and we knew that what we shared would be held as sacred. Nobody was feeling as threatened. A lot of times when somebody comes at you with a different opinion, you might feel threatened by it. But we learned that wasn't threatening. It was something to be celebrated, and it was helpful to hear all the different opinions in order to make a wise decision. You've got to hear all of it.

Audrey: So why has community become your passion? Why does community matter so much to you?

Brenda: I don't know why, but I feel a little teary right now. I think it started out because number one, I'm a very social person. I just am. I love other people. I always have since I was a child. I loved other people. They were interesting to me. I loved the different perspectives they brought to my life. And there's a synergy there that I started to recognize, and I really felt how much I needed that synergy when I started homeschooling. 

There's a story that I tell all the time about when I first started homeschooling. I thought, okay, I think I can do this. I was a young mom, probably about 25, and my oldest wasn't even five yet. I thought, “Okay, we'll read lots of stories. How can we make this fun and engaging?” But there was one thing that I knew I couldn't do, and that was poetry. I don't know why, but poetry was the one thing at that point that scared me. And I just decided, you know what, we're just not going to do poetry in my homeschool. We're going to make sure my kids at least don't inherit a hatred of learning because of poetry. Maybe if the Lord wants them to get that somehow, he'll provide a way. But fast forward a couple of years, and there was a woman who was placed in my life, and I'm going to call her out by name because I love her dearly and she deserves credit for this every single time. Her name was Lisa Morehead. And Lisa was a part of our first little homeschool group that we did, and she loved literature of all kinds. And she took my two little girls, who were probably eight and six at the time, and she turned them into poets. She introduced different styles of poetry to them. She made it fun. They turned it into artwork. I'm talking glitter and crowns and the whole thing, laminated placemats. It wasn't a big deal, but her passion was contagious. And that just solidified for me that what I was doing as a homeschool mom meant I didn't have to do it all by myself. I could bring other people into my children's lives. And they could have everything that they needed through the community. The community brought that.

Audrey: Yes. And every year it was different. You would have one family move out, and another couple of families move in, and those moms would bring different skill sets and different ideas and backgrounds, and it just made your children's experience and your own experience all the better.

Brenda: Yeah. Like we build together. That's just how we are, I think.

Audrey: How do you feel like the communities that you've helped to build or participated in contributed to your ability to build the family culture that you wanted to have?

Brenda: I think as I built my own communities and started helping others build theirs, one of the things I saw was the growth of women and the strength of women and what they could do, and that was beautiful to me. I would start coaching a new chairperson or a founder of a school, and there were so many fears and uncertainties. But I was always excited to share this journey with these amazing women who want to give and share with their children and with the other people in their area. They are willing to go through so much to pull people together because they have faith that together they can do more, and have more power, and do more good in the world. That has constantly been a source of strength for me and has also definitely bled into my home because my philosophy has rubbed off on my kids. We joke about it as a family. My kids will say, “Oh, that's my mom. She'll ask for anything.” Because I am willing to ask, because I know that together we can do more. I always think, “Oh, this could be so much better with this or that,” and anybody can say no to me. Sometimes that comes as a surprise to people, but I tell them, “No, I expect no fifty percent of the time.” It's just a yes or it's a no and it's okay. I can just ask. And so part of our family culture is that you can ask. My kids have learned that. My husband knows that about me. I'm not going to say he's agood asker yet. We've only been married for thirty-six years, so surely there's more time and it'll rub off on him.

Audrey: Sure.

Brenda: He sometimes likes to joke about it. But I do think it has empowered my kids to go out in the world and know there are no limits. That's how I feel. You get together a group, a community, and of course, in my case, it's usually a group of moms, and there's nothing we can't do. We can take our kids to Kenya and have them have this amazing experience. We can take them to Washington D.C. We can have this amazing educational experience where kids are willing to grit their teeth and hold themselves up by their fingernails trying to get all the homework done and everything else. And what are they doing it for? Not for grades. Not for a GPA. But they're willing to do it because they know it's going to be great. And those are things we've done together. We've created that culture, we've created those environments and helped inspire our children and inspire ourselves to heights that I believe would not have happened if it was just us alone.

Audrey: Wow. That's incredible. And I feel like there are plenty of people out there who don't homeschool. Maybe you coach basketball for teenagers, and you get to know people at the games and have experiences, or you belong to a church, and you say hi to your neighbors, and you know who they are. But I just know for myself, when I was a young mom, and I was exhausted, and I knew I needed something, but couldn't have articulated what, I needed to be alive and awake to my own potential. I needed to know how to pursue answers to my problems, and I needed to be surrounded by people who would walk with me on that journey. I had a wonderful family and good friends, and had always gone to church, and that was wonderful. But there really was not anything like what you're communicating until I found liberal arts education and then went on to build my own programs and systems and to surround myself with like-minded women in that same way. And it's addicting. You come to feel like you just can't live without it. You need your people because you know what life felt like when you didn't have them, and you know the mental and emotional and sometimes even spiritual loneliness. 

Because the kinds of things you're talking about are super regenerative. The challenge of raising the funds to get the kids to Kenya, everything about it, there are a million moving parts, and it's a challenge for everybody. And then there's nothing like that feeling of doing it together, of pulling it off together. And in the same way, when you were doing MDM in your community, when you share the same language, when you're on the same pursuit, when you have the same goal, and when there's this added element of working on changing yourself, of needing to be more honest with yourself, facing who you are, being willing to change, being willing to let people push back on you and call you out on things, that's hard, but so empowering. Because then you see the changes in yourself, and you would never go back. You recognize there's a narrow way that you have to be willing to walk through if you want those changes in yourself and in your family. Anyway.

Brenda: So well said. And I'm going to add to that. I feel so blessed because I am surrounded by such amazing women. They're communities in different places. I have my community in Colorado from when I started my first Commonwealth school, where we raised our kids together and went through liberal arts education together. We still get together once a year. We find a time and a place. And then I have that also here in St. George. And those are the women, because MDM is a huge part of this; those are the women that I can go to and say, " Hey, is this thing that I do annoying?” And your surface- level friends will say, "Oh no, it's fine.” But your real friends who honor truth and understand that you're really asking for a real answer will be like, "Yes, actually. Let's have a talk about it.”

Audrey: “Finally, we've been waiting for you to bring this up.”

Brenda: But those are the kinds of people I want to surround myself with. People who are going to tell me the truth when I'm asking for the truth. Now, maybe I don't want the truth every single day or every minute. I need it in doses. The truth is hard. But they are amazing adult women who can speak truth. And that is one of the huge things that MDM brought to our community.

Audrey: Wow. I'm so glad. It's been a joy to watch the caliber of women that it attracts. That's been one of the greatest, most beautiful surprises, that women will come. We had a woman just sign up the other day, and it was pretty heartbreaking to read her self-description of how broken she feels. But I know what kind of woman she is, because she is ready and willing to make the sacrifices to face it. And she will see change in herself, and she will grow, and she will begin to conquer some of the things that have felt unconquerable. And I am so joyful that I get to be on that walk with her. To watch that happen and to be part of that transformational journey for her is such a joy.

Audrey: So, is there anything else you would like to share about why finding your people matters so much or how community blesses our lives?

Brenda: I'm going to share that one of the things I teach my founders of my schools is that they need to come up with a mission for their school, a mission and a vision statement, and that's the first thing I ask them to do. And I tell them, “Look, it's going to get refined later. It's fine. Don't stress about it. Let's just get it started.” Because picking out their mission and vision also means choosing an educational philosophy for their group. When you have a united goal, when you have hearts that are knit and working towards the same thing, now I'm not talking about sameness across the board, that's not at all what we're trying to get at. But this one big goal that they share, the struggle is still real. It doesn't change the fact that homeschooling your kids is hard, and running a community is tough. Running a Commonwealth school is hard. But that goal keeps you going and keeps you moving forward. And one of the hardest things is when people join that group, and they are not on board with the goal. And sometimes people need a little bit of time to really understand the goal and kind of test the waters and see if they're on board or not. But once they decide that they're not, my wish for them is always to go find another group that is aligned so that they don't feel like they're constantly trying to hammer themselves into the wrong-sized hole. The square peg, round hole kind of thing. That friction happens, and it's because the goals are not united. But when a liberal arts education is the unifying goal for your family and for your children, in a Commonwealth setting, that is so powerful. And it doesn't have to be about education. It can be a lot of other things. But have a unifying goal for your community, and that's what will pull you together.

Audrey: Yes, so beautifully said. Having vision, clarity, intention, focus, and a shared vision is so vital. Any last words for our listeners? Any advice for them?

Brenda: Figure out what it is you want and who you want to be. And go for that. Make that happen. Be you. Be the best you can be. And I'm just going to say it, Audrey, because it's happened to me: MDM will help get you there. MDM will help you figure out what it is that you want. As you peel back the layers of things that are not important in your life and you start to find that focus and that clarity, MDM will help you do that. I'm not just saying it. I recommend it all the time. When I go and speak to my schools and talk to the moms there, I say, look, if you want to become really unified, do this. Get started with MDM One and then work your way through the program. We have had some of your schools do it.

Audrey: Yes. And they always come back and say, "You were right. We made this huge change in our school.”

Brenda: It changes lives. It's a big deal.

Audrey: Thank you, Brenda. You're such a beautiful person. I'm so grateful to have you for a friend. If you want to know more about what Brenda does and you're involved in schools or homeschooling, we'll put the link to her organization below, and you can reach out to her if you'd like to know more about what we're doing.

Support Karen’s Mission

The Mission Driven Mom Academy

I want to tell you about my friend Karen.

Several years ago, she was homeschooling eight kids, running a co-op, and carrying this quiet thought she could not seem to shake. A sense that God was nudging her toward something. That there was more.

But every time it surfaced, she did what most of us do.

She talked herself out of it.

I don't have time. I have eight kids. Surely there's someone better suited for this than me.

Maybe you have said some version of that to yourself.

One afternoon, she was leaving her church's temple, and the thought came back. And something came with it this time. The impression that if Christ was willing to pay the price He paid for her, He must know more about what she is capable of than she does.

That one thought started something.

In this week’s podcast episode, you’ll hear Karen’s incredible story that lead her and her family to open a center for orphaned teens in Mexico and all of the twists and turns along the way.

Here is a little of what you will hear in this episode:

I think a lot of you are going to be moved when you hear this one.

Be sure to subscribe to The Mission Driven Mom Podcast if you haven’t already! 

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Introduction

Audrey: Welcome back to the podcast. I am Audrey R, and today we get to spend a few minutes with Karen Bates. Before we get into our discussion, please go ahead and like, subscribe, and leave a review, share it with a friend. That helps us grow and get the message out about truth making us free.

I know Karen Bates because she was a student in the Mission Driven Mom Academy a few years ago, but then our friendship grew and blossomed. I became involved in the projects that she is involved with, and I went to Mexico with her, and that was amazing, and so we just became better and better friends. The work that she is doing now is vitally important. They are just getting started. And I would love for all of you to know her, to understand better how she got where she is and the work she is going to do moving forward. And then if any of you feel inspired to support her in any way, she will let you know what some of those ways are. Then you can get involved in her mission work. She is an amazing woman. Her story is super inspiring, so I am super excited for her to share it. So, Karen, go about telling your story the way that you would like best to tell it, whether you want to go way back or you want to start with where you are now, and then tell us how you got there.

Karen: Well, thanks for having me, Audrey. This is so fun to be here. I was getting kind of nervous before the podcast, and then just speaking with a friend and a bunch of other friends that I have not met yet, and it is going to be okay.

Audrey: Totally. We are all just struggling through life, trying to figure things out together.

A Defining Moment: The Seed of a Book

Karen: I think I will start with a story because it had such an impact. It is kind of before a lot of this started happening, but I had been writing a blog about just educational principles and things I was learning through homeschooling and reading a lot of books. I started having this thought come to my mind about writing it down in an orderly fashion, like in a book. It would come to me every once in a while, and then I would just kind of dismiss it and think, I do not have time. I am trying to lead this homeschool group, and I have kids. I am homeschooling, and it is just a busy time of life.

Audrey: So this was how long ago? 

Karen: About six years ago.

Audrey: And you had how many kids? 

Karen: Eight.

Audrey: Nice. And you were homeschooling all of them?

Karen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Audrey: And leading a homeschool community as well? 

Karen: Mm-hmm.

Audrey: Okay. Awesome.

Karen: And so I went to a religious building of our church. We call it a temple. As I was coming out, this thought popped into my head again, and I was like, "Oh, maybe I should take this seriously because it is happening at a time when I am feeling close to God." But I was still thinking about the time. So I got in the car, and I turned on the music, and the song called "Gethsemane" came on. It is just a cello song by Ralph Gardner. It is kind of describing the suffering of Christ. I remember the very distinct thought: if Christ was willing to pay this price for you, he must know more about what you are capable of doing and your potential than you do. That kind of led the way to be able to do a lot of these other things. Like, okay, I must be able to do more because of that suffering than I think I actually can. And so I started getting up early and working on that, and it eventually came to be. That was one of the defining things that started me on this journey.

From Book to Class to Service Trip

Because of that book, I made a class and started teaching it, and I charged for the class. So I started making a little bit of money, and I thought, “What do I want to do with this?” And what I wanted to do more than anything was go on a service trip with my family. A dream I had always had. So that is what we decided to do. That Christmas, for our Christmas present, we were going to go do the service trip in Tijuana and visit an orphanage.

While we were there, I was just so impacted by the kids. They were so ready to serve in any way. I remember asking where I could fill my water bottle, and three young men immediately said, "Oh, let me get that for you.” They were just so anxious to serve and needed love so badly. And I think I was specifically impacted in a deeper way because my mom had been an orphan in Mexico, and so I saw her in each of them. This need to be loved, this desire to belong to a family, this desire to just fit in, and to have someone care about what you are thinking, what you are feeling. I saw that in all of them.

As we were leaving and said goodbye to the kids, I was just so sad. We got in the car and I just cried. I remember another pivotal moment as I prayed. I said, “Father, I am willing to do anything. Just whatever it is that I can do for these kids, help me know what it is and help me just do it.” I want to know what I can do because I cannot just leave and go back to regular life at this point. I was too deeply into this by now.

Letters and a Growing Vision

So we are driving home, and I had a couple of thoughts. One of them was to just let them know. Like, my mom always said, it makes such a difference to know one person cares. There was a leader in her church that started showing interest in her

well-being, and that meant so much to her. She thought, “Okay, maybe I am worth being cared about.” 

So I thought, “Okay, I could at least write them each a letter.” On the way home, I started writing each child a letter, just letting them know that I cared about them and sharing some of the gifts I saw in them.

The other thought was, I need to get more people out here. These kids need so much love, and I can only come so often, but if we can get more people coming out, then they can have a lot more of that love that they need. So I thought, “Okay, with this class I am teaching, and with my book, I can turn that into a humanitarian school. We could start doing entrepreneurship projects and different fundraising things and start getting more families out to visit this orphanage. So that is what we started doing. We created this school called Find Your Path Academy and started getting families out. We would do projects and plays and collect money. Families would go out, and we started visiting the kids more often. So we grew in these relationships with them because we just had more and more people coming, and were able to go more often because of that.

Knowing the Kids' Stories

The more we got to know them, we got to know a lot more of their backstories and some of the issues, especially the teenagers face in this environment. It is big dorms, a lot of rules, and a lot of just needing to make sure that you are staying on top of the rules and doing what you are told, because there are not enough caretakers. And a lot of times, as a teenager, as you know, with teenagers, they need to be heard; they need to be listened to. So they struggled a lot with that. And I would come back, and a couple more kids had run away every time. It was rough to not know where they were.

Then a lot of them would start to contact me. They found me on Facebook or something, and they would say, “Hey, I am at this other place now.” One particular kid contacted me, and he said, "I am on the streets. I am not sure what to do. I just know I cannot go back because they will put me in a rehab center, and those places are rough, but I am hungry. I do not know where to go.” And here I am in Utah. I wish I could be there to do something to help him in some way. This kid was only 13, but he was really mature for his age.

Every time we would have a devotional with the kids, we started going in the summers for like a month. We did that for a couple of summers, and we would have these summer programs and do devotions with them. And this young man was really impacted by this. He would always raise his hand and answer questions. He asked if he could memorize a child's prayer. He really would gravitate toward wanting to be good, but he did not feel like he could in that environment because he was often angry at the way he was treated.

He needed help, and I was not sure how to help him. I just tried to give him advice. I said, "Well, you know, the orphanage is better than living on the streets, and what is going to happen if you stay on the streets?” He said, "I am going to turn myself in. There are a lot of cops around where I am at. I am just going to go turn myself in. Hopefully, I can see you again. I will most likely be at this rehab center.” And then that was the last I heard of him. I did hear that he did end up at one of those centers.

But it was more and more kids like this that would contact me. I would find out what they were doing, and I just thought if we could be in Mexico, we could do something for them. What they needed most, I felt, was to be heard, to have opportunities to pursue the interests they had and to make an impact for good. They really, all the ones I met, wanted to make the world better. They wanted to break these cycles. They did not want to be the same kind of people that their parents were. Often, they were in these orphanages because their parents were struggling with addiction and could not take care of them. They wanted something better and different, but often when they would go back out into the world, that was all they knew. So they would go back to these patterns. And I thought in my heart, if we could just live in Mexico.

The Email That Changed Everything

Whenever I would bring it up to my family, they would say, “Well, that is impossible.” You know, my husband's job is in the United States, and he likes it, and he cannot work remotely. He is a therapist. So that is a hands-on thing, and we have a life here. So it just seemed like an impossible thing, but it would come into my mind every once in a while. We could do so much more. We could provide something there. Obviously, we cannot bring them to us, as much as I would like that. I did look into adoption a few times, and that is really difficult for Mexico. And it was not going to make the impact for all of the kids that I wanted to make.

And so I think that drive home, that sincere prayer, just started something. I cannot even explain exactly what it was. Because it was so sincere, something happened that just made the doors start rolling in a direction where this would be possible. As I was looking into options of what to do, I thought maybe we could go sometime in the summer. That is what we started doing: creating different programs, figuring out ways to help these kids. And every once in a while, I would say, "But if we lived in Mexico,” and my family would say, “Okay, you are going again with that.” So I kind of just stopped at that.

And then one day out of nowhere, this was a huge surprise to me. My husband sent me an email, and the subject line said, "It is time to go.” So I started reading it, and he said, “I have been praying about this, and if this is something that means this much to you and that you really want to try, then we should just go and try it as a family. Let us all just go and see what we can do.” That was a huge miracle because it was so unexpected. So he decided to take that leap, and we just sold our home. We sold our stuff, and we went to a couple of internships first. We did an internship in one orphanage in Tijuana, another one in that same orphanage that we often visited. And then we moved to Quintana Roo, which is where we bought land.

Building in Mexico: Miracles and Obstacles

We had bought the land earlier, after deciding to do this and planning to move out there. The house was not finished. There were a lot of things that did not go as planned. It is interesting to see these miracles and to see what happens, but there is also so much opposition and so many things that you are not expecting.

We thought we had such a logical plan. We were going to sell our home. With that money, we had enough to start a ropes course business. Benjamin Allen from Class Ropes Course said he could come and build the ropes course, just donating his time. And he could get the equipment at a lower cost because he builds ropes courses. We said, okay, we can have a ropes course business. They quoted us a price on the house, and then we would still have three months of savings where we could start the ropes course business and have an income for our family as we started to grow this thing.

And then we got to Mexico, and the house was not done. So we found this abandoned restaurant that the owners let us rent. We decided to clean it out and live there while we waited for the house to be finished. Then everything started costing more. By the time we had the house, all these extra expenses had been added on top of it. We had no electricity. We just had the house. And in order to get electricity, because we were so far from the city, we had to buy solar panels, and we were out of money at this point. So we had to use the credit card. We could not just live without electricity.

At this point, my husband started to really worry. He said, "Well, I do not have a job. I do not have savings, and our kids need to eat, and I have credit card debt I need to pay back. I need to go to the United States and work.” And so that is what he decided to do. So, out of this last year, he was gone from home about nine months out of the year while we were in Mexico to get this started. And there were just a lot of little things that kept blocking the process.

The Ropes Course Miracle

Our road got super muddy, so you could not access the property, of course. But there were so many miracles. That was incredible to see because I think for my husband, especially, he needed to see that God's hand was in this in a very real way.

There was a time when Benjamin Allen was coming with the ropes course equipment. He got stuck at the border, and he said, “I actually cannot take any wood across the border. It is against the law unless you have a permit, and it takes about a year to get.” He had all of these poles that he was going to use to build our ropes course. They tried three different times to cross the border, and each time they turned them back. So he said,” I am just going to have to leave the poles and take the rest of the equipment and start looking for trees that we can build the ropes course on.”

So they were driving across Mexico, all the way from Utah, him and my dad in different trucks with all of this ropes course equipment. Meanwhile, we were like, okay, we are going to have to find some trees. The trees on our property were pretty small. We had not seen anything big enough to be safe for a ropes course. So we said, “We are going to have to go look.”

So we went on several different hikes. We got a guy with a machete to guide us through the jungle to go find trees. A couple of Ben's workers showed up before Ben and said, "Well, let us go see what we can find. Maybe we can find a place for a low course at least.” We had this guide with us, and a storm started to come up. He said, " Oh, we better stop. When a storm gets like this, those trees are going to start swaying. You are going to get branches on you. It is dangerous. We should go.”

And I just had this feeling. I remembered seeing a bigger tree on the other side of where we had been. I said, "Can we just go look on this other side? I just want to see it.” He said, " Well, you guys can go, but I am heading home because this is dangerous.” And we were like, okay. But we felt like we were on a time crunch. We could not just take days to find these trees. We had to find something before Ben got there.

So we went around where I remembered seeing that tree. I took a wrong turn. I went before it, and there was another little path, and I thought, I think it is around here. We got into this clearing, and we saw one big tree. It is called a chukum tree, which is the hardest wood you can find, and it is the best kind of wood for a ropes course because it is so hard and so strong. And we kept walking, and we got to this little clearing, and there was this grove of trees just sitting there in the middle of this place. It was amazing. They were perfectly spaced out.

Alex, the guy that was with us, said, “I have never seen anything like this.” These trees are always cut down because their wood is valuable. People come through here all the time chopping down trees. So the fact that they are still here is miraculous. And the fact that they are in a grove like this is extraordinary. They are usually spread far apart. Here they were perfectly spaced for a ropes course.

When Ben got there, he kind of looked at it and just planned out the whole course in his mind with the trees where they were and built it, and it turned out so beautiful. This little jungle ropes course. It is so fun.

Audrey: Wow. You just left the trees where they were and built it right there. That is incredible.

Karen: Yes. And when we saw the trees, we thought, Wait, are these even on our property? We measured, and it looked like half of them were and half of them were not. So Alex said, "I will go to the land records office and see if maybe we can buy that portion of the land.” He goes, and the man who sold us the land happened to be there that very day. And the man said, " Oh, I sold that land. Oh, those trees? Those are on your property. I made the line just past those trees. And so those are all yours.” So that was amazing. Just finding him that day, and the time it would have taken to buy the land otherwise. That was really cool.

Community Support and More Miracles

A friend came to help us. She knows a lot about permaculture. Part of what we want to do with this land is create a kind of immersive experience for the youth, so they are growing their own gardens and having entrepreneurial projects, as well as learning English and having a path toward a career. We have one young man now who started pathways. He had to pass an English proficiency test, and then he could begin working toward a career. He wants to be a counselor.

So Janelle came to help us plan out some permaculture things, and she happened to schedule her flight at the same time a homeschooling group decided to

come. She got there a couple of days before them and was planning things out. Then this homeschool group arrives, all twenty of them. And they said, "Oh, we can do that.” So they started planting the trees and doing all these things that she had planned that would have taken us months to do by ourselves.

Just people coming at the right times in the right order to get the projects done. Another example was this family that showed up out of nowhere. They were visiting Cancun, and they heard about us. There was a KSL news article that came out, and they said, "Oh, we want to come help for a day.” And it happened to be the day that we needed a lot of men to lift these bio-digesters into our property. So they got there and helped us lift them. Just God's hands so often in these little ways to get us to where we needed to be. So along with the things that seemed to be blocking us, there was so much of, you are on the right path, keep going. And I felt like, I am in this with you. That has been really cool to see.

The Mission-Driven Mom Academy's Influence

Another pivotal moment: when I was getting ready to start the school back in Utah, again, it was these thoughts that come to your mind. I am sure everyone is familiar with them. Who are you to think you could do this? You are not trained. You do not have this.

Audrey: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Karen: And so that was going through my mind, and I was putting away laundry in the closet and listening to your book, “Mission Driven Life,” and you were saying something about courage. I cannot remember exactly what it was at the time, but this thought hit me: if she could do that, have that much courage, I can certainly start a school. That is nothing compared to what Audrey is doing. And so there are just these little nudges, I think that Heavenly Father sends you at the right times and in the right way when you need to hear them, that propel you to the next little step. Six years ago, deciding to move to Mexico and start a school would have been way out of my thought process. But little by little, it was, this seems like the next step. That is how we got to where we are.

Where They Are Now: The Road to Phase Two

So what we have been doing this last year is just trying to build that foundation. We have our house ready. And we realize that it is not sustainable to have my husband gone so often. It was not good for our family. We had to choose between the cause and being together as a family. We really should choose our family. That is a priority in life. As good as this cause is, we cannot just keep moving forward being separated all the time.

I had two kids getting married in August in Utah. So we flew out of Mexico to Utah for their weddings. And afterwards we drove to Texas. That is where we are now, just deciding, okay, what is the next step? How are we going to proceed with this in a way that aligns with what God would have us do but is also feasible?

Some of the thoughts that came to my head were that I have got to learn how to run a nonprofit organization. We have just been scraping by, asking for donations, and

we need something more functional. I have been reading a lot of books about running nonprofits and getting an idea of how to structure it properly, having a board, and all the things needed to run it well.

Also, we need to figure out how to get enough monthly donors so that it is sustainable. Even just to have enough to have the buildings continue to be maintained during this time, and have the kids be able to be educated. I mean, we were doing a little school with the kids, and it was good, but it was definitely not sufficient. If we were going to all be out there sacrificing this much, we needed to have something that was going to be really transformative for the youth that stay there.

And then we need to talk to the state agency that has the orphaned kids to provide a home for them so that they could come and stay there in a boarding school environment. Get an education and have a real home. So we did find a couple who are amazing and willing to be house parents for our first home. That was a huge miracle in itself, because there are just not a lot of people who would want to take on a bunch of youth they have never met, who have been through the orphanage system, and parent them. That is not normal.

But this couple we met when we moved to Mexico. She started a little school because she was homeschooling her two kids, and she saw this need in the community. In Mexico, if you are hyperactive or have ADD or cannot learn to read fast enough, they are just like, well, you are not keeping up, and they push you out of school. She saw these kids in the streets, and she would ask, "Why are you not in school?” Oh, they kicked me out. I could not learn to read or whatever. She said, " Well, I am doing a homeschool with my two kids. Do you want to come do it with us?” So she talked to their parents, and she started this little school with other people's kids.

When we moved there, I reached out to her right away. How can we help? So we had this school that she started, and it was wonderful. I asked them, when we get a youth home built, we are going to need house parents who can provide a lot of structure. These folks are very loving, but also very good at structure, and they could have a home where the youth feel safe and have devotionals and have this example of a family. I asked if they would be interested, and in my mind I was thinking, this is a huge ask.

But she said, "Oh my goodness. Ever since I was little, I wanted to adopt kids and to do something, to have youth who do not have families feel like they have a family. This is exactly what I have always dreamed of, and I would love to do that.” Her husband said the same thing. “Are you serious? That is exactly what we have both always wanted.” So they are ready to go. The program is ready to go, and the land is ready to go. Now we are just in the process of finding enough monthly donors and donations to start this first home and get things rolling. I think the foundation has been laid with the people and the things, and it is time for phase two.

The Vision: What Phase Two Looks Like

Audrey: That is awesome. So let me try to describe what I understand your next phase goal to be, and you tell me if I have got it right. You have this land in Mexico. How many acres?

Karen: Twelve.

Audrey: You have twelve acres. I know it is not too far from touristy spots as well, so there is potential to bring in visitors. You have this property, you now have a ropes course on it, and you have a functioning home on it. The goal is to build, as phase one, one building for orphaned teens in Mexico that this couple would be the house parents for. Do you already know that the state will let those kids come? What is the process for approval?

Karen: We have talked to a couple of people, and it is just a matter of making sure that it is safe, so they would have to come in and check things and do inspections. That is what they care about.

Audrey: Okay. So you would build this house, get it approved with Mexico, and perhaps even bring people in to do the ropes course and bring in income that way. The kids do not come with any money. The state does not provide it. No money follows them like it does with foster kids in the States. And so if these kids are going to come to you, then you are going to run them through this program. I looked through the first journal. You have been building out a series of journals, an every single day activity with a little bit of reading and answering questions that takes them down a path of connecting better with God, understanding themselves better, increasing their self-knowledge, making them think a little bit differently about the world and about how they could be in the world, and being inspired by the stories of others. Every week you have got a principle that you are focused on. They are introduced to this theme, and then the theme runs throughout the week and they interact with it in different ways. It is very readable. Very easy. Just a few pages a day of reading, so they could get through that and journal in less than half an hour. So logistically, what happens for the rest of their education? Do they go to a school near your property? Do you bring in tutors? Do they need to get some kind of diploma so that college could be a possibility?

Karen: We would have tutors come in. Nan does the Spanish and the math and things like that. Basically, the kids each have their own little desk, and as they have questions, they come up. It is very much like homeschooling. We would have people there to help them through their regular curriculum. The one she chose is an Amish curriculum that keeps God in the subjects, and it is very sweet.

Then we have been teaching choir and English. Especially in this area, because it is very close to a lot of tourist sites, learning English will open up a lot of doors for them. And then there are just a lot of sweet people in the community that we have met who have talents they want to share. There is a guy that wants to do guitar lessons and another lady that wants to do these dances from Israel. They have different talents they want to come and share with the youth.

So we would want to bring in different people, and when volunteer groups come, we would want them to come and share some kind of talent. Also do some theater so

the kids get exposed to great stories and the arts. Then we would start to learn about their interests and get them the resources they need to delve deeper into those interests, whether that be books, or an instrument, or entrepreneurship. They can have a piece of land that they can start growing and making something with. They can start selling those things, seeing what works and what does not.

The curriculum or the program that I wrote is to help them learn how to make and keep inspired goals. They start to be led down this path, and then they start to know, Okay, I am going to try this. And then they are able to more easily start to see what their gifts and talents are and what they want to pursue.

Preparing Youth for College and Careers

Audrey: You mentioned earlier that some of the kids are now doing online college courses. The pathway in there is to pass the GED or to have a transcript or things like that. I am just trying to resolve a few concerns, for those who might think seriously about supporting you financially or otherwise, about whether your program will properly prepare them. Will they really be ready to do college and move on?

Karen: To your point about whether they will be able to get good jobs, what has happened is that because Joanna is a certified teacher, she can certify through elementary and junior high, which has been really helpful. But several of the kids we have met were not able to even get out of elementary school, and they are like seventeen or eighteen. So at that point, we have to say, okay, we cannot really go back and do all of that. There is a program where they can do a two-year packet, kind of like an adult version, to get their diploma. The other option is also to go through BYU Pathways. The young man who is in BYU Pathways now did not graduate from junior high. But he passed the English proficiency test and was able to get into BYU Pathways and start a degree in youth counseling. That is what he wants to do. So there are different ways to navigate having a legal diploma, through programs in the department that you can get that through, but you can also find other avenues depending on what each student needs.

Audrey's Reflection on the Orphanage Visit

Audrey: I want to share a little bit for those listening, because one of the ways Karen and I really got to be better friends was the second year that she returned to the orphanage in Mexico. I had wanted to do a service trip with my family for a long time. It just felt like it was time. It was in the fall, and I wanted to do it at Christmas. It was our year for Christmas, so we were going to have all our kids. I was not sure how we were going to pull that off, and I just started reaching out to people I knew. Do you know of organizations that are trustworthy? Do they do this kind of thing? And Karen replied back, " We are going to Mexico, we have got eleven spots left.” There were ten of us. I said, " We will take them all.” And it just worked out beautifully for us to go and spend the week together there.

One of the things to know about these kids is that, as Karen said, they are not always orphans in the very literal sense of that word. Sometimes they have one or both parents still living. Sometimes they are in contact with them. Sometimes their parents get them back. It is more of a foster system, but much looser and much less regulated. Of course, no money follows each of these kids, and they are often street kids. They are found on the street and taken in based on what the specialty of that particular orphanage happens to be. In the one that we have gone to in Tijuana, they do not take small children. What they do is try to keep family groups together. So the state knows if they have got a group of siblings, that specific orphanage is a good one to contact because they will be more likely to take them. They all have these specialties.

Which is why it may seem kind of strange to those that are listening that Karen could just go down to Mexico, buy some land, build a house, and the state would let her have these kids. It seems so unregulated, but that is kind of the nature of how things work there. As long as they have done their inspections and background checks and feel that this is a safe environment, they will allow those kids to be placed with Karen. And she will get to capacity, whatever that is. And I am sure, Karen, that you would like to see that grow, have more kids than just the one house eventually, and have those kids go on and inspire other kids to move forward in their lives as well.

In the orphanage that we have gone to, they have buildings in the back for the older kids. Once they have graduated out of the traditional K through twelve school system, there is a place where they can still have a place to live and some food to eat while they explore college classes. For example, one young man that we connected with wanted to become a barber. My son is a barber. They really connected. He was able to give him a little bit of training. We were able to help him figure out how to do that. And those little small opportunities come up quite a bit, especially if you can help these kids key into something that is going to help them go beyond a minimum wage situation and give them an actual skill, a marketable skill, and some tools. In the case of this young man, the ability to get clients and to keep a clientele. Then they really can build a different life for themselves, and they can learn from the poor circumstances of their upbringing, the hard things that fell upon their family, whatever that circumstance might have been. They can try to use what they have been given to build something else.

It may seem strange to some of you that Karen would just go down there and kind of maverick this. But it really is the case that she legally, it is all very realistic to expect to happen. And it is also something that she knows pretty intimately, how things look and feel for these kids. She has been down there for years, in multiple orphanages, spending countless hours talking to these young men and women. I have spent just a bit of time. We have been down a few more times to this particular orphanage ourselves. Karen has really been immersed in it.

You touched on your mom's experience in one of the journals. You tell her story in a little more detail, that she was actually on the streets. And so you have, in your immediate family, a very personal experience in what your mom went through. You know just how hopeless this circumstance can feel and just how much these children need. It is such a beautiful story coming full circle, from your mom through you and back into Mexico. You have been uniquely prepared to know what needs to be done and to have the ability to do what needs to be done.

Karen is still very much at the beginning stages. She is pulling her board together, but she has proven to herself and to the people in the community down there that she is serious about this work and that she is trustworthy and that this can work. She has paid a price for several years now to know what can be done, what cannot be done, how to go about getting those things done, and what the kids actually really need. And clearly, she has a gift of connection with them, because they keep reaching out to her, and they trust her. If these kids from these orphanages are trusting her when they have had just a little bit of connection and time with her, you can just imagine what will happen when they are actually on-site and get to have a real relationship with her and the other people she is training.

A Young Man's Hope

Karen: I had a young man contact me a couple of weeks ago that we met on our very first trip. He was not there the second trip, so we only met him once and for like five days. He was fourteen at the time. He just melted my heart because at first I would look at him and he would just look away. He was so shy, always hiding behind everyone. And towards the end of the trip, he would just follow me. Wherever we were going, he would fall into step with us. I would look at him, and he would smile. He would just beam. You could tell he was just so thirsty for love. He needed it so badly.

When we went the second time, I was looking for him because I wanted to see him, but he had left the orphanage. I was sad. I never heard anything about him. And then a couple of weeks ago, he turned eighteen, so he contacted me on Facebook and said, "Hey, I am just wondering how you are doing.” I was like, " Oh my gosh, I cannot believe you remember.” And he was asking about what we are doing. At the time, we were living in Mexico and trying to do this. He said, "Oh, I want to go to that school.” I said, " Well, we do not have a school yet, but we are working on getting it.” And he said, " Okay, what do I need to do?” I said, " Well, if we had it set up, you would have to save up for a plane ticket. Then I would give you a list of rules that you would need to be willing to follow. And then once we get enough funding, you could come, and we could get you through whatever it is that you want to study.” He said, " Okay, that is so great. I am ready to go.”

And I just see that happening, too. It is this age group. The teenage age group, right where they are. They have ideas. And a lot of these kids are so hardworking, especially because of the culture they grew up in. They have learned to work really hard, and they have often had to look after their siblings. So they are very responsible. They know that they can do great things. They just do not know how to get there. They are very clever because they have had to be resourceful. But when I see them, I am just like, Wow, there is this light and potential in these kids, and it just needs a little direction to guide them.

And I think that is another thing my mom taught me. I see her now, and I am sure that as she was begging on the streets, people could probably walk by her and just assume she has no future. But she taught school for many years. She raised kids in this beautiful way. We all just know we are loved so deeply, and we have all been successful in different ways. Her confidence now is so much better. She has learned to grow

through so many things. So I see her and who she has become, and I know each one of these kids has a divine potential, and each one of them can do incredible things for the world with just a little bit of guidance.

Audrey: From the perspective of the kids, it is one thing for you to say, "I believe in you and you can do this.” It is a whole other thing for you to say, " My mom was you,” and for them to just be blown away that she has, from their vantage point, such a successful life and that they could raise a child like you someday, that they could overcome in the way that your mom did. It is so beautiful.

Karen: Her story has always inspired me, just being what she has been able to do. I can just see how much hope it would bring the kids.

How to Support Find Your Path Mission

Audrey: So, as far as next steps and where people can help, what does that look like?

Karen: Like I said, we need to just get enough monthly donors to have the ability to provide the program at a basic level. Our goal by January is to have two hundred monthly donors. We are at twenty-seven right now. We figure if they average twenty-five dollars a month, some will be able to pay more and some less, but if that is the average, that is what we would need for a base-level program. So two hundred families at twenty- five dollars a month.

And then we are hoping to find, as organizations like Child's Hope and several other places have found, corporate donors or individuals who have the ability to fund the administrative costs, so they can keep the program running and every other donation goes straight to the program. That is another thing we are praying for, specifically, to find someone or a few people like that who want to help in that way.

Audrey: What do you need in terms of administrative costs?

Karen: When we looked at the people we would need to pay for, the costs are not as high in Mexico because the cost of living is lower. What we figured out was that fifty thousand dollars a year would cover that.

Audrey: Is it possible for people to come down and volunteer at any point? And can you tell us the URL to go to and other ways people can engage?

Karen: The URL is FindYourPathMission.org. You can find service trips listed there under the top tab. There are some service trips available that you can sign up for. If you have a group, like a group that is coming outside of the scheduled times, we can work around them and schedule their own service work. For people coming with groups, they do not have to sign up in those particular times, but if you have a family, those times are available to sign up for.

We also need people who are willing to work from home in social media and events and things like that to help get the word out about what we are doing. Then it would be really wonderful to have people be able to come out and serve in different ways. We would love someone into cinematography, for instance, or just to get some good videos out about what we are doing. With the service trips, we would have the day be: get up, do some kind of work project, then teach the kids for a couple of hours, then have dinner and a ropes course experience or some kind of excursion or activity in the evenings, and then a debrief at the end of the day.

Audrey: How much is it per person for the service trip? 

Karen: Six hundred fifty dollars for five days.

Audrey: Is there a tab there to do the monthly donation?

Karen: Yes, at the top of the screen, there is a donate button. Click on that, and it will say “one-time” or “monthly” and you can pick. And they can sign up for the service trip there, too.

Audrey: What if they just want to be helpful from home and donate an hour or two a week? How do they get hold of you?

Karen: We have an events team. We meet every week or every other week for an hour and just plan the next event and decide what we want to do. That would be one way to help, whether that is having booths at farmers' markets where we share information or being willing to take a booth somewhere. We have everything ready for the booth. They can take it and share information in different areas. There is also a volunteer from home tab on the website. And then we will have a social media and marketing team. So that is another way you could be involved. We meet every week for an hour and just start to make plans. This is all just getting started, and we are figuring things out as we go.

Closing Reflections

Audrey: Well, that is wonderful. I could not commend you more highly. I want anyone listening to know it is pretty amazing to have had this image, this vision of what if moms could uplevel their relationship with God and gain all this self-discovery and learn to understand and live by principles. And then what if they went out in the community and served and made an impact. I have actually had quite a few women who have been through the academy reach out to me recently, working together in a myriad of ways because they are out there doing things. Founding schools, working with nonprofit organizations, serving on school boards, or in your case, starting this foundation in Mexico. It is really beautiful to watch that journey. They were already the kind of women who would do those kinds of things.

Karen: I cannot overstate the impact that your work has had. The program and the podcast and just this constant dose of, you can do this, you have courage, God is with you, it is life changing. It has been transformative. So it is a joy to be on the journey alongside you.

Audrey: When you were telling that story at the beginning about your experience, about how Christ suffered, and so he must know your potential, I had an experience quite similar to that. The basic message that God sent to me was that it was a little bit arrogant of me to be self-limiting, because I do not actually know myself nearly as well as he knows me. When I say, I feel right about doing this thing, I know it keeps coming back to my mind, I know that whatever those impressions are, but I just cannot do it for

X, Y, Z reason. I can still fall back into that and have doubts. But he really tried to put a stop to that and let me know, "Look, I just know you way better than you know yourself. And I can open all kinds of doors that you do not have the power to open. So if you will just take the step, I will just keep opening the doors. You do not have to be amazing or perfect or have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to take the next step and trust that together we can pull this off.”

That is how I feel about the work that you are doing in Mexico. You are the one who is just willing to take the steps. One of the things I used to say to myself was, "There is somebody better suited to do this. There is somebody with a better education or more life experience, or who is smarter than me.” There is certainly somebody better to do it. But that does not matter at all. The Lord is just going to take whoever steps forward. It really is all about being willing to be the person who accepts the call. That is what you have done. You have given your life to him and told him that you will accept the call. And so it is pretty bumpy. You are back in Texas, and you have suffered a lot being away from your husband. But that testing and determination will bring beautiful fruits eventually. I feel like sometimes those obstacles come so we can learn to trust him in all the little small things, so that we can trust him in the bigger things too.

Karen: It has been a very refining experience. I think that is why it had to have some obstacles. If it was easy, we would not be prepared for the next step.

 Audrey: Well, thank you, Karen. It is a joy to call you my friend, and I am so grateful for the work that you are doing. I know you love these kids, and they need what you are creating. I hope that as many people as possible will get behind the work and support it any way they can. Thank you for talking to me and for doing this. I really appreciate you.

To learn more or to donate, visit FindYourPathMission.org.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

During the chapter of my life when I had three little kids at home - I had friends. Good ones. I had a family I loved. I had my church.

But what I didn't have was my people.

I didn't have a place where I could ask the personal questions I was wrestling with.

Where I could be vulnerable with the things I was quietly asking myself about who I was becoming, what I actually believed, whether I was doing any of this right…

And then, through a series of rabbit holes, I found a little liberal arts program. 

For the first time in my life, I was in a room with people who were actively searching for truth. And they weren’t just talking about it, they were hunting for it. 

Something in me came alive that I hadn't even known was sleeping.

That's what this week's episode is about. 

Here's a little of what you'll hear:

I think a lot of you are going to feel something shift when you hear this one.

Community, the Clapham Team, and Finding Your People

Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission-Driven Life and founder of the Mission-Driven Mom.

You probably remember 2020 and COVID. It was such a terrible, difficult, awful time that we all went through. We didn't see it coming. It came out of nowhere, and before we knew it, we were contained in our homes. We couldn't go places, everything was canceled, and there was nothing we could go out and do.

It was so hard. And during that time, we had launched the MDM Academy and the Mission-Driven Mom just a year or two before. So we had a Facebook group at that time, and I just decided I'm going to get on and go live every morning. So we got on and we went live, we talked every morning, we did our gratitude together, we talked about different things that were going on in our lives, and we supported each other through that time.

That experience helped me know that we really needed to continue doing our MDM celebration, and so we concocted a plan to do it online and it worked great. A lot more women could come and it worked out beautifully.

We were able to get a lot of women online, and we had to do it over two different days because there were so many women that we needed to mentor through it. That year was called Mothers of Vision — that was our theme. And we talked all about what it means to have a vision and why vision matters so much for us and for our families. What vision is, the tools for envisioning, and creating a plan around having a vision for our lives. We did a vision walk, all sorts of wonderful things.

And when that was all over, we were just on the cusp of having our Level Three students come through. And I knew that they were going to finish and they were going to graduate from MDM — and then what? What was going to happen after that?

And if you've been following this podcast very long, you know that we have a vision of changing the culture. That we want to walk with moms all the way through their own transformational journey — as they work on themselves, as they work on their families, and as they come to know the needs in their community. And then the Clapham Team is where they work together to have local impact.

And so I shared a vision of being able to change the culture together through becoming the sorts of women who can see the needs in their community, who can be true servant leaders and make a real difference for good, and doing that with each other.

So at that event — at that Mothers of Vision event — I cast this vision that we would have this community of mothers and that they would make a real difference. And if you listened to a recent podcast I did, I talked about where the Clapham Team name comes from, why we're the Clapham Team, and all of that.

I announced it at the Mothers of Vision event, and the women were ecstatic. They were so excited. This was definitely something that they wanted to be involved in. And so the following year we had our first retreat and we did it here in Texas, actually at a private home. I don't know, maybe about twenty women were there. It was awesome. We got a house that was on a lake, with a large yard and a large home. We trained, we went through presentations, we ate dinners, we played games, we journaled, we self-evaluated, we made plans for our futures, and we did a service project while we were there. And it was so incredible, so beautiful.

And then — as you know, because I recently talked on the podcast about kind of an update on the state of MDM nowadays, and where we came from and where we're going — you know that we went quiet for a time. Because of a lot of factors about how we were running the company, the structure of things, and internal issues. I set it down for a while, and I was rebuilding it on a new platform so that it could always be available for women who had purchased lifetime access in the past. But I wasn't sure what the future held for MDM. I was just going to continue to make it available and work on my own things.

What happened was that because we went quiet, these women — we had done this retreat two years in a row for the Clapham Team, and we had stayed in contact and done some trainings and things like that — they missed it. They missed each other. They missed the friendships, the relationships that they had forged. They missed having this opportunity to be together, to discuss great books, to share things that they were learning, to be lifted, to do a service project.

And so they started doing it themselves. They still do it. Every year they get together and have this retreat. I think they do different themes each year. And the reason that matters so much is because for the first time in their lives, they had found their people.

Many of them had never had friendships at this level of depth and connection. People that they could share conversations with around so many shared ideas and topics. People who wanted what they wanted — who wanted to learn and grow and develop and make a difference, but bring their families on the journey with them. Who wanted to be better women and better mothers and better wives, or whatever their circumstances were. And it was so nurturing and so beautiful that they are just still doing it today. It's incredible. Even though we don't offer it now, we are relaunching the Clapham Team this fall, and we are making plans for that and are really, really excited about that opportunity for everyone who is interested and invested. But this was so needed. It nurtured something so vital inside them that they just still need it, and so they provide it for themselves and for each other.

Now, if you listened to another recent podcast, you might remember that I talked about communion and communication — that they both come from the same root, which means to unify your identities, to really see each other, to really understand each other, to connect on the deepest levels. And another word that is connected to all of those and comes from that same root word is community.

We all need community. And sometimes we have community at church, or friends from high school or college, or neighbors, or people we work with, or the soccer club our kids go to, or whatever the case might be. And those are all wonderful and they all serve a purpose. But many of us lack intellectual, emotional, and spiritual community. The kinds of people who understand what principles are and want to find and live according to them. The kinds of people who know what it means to be in drama and who strive to be a creator instead. The kinds of women who will call us out when we are lying to ourselves, or who will cheer us on when we use our gifts and talents in meaningful ways. Women that we could say, have you read this awesome book? -- and they would want to read it and talk to us about it and find the truth that it contains. Or share podcast ideas, or get involved in a community project together. We all need those kinds of women in our lives.

I've told this story often, and I'll tell pieces of it in the training that's coming up. We're doing an encore training in another couple of weeks. There's a link in the description and we would love to see you there.

But I tell this story about my own past and my own experiences. When I had three children and I had all the mommy fog and the brain drain, I didn't have my people. I had friends and they were lovely. I had family and I loved them. But I didn't have a place where I could talk about ideas, where I could ask meaningful questions and other people would try to help me find the answers. Where I could discuss ideas and principles, but also what they had to do with me personally. A place where I could get really vulnerable about what was going on with me and in my life.

And then I found these college courses. I found this liberal arts school. And even though it didn't have all of those components — it wasn't the same richness that we fortunately get to have in the MDM Academy, because it wasn't a place that was just for women and we weren't quite as able to be vulnerable, and we weren't all sharing so many of the same experiences — but it was definitely the first place in my life where people were actively seeking truth.

Now let me just say a little caveat there. This isn't to say that people at church weren't seeking truth. Of course they were. And I had gone to church my whole life. It wasn't that we didn't have really good, meaningful conversations at church, or that we didn't talk about really meaningful, vulnerable, important things — we did. But this group, in these liberal arts classes, we had a shared canon. We had learned the same things. We had a shared language. We were learning some tools for understanding what truth was. We were actively on the hunt, and we were trying to figure out how to make our lives better, and we were doing it together.

And it really was the first time in my life where I truly felt a sense of community around my own personal growth. Where we were on this journey together to not just learn, but to be better people. We didn't want to just read a book to read a book, or listen to a podcast just to do it. We wanted to glean those nuggets of truth and knowledge and goodness and beauty that would enrich our lives personally.

Mortimer Adler said that the only real education is adult education. And he is absolutely right. Because it is not until we really get out into the world and we have some of those big life experiences -- not that we don't have big life experiences as children or as college students, but when we are really trying to navigate life without all those buffers around us and the people around us to help us -- we need answers in a way that is real and relevant and immediate.

And our colleges -- I don't know why they can't learn the lesson that writing for the professor is just not satisfying. It does not change us. It's a knowledge-based system, and knowledge is important -- information is important -- but information alone and knowledge alone cannot make me a different person. And without those deeper questions, without asking meaningful questions and principle questions and interdisciplinary questions, we cannot get at the heart of what's keeping us stuck and how we can move forward.

And without a community that is pushing us along, that is encouraging us and applauding us, but also pushing back when we really are lying to ourselves, or acting like a victim, or in self-deception, or not following the arguments properly, or unclear about someone's worldview, or don't know how to be a servant leader -- those tools and skills and frameworks and practice that we get in the MDM Academy -- without that richness, we are left to kind of flounder. And there are really good people out there teaching us really good things, but we don't know how to weed through all of that without an understanding of the differentiation between the principles and the applications. And the community is what makes so much of that possible.

You know, our first little community -- we do have a relationship with ourselves. That's a foundation. Our relationship with God and with ourselves is the foundation of all of our other relationships. But our family is really the first community that we truly belong to, and that belongs to us. And if we can infuse our family community with a common language about principles and truth and goodness, and personal growth and life mission, well then that community can be a support system to us all our lives.

I now have people in my life -- in my immediate family, my husband, my children, my siblings, and friends -- who speak so much of this common language with me. And now we can talk about truth. We can analyze current events and parse through some of those principles. We can navigate life more effectively. We can push back on each other. And I've done this with friends, calling them out when they weren't living up to their potential. And they do the same for me. And it is so vital. And it starts with us. If we want that kind of rich family community, somebody in the family has to start it. Somebody has to get those frameworks and start the conversation and infuse the family with that language.

At the Mission-Driven Mom, there are also other layers of community that we're involved with. There are the women who are in the academy with us -- women who are learning the concepts alongside us, along with an accountability partner or an accountability partner group that is walking with you step by step, day by day, activity after activity, journaling prompt after journaling prompt. And there's such an incredible sounding board. You are never, ever alone.

In fact, I'll share something that Cadie said about this. She said:

I found my people when I joined MDM. It's been a place where I've had people to discuss some deep and meaningful ideas and goals with. We all know what we're trying to do. We're trying to bring virtue back into society. It's wonderful to have a soft place to land after you feel like you've been in battle with negativity and a lot of the ugly things that are in this world. You are able to come back to this group of people who really understand you and can nourish you and help lift you back up after a hard day. It's priceless, honestly, to have like-minded people who are in the pursuit of truth, who share the language of principles with you, and who can walk with you on your path to your own personal transformation.

And we don't just say, oh, it's a community because there's a community platform and you can post if you feel like it. No. It is a million times richer than that. We have an orientation meeting. We invite you to find an accountability partner, and there are tactical ways that we help you do that. We have a directory where you can find people who live near you. We have this annual event that you can sign up for and come to each year and meet people in person.

And then there's the mentoring -- another layer of community. People who are just like you and me, but further ahead on the path. Who have made some of those changes, who have implemented some of those principles, and who are achieving a level of success that we can aspire to. They can become our new heroes, our new aspirational identities, the women we want to become like.

And then there's the community around you -- your neighbors, the functions that you go to. And you can lift them. You can be the voice of reason. You can be the one citing the principles. You can be the one who is helping them to walk a better walk toward a more principled world.

The Clapham Team, like I mentioned, is a space where you can do that upon graduation. You're welcome to join the Clapham Team immediately and to begin to be trained and supported as you strive to gather other like-minded women around you and to lift your own community in meaningful ways.

There are so many women who have walked this path. I've been inviting some of them onto the podcast in the last few months. You've heard from some of them. You've seen that this transformation really happens, that it really is possible. There are women just like you and me who make these changes in their lives, and the community is a big part of why that's possible.

We are uniting our identities around the truth. We are the truth seekers who are lifting ourselves, our families, and our communities, and bringing them closer to the truth. That liberation happens one mom at a time, one family at a time, one community at a time.

And I want to invite you to become more a part of that, to learn more about how this can be your people. They're not just my people and Cadie's people. They can be your people too.

And if you want more of that -- if you want like-minded women in your life who are going to encourage you and inspire you and also push back and motivate you -- then again, I want to invite you to come to the training that we're going to be doing and learn more about what all of this means for you. I'm going to give you some good tools and tactics to get you started, and it's absolutely free.

Bring a friend. Start building your community right now by having a friend or a loved one -- a mother, a sister, a cousin, a neighbor, someone at church -- come to this training with you. Start building this language into your life and building a community around yourself so that it can lift you. And together we can lift each other, and we can lift the world around us.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you have a wonderful day, and I will see you next time.

I made it through 15 years of formal education without ever hearing this story. And when I finally did, I just sat there thinking….

Why didn't anyone tell me this?

It's the story of William Wilberforce and a small circle of friends and families in England who decided that someone had to do something about the world they were leaving behind for their children.

So they did something. And over 70 years, they changed everything.

I told their story on this week's podcast episode and I think it's going to stay with you. 

This is a little of what you'll hear:

This is one of the most hopeful episodes I've recorded in a while.

Because I really do believe that women who are paying attention, rooted in truth, and raising their families with intention are exactly who the culture needs right now.

Come listen. I think you'll feel it too.

And if you're interested, you can sign up for my Free Training "How to Stop Feeling Powerless and Become the Expert in Your Own Life"

Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission Driven Life and Founder of the Mission Driven Mom. Now, I don't think that mothers feel anxious today because there's something wrong with them. I think that they feel anxious because they see the confusion in our culture.

They see the instability. They see the lost virtues and values. And they wonder to themselves, what kind of world are my children going to inherit? And last time we talked about you and your role as a mother and what it is that you can control — and that is yourself. And how, when you start working on yourself, everything starts to shift.

And it starts with the way that you think. And not really so much like, oh, I've got to just hunker down and control my thoughts. It's like seeing the world through a new lens, through understanding how to see and identify truth. This is a new way of learning how to think that's actually very ancient, that we've lost, that we can start with.

And we talked about how when you anchor yourself in that new lens, and you see the world in a new way, and you think differently, everything becomes different. And when you work on yourself and you tap into your personal power and you learn to lead yourself and better lead your family, then you put yourself in a position to actually be an influence to those around you.

And I know for some of you that may kind of scare you or worry you, and like that's the last thing from your mind. You just want to get your house under control. But I want to cast that vision of how we can link arms and make the culture different. And I want to do it by telling you a story now.

I want to do this because when you worry about our declining culture, you're worrying about your children. You're worrying about the world that we're leaving behind for our children and for our grandchildren, because you see that there's increased anxiety in children. You see that there's moral confusion, that there's identity instability, to say the least. There's rapid cultural shifts and there's a huge loss of trust in institutions of all kinds, and there are really important reasons why that's happening.

You and I have the power to turn things around. We can link arms as mothers and make a difference, and I'm going to prove it to you.

So I'm going to tell you this story about the Clapham Sect. I told you last time, we have a Clapham Team. And our Clapham Team is named after what was called the Clapham Sect or the Clapham Circle.

I'm going to tell you their story for a minute. In October of 1787, a twenty-something William Wilberforce had, just over the last year or two, been through a profound conversion to Christianity. He had grown up Christian, but he had really lost faith in the supernatural and in God, and he'd had a reconversion.

And part of this process of him really coming to God and putting his heart on the table and saying, okay, here I am, and offering himself to God — this is what he wrote in his journal: God Almighty has set before me two great objects. The suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.

  And by reformation of manners, he didn't mean make everybody more polite. He meant something very specific. Manners had a distinctly moral aspect in his use of the phrase. He wished to bring civility and self-respect into a society that had long since spiraled down into vice and misery. He wanted, among many other things, to stem the epidemic of teenage mothers prostituting themselves to pay for their gin habit. It was exceedingly progressive of him to see such actions not merely as crimes, but as symptoms of a larger social condition that required the extraordinary intervention of those in power. He wanted to not judge the poor and suffering, nor ignore them, but rather he would reach out to them and help them up.

So he felt that God had given him this mandate and he devoted the rest of his life — his health, his energy, his focus, his attention, and pretty much his entire estate and wealth — to these projects. He died with not very much money left because he gave everything to this cause.

Well, his conversion had been led out by a man named John Thornton, who was his uncle, and he was one of the wealthiest people in England at the time. He believed in what William Wilberforce wanted to accomplish. Not long before then, through a mistake with a law that was made, slavery itself was outlawed on the soil of England, but there was still an immense slave trade going on that England was participating in, and other aspects of slavery that they wanted to abolish permanently. And then this reformation of manners — in other words, making philanthropy and service fashionable — because it wasn't then, it wasn't the thing to do.

In fact, there are so many people now who leave religion and say they don't believe in God, or whatever the case might be, but then they hold on to these fundamentally Christian religious values of philanthropy and service and good works, because they did this in the name of God. They did it to make the world a better place.

John Thornton owned a home — an estate, really, he was very wealthy — about four miles outside of London in a place called Clapham. And his home, Battersea Rise, had a library there. This became the hub of a community of a growing number of people that did good works. And through their efforts over about 70 to 80 years, men and women joined hands and they engaged in good works all throughout England and beyond to change the culture itself. That instead of kicking the alcoholic to the side and ignoring him, it became, not at first socially acceptable, and eventually virtuous, to reach out and help that alcoholic, or prostitute, or whoever it was that needed helping.

I have a couple of books. There's not a lot written on them. In fact, a few months ago on our Facebook page — I think it was on Instagram too — I clipped a little video. This was before Charlie Kirk was killed, and it was the interview that Charlie Kirk did with Jordan Peterson, and they're having this conversation about how the story of William Wilberforce is one of the most important stories that needs to be told in the history of the world. Because slavery was institutionalized, it was practiced almost everywhere, all the time, throughout the history of the world. And both Jordan Peterson and Charlie Kirk make the comment that it was years later in their own personal self-education that they ran across his story at all and became aware of the incredible work that he had done.

This is absolutely true of me. And I was just sitting there nodding my head like, yes, fifteen years of formal education and I never heard about this incredible man that gave everything to eradicate slavery and actually pulled it off in his lifetime. And through this network of men and women that he brought together — two to three hundred of them over time, and probably more. Those were just the founders and the people that were working, but then there were so many local people they brought into their circles.

They did in fact reform the manners of England and beyond in the West. Made it fashionable to do good works. The lesser told story, even more than William Wilberforce, is the Clapham Sect.

I could only find two books on them, but what happened was when I read Amazing Grace, we were in the middle of — I had been working on level three. We were bringing women through the academy, kind of for the first time, and I really felt like there needed to be a place for these women to go and continue to link arms. And now that they had these tools from these three levels of our academy, they needed to have support to be able to do good works in the culture. And we launched it. We actually have our own logo based on an image from the library at Battersea Rise. And we had a couple of retreats and they went amazingly well.

And these women have now actually gone out into the world and done amazing things. One is trying to build — she has gotten land in Mexico and she's trying to service orphans there. Another — you heard from Katie recently on this podcast — founded a charter school in her town. You heard from Amy, who's got a school going in her area. There are women that have been on city council, that are working with other nonprofit organizations. Aaron is working with her community to help the homeless in their area. There are a couple of them that partnered together and put on women's retreats. So they have gone on to do incredible things. This process really does work.

The Clapham Team itself went silent when everything in MDM went silent, which I talked about on a recent podcast as well. But now, of course, we're bringing it back. We're doing it again. We're institutionalizing it. We have new leadership around it, and we are super excited for what it can become.

But the point is that the Clapham Sect linked hands and they did change the culture. I'm going to read you — like I said — just a few things about them.

There was, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a network of friends and families in England with William Wilberforce at its center of gravity, powerfully bound together by shared moral and spiritual values, by religious mission and social activism, by love for each other and by marriage. Their greatest and most celebrated achievement was the abolition of the slave trade and then slavery itself throughout the British Empire and beyond. They really knocked down slavery in dozens of countries through their efforts.

They were founders of the British Colony of Sierra Leone, of Free Town, of schools and of Christian missions, some of which continue today. A number of them were members of Parliament and used their influence to promote causes from prison reform to the protection of Sunday, and from peace to censorship. They tried to reform the Church of England and achieved the moral transformation of Britain. It is incredible what they accomplished. So much of it outlived them.

I'm going to read you some of the other things. They founded a whole lot of schools. They encouraged girls out of prostitution and helped them get on their feet. They cared for orphans. They helped boys in the navy. They supported Haiti. Prison reform. They founded mental hospitals. They even did work on animal cruelty. Pretty much any kind of charitable work you can think of came to their attention and they tried to do something about it.

As I mentioned before, William Wilberforce gave everything. His health broke. He eventually married and his wife helped nurse him back to health. He was in chronic pain for much of his life, but he spent all of his time and energy. It's amazing to me because he was financially independent — and some of these others, John Thornton certainly, some of these other individuals — financially independent, the quote "four hour work week." They had all the time in the world. And what did they do? They consecrated it to the good of society. They tried to make things better for the coming generation. They looked outside of themselves and said, what problems do we see, and they tried to make a difference. And this is what we can do as moms. We just link arms and we help each other with projects that we see in our communities and we bring principled solutions.

That's the difference between many of the good works that are going on out there. We need to raise them to a higher level. I had one of my past students contact me a couple years ago, and she was doing this. She was trying to make a difference. She was working with a nonprofit organization that had quite a bit of outreach that was trying to help mothers and children, and she could tell as she went through their curriculum that it was not principled, that they had not delineated the core elements that needed to be brought forward so people could have a better understanding of what they were trying to do. And she was trying to bring those principled solutions to real world problems. It was so amazing.

I want to read you one last story from Amazing Grace. Go read it if you haven't. You'll read it when you come on the Clapham Team for sure. But this will just give you a little bit of a sense of the kind of people that these were.

On August 21st, Wilberforce traveled with his sister Sally to Cowslip Green to visit Hannah More and her sisters. Hannah's sister Martha, knowing Wilberforce loved natural scenery, insisted that he take a trip to the nearby Cheddar Gorge, which afforded some of the finest scenery in England. Now, this is because he had been working tirelessly on all of these projects and he was worn out and he needed a break. So he went to visit these friends who were also people that were involved in all of these good works, and they told him, you should go out to this place, Cheddar Gorge. It's beautiful. It will help rejuvenate you.

Cheddar Gorge is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom, with the sides of many caves. But during his visit, Wilberforce was less moved by the scenery than by the inhabitants of the area, whose poverty was extreme and, to Wilberforce, shocking. They had no school at all, nor any church. Some of the miserable souls did not even live in hovels, but scratched out an existence in the caves themselves.

On his return to the Moores', Wilberforce was clearly of a mind to be alone with his thoughts on what he had just witnessed. He retired to his room to pray, did not touch his food, and later emerged with a clear purpose. "Miss Hannah More," he said, "something must be done for Cheddar." They discussed various schemes until the hour grew late. At last, Wilberforce declared, "If you will be at the trouble, I will be at the expense." And he meant it. Whatever they would do to help the poor there, he would fund it.

Wilberforce insisted that Hannah not be shy in asking for his money. To do so, he said, would only be pride disguised as false humility. Over his lifetime, Wilberforce gave away more money than we can imagine, and he wrote the first of many generous checks to launch the Moores' work among the poor of that area. Hannah More soon started the first schools in the area and Wilberforce would continue to fund them for many years.

If we will be willing to be at the work of first working on ourselves, like we talked about last time, and letting that lift us, and letting that lift our families, then we can link arms and we can lift the culture.

Now, just as we finish up, I want to hit on a few reasons why it's so vital that we do this. Because culture always shapes our children. It is the water that we swim in, and whether it's intentional or unintentional, that culture is always affecting them. And if we don't shape their worldview, something else will. Children are always being discipled by something. So the question isn't whether or not our children are going to be shaped by the culture. The question is what's going to shape who they become?

And this moment is so pivotal because truth is being redefined. I mean, think about it. We live in a "my truth, your truth" world, which I never thought we would arrive at. There are literally videos on YouTube where people are approached on the street and asked, "Hey, if I told you I was a gorilla, would you believe me?" And they say yes. Authority is fragmented because so many institutions don't stand on solid principles, and because servant leadership is at such a low ebb. Trust in authority and trust in institutions is at an all time low, and families are being pressured to outsource their leadership — to let the schools, to let the social media, to let the sports teams, to let anybody and everybody else raise their children, tell them what to value, teach them virtue, or not teach them virtue, or beat down the virtue that's naturally in them, instead of the family.

But the family must go on. The family must do the work. It is the fundamental unit of society, and it's up to us to shape the world that our children inherit. The world is rejecting truth and we need champions of truth. And if you and I don't decide to be them, who will do it? Who will rise up and do it?

Now, this isn't about panicking, running too fast, or worrying about anybody else besides ourselves. We can start with ourselves. It's about preparation. It's about just starting with you. It's about doing the thing you can do, controlling the thing you can control, because it will multiply.

I was talking to a woman recently who has graduated from the Mission Driven Mom, who is in leadership now with our organization, and who has gone out there and done incredible works in her community. And we were having this conversation and she was basically saying, "I don't know how to turn this off. Like, I see all these problems in the world now. I see all these solutions that could be brought to my community, and it's just so hard to turn it off. And now all these people are reaching out to me. What should we do about this? What should we do about this? How can we solve this problem?"

And I said, that's because when you lead yourself and your family properly, people see you as a leader. They know that you can help them. They know that you stand on principle because of who you've become. And so leadership will just become a natural part of who you are.

And she said, "Oh my gosh, that's exactly what's happened. I just am seen as a leader in my community and I wasn't trying to do that at all. I was trying to work on myself, work on my family, and serve. That's it."

Now, why does this work? This works because a principled mother creates stability, and stability creates resilience. And that resilience and self-leadership that you gain and that you give your children — they take into adulthood and they help stabilize the culture. It also works because, like we've said, you and I discover our gifts, we put our own lives in order, and then we go out there and we try to serve. We see what we can do to bless the world around us.

We become principled servant leaders who serve our communities and make them better, and that is something that we can do together.

The mistake that a lot of moms make is that they try to protect their children from the culture. They just say, oh well, you can't ever have a phone and you can't ever be on social media, scratch all that. The mistake that many moms make is that they focus on protecting their children from the culture instead of helping their children navigate the culture with truth, because they can learn to see the truth and teach their children to see the truth as well. And that means clarity, conviction, and servant leadership. That's what it means.

That's all we have to do. We have to begin today to work on ourselves. So I'm going to run through what I read to you last time, because ultimately this all begins with you and your education, where we help you to think differently, and then everything changes. I promise, just everything changes.

You become one, a mission-driven mom who works on herself so she can show up differently for herself and her family. A mom who seeks truth, identifies and stabilizes her life with it. A mom who learns to balance her own personal growth with that of her family. A mom who becomes intentional and begins leading her family to more principle-centered, meaningful, servant-leadership-focused living. She is powerful, confident, self-accepting and purposeful, and then she can formally as a Clapham Team member, or informally just in the rest of her life as she moves forward, she's in a role where she's part of a vast community of moms who are dedicated to lifting the culture, reinstating virtue and love of country, who speaks the truth with courage, who sees the problems in the community and works together with other like-minded women to bring principled solutions to real world problems.

And when she does this — when she lifts herself and then lifts her family and lifts her culture together — we can all make the world a better place.

And if what I've talked about today and last week is something that resonates with you, if you can see that your ability to discern truth, to build yourself up as a person, to meet your needs, discover your talents, lead yourself properly, to learn to discern principles in the culture, to know how to link arms with like-minded individuals in the community, to link arms with other women just like you, and be lifted and lift your family and eventually be able to lift the culture — I want to share more about how you can do that in the training, this encore training that we're doing in the next few weeks. I would love to have you there.

If you feel an urgency about our children's future, if you're concerned about what we're leaving behind and the world that we're leaving for your children and your grandchildren, come to that training. We'll talk more about actions that you can take right now. I'm going to give you some frameworks and some tools that you can take action on immediately, but we'll help to make a difference in your home. And you can learn more about how we do this, how we link arms and identify truth to make a difference right where we are, by starting with ourselves and leading ourselves first.

So the link is in the description. Sign up for that training. Thank you for joining me today, and I will see you next time.