Latest / Far & Familiar / Hospitality Without the Overwhelm with Elizabeth Santelmann

Transcript

Hospitality Without the Overwhelm with Elizabeth Santelmann · Far & Familiar

• Britt Fisher: Hi friends, welcome back to the Far and Familiar podcast. Today I have in store for you guys the very first ever interview that I have recorded for the podcast with a dear friend of mine. Not only is she an author and a fellow podcaster herself, but she is also one of the most gifted people I know When it comes to building community and incorporating regular rhythms of hospitality in her everyday life, our conversation is full of so much inspiration and practical advice for how you can really build your own community through hospitality in a way that is truly life-giving. And then she also has some really fun insights from her own experience growing up involved in the Amish community. I truly think you guys are going to love hearing this conversation. Welcome to Far and Familiar, the podcast about faith, biblical hospitality, and courageous adventure for Christian moms who are ready to step outside of their comfort zones and start fully living. If you find yourself feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, or uninspired in your everyday life, you found the right place. Friend, you were not made to play it safe and operate in survival mode. You were made to live with eyes up and doors thrown open, chasing the adventure and abundant life God has for you. I'm your host, Britt Fisher, Jesus follower, mama of four, and someone who believes a full dinner table and a passport full of stamps are forms of worship. I've spent years traveling the world with my family, opening our home, and navigating what it actually looks like to live a life outside of my comfort zone. And this podcast is everything I and other mamas who have gone before me have learned along the way. I am so glad you're here. Let's dive in. All right, friends, welcome back to the Far and Familiar podcast. Today I have an absolute treat for you guys. I am bringing on as a guest one of my dearest friends. She is a podcaster, an author, and a homeschooling mama to three boys who are almost exactly the same age as my three boys. and they have become some of my boy's dearest friends as well. She has this incredible gift for building community And practicing hospitality in the most simple but still meaningful ways. And she endlessly inspires me, which is why I cannot wait for you to glean from her the same way that I have. So welcome, Elizabeth Sandelman, to the podcast. Elizabeth: Hey, I'm so excited to be here with you again today 'cause we hung out all day yesterday too. Britt Fisher: I know, it's so fun. It's fun on our work days to still get to hang out a little bit. Elizabeth: I know. Minus one little person with an ear infection. So Britt Fisher: Yes. bless his heart. thank you, vibration boards. If you guys ever have kids with an ear infection, highly recommend those little wiggle vibration plates. They help everything drain. So there's your random mom tip for the day. Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: Okay, Elizabeth, why I brought you on is you have this incredible gift for hospitality and building community, even as an introvert, which I think is really notable. So where do you think that comes from? Elizabeth: Well, part of it comes from like seeing it exemplified really well in my parents. and I hope that feels hopeful to people, even if they didn't have that example. Because like as you start building rhythms into your own family, you're passing it off to your kids easier than what you got it. but my mom was a major extrovert, like wanted all the party all the time. And so we just got to watch her figure out how to do that really well and it was just a regular part of both my growing up and my husband's growing up. And so we just did this spiritual gifting test. And his, even though he's an introvert, is actually hospitality, which is kind of like a wild combination. And Britt Fisher: Yeah. Elizabeth: so anyway, yeah, just like having it be one of our family values. yeah, I think it just allows us to like I guess it's one of those things like in order to say yes to anything, you have to say no to some things too. And so choosing to have that as one of our central family values has allowed us to view all the other options of things coming into our house, with a does this support this or does it not? And if it doesn't, like even though it's a really good thing, like last night I was talking to my students about like, you know, sometimes we sacrifice the best things on the altar of the good things. And so, making sure that we Britt Fisher: So true. Elizabeth: really know as a family, like what is our what is our central focus and like that's one of them for us. So Britt Fisher: Okay, I love that. I actually didn't know this about you, that your mom is an extrovert, which I always think it's so Elizabeth: my gosh. Britt Fisher: interesting. So my whole family are extroverts. My parents are extroverts, Elizabeth: Okay. Britt Fisher: my brother and I are extroverts. I don't think I really understood what an introvert was until I married one. Elizabeth: Yeah. Okay. Britt Fisher: but I have kids, multiple kids that are introverts. And so I love hearing that how your mom kind of embraced hospitality as an extrovert, even influenced you as an introvert to. love to Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: open 'cause that gives me hope for my own introverted kids. Elizabeth: Well, and it's interesting 'cause I was socialized to be an extrovert and my husband was socialized to be a introvert. But the longer we've been married and settled into our own family culture, the more I've like slid away from that because I wouldn't have known what an introvert was when I got married because it just was not socially acceptable in our family. and so learning to embrace like, hey, you know what, it's really okay to have time when you're locked in your room and you're really quiet and alone with your own thoughts and allowing that to that side of my personality to have its have its breathing room. But yeah, I don't know if I would say like I'm a true introvert. it's so weird to think about like it as a sliding scale, but definitely can get peopled out. So Britt Fisher: Well, I love that you talked about that alone time, because I think people think only introverts need that. And Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: I am about as far on the sliding scale to extrovert as you can possibly get. Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: But one of the most powerful things I think I have learned as a rhythm in life is to take that time alone. That's not necessarily how I get energy. I get Elizabeth: Mm. Mm. Britt Fisher: energy from people, but it is so good for me to withdraw the way that Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: Jesus did. And like have Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: that quiet time. And it's hard for me to do it, but it's really life-giving. And so I Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Britt Fisher: think there's so much that introverts and extroverts can learn from each other. I know that wasn't the goal of this podcast to talk about introversion versus versus extroversion, Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah. Britt Fisher: but I think it's really powerful conversation. Okay, Elizabeth: for sure. Yeah. Britt Fisher: so walk me through what hospitality actually looks like in a normal week or month at your house and in your life. What rhythms are you most intentional about, Both in the way you practice hospitality to your own family and also Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: your community outside of your home. Elizabeth: Yeah, so I think there's a really big hurdle that I had to get over because we don't remember our childhoods truly. We remember being teenagers and preteens and so like growing up we had this like our house had to always be ten minutes to clean mentality. my mom, like we picked up after yourself, we put things away after yourself and like you c your house well, so she called it company ready. Your house had to be company ready within ten minutes. And that meant like everything dusted, everything perfectly clean, everything like like it just had to look like nobody lived there basically within ten minutes. and so when I started having babies, I realized all by myself, I can't do this. Like if I had two teenage daughters, sure, maybe we could pull this off. But I can't do this with toddlers. And I had this friend that encouraged me to just start inviting people over into the mess, which like gave me the heebie jeebies at first. and so to practice it, because we don't get good at anything unless we practice it, I started inviting one specific friend who I knew wouldn't judge over on Mondays, which was laundry day, which was as messy as it got, in order to like try to desensitize myself to it. but then from there just like kind of learning to just invite people into the mess and to do life next to you instead of waiting till you get all of the pieces together and everything perfect before you welcome people in and You can you know you were at my house last Saturday for waffles. and I think sometimes just like not overcomplicating the menu too, like inviting people over. Like for us, a really like we have this one meal if it's dinners. You guys would have got it if we had done dinner instead of brunch. like we go to Sam's and we get rotisserie chickens and we just take all the meat off the bones and we pour beans over it and season it to be tacos. And you put it down on a bed of chips, because then if you pick your right chips, it's gluten-free, it's dairy free, it's all the freeze, and like people can like put on it whatever ingredients is their favorite. So it's kinda like picky eater friendly too. And if people come over to our house, like nine times out of ten, they've probably eaten that meal because we try not to overcomplicate it. I think sometimes we can get so like southern culturally hosty instead of just welcoming people in, that we feel like it has to have like a fancy table setting and a special menu. And I I mean there's places for that. but if the value is just hospitality, having something like super simple and easy to be like, Yeah, come on in, is really helpful. Britt Fisher: I love that actually growing up and even still to this day, my mom always modeled hospitality really well for me. And I feel like rotisserie chickens are like a secret hack because she would frequently Elizabeth: It really is. Britt Fisher: and still does, if we're having like a last minute dinner, she's like, I'll grab some rotisserie chickens. And then she makes a mean salad. Like my kids call Elizabeth: Ooh. Britt Fisher: all of the salads my mom makes, even though they're all different. They're low, low salad is what they are called. Elizabeth: Mm. Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: And Lolo salad is their favorite because she just throws random things together of what's in her fridge and makes a homemade dressing and it's always spectacular. But it's just so simple. It's like rotisserie chickens and salad. And then she'll pick up Elizabeth: that sounds amazing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: like a baguette of sourdough at the grocery store Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: and throw it in the oven. And you have a meal in less than 10 minutes. And so I think, yeah. Elizabeth: Yeah. Well and then the f fun side effect, like one of the matrons of a church I attended said, like, have your meal you're known for. and so that was that one, like you just serve it every time. And so I th that's kind of a fun like side effect of it is like then you end up being the lolo salad person, you know? Britt Fisher: I love it. Okay, so something fun that I learned about you this year was that you grew up near an Amish community and actually Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: like partook in that, which I think is absolutely fascinating. One of my favorite movies growing up was I think it's called For Richer, for poorer. I could Elizabeth: Okay. Britt Fisher: be getting this wrong. So if I am wrong, I'll correct it in the show notes. But it was a movie where Tim Allen and Kirsty Alley are a couple that are going through a divorce or just recently divorced. And they witness a murder and they get put in witness protection in an Amish community. So they have to like pretend to be this Amish married couple. Right? It's it's so funny. I haven't seen it in years. I'm like just thinking about it, but I loved it growing up because I just thought the Amish community was so fascinating. There were so many things I admired about their way of life and still do. Elizabeth: Mm. Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: so I'd love to ask you how did growing up near an Amish community shape the way that you think Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: about hospitality and community? Elizabeth: Yeah. yeah. So growing up we were homeschooled. It was super rural. So like nobody else was homeschooled for a long time. And eventually we ended up finding some friends, but they were like 40 minutes away. So it like really hard to get together. but the Amish were all like within like a half mile, a mile. So like a good chunk of our best friends were all Amish girls. and our babysitters were Amish. They would come pick us up in their buggy, which is not super typical, but again, my mom is like an a super extrovert. And so she would offer to take them to town for free if they would accompany her because she hated to go to town anyway. and so they were excited about it. They got a free ride to town and mom was excited about it because she got free babysitting and it worked out great. but one of the things I think that did is like I think our culture actually practices community really poorly. Like we come home from whatever we're doing, we pull in our garage, we shut the door. Like this is just my observation since moving to the city and being an adult. And like we don't even Britt Fisher: I totally agree. Elizabeth: know our neighbors sometimes. and we have automated systems to like water our plants. We have all these things that actually don't require us to go outside and meet other people to the point where we can feel super self conscious if we even Walk over into somebody else's yard that feels like invading their private space. Like it's just weird. but the Amish, it's super different. and anytime they have like a big amount of work to do or a big project to do, they invite everybody over to join them. And it goes from being like drudgery to so much fun. And the assumption is then when you have this big project that you have to do, you'll invite everybody over too. And I think the first thing that's different is nobody sees that as exploitive. Like I think a lot of times as typical Americans, we get this idea we have to pay our friends to do stuff when we ask them to help us, or like that somehow we're not like valuing them appropriately if we're asking them to come help us with something. and there's not that idea. It's like more communal living. But then the second cool thing that it does is there's just so much more conversation that you can have as you're doing it for a couple of hours over a project. I think as humans that's well the way we were designed to work. You think about like as we live in village life and we're doing stuff together. Like you think of all the ballads that were created to be sung to do work in tandem or the stories culturally that have been passed down are things that would have been told over a handiwork or some sort of project. And so, the Amish somehow have like really retained that super well. And it was like a lot of culture shock when I started hanging out with like more typical Americans and realizing like, wait a minute, you don't just like all come clean your house together every other week. Like this is crazy. Or you don't like just it like if you buy a crate of apples, it's weird to invite people over to process them with you and then send a couple jars of applesauce home with them. Or like, I don't know. It's it's also hard not to get invited to come do work at people's house. Like the level of excitement I would have if somebody invited me to come for a cleaning day, like absolutely guess sign me up. and I think sometimes we just don't we don't think that people are gonna love that kind of invitation. But I feel like as I've invited people in to do stuff like that, the response has been kind of positive. So I I think it's just like a missing cultural piece for us. Britt Fisher: Yeah, I feel like this is something that you have recently brought back into my life. So I talked about this a little bit in the first episode, but my husband, you know, went through a medical residency and in residency, this was practiced really well in my life. So we Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: had husbands that worked insane amount of hours every week. And so those of us wives, we called ourselves the sister wives, not in the creepy way. We didn't actually share husbands, but we took care of each other. And so Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: if one of us had a project to do at our house, everyone showed up and The person that was hosting might, you know, make dinner or pull out some rotisserie chickens and some low-lo salad. And Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: we'd all paint the room together or fix the sink. And we all had our own giftings of like what we were good at, you know, around Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: the home. And so we'd help each other. And then the next week we'd be at someone else's house doing the same thing. And we cleaned together and we regularly prepared meals together. And it was such a gift. And then it was honestly kind of a culture shock stepping out of that back into just like Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: building community. In normal life, because that's not, I feel like always the expectation or culture among standard, Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: you know, typical Americans, like what you said. And so it's something I think we need to reclaim for Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah. Britt Fisher: sure, especially in the Christian community. Cause doing life, and I got to do that with you in your move. Like we all came to your house and ate chocolate chip cookies and unpacked your kitchen, or we meal-prepped a whole bunch of freezer meals this summer while the kids Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: played, and it was so life giving to accomplish something and get friend time at the same time. And I think so often we feel like we don't have the capacity for community or friend time or hospitality simply Elizabeth: Mm. Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: because we think it has to be separate from actually accomplishing and getting things done. Elizabeth: Well, and don't you think we were better parents? Like yesterday when I came over with my kid with an ear infection who was gonna be super fussy, like that whole day, like when I thought about it being stretched out in front of me felt so overwhelming. And then I came over and he was excited to hang out with your son and your daughter and They were all off playing and I feel like it's just easier to have measured responses when we're with other people. Part of it's cause like there's eye contact with the other adult in the room and they're like, Yeah, you're nailing Britt Fisher: Yeah. Elizabeth: it. Well done. Keep going. You've got this, you know? And when you're by yourself, it just can feel like super frustrating and like nobody's even noticing like this is super hard and I'm crushing it. and then at you know, later you're not crushing it anymore. And so it's just Easier to do some of those things in community also. So Britt Fisher: Absolutely. Okay, so as a follow-up to that, I think so often, you know, when we think of hospitality in our culture, we picture Pinterest parties, you know? And Elizabeth: Ha ha. Britt Fisher: I think often in our culture, hospitality seems like it's almost more about performance than it is just about people. Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: And I love that kind of this more Amish perspective of community and hospitality is different than that. How do you fight that in your own home to keep Elizabeth: Hm. Britt Fisher: it from being a more about performance than people? Elizabeth: Yeah. I think that's kind of a holistic whole life thing that we have to battle. if we think that we can only start something once we can do it perfectly, like we are literally never gonna start something. And so it works that way with homeschool also. I know we both homeschool. If you waited until you knew you could perform your perfect homeschool day, you would never homeschool. Like you would have one homeschool day a month, period. but like It it reminds me like this okay, this poem has almost become a cliche because it's so popular in homeschool circles. But the little drops of water, little grains of sand make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land. and it's all about like the little tiny things that we do add up. And so it's like if we just do start the homeschool day, do the one or two things, it adds up to more learning than waiting for that one perfect day. And I think it's the same thing with hosting and hospitality, like just getting started and those little drops of community end up adding up so much more than waiting for the one perfect day. And that doesn't mean the one perfect day isn't ever gonna come up. It does. And those are really beautiful and so cool and so fun to take pictures or videos of. Like we can celebrate and delight in beauty. We don't have to only have one at the expense of the other. but I think that if we just do it imperfect and we just get started, we end up more days of joy than if we wait for like that one perfect party to show up. Britt Fisher: I love that. That's so insightful. so I think a lot of people look at rhythms of hospitality or community, and they Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: think I just don't have the capacity for that. And I love this vision that you just gave of just like the tiny drops that create the ocean. But Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: something I've observed about you is that you clearly have intentionally built and created capacity for these rhythms. Like you've created Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: the capacity to put the little drops in and create the ocean. Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: What do you think has been most helpful to you for creating that capacity in your life? Elizabeth: I think really being honest about if this is something you truly value or not. Like, I think listing what is most important to you helps you to filter out everything that doesn't fit in that bucket. And so hosting and community, creating community is like an important value for my husband and I to the point where we just moved houses and we had this little plastic set of kids. tableware that we'd had for so long. It was like really gross. And so we just threw it away and we're like, yay, we're out of the stage when we need kid plates. Like no more plastic plates for this family. We're eating on the real thing. And then we had friends over, because again, this is one of our values. And we realized like, actually I think it was Hattie. we had your daughter over and like she was having to try to drink out of a glass glass. And like get it down off the counter and like realizing how nervous that made her and you as my guest, I was like, my gosh, we did it again. We didn't live within our values. We threw away all the plastic. I mean, it was time to get new anyway. but w when we were at IKEA the next time, we grabbed another full little set so that way we are able to host the little people in our life. And part of that comes in like not signing our kids up for too many sports or not doing too many different types of co-op activities or not being involved in everything at our church that we could be involved in. So that way we have time to create one on one community with people in our church. and so it maybe that isn't your family's value, but I think you have to be really honest about what your family values are and lean into that. And if you're feeling called to hospitality, then you have to list that as like a top five thing for your family and lean all the way in. Britt Fisher: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's so important, you talking about, you know, recognizing what your values are and saying those things out loud or writing them down. and I think there's also something to be said that even maybe if you personally aren't naturally drawn to hospitality, because for it's Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: something I am. naturally bent towards. And I think there are people Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: that aren't. But I also think it's really important to look biblically that the Bible calls us to practice hospitality. That's literally those exact words are written in scripture. Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: I'm forgetting the reference right now. Drop it in the show notes. But we are called as believers to practice hospitality. And so I think that can look different for every family. But I think you Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: do it in such a beautiful way in such a practical way. I think it's Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: doesn't have to be this big drawn out thing. So I love all of the things that you've been sharing. another thing I think that just from my own observations that has created that capacity within you is I think when we are deeply rooted in the word, we Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: are able to have more capacity for the things that God calls us to. Elizabeth: Mm, mm. Britt Fisher: it's that idea of, You know, being attached to the vine and being rooted in Christ. And that's what allows us to produce good fruit for the kingdom. Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: And you actually, at the time that we are releasing this podcast, you will have just released your second book, Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: Gently Tinder, will have just been out into the world like a two-day-old baby, I think, at that point. which congratulations. Elizabeth: Hmm. Britt Fisher: I had the privilege of getting an advanced copy and literally cried when I opened it because. I am still, it's I'm in such an interesting stage of parenting, Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: of having an almost teenager and then still having a toddler as well. Elizabeth: Mm. Britt Fisher: And there are some days that are really challenging in that. Elizabeth: Yeah. Britt Fisher: And that particular day, I had felt very overstimulated by one of my children. And you had a Elizabeth: Mm-hmm. Britt Fisher: little note in the front talking about just feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed in motherhood and your vision for this book to like meet me there. And Elizabeth: Mm, mm. Britt Fisher: it made me cry. And so I would love for you to share about how. Kind of the vision and I guess the root of this book of why you wrote it, that gently tending of your soul has helped you kind of create the capacity for the rhythms of hospitality and community that you so beautifully pour into. Elizabeth: Yeah, I think all of it goes hand in hand together is like I had the idea for so long that in order to be biblically literate or to be a woman of the word or to study the Bible, I had to like tackle a full book of the Bible or read through the Bible in a year or like do a thirty minute study at the crack of dawn with my beautiful cup of coffee and my highlighters and all the things and again, God used the birth of my first couple kids to like start to break that down to the point where that just wasn't possible anymore. It wasn't possible to do it in like the Pinterest Instagram worthy sort of way anymore. and so I really started assessing what does it look like to practice these things at their most fundamental and elemental form instead of like their biggest, most extreme form. And so for me, that came when a friend I was host helping host her baby shower and she slipped a little pack of index cards into my hand and I've jokingly said it felt like I got to experience the church equivalent of a drug deal. and she's like, When I don't have enough time to read the Bible, I just look at one of these cards and I write on the cards my favorite verses and I rotate through them and God's met me there. And I remember coming home and like crying because I was like, wait, that counts? Like we can just like read a verse of the Bible and like think about it and God can meet us there. It's so funny because I came home that night and started crying all over again because I couldn't think of any verses to write down on my cards, which was ridiculous because I grew up in a family where memorizing scripture was an important value for us. And my parents helped us to memorize chapters of the Bible. I'd even challenged myself to memorize a couple of books of the Bible. So to not even be able to think of one verse was chaotic. But what I think that that started to do in the coming weeks as I started thinking of the verses that I wanted to memorize was it started changing my picture of God. Instead of thinking, like, does this count? Like that I need to like push myself in order to have a relationship with him. It started like subtly shifting me to believe that he already lived inside of me, he already loved me. And my times with him were reminding me of his presence, not creating his presence with me. I already had his presence. And being held by the gentleness of our savior has ended up transforming the way that I live all of life. And I think it it's caused me not to need to have perfection in my home when I invite people in. Like God doesn't require perfection of me. And if my heavenly father doesn't require that. I don't have to provide that for others. I can welcome them into my mess and allow them to see who I really am and my dependence on Christ. and so it's ended up allowing me to show that with my kids. and part of it is through the first verse that did he did end up guiding me toward to write in the book that day in Isaiah. And it is ended up becoming the title for the book and It says he carries them in his arms and gently leads those that are with young. And I started realizing like God is gently tending me and I can show up in the messy and in the imperfect and just welcome people into that. and I hope it points them ultimately to a savior who is gentle and kind to us as he tends our souls. Britt Fisher: I love that. And that is something that you do so well, friend. Okay, so we've come to the end of our interview, but a question I wanna ask every guest as just something fun to complete the interview is you were to hop on an airplane tomorrow and get to fly anywhere in the world, where would you wanna go? Elizabeth: my gosh. Okay, so my gut response is Germany, because that's where my family is from and it's been a dream forever. But I think the real answer is actually I've been to every continental state except for the final five in the most northeast. And so if I could get on a plane today and fly to Boston and like take a tiny little road trip when I get there and see my last five states, I would be so excited. Especially 'cause As we record and as this comes out, it would be like the most beautiful time to go visit. and then I could recant the Veggie Tales song 'cause I would have been in Boston in the fall. Britt Fisher: So as someone who actually has been to Boston in the fall, I can tell you it's every bit as dreamy as you imagine it. And also, while I can't make this happen tomorrow, I know this is a trip you and I have actually talked about is doing a history trip out there with our kids. So now I'm even more excited to make this happen because it's like a bucket list thing for you. Elizabeth: It it is so high on my bucket list and it's been on my bucket list for ten years now, I think, so Britt Fisher: Okay, well we have to make that happen. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I would love it if you would just tell listeners where they can find you and where they can find your book. Elizabeth: Yeah, so you can find me at Sunshine in My Nest, specifically on Instagram. That's the place I call it digital hospitality. So you're digitally welcomed in to my home. and if you're local, I would love to invite you into our home. but then you can find the book gently tended. If you Google it, it really is sold everywhere that books are sold, and you can find it there or through the links on my page. Britt Fisher: Awesome. Well, you guys will not regret getting this book. It has already ministered to me so much. And truly, you guys will just love experiencing Elizabeth's digital hospitality. So make sure to go follow her at Sunshine in My Nest. And I will see you guys in the next episode. All right, friends, I hope you guys were blessed by that conversation and are walking away with so many practical tips and advice on how you can be incorporating rhythms of biblical hospitality in your everyday life. My challenge for you at the end of this episode is to find a way to bring a friend into the work with you. I loved Elizabeth's reflections on the Amish community and how they truly just entered into work. Together in the most beautiful, life-giving way. And I would love for you to think of a way That you can unite with a friend and accomplish some work together this week in a way that builds community, that opens your doors, and that blesses one another. I truly hope you guys have enjoyed this first batch of four podcast episodes have released on launch day. if you have enjoyed and felt blessed by these episodes, will you mind doing me a small favor and holding open the door to this podcast for a friend or another mama by leaving a review? It only takes about 30 seconds of your time to leave a five-star rating and share what it is that has encouraged you about this podcast or why you love listening to it. and I read every single review and it truly means the world. so hop on over to wherever you listen, whether it's on Apple or Spotify or Amazon music. And thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to do so. Don't forget to hit subscribe so you can catch next week's episode. Where I will be sharing all of my top tips to not only survive but thrive on international flights with kids, which will be publishing on the same day that I am hopping on a 16-hour flight to Vietnam and Cambodia with my four kids. So I am living that out in real time. And I am so excited to share all of the tips and tricks that I have picked up. Through many years of traveling overseas with my family. until then, eyes up, doors open, mamas. I will see you in the next episode.