{"id":5168,"date":"2021-05-10T15:53:22","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T22:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insideout.abbotsfordchristian.com\/?p=5168"},"modified":"2021-05-10T15:53:22","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T22:53:22","slug":"better-with-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/2021\/05\/10\/better-with-company\/","title":{"rendered":"BETTER WITH COMPANY"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t think it matters if you have one child, a baker\u2019s dozen, or any number in between; raising your children and being a family is one of life&#8217;s greatest adventures. For my husband and I, we have learned that in the joys, the struggles, and the in-betweens of this great adventure, parenting our four-year-old son is something we do better in community.<\/p>\n<p>This Mother\u2019s Day, I reflected with deep gratitude on the village that supports us as we raise our son:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>My parents, Oma &amp; Opa, who shower him with unconditional love, patience, and candies.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMama-Neen\u201d, our beloved and talented childcare provider who gave our son the best possible \u201chome away from home\u201d when I went back to work.<\/li>\n<li>Our siblings and their spouses, who with their children give my son a safe space, an opportunity to wait his turn, l<span style=\"color: #266092\"><strong>et him make mistakes, lose at games, and sit on the grass to eat popsicles together.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li>Aunt Tina, who pre-COVID travelled once a year from Ontario to come and spoil us with her presence.<\/li>\n<li>Our church family, near and far, who shares our responsibility to nurture his faith and teach him about God.<\/li>\n<li>His wonderful preschool teachers who bring silly songs, crafts, and a love for learning into his life.<\/li>\n<li>Our friends who patiently listen to nonsensical \u201cknock-knock\u201d jokes, join us for walks along the river, teach him how to drive golf carts, pass on their outgrown toys and clothes, and send their teenagers over to babysit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am profoundly thankful and deeply humbled to see how God has given us people that bring love and support into our family. The collective strength of this community, \u201c<em>the village,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0gives our son a place to flourish.<\/p>\n<h2>Expanding Our Village<\/h2>\n<p>In September, my son will start kindergarten. A whole new chapter in the adventure. I\u2019ve been warned that \u201conce they start kindergarten, it goes fast.\u201d That actually <span style=\"color: #266092\"><strong>sounds terrifying because it already feels like time is flying.<\/strong><\/span> But I\u2019m so excited that this fall my family gets to include the people of Abbotsford Christian School in our village.<\/p>\n<p>For the last 10 years I\u2019ve been on the school side of this community and I\u2019ve loved every minute of it (<em>except for perhaps a few COVID-19 notifications every now and again\u2014sigh<\/em>).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I had the opportunity to see how teachers speak into the lives of students.<\/li>\n<li>I experienced the work of the Holy Spirit in chapel.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #266092\"><strong>I witnessed the genuine love our staff has for the children in their care.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve seen new friendships amongst the children grow.<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019ve been a part of staff devotions where we prayed together for our school families.<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019ve watched children make a difference in the world.<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019ve been blessed by the families that call our school \u201chome.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And now it\u2019s our turn. I can\u2019t wait!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t think it matters if you have one child, a baker\u2019s dozen, or any number in between; raising your children and being a family is one of life&#8217;s greatest adventures. For my husband and I, we have learned that in the joys, the struggles, and the in-betweens of this great adventure, parenting our four-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/2021\/05\/10\/better-with-company\/\"> [&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":5171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,14],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-5168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elementary","category-parents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5168"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=5168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}