Serving God through Love: A Meaningful Exploration w/ Janice Brandes and Megan Twadell

What is the purpose of serving and why does the Bible emphasize it to us? Change comes from serving. 1 Peter 4:10 tells us, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” But sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what our gifts are or what God has called us to do. A good way to begin to understand your gifts and to know how God wants to use you is by serving others.  Our guests today, Janice Brandes and Megan Twadell are here to share more about the changes that happen when we begin to serve and what effects it can have on ourselves and others.

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Transcript

Mentor Mama

Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast for those that may be listening for the first time, our podcast is an offshoot from our main platform, YouTube. Our channel is called Coffee and Bible time where our goal is to help people delight in God's word and thrive in Christian living. We also have a website. In storefront with Bible studies, prayer journals, courses and more. And I'm so excited to tell you about our brand new in depth Bible Study Academy. Have you always wished you knew how to in-depth study the Bible for yourself, but you just don't have time to go to Bible college? Well, join us this year as we adventure through 12 different courses. Designed to give you the background and the tools to study the Bible for yourselves, you can find out more information about the Academy on our website at coffee and bibletime.com. Well, I mentor Mama and today we are going to be talking about how to experience the radical heart change that comes from serving first. Peter 410 tells us. Each of you should. Use whatever gift you have received to serve others. As faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. But sometimes it can be hard to know exactly what our gifts are or what God has really called us to do well. A good way to begin to understand your gifts and to know how God wants to use you is by serving others serving our families. Those in our churches, our communities and beyond. This will help us experience so much spiritual growth. When we do that and it truly is a way to see God move in our own lives as we begin to see how serving can transform not only those around us, but our own hearts too. Our guests today, Janice Brandis and Megan Twaddell are here to share more about the changes that happen when we begin to serve and what effects it can have on ourselves and others. But first, a word from our sponsor. Janice Brandis has served in various capacities since becoming a follower of Jesus in 1992. She led kids own ministries at Village Church of Gurney for over 20 years, writing the curriculum, training volunteers and planning outreach programming for families. She is currently serving as the president of a nonprofit organization that works to serve, equip and empower underserved communities in Guatemala. She lives in Grays Lake, Illinois, with her husband, Dave. They most enjoy spending time with their son, daughter, their spouses and their four adorable grandchildren. Meghan Twaddell is the vice president of Hope Renewed International. She is in her 16th year as a special education teacher at a middle school in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. She is also very active in serving at her church, serving as a deaconess and singing on the worship team. She is an avid traveler and plans to visit her 40th country this summer. Please welcome Janice and Meghan.

Megan

Thank you. Hello.

Janice

Hi, Ellen.

Janice

Hi Ellen, thanks for having us.

Megan

Thank you.

Mentor Mama

Ohh, it's so nice. Yes, it's so nice to have you here. OK, I have to know. Megan, what is the 40th country?

Megan

Oh, you know what that's going to be hard because there's ten countries that I'm going to this summer on a tour, so that's a quiz question I can't answer to let you know when I get there.

Mentor Mama

Ohh, how exciting. Well, have a wonderful time.

Megan

Thank you so much.

Mentor Mama

OK, well, it is such a joy to have you both here. Honestly, it's really your beautiful servants hearts that I have seen in action, which is why I wanted you both on this podcast. So what I'm really hoping to do is that we collectively today is just inspire people to take. Action to begin serving. It's it's literally something that we can do here and now to be the hands. And feet of Jesus so. Listeners, wherever you are, I hope that you are encouraged today. So let's start out Megan and Janice. You both have various different serving experiences. So tell us some ways each of you have served in the church or in secular circumstances.

Megan

So I was thinking back and probably my first experience was with my high schools key club like a servant. Club and it really opened my eyes to the joys of serving and we did things like pads or, you know, simply just cleaning up the side of the road. But it really just opened my eyes to what a servants heart is. And then within the church I've served, I think in every capacity over the past couple of decades. Whether it's, you know, acting in Children's Sunday. School or doing worship team or coming in on a Saturday and helping do projects around the church. To visiting the nursing home and the residents there, so just a wide array of experiences.

Mentor Mama

It's wonderful, Janice. How about you?

Janice

Well, like Megan, I think my first remembrance was my mom taking me with her to go to go serve in church. We had a special needs program there and so I did that with her and I I think it was middle school and that had a pretty big impact on me. I've served most often with children over the many years that I've served, but that's kind of where my gifts my passion is. So I've taught and as you said, I created curriculum, recruited and trained volunteers. I love leading and evangelistic events. So I've done that. Within the church, with children and in my community with you, Ellen. Leading evangelistic fun things in our neighborhood. But most recently, God has called me to serve adults as well. And so a little bit of a stretch for me. But in those same sort of areas. And in that capacity of even being stretched beyond, maybe where your gifts lie, you know, I just. I've served getting meals for people. And I'm I like having people in my home, but I wouldn't say that I'm like the organized person who. Loves to, you know, pull all that together. But God has you where he has you most recently he has me serving with a poverty alleviation organization called Love Inc. Which serves its community and even as a voice for women in, in leadership within my church. It was been a way to serve lately that I never anticipated. And then with the nonprofit that Megan and I both serve that with and hope renewed. So that's a wide array.

Mentor Mama

Yeah, both of you. Yes, and just such amazing experiences. And I know when you serve. Not only does it help others, but it really transforms your own heart. So tell us about just the spiritual growth and the heart transformation and sanctification that has happened to each of you in the context of these serving capacities.

Megan

Yeah, I think whether it's a secular serving opportunity or in the church, it's just always been a humbling experience and helped me to come to identify with people very different from me that I never thought I'd be bumping shoulders with. And with each of these experiences, I've just learned more about myself and my giftings. That's probably the primary way I've learned a lot about my spiritual giftings is, from serving, and then that, you know, helps me to understand what the Lord has for me to do in my day-to-day life, my day-to-day walk.

Janice

Yeah, I feel like that same way.

Mentor Mama

Thanks, Megan.

Janice

God knows us best and knows what's going to bring about the biggest transformational. Things that need to happen in our own hearts and that's how I feel like he's called me into those specific serving opportunities because he wanted to do a work in me, right. So I've learned who God is and how to serve him very faithfully by writing. Curriculum for children, I mean, I just had become a believer and the next thing I know. Probably more because I was a warm body. Than anything that had teaching experience. I'm plopped in the middle of a. You know, children and I, I felt, Oh my goodness. I need to teach them in a way that they understand, of course, but also truth. So I better know that truth. So I did poring over Scripture a lot, and that was a huge growth spurt for me, right in the beginning, I've grown to trust him more as needs have popped up and kids ministries and I don't have any idea. How we're going to meet those needs for volunteers or even in hope, renewed for funding. And I I even now, as he has put on my heart, poverty alleviation and racial justice, I feel like God has been growing my heart. For brothers and sisters in Christ who don't necessarily feel the same way about these issues as I. Do so it's. Always a growing process everywhere I serve for me.

Mentor Mama

Yes, absolutely. And I know from my own experience too, it just opens your eyes to seeing. Things that other people are going through that you had no idea and just and then how God uses those circumstances in their life as well to transform them. So it's such an eye-opening experience. Well, tell us about what has drawn you to the areas of serving that has most. Shaped your heart. Was there a specific call the ministry that you can point to?

Megan

I was thinking back to my high school key club again and I think I was just a Sophomore 15 and I took up an opportunity to go volunteer with the Special Olympics and the athletes getting them ready for their spring competition. And I remember how nervous I was walking in there as a teenager and I just absolutely. Love working with primarily adults with special needs at that point to I realized how easily I related to them. And so that was my vocational calling way, way back at the beginning of high school. I knew then that I wanted to be a special education teacher, which itself is a day-to-day serving opportunity for sure. And spiritually sanctifying for sure, but I think that just sparked that continued call to relational Ministry and working specifically to with. Not only people very different from me, but maybe those you know least of these people in our communities like the elderly I mentioned or the most overlooked and vulnerable people. So I would have never guessed that was the way my life was going to go and I've felt the Lord continue to nudge me in that direction through my life.

Mentor Mama

Thank you.

Janice

Yeah, I feel so much the same way I know I mentioned my mom bringing me to that first serving experience, and so vocationally too. I became a teacher. I feel like that was just God placed that passion for kids on my heart. But it wasn't until my husband and I became believers. Children's Ministry was kind of a natural fit for me, right? So I just had this passion and a desire to be with the kids. And if you know anything about church, you know that that's a big Hooray thing for anybody in leadership. Oh, finally, someone who wants to work with the. Right. So it though it was a natural fit for me and I started serving. Once they, like the church, offered me a job I was like, oh, a job. This could be, you know, what, vocational for me. I really felt like I needed that. As you were saying, Ellen, that specific call to ministry, but I didn't. Know that that's what I felt like I needed. At the time. I was too young in my faith, and so we actually went away on a retreat, a staff retreat. So here I am on staff. At a children's as a children's ministry director and we heard a devotional first before going off by ourselves about hearing the voice of God. And that was a new concept to me. I've prayed, but I'd I never just sat and listened. And it hasn't happened that often, but I just heard second Timothy 4 in my head, and I didn't even know that was a. Table book at the time, so I'm I'm looking for it in the Bible and it says in the presence of God in Christ Jesus, who will judge the living in the dead and in the view of his appearing and his Kingdom, I give you this charge. And there it was, you know, I'm calling you into ministry. Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season. Correct rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction for the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. And they will turn away from the truth and turn aside to miss. But you keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. I'm like, wow. OK, so God really does speak to us. And in all of that wrapped up in my own lament that I had gone through all of these years. Sort of spiritual formation that I didn't really get it as a child. I didn't get the truth of the gospel until I was an adult. So there was my ministry call to help children to understand that they too can have this faith journey beginning at the time they're 8. As opposed to 28 so. That was it, yeah.

Mentor Mama

And for those of you that are listening, you may not know this, but Janice's role in. Our children's ministry at our church had such like, a profound impact. I know on our kids and. I just want. To thank you for that. While we're at it. So if Ashley and Taylor were here, I'm sure they would be excited to tell you that too, so.

Janice

It's a blessing.

Mentor Mama

Oh my goodness. I was thinking back to on just what an impact on parents and watching them serve. And one thing I really try to do is like you did bring your kids along when you're serving to sort of introduce them to this concept. Early on and. I remember my dad served in. A soup kitchen. At his church. And that was just something that always stuck with me. Like I want to. I want to be able to serve others as well, like that too. For those of us you know that are in influence over young people, hey, bring them along. They might be surprised, right? What kind of experience they're headed into? Well, so we've talked about kind of your calling. But what about when God calls us to serve sort of outside of what our specific calling is? How does he use that to really shape us and mold us?

Megan

I was thinking for myself, I wouldn't say necessarily a question of being outside my calling, but for better or worse, time and time again, I find myself sort of thrust into leadership position. Even at village church, I had just graduated college. Come back into the faith. I was 22, joined the singles ministry and within eight months they were asking me to lead the mission trip, you know? And so it's. You know, it's the Lord always continually nudging me in that direction. And sometimes I have not felt qualified for the. Full or yeah, so like sort of that impostor syndrome going on or, you know, just having to learn those tough lessons of. Of being a gracious leader and servant leadership and the real sanctifying work these days is when I'm asked to serve and not be in a leadership role. What does that mean to take a back seat and let others lead that the ongoing work in my own life?

Janice

Wow, that's awesome.

Mentor Mama

So interesting.

Janice

That's awesome. And so true. You know, I too feel like, am I really out of my comfort zone? Like, that's more like oftentimes I'm not necessarily out of my. Out of my area of giftedness. But even within that area of giftedness, there are times or situations or specifics about that serving opportunity. That feel like I can't do this and I feel like God reveals how I continually rely on my own strength to do ministry each and every time. I feel like I'm taking out taken outside my comfort zone or like Megan serving in an area that he hasn't necessarily. Gifted me in like the meals ministry, so to speak. You know, I feel like, Oh my goodness, I rely on myself way too much. And so I feel like I've grown in those times. Most in my God's just calling me to trust him more. To allow him to do more of the work and for me to do less. Of the work so.

Mentor Mama

Yeah, that's so true. When when we are weak, he is strong and you can't find that out until you go through something like that. And it does really stretch us and make us rely build our trust. So it is a good thing, but it can be. Very hard, no doubt, experienced that as well. So I want you guys to tell us about the nonprofit organization Hope Renewed International that you work for in Guatemala.

Megan

Well, we'll just start with I guess our roles and then I know Janice will share a little bit more about the mission. So I am a newly appointed Vice President of Hope renewed which, if you had told me 10 years ago when I went down with my. First trip to Guatemala. This is where I was going to end up. I wouldn't have believed you, but. Currently just learning the ropes in that role and really working to spark excitement for people in this post COVID world about opportunities to visit with our organization. But also, you know, just new prayer partners and. Potential financial partnerships as well too, and also honing my Spanish as well too. I'm finding myself having to translate more of these days. So again, if you told me I was going. To be translating. Spanish for people 10 years ago, I would have said no way. So that's another scary role. The Lord has nudged me into.

Janice

Just last night at the board meeting.

Speaker

That's awesome.

Janice

Right.

Megan

Yes, there was.

Janice

Ohh wow.

Megan

There was some sweat on the brow.

Janice

She does a great job. Thank you.

Mentor Mama

Ah, that's awesome, Janice.

Janice

Really does. So Speaking of.

Mentor Mama

Yeah, go ahead.

Janice

Yeah, Speaking of being outside my area of comfort. I I wouldn't say it's out of my area of gifting because the gift of leadership is in many roles is an area that I have served, but I've always done that in the context of the local church, right? So then, when, like Megan I, you know, I went on a mission trip just to kind of get the experience of. You know what's happening in Guatemala and serving with my church neck. The UM guy just began to grow my heart for poverty alleviation. Not just there, but also in my community. And so here I am now, the President of nonprofit organization and wondering how I got here. So I'm still wondering how I got here but. That's where you lean into God and serve where he has you. Right. So so.

Megan

And she does a great job.

Janice

Well, thank you for that. Oh, God, believe me. But the the mission of Hope Renewed International is to share the love of Christ. By transforming the lives of at risk communities so in the people within that those communities, so we do that through caring for them first of all and then education and opportunity and formation which is more of the. Spiritual formation. We want to come alongside people who are living in poverty and, as fellow image bearers, right as one person who bears the image of God to another. We love them with the love of Christ and we want to partner with God where he is already working in Guatemala and. And what we do is we go there and provide the hope that only Jesus. Give and thus our name, hope, renewed international. We do that. Our goal is to serve, equip and empower the Guatemalan people. So we want to do that as a development organization. So we want to serve equipment and power the Guatemalan people to be all that God has called them to. There's a lot of great relief organizations out there that offer relief when there's a catastrophe or something that's happened in the community that you obviously need to jump in and provide relief. But we offer people in the midst of their poverty alleviation. Hand up instead of a handout. And we do that through several different ministries that we have there.

Mentor Mama

You know, Janice and Meghan came to the quilting group, which I literally just joined this year, and you talked about it and what really struck my heart was what you just said is really helping them to, you know, build skills. And careers to support their families. And I was so excited to hear about the sewing ministry. Tell us about some of the specific ministries or projects that hope renewed is support.

Megan

Yeah, so based on this mission just naturally our ministries fall into developing skills and education and training. And so some of our main sites right now is we have a preschool, our hope, our new preschool, it's located just outside the Guatemala City Landfill, which is one of the most poverty. Stricken areas of the city because the people there are making a living by scavenging through a very dangerous landfill and trying to sell. Those items as valuables, and so children there do not have a natural entrance point for school. So we have a preschool serving 4 to 6-year-olds primarily from that community and we partner with a Guatemala based organization called planting seeds that provides a research based. Curriculum and methodologies we have well educated. Guatemalan teachers there providing curriculum, addressing the whole child. We're providing the nutritious breakfasts and soon snacks as well home to go to go home with and there are classes provided for the parents to help support their students and just address the whole family. So that's one of our sites, our longest running program is our scholarship program, which provides full or partial scholarships or school supplies to children and adults who are motivated to continue education or return to it. Education stops in the public sector in 6th grade. In Guatemala, so this gives them that continuation and most of our students are from lalia munana. Which is the one of the largest city slums ghetto areas in Central America. And so it can be a very violent location and labeled a red zone so it can make it hard for someone with an address in that community to get gainful employment. And so we. We uh have donors in the United States. Allow these students to go to school in an area that they are gifted and want to pursue skills in, and we make sure that we have a Guatemalan facilitator there who make sure that they are held accountable to attending school their grades are staying up, but she's also providing. Supports like a place to study. So that they are encouraged and motivated to see their education through and then our third main site is the sewing program which you mentioned. It's our newest program, but it is really blossoming. It provides sewing classes to women and men from the surrounding communities, whether it's the landfill. Community or luminata and it gives them the opportunity to learn marketable skills. We provided the sewing. And then we have facilitated some Guatemalan instructors to come in who are well skilled so that they can be a part of the textile industry, which is the largest industry in Guatemala and we've already had one graduating class of sewers and they are seeking employment, whether it's making pillowcases. And blankets for a local hotel or, you know, creating new clothing items for upcoming summer fashion. And so we are really seeing the fruits of of the the training there.

Mentor Mama

Ah, it's amazing. Janice, was there anything else you wanted to add?

Janice

Yeah, those are awesome. Ministries there, Megan did a great job.

Megan

Yeah, they really speak for themselves and just the Guatemalan people that are are taking up the opportunity and. And making it their own and going above and beyond and looking for their own ways, then to serve their communities. You know, beyond these programs is really.

Mentor Mama

It sure is. And if you think about like you mentioned in a crisis, we do need to help people. But I think about what you guys are doing is you're giving them hope for days upon days upon days upon days as they learn these new skills and they feel confident that they can support their families. And you don't even know now how that's going to impact the next generation so.

Megan

Yes. Yeah.

Mentor Mama

That's just so incredible. Well, how have you guys been able to experience sort of first hand the impact that your serving has had on the Guatemalans? With which you partner.

Janice

Yeah, that's a great question because we're a development organization, right? We really. Focus our efforts on building relationships with people, the Guatemalan people, and whoever God brings to us to serve equipment and power, and we work together, you know, with people in the in these capacities, broken people working with broken people. In Christ, we're transformed and they too are transformed. I mean, as Meghan and I have said, we've experienced all kinds of transformation in our own life. As we've served not just in the church, but as we've served the Guatemalans that we love so much, but we've also seen huge growth and spiritual transformation in the people that we serve. So, so the staff have grown. And they've developed as believers and leaders in their various roles they, you know. They want to lead the devotionals, as they should. You know, they want to learn how to lead. Well, lead out well and gain the respect, you know, of their of their own employees. So we have, we have teachers, as Megan mentioned. But we also have a director. Of all of the hope, renewed ministries there and then a coordinator for our scholarship program. You know, God has freed people from strongholds, and they've been a huge part of that. We've celebrated with people who have reached education and job goals that they never thought would be possible before and is each person benefits from what help renewed international. Has offered to them. Most have given back to their communities and that's really the greatest impact that we've seen is that God, God's people serving one another in their community and to have seen that has been the hugest blessing for us.

Megan

Yeah, I was going to say I think a lot of the same. Obviously you want to see those success stories of someone who's gone on graduated and gotten a career, and we've seen that for sure. But one of the things you don't expect to be a measurement of a nonprofits impact is just those relationships that are that are built because. Is everything right? And so you know from my own experience, what's made me fall in love with this organization is going down on a trip and suddenly finding I've got a new lifelong Guatemalan friend and we're connected on social media, and I can see what's going on in their life. And they're interested in what's going on in my life. And I just think. That is just really, it really tells about our the success of the organization, because from those relationships is where you can build that trust and hold each other accountable and see that growth among the individuals and ourselves here in the United States.

Mentor Mama

Yes, absolutely. I'm so glad that you mentioned that, Megan. I think back on for many years. We've been going out to the Navajo Nation and it was just. Building those relationships, and like you said, now with some of them, we do have relationships where they text and ask for prayer or vice versa, and we're interested in how their kids are doing and those relationships that you build, I mean they're just encouraging. Both sides you know and. Beautiful to see that God is working in those ways as well. Well, as we start to wrap things up here. How would you suggest for our are the people that are listening here today to really, you know, step out like you said of their comfort zone? And how would you encourage them to just? Go for it.

Megan

That's a good question, I think, yeah. Just having an open mind and doing your best not to put those limitations on yourself of I only serve in XY and Z capacities. Feeling willing to say yes, you know. Initially to lots of different opportunities to provide that opportunity for. For the Lord to speak into your life and grow, you know there are. I know there's plenty of assessments out there to to find your giftings, but I I don't. It can't replace. Just having those experiences and those aha moments that make you realize you are really serving within the Lord's will. So I would just say you say yes for starters and then be prayerful from there of of where that's going to take you.

Mentor Mama

I love that.

Janice

Excuse me. Yeah, we, you know, we don't say like, if people want to experience what it is to serve in a capacity of, let's say, mission work, right, we had hope and you don't really talk about that. It's short term because. We're a a development organization that wants to see people experience the beauty of God and what he's doing. Already there before you get there and then allow you to be a part of that and then know that when you go, when you go back to your life. Their lives are continuing to go on and God is continuing to work there and also within you and so say yes to those opportunities that open you up to meet new parents, people and see and experience what God is doing in other areas of the world. Really humble. With you to be a part of his work around the world, and I know it causes people me, it caused me and I know I've heard of so many people to expand their love for other cultures and for those who are living in extreme poverty, you know. When God calls us to do this, there is a the in the book of Deuteronomy, God says there will. Be no poor among. You, you know, and that that is not like. Hey, you know there should be. There will be no poor among you. It means as believers we need to work to, to tear down the systems that sinful man has built up to be able to come alongside people who are living in poverty. And give them that hand up, right. So those of us who have benefited, perhaps from systems are called even more. I think as believers to be a part of what God is doing here for poverty alleviation and around the world so. Yeah, we love to say, hey, come to Guatemala. And be a. And the mission trip with country. And we tell tell.

Mentor Mama

Us about that. So if people are. How can they find out more information? What can they do? How can they help?

Megan

Yeah, I'll, I'll share like the the basics of the information so that everybody knows is that we've got a presence on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, hope Renewed International on Instagram and Twitter. Our handle is hope renewed INT short for international and I Janice will share in a moment. About those trip opportunities which we would highly recommend and it's been very. Life altering for me, but we know not everyone will be able to make that trip, so we obviously cover, covet your prayers and just learning more about our organization. And then we also appreciate that you know the financial support and if people are able to provide. So our website is hope renewed. Dot org where you can learn more about us and there is a a donate button there where you can learn about ways to financially support us.

Janice

Yeah, there's also a mission trip button on that page, so you could click on that and we, we hope and pray that people who would want to, like, gather together their own group and be a part of that, you just contact the missions coordinator and you begin that process. If you're a person who doesn't have a whole group. We do have a few groups going in the next few months and so they can join groups that are already going and it's our hope that as we again image bearer to image bearer that we increase the impact of these relationships. And as we have more touch points with more people, that helps us, just as Megan said, prayer support is. Crucial and key and just building those relationships, it's such an encouragement to the people in Guatemala who truly do have so much to overcome. Oftentimes things in their way in their path of becoming. All that God intended for them to become the encouragement of people around them, whether fellow Guatemalans or us here in the state. Is it's invaluable. And then we hope that as people come on these trips that it begins to make a difference in the lives, their lives as they come back and they want to then look around them and see, hey, where is there some poverty alleviation? Efforts right here in my own community, where have systems been built up that I could maybe help to dismantle, and there are organizations that do that same thing here, giving people a hand up instead of a handout and really transforming lives of people in at-risk communities.

Mentor Mama

Thank you so much for that. One of the really kind of cool things I think that you guys do is you give the opportunity to sponsor someone individually. So we have coffee and Bible time supporting one of the sewing students. And so it's just. Kind of a neat thing I think when you can feel like that you're helping someone and you maybe share the little bit of the same passions that they do and. So I imagine that's on the website too.

Megan

Yes, yes. And when you click that donate button it it gives you lots of opportunities of funding just an organize a ministry project or funding certain individuals. We have a few students left in our scholarship program who need to be funded for the school year that just started in January. And like you said, it's such a cool experience to be helping being the means to for someone to get that education and to, you know. Begin that walk in their own lives of. And being an empowered person and have their opportunities to serve and lead in their communities. So the impact is hard to measure in that in that regard. It's so awesome.

Mentor Mama

Well, thank you both so much for sharing about hope renewed. Before we go, I want to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions. Tell us. What Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?

Megan

Myself, I have tried through the years I've so wanted to be that person with a Bible in hand that you mark up and it's so worn and old you've got tape all over it and I have just found a digital is where I live. So I go back and forth between my Zondervan and NIV. Reliable app and just the good old-fashioned YouVersion app. Version and to do some comparing and contrasting and what I like about having apps, especially my NIV, is the ability to make notes and mark it up and be really present. Especially, you know, in church services and not worrying about, you know, you're muddying up a page of the Bible, right. So and it's cool. Then be able to go back and see the. My markings in there so.

Mentor Mama

Oh, that's awesome. OK. Janice, how about you?

Janice

Well, for study and like writing curriculum back in the day and even more recently with adults, I like to use the literal word-for-word translations for that. And so I used when I was writing for children, the new American Standard Bible, and now the CSV. So but for reading I still kind of love the the new living translation. It just slows and there's some. Beautiful, just kind of feels poetry to me in how. It was written. A good chronological Bible is always a go-to for me, so I just love when I'm reading in second Samuel and there's a few songs that pop up because that's exactly you know where they were. Where they were prayed and then after Eugene Peterson passed, I spent a couple of years in the. I just wanted to you know, something completely different. So I've been all over the place.

Mentor Mama

That's awesome though.

Megan

Want to plug too? Is the blue letter Bible. Blueletterbible.org is a really great word-for-word study website where it breaks down literally every word and phrase of a verse, takes you to the original. Translations looking at various meanings of the word, so that really takes. Your Bible reading to a much deeper level.

Mentor Mama

Yes, yes, it sure does. How about do you guys have any favorite? I know, Megan, you said you didn't do journaling or anything. So how about you, Janice?

Megan

I did this. You know, my friend really encouraged me. This is very random, but just I think reinventing a little bit every year keeping it fresh. I received a calendar diary from a student that I wouldn't want to use because again. I do all my calendar dates and reminders on my phone, but so I said I don't know what to do with this. My friends have, why don't you just every day of the year and this was last year, you know, just do a little journaling, a little blurb, and then because it's a calendar, you could sort of see where you came from and what you were praying through and struggling through and go back to that date. So you know, I just encourage getting creative with what you have.

Mentor Mama

Oh, I love that. OK, Janice.

Janice

Well I am. I have a hard time being reflective and quiet, which might be why God chooses to transform me most through serving. But, but journaling has always been a wannabe for me. I always kept keep a pen handy, though, and I am. I'm an actual book Bible person and I mark up my Bible writing down my own thoughts, my own questions, huge stars by passages that have been just super influential for me. And then this year or and bringing it to church and writing. Through the whole sermon this year, I purchased a journal that has just a few reflective questions. In my continued attempt to. Baby step journaling. And it's for a chronological study that I'm doing, and so it just has three quick questions, and I've been able to handle that.

Mentor Mama

OK, well, I'm going to have Janice get the link for us and we will put that in our show notes too. UM, last thing, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Megan

Ohh, like I said that that blue letter Bible that one is really that's a challenging one too because it you're forced to go there and.

Mentor Mama

Through organization.

Megan

And take the time and I'm more of the scholarly student that likes the language and that and that. That's how I connect deeper in the scriptures is, you know, getting that the head knowledge and in place and truly understanding the scripture so that.

Mentor Mama

That's a great one, OK.

Megan

You heard that? Yeah.

Janice

And so YouVersion app is where that chronological study is. So I've always loved that. I've always loved like Bible project video. You know, in there so. I was doing one of those and the Bible Recap plan came up and that's with Tara Leigh Cobble. And so that's the chronological study that I've been doing and that's where I ordered that the journal, and it just really focuses my heart on the attributes of God and. Who he is his character. And yeah, that's the whole point of the Bible is for us to understand who God is. So that's what I'm doing this year.

Megan

I do like the version that just the daily videos of somebody speaking and just interpreting one line of Scripture. It's a good I. I really struggle to get up in the morning and do any sort of quiet time or Bible study, but you know that makes it easy sort of hand it to you on a plate to get your day started. Right. And meditating on Scripture.

Mentor Mama

Oh, that's a great suggestion. OK, boy, you ladies are just full of all kinds. Of great clips. OK well. Thank you so much for just being here today to share your own experiences on the topic of serve. Thing I hope for those of you that are listening, just that you've been inspired to just take a step, even if it's a small step. I would so encourage you to do that. So again, thank you for being with us here today.

Speaker

Thank you.

Mentor Mama

Be sure and to check out Hope Renewed International. We'll have all the links. In our show notes and lastly, head over to the Coffee and Bible Time website for our prayer journals that will help guide and document your prayer life at coffeeandbibletime.com. Thank you so much for joining us on our podcast today. We love you all. Have a blessed day.