Crash Course to a Wonderful Family - Part 3 — David Servant

Well, we've been talking about the family, and I'm giving you the crash course on how to have a wonderful family. And of course, in three sessions, you obviously can't do a whole, whole lot. When I was a pastor, I used to teach on the family sometimes for 10 weeks in a row, maybe I think 12 weeks in a row, and cover all the bases.

So we're just kind of hitting some things as the Spirit seems to indicate to us. But I want to start off this morning by just, you know, got to lay the foundation of all foundations. You know, if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, I don't care how good of a family you have, you're all going to go to hell.

Salvation Through Faith in the Lord Jesus

And all this is pointless teaching unless we get the foundation laid. And so we're saved by faith in what? Faith in Jesus' sacrifice? That sounds pretty good. A lot of folks say that on the radio, but that's not how we're saved.

We're saved by faith in Jesus. More specifically, we're saved by faith in the Lord Jesus. Not believing in a doctrine, believing in a person. You hear me? And so if you believe in the person Jesus, you cannot have the same life you had before you believed in the person Jesus, because the person Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and he's going to, you know, judge you one day, and he's either going to say, come on into my eternal kingdom, or he's going to say, depart from me, I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness.

And so when you encounter Jesus, I think most of us have encountered Jesus as sinners. Can I see the hands of the sinners who have encountered Jesus? And so you can't stay in that same state once you encounter the Holy Lamb of God.

You've got to adjust your heart, you've got to, you know, sometimes it's agony if you're a real bad sinner. Like Terrell. Was. Right? Was. Yes, right, okay. And, you know, sometimes, you know, our hearts take a while to soften, but it comes to that place where you come to Jesus Christ, and it's not accepting Jesus as your Savior.

No, no, Jesus does not need your acceptance, you need his acceptance. And he doesn't accept you until you repent and start following him with your heart. Did I say you're automatically perfect? No, no, no.

But your heart is perfect, you love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and you want to please him. Do you always succeed? No. That's called sanctification. You grow, you blow it, you repent and confess, but your heart is aligned with Jesus, because preeminently you want to please him, and you're always conscious, one day I've got to stand before him.

And he has the right to speak into every area of my life. I am no longer my own. I've been bought with a price. That's Christianity 101. I get so tired of these preachers saying, well, Jesus is asking us, and they tell us what he's asking us to do.

Christ doesn't ask anyone to do anything. He commands people to do things. And you either say, yes, Lord, or you say, no, because you're not my Lord. You can't say, no, Lord. That's right. And so Jesus is commanding us.

Again, do we always succeed 100 No, no, no, no, no, we're always growing. We still stumble, but I'm saying, a person who really believes in Jesus, there is something about them that sets them apart from everybody else.

Amen. And I'm telling you, if you say, well, I'm kind of ashamed to sing in church. My goodness, if you can't sing in church, I'm embarrassed to lift my hand in church. Man, if you can't lift your hand in church, what are you going to do outside the church, man?

People who love Jesus, it shows up. People who believe in Jesus, it shows up. So all that, just got to say that, because I always feel like if I don't say that, I'm just wasting my time on everything else that I might say.

Singleness as a Gift Within the Body of Christ

All right, so you get that straightened out, and now you've crossed into square one, and you can progress from there. Now, two things I want to focus on today. I'm going to ask my wife to help me a little bit here.

I want to focus on a neglected segment of the body of Christ, especially, of course, when it comes to talking about the family. And those are particularly the people among our family who don't have their own families, or maybe just say it simple, they're single.

They're not married. And a lot of times, single people feel like second-class citizens. But let us see the hands of all these wonderful single people here today. Hold your hands up. Now, look around.

Yes, that's a good idea. Let's applaud these single people, because these people could very well be more spiritual than you married people. In fact, come on. Turn in your Bible to 1 Corinthians, if you would.

Chapter 7 now. That's in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians chapter 7. That's right before 1 Corinthians chapter 8. And, you know, Jesus was single. It wasn't because he, you know, was a dud. I'm sure there's a lot of people that would have married Jesus.

Don't you think so? You know? That's a little scary thought. But, of course, an impossibility. He's the Son of God. But all I'm saying is that, you know, to look down upon single people, or for a single person to feel like, well, I'm, you know, less spiritual.

There's something wrong with me. My, my, my, my, my. Look what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7 and verse number 7. Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. Now he's speaking of I'm single. However, each man has his own gift from God.

One in this manner and another in that. Well, that means some have the gift to be single and remain single. Some have the gift to be married. It takes a gift either way. It's not easy either way. Can I have an amen?

People say, well, if I was married, all my problems would be over. No, you would just trade some problems for other problems. You know, just grass always looks greener. All right? And then so he goes on and he says, verse 8.

But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn. And my Bible adds a little clarification with passion.

I won't comment on that because that's a little bit embarrassing. But probably most people don't know what he's talking about there. So you either have a gift. One gift or the other, Paul actually says it's preferable to remain single if it's possible for you, if you have that gift.

Because then you can be more devoted to Jesus Christ. And there's absolutely no doubt about that. Because when you're married, you've got somebody you've got to please. Isn't that what it's all about?

Keeping that person happy. And you've got to put some effort in to keep that person happy, right? You can't just always be praying to Jesus. You've got to be talking to her sometimes. You can't always be out doing the work of the Lord.

Because you've got somebody else to care for. And if you're going to get married, there's a good chance you're going to have kids. And so you're not going to have to have one person to keep happy. You could have two, three, four, five.

The sky is the limit on how many people you have to keep happy. And so singleness is preferred if God calls you to that. And if He calls you to that, He gifts you to that, you'll be able to remain single.

And you'll have that desire within your heart. Praise God. Now, I didn't have that gift. How many did not have that gift? Let's see the admission right now. Okay. Don't feel bad. Feel good. Praise God.

This is all of grace. Praise the Lord. So all the glory goes to God Himself. Okay. Now, many single people, of course, don't feel like they have the gift of celibacy. In fact, all of the married people here at one time were single at one time.

Great revelation there. Okay. And all of them obviously didn't feel like they had the gift of celibacy. And so there was a time when they were single but yet open and desiring and looking for that time when they would get married.

And that happens quite frequently to most people within the body of Christ. Nothing wrong with that. But it's a frustrating time because you feel like, man, there's still someone out there. There's still something out there waiting for me.

And I want to have all of God's best in my life because I don't have the gift to remain single. Okay. So I want to spend just a few minutes at the beginning here not neglecting. Hey, there it is up in the Scripture.

Up on the bulletin board. Are you going to play that DVD too that I threw you back there? You think it will? Okay. That will come off a little bit later. Let me just give you a couple of things that I think are the most important things for single people who don't have the gift of celibacy to keep in mind.

Okay. And I'm saying all of these things because I love you. And because I've been married now for 28. Thank you. 28 years. I knew it was 28 or 29. This was doing the math. And I was single at one time.

And boy, I'll tell you what. I just want to testify. Thank you, Jesus, for the grace of God. Because I could have very easily married a person who it wouldn't have turned out as happy as it's turned out.

Discernment and Preparation for Marriage

And I want to try to give some advice to people here today who are single as they are thinking about that whole process. Because the way that we do it in America, about 50 of the marriages wind up in divorce.

And even amongst professing evangelical born-again believers, it's actually a little bit higher than that. Okay. And so something's wrong with the system. Yet I travel in countries all the time. I'm sure Nepal is one of these.

It's right close there to India. And I know they do this in India. Marriages have a much higher rate of people staying together. Much, much, much, much, much higher. Yet their marriages are arranged, which is a horrifying thought to most single people.

I've often joked with my kids and told them, Hey, we're doing it the Bible way, kids. You're not picking out anybody. I'll be picking them out for you. And they always object to that and so forth. But I've thought about this over the years.

And I want to tell you something. I was reading not so long ago in National Geographic, a magazine that I subscribe to. And they did a whole article about falling in love and what happens and so forth in that process.

And they actually did medical studies on the chemical reactions that are going on in people's brains when they fall in love. And it was just hilarious. They presented it as a pure fact of medical science that they've proven that people who are in love or falling in love, the same chemical reactions are going in their minds that also occur in the brains of insane people.

Now, is that a surprise to you? It verifies what we all know. When you fall in love, you lose all sense of judgment. You're out of your mind. Love is blind. Marriage is the eye-opener. There's so much wisdom in that.

Here's the blessing in an arranged marriage. You think that these arranged marriages in India and elsewhere, they're just randomly selecting people. No, no, no, no, no. Parents get very, very involved in determining who will be the best mate for their child.

Because why? Because they care about their child. And the parents are not floating in the ether of falling in love. They're rational people who can give a very objective opinion and so forth. And they're meeting with other parents.

And they don't just evaluate the prospective mate. They talk to the family, the extended family. They get recommendations from other people that have worked with this young man or know this young woman all their lives.

They get this huge resume and check them out for their past history, all their personality traits, their bloodlines. See what things were going on in the family in prior generations. And they do a thorough job.

And when it comes time to say, we've picked this one for you, son. That son can know they've done their homework. They've done their homework. And I can be secure that they love me. They're also experienced at marriage.

They've seen other marriages. They're older and wiser. And I'll tell you, it works really, really, really good. And I was at an Indian marriage one time in India. And I'll tell you, it was nothing like it because the bride and the groom had met about a month before for 15 minutes for the first time in their lives.

And the next time they saw each other was at their wedding. And they were young, you know, just early 20s and so forth. And they did not even look at each other during the entire long ceremony. They were absolutely terrified.

And when it came time to pronounce them husband and wife, the minister, my good friend, asked them to hold hands. And like very reluctantly, and they don't even look at each other, they held hands. You know, and it was kind of like a yucky thing.

Like, who, what hand am I holding right now? And he pronounced them man and wife. And needless to say, he did not say, you may now kiss the bride. I can guarantee you there was no kissing for weeks. Because then they move in with, I think, the parents of the groom first for a few weeks.

And they move in with the parents of the, you know. And they get to know each other slowly but surely. And, you know, there may be no consummation of this marriage till like three or four months down the road.

Because then it don't feel so inclined. Do you understand? But yet, they learn to love each other. And they begin to see those wonderful qualities that their parents are already so sure of. Because they know all the background of these, this spouse and so forth.

And it works. And they're so glad. Now again, there's exceptions to the rule. Now, am I proposing that this church begin to adopt the system of arranged marriages? No. You know, I joke with my kids about it.

But you can apply some of the same exact principles that are applied in arranged marriages. And get the same benefit. Okay? So what's the principle? Well, the principle is don't trust your judgment. Rely upon the judgment of others who love you.

You are absolutely foolish to not have a circle of friends who love you. Who you're saying, please give me your evaluation of this person. And it's such a shame. Some people do less background check on potential mates than banks do on potential borrowers who just want to borrow $1 ,000 for a year.

Why are the banks checking out your credit history before you take out a loan? Because they found out you can predict the future by looking at the past. Because people have a track record. And that track record usually continues.

Unless, you know, the Lord intervenes or something. And so, you know, don't just take some person's word for it. You know, any guy can put on an act for a year. Easy. Mr. Right. Can, you know, be Mr. Right for a year.

You marry him, you find out it was Mr. Always Right. You didn't know that. But he pulled the wool over your eyes. Okay? So get, you know, get the advice of trusted spiritual friends who can, you know, evaluate your decision and so forth.

And something else. This is kind of a new thing. And I've actually got into trouble for saying this. And this is kind of like the last thing I'm going to say on this subject. Because we tend to be very, we want to be spiritual.

We want to please the Lord and so forth. And we believe that marriage is a divine thing and that God's involved in putting us together. And so we don't want to mess with his divine sovereign plan. And so oftentimes we are waiting for God to send that person, you know, with whom I'll be compatible and we'll have a good relationship and so forth.

And that's fine. However, the Bible says he that finds a wife finds a good thing. And in that phrase, I think the finding implies the seeking. Seek and what do you say? You shall find. Knock and the door shall be open.

Ask and it shall be given unto you. And so I encourage single people not to take a passive place in this, but to do everything they can to prepare and to keep their periscope up and, you know, always be on the lookout.

One of the best things you can do to prepare for marriage is to, you know, move into an apartment with about three or four of the same sex roommates and learn to get along with, you know, jerks. How many ever had some roommates?

You know, marriage is going to be a huge adjustment to living with a person every single day who is unlike you in many ways, even though you don't know all that. And so the best way to prepare is not so much to look for that perfect person, but first of all, to become that perfect person.

Work on yourself. Get ready. Say, now, how can I wind up being a better husband, a better wife? Well, the main thing is you need to learn how to walk in love, how to be patient, long-suffering, easy to get along with, and the way to do that is to be in fellowship with other people who could rub you the wrong way.

Amen. Well, you guys have more than that in most churches. Praise the Lord, man, because you're meeting and so forth, and you've got relationships here. A little poem I heard so many years ago applies to this.

To live above with the saints we love, that will be all glory. But to live down below with the saints we know, that's another story. Amen. How many know that spiritual growth comes by interaction with other people?

How can you learn to walk in love unless there's somebody who's a little bit tough to walk in love towards, right? Okay. So work on being that better person and growing spiritually yourself so that you'll be more.

If you can't get along with your sister or your brother with whom you live now, how are you going to get along with your wife or your husband? You can't have any friends. Come on. So work on yourself.

And then secondly, and this is what I'm hesitating to say. I was just stalling with that last comment because I'm trying to avoid this second one. I don't know why. People are like, stop talking to me because I've said this.

I said this one time at a church, and they said, that's it. You're not spiritual. Okay. I take great comfort in knowing that Terrell has given sermons here before. That is my greatest comfort. But I think this fits into the arranged marriage concept.

And because arranged marriage is something that is biblical, please give me an amen. Do you know that? I mean, reading 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about the father that wants to give his daughter, does a good thing, but he doesn't give his wife, you know, the parental authority.

He's given her. It's up to him. He can say no if he wants to. And look at the Old Testament stories of people that had arranged marriages by their parents and so forth. But the principle is that you do your homework first, and you find out all you can find out, and you become all that you can become in order for it to be successful in the end.

Well, if you're waiting around for God to send somebody, but you have a very limited pool, you know, it just seemed to me like some of this modern stuff like eHarmony. Now, this is not a paid endorsement.

EHarmony, where you can write all these criteria and say, I don't want anybody unless this person says they love Jesus with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. Well, you do that, you're eliminating everybody that doesn't fit that category.

Right? You can meet some people in church who are just there looking for girls. Posing as a sheep, but they're really a goat. You see? And so, you go through that process anyways. You know, you've got your parents go up to church, and you know, you're all going to this weird church, which is good and bad, you know, because, you know, it's not a mega church, so you can't have your parents go up looking at 5 ,000 prospective people.

Your parents go up looking at a few, and you only have these joint meetings once every quarter, so it's just their own little Bible study, and there's only one other single guy there, you know, or another one single guy there.

That might not be God's will for, you know, those two. So I'm saying, you can extend your periscope to look out over a whole lot more, and you set criteria, so you set your criteria where they need to be.

I have a friend who did the eHarmony thing, and he's actually, he's a Christian. He's been married three times. Maybe four, I'm not sure. So the track record, you know, but for the grace of God. But on the eHarmony thing, he told me, he said, they rejected me.

They didn't hook me up with anybody. And I know other people who have just got, like, hundreds of people, you know, and I said, well, I guess because you were married so many times. He goes, no, they didn't even ask that question, whether or not I'd ever been married before, you know.

He said, they were just able to tell. Just from the answers that I gave. And he postulated a few things, which I won't repeat to you and so forth, you know. But, you know, when you say, I'm 50 and I'm looking for a 20-year-old, you know, they're probably going to say, nah, you're probably not really what we're looking for on eHarmony, you know what I mean?

Aren't you glad for that? He said, and they didn't tell me why they rejected me. He said, but they did tell me, in consolation, that they reject 25 of the people that even apply, they're done. And he said, so another company started up, their whole advertisement, their whole marketing scheme, is this girl comes on and says, I was rejected by eHarmony, but look what I got here, you know.

And so, it's like the plan B eHarmony, for people to get rejected by eHarmony, and they're making lots of money by all the eHarmony rejects. Isn't that funny? But if this brother, whom I love dearly, would have asked me, David, do you think I should get married again?

I would have told him, I think you ought to just keep it single for a while, till you die. I love him, and he loves the Lord, but, you know, he's devoted to his job, and I can understand why he's had troubles.

You know? And he's really grown a lot, he admits all his mistakes and so forth now, and so maybe God will, you know, maybe, I don't know. But back to my original point, is that, you know, when you go to, say you go to a megachurch, and you've got your paraschool up, and you've got 300 possible people at the singles meeting and so forth.

Well, you've got to go through the kind of the, what would you call that, the evaluation process? You look, well, you know, is that person attractive to me? Does that person have a good personality? And eventually you get to know, is that person committed to Christ?

How do you find that out? You've got to, like, get to know them and so forth, you maybe ask people about them, watch them, and so forth. It's a long process. You go through one of these other things, like eHarmony, well, you can just, you know, let them do all that stuff for you, and just get right to a very limited number of people who maybe could, you know, fit your criteria.

I'm just, yeah, you're not going to, okay, so it's okay? Okay, okay, all right. Because I've been, and I've had single people get mad at me saying, well, I'm trusting God, I'm trusting God, God's going to, okay, that's fine, I'm just telling you this because I love you.

And I'm saying that the whole arranged marriage, the principle behind that, all that homework that is done, and it's proven to work over thousands of years, folks, and now to reject something that has some of the principles of that because it's not spiritual enough, and it sounds like I'm not trusting God because I'm doing this electronic thing on the computer, you know, and so forth, and I, you know, I'm just persuaded.

And I've seen it work for lots of people, you know, and so praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Still out there? Okay, they're not paying me to say this, okay. Okay, I've got to just about finish up now because I want Becky to say some things this morning about things that are on her heart about raising kids, and I'm just going to preface it.

Why don't you come on up here and stand by me? That will hurry me up. Just stand up here, right here, and your presence will help me. I'm going to say what I think is the most important thing, and then I'm going to let Becky say some of the things that are on her heart in the time we have left.

Prioritizing Children Over Ministry

Have you ever heard of the evangelist Billy Sunday? I think he was a famous, famous baseball player turned evangelist, and amazing ministry, often quoted even today and so forth, well-respected in the evangelical circles.

It's estimated that he spoke to 85 million people during his day, and he did not have the media access that we have today. So that was an astounding number of people that Billy Sunday shared the gospel with.

But did you know that three out of his four children went completely to the devil and all died in tragic ways in sin-related events? Three out of four died before they were age 30. And so we could all talk about the 85 million that he preached the gospel to, but what about the three out of the four of his own kids that by all indications, unless they somehow repented in the final breath, are in hell today.

You see, and so what it all comes down to, listen closely now, moms and dads, it all comes down to what do you prioritize? Billy Sunday, feeling the call of God, prioritized the call of God to get out there and win the world for Jesus Christ and deprioritized his children, and he reaped the benefit in that regard, but he reaped the sorrow of it in this other regard.

And so what it all comes down to, because there's so many resources available, if you want to be successful and know how to raise children, there's resources out there. You'll spend the time, and you'll devote the time to your children in order to see that they're raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

But it takes T-I-M-E. I'm not talking about quality time. I'm talking about T-I-M-E all the time. The more your kids are around you, the more you include them in your life, the more they're likely to be influenced by you.

And as a pastor for 20-some years, Becky and I, I mean, that's why we decided to take the radical step, and I'm not saying this is something that everybody has to do. We decided to take the radical step of homeschooling our kids because we knew as pastors that we would have every temptation that we could possibly face to neglect our kids, every excuse to neglect our kids, and the chances are that if we didn't force ourselves to have them around us and have Becky around them, primarily homeschooling them, that chances are we'd wind up like most pastors with kids who are gone to the devil.

And I think I told you this weekend, yesterday, when I would minister or be a part of pastors' prayer meetings, the number one prayer request of pastors was they were always asking for prayer for their wayward children.

And there's biblical examples of that same thing, isn't there? Sure. So devoted to God, but yet their devotion to God was not reflected in their devotion to their families, and that's a major part of our devotion to God.

Okay, and that's why Terrell, so as you said yesterday, the main qualification, one of the main qualifications to be an elder, a pastor in the church, is you've got to have your family together because that's the criteria.

That shows whether or not your priorities are lined up correctly, and then that secondly shows whether you're going to be able to oversee the flock of God. If you can't handle a household, how can you handle a household of saints?

Becky Servant on the Responsibility of Parents

Okay. All right, so I asked Becky, you ready, babe? Ready. Ready, okay. I asked Becky if she would just share because she's been at it for many, many, many years of ministering to our kids, and we can pretty much say at this point in time, although there's still some question about our youngest one, Elizabeth, sitting right over here, who's just 16.

We're still hoping that she turns out good because she's not out of the nest yet. Put that in your pocket. But we're very proud of our kids. We believe that we have not been perfect parents. We've made huge mistakes at different times.

We're still on the road to trying to get better at parenting and so on. But little bit we knew, we applied, and we can speak from experience now. It has worked, praise the Lord. Let's give her a big, warm welcome.

I really wish I could give you a few tips that were just magic formula to raise kids to serve the Lord, but there's not any. And if I did tell you something like that, I'd be lying. So I do want to give you some principles that are true.

I wish there was a few magic things that you could do to raise kids to serve the Lord. But really, I was hoping David wouldn't say too much of what I really want to talk about, but he really did touch upon so much of it.

And we cannot be passive in raising children to serve the Lord. The greatest asset that we have, the most precious thing that we have, is our children. I mean, in our culture, in the Western world, we are so materialistic, and we are always looking and striving to obtain more things.

And right under our nose are the most precious thing we have that we just take for granted after a while because they're with us. But, you know, that time goes so quickly. Boy, does it ever. I mean, my baby's 16, and I'll never forget when she was born.

I'll never forget the moment she was born. And you hold those children in your hands for the first time, and you look at them, and the weight of the responsibility that God has given me really hit me.

In fact, as David and I never really had a baby dedication in front of the church when they were born. That day, we dedicated to the Lord, just ourselves, you know. My goodness, we couldn't wait a month or a week or so.

We did it immediately. And we committed them to the Lord, but we knew, really, we were making the commitment, the dedication to God because God placed them in our lives, and He gave us the commitment.

He gave us the responsibility to train them. And I'm sure you're very familiar with the scripture in Proverbs which says, train up a child and away she go. And when he's older, he will not depart from it.

Now, I have heard like Chuck Swindoll who has said that this really is not a promise. This is an observation, you know. And I thought, well, what's the difference? If you do it, it's going to make a difference.

It's not a promise, he said, but if you do train them, when they get older, they will not depart from it. That's God's Word. If it is just an observation of Solomon, it was a great observation that if you do these things, when they get older, they will not depart from it.

Diligently Teaching God's Word in the Home

If you would turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 6, I know David Witten touched yesterday upon my testimony, really, of why I started homeschooling. And I don't want to really push that particular idea of homeschooling, but something that the Holy Spirit really gave to me and really, really impressed upon my heart in such a, oh my goodness, such a very real way.

David and I met in Bible school and I wanted to be in ministry. That was my goal. That was my passion. That's what I wanted to do. And we got married and then three years later, we had our first little girl charity.

And I was still planning. I was a mom, dedicated mom, but I still wanted to be in ministry. School time came. I was going to be diligent. I was going to find the best Christian school I could find. That was my plan.

David and I were inseparable when we first were married. Whatever he did, wherever he went, that's what I did too. I was very involved in ministry things and being an institutional pastor, pastor's wife, that's what motivated me.

And then when charity was about four or five years old and David had heard, listened to Dr. Dobson about homeschooling, he thought, oh, this is just what we need to do. This is great. He came home so excited and he was telling me all about it and I thought, I don't think so.

Sure, you like this, but this doesn't sound so good to me. Not at all. I knew that I was the one who was going to be doing all the work. And the more he heard about it, the more he liked it. And the more I heard him telling me about it, the more I didn't like it.

And he went and got all these books. Oh, Becky, you've got to read these. You've got to read these. I went and got the enrollment to the Christian school. That's what I did. And I was, you know, I had my dreams of being the homeschool, or not homeschool, but the homeroom mom, you know, bringing in cupcakes and all that kind of stuff on my turn.

And in Pennsylvania, you don't have to send your children to school until they're eight years old. The compulsory age is not until they're eight. Now, not too many people even know that or even do that, but we did know that.

And we had been going, making plans, and we were actually in Europe for about almost three months. Charity was six. She turned seven, actually, when we were there. Stephen was still in diapers. He was about three, almost three years old.