PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 85 – UNAPOLOGETICALLY UNASHAMED AND UNOFFENDABLE!
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Episode 85- UNAPOLOGETICALLY UNASHAMED AND UNOFFENDABLE!
Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. It is great to be with you again. It’s going to be such an exciting episode because today I have with me one of my daughters, Evangeline. Now when Evangeline comes on the scene it will be exciting.
I know lots of you know Evangeline, but if you don’t, she is the mother of ten children. Her oldest is Zadok who is 27. Coming down the line there is Sharar and then there is Rashida who is married and is expecting her third baby. Isn’t that wonderful? Then there is Crusoe and he is married to Stephanie and they have a little girl called Hosanna. Jireh is next and he is married too, to Alyvia and they are having a baby, too (Sadly, since this podcast, Alyvia gave birth to a still birth baby which has been so tragic for them).
Then there is Arrow. Arrow is just on 6’8”. We kind of grow giants around here. Arrow is the tallest, but all the boys are tall. Then there are the three beautiful girls: Tiveria, Sahara, and Iqara. They are all tall, slim, and beautiful. We then come to Saber, the youngest.
So Vange, it’s so great to have you with me today!
Evangeline Johnson: Yay, yay, yay and it is going to be exciting because Mum just made me a beautiful peppermint tea drink. I’ve gulped it down wrong and I feel like I’m going to burp but I can’t burp so I’m trying to get it out. So if I accidently . . ..
NC: Don’t!
EJ: Sorry . . . that would be Mum’s no no!
NC: Any way, now Vange, you have recently been on a cruise. I couldn’t imagine you ever going on a cruise . . . how did you get on a cruise?
EJ: Well, this is just the most amazing thing because I grew up camping in the sand.
NC: Yes, you usually don’t go on cruises; that’s not your thing. You’re usually out camping.
EJ: Right, I love surviving. That’s my thing and it’s just part of my fun. Actually my sisters had taken me on a cruise before.
I thought, “Well, how on earth is Vange going to do this? It’s going to be interesting with my husband.” We owned that” boat.” My sister, Pearl, said that she just had the best time watching me milk every second from that cruise that could have ever been had. So I became the cruise queen and I hadn’t been on one since. We had gone to the Caribbean and I fell in love with the Caribbean. I’m going to tell you quickly how we got to go on this cruise.
It’s so fun and it’s so Jesus because in this past October I just got this feeling and I asked Howard and I said, “Hey darling, we should go to the Caribbean in January.”
He just laughed at me and I went on my merry way.
The next day I walked past him again and this funny feeling came on me.
I said, “Darling no, seriously, let’s go. Let’s go in January when it’s cold. Let’s escape the cold and go to the Caribbean, yahoo!”
He looked at me with this funny smirk and he was just like, “That’s hilarious, darling.”
The third day, it as just like the funniest thing. It was like Queen Esther going before the King. It wasn’t like a whine, but it was just like this funny thing that came upon me every day. I was just like, “No darling, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! It’ll be so fun!”
He said, “Darling, I appreciate the thought, but we just don’t have the funds right now.”
I said, “Oh funds-shmunds, let’s go free!”
He laughed at me and said, “Everything to you is free!”
The next day I said, “Let’s go! We can go free.”
He said, “How?”
I said, “Well we can kayak down” because I’m actually this ocean-kayaking girl and I thought that if we could hike three or five miles or ten miles, I can surely kayak several days down to the Caribbean. In fact, I had mapped it all out in my head. I thought, “Well, you know, some people do this and it’s going to happen.”
So he just laughed his head off!
NC: And this is not a joke. Vange’s favorite thing to do is to kayak. When we go down to Panama Beach in Florida for our annual family holiday, we’re all relaxing on the beach but Vange is out two miles into the ocean fishing for sharks.
EJ: It’s so great!
So the next day I told him and I said, “Darling, I have married you for millions of reasons but on the top five that I can think of is that you are adventurous and you have married the most adventurous woman—LET’S DO IT!”
Well he just laughed and that’s all I got.
But the laugh was mine in the end. Howard had left to go out of state and do a job. I have a very dear friend. I call her dear because we’d only met twice but in the two times of me meeting, we just were dear to each other, and we didn’t know each other’s families or husbands.
She texted me the next day and said, “Where have you been for the week?”
I was like, “Well I’ve been here but all the pass codes are mucked up on my phone and iPad, so I haven’t been getting any messages till now.”
She said, “Well I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for a week because for the last week, God has been telling me that you are supposed to go to the Caribbean in January.”
NC: That’s unbelievable!
EJ: I just got chills up and down my arm. I was thinking, “My husband doesn’t know this woman, none of my children know what I said to Howard. Nobody in the world knows apart from God.”
She texted me and said, “Yes, God told me your name: Vangie shall go to the Caribbean from January 3rd to the 12th on this cruise. Paid for. Done.”
So guess what? I went.
Howard came back and I showed him the text and he was like, “No way!”
He said, “No one would believe this other than me because you came to me seven days in a row. This is God. You think this is your idea, Vange, but no, God has high jacked your idea. He wants you on that boat.”
So any way it’s amazing because even before I got to the boat the hotel was paid for on the way down, too, by this woman.
I asked this woman on the lift on the way down where she was from and she said somewhere. She said, “I’m going on a cruise.”
I said, “No way! Me too! What cruise are you going on?”
She said, “Sky Princess.”
I said, “ME TOO!”
She just turned around because her husband was in a hurry and without knowing anything about me and she said, “God wants you on that boat.”
NC: Wow, that was confirmation.
EJ: Yes, it was just the biggest blast. I mean I don’t know but that the boat is still rocking from having me on it.
NC: So what happened when you first got on the boat?
EJ: Well you know, many of my best friends have told me years later, “You know, Vange, when I first met you, I thought you were drunk!”
So I don’t know, maybe the boat thought I was a bit tipsy, but I’ve never had a bit of alcohol in my life because that would be scary, and I just don’t believe in it. If you’re an alcoholic out there, sorry!
I’m just drunk enough as it is.
I just want to tell you women; mothers are too stuck up half the time and we just need to let loose with some laughing and hysterical joy because the Bible literally correlates a mother as a mother of JOY and laughter.
Laughter actually heals the bones and it sets people free. You have been set free if you have Jesus. Jesus comes and He takes away our shame and do you know what that makes us? It makes us the unashamed ones.
But I see so many people going around and they live like they’re ashamed. They wouldn’t say that they’re ashamed of Jesus, but they never talk about their best Friend. If they do, they’re just talking about their church or their theology, but people don’t want that. They want His love.
He’s taken away your shame and He’s made you unashamed so therefore you can look like and act like you’re unashamed.
They’re ashamed of what God has given them.
He’s made you a mother and He’s given you children. People are ashamed to tell that they’re a mother or how many children they’ve got. They’re ashamed of their size or they’re ashamed of they’re looks.
God made you as you are. Go out there and be you and stop being ashamed! Be unapologetically unashamed.
NC: Amen!
EJ: Be unoffendable.
NC: I believe that because I think that the most important thing in life, you know, Christ, who is our life, so often we’re ashamed to speak about Him in public.
EJ: No we’re not.
NC: No, but many are, and we shouldn’t be.
The fact of even as you say, being a mother. I mean, so many women today are apologizing for being a mother. Goodness me! We’ve got to stop apologizing and say who we are and be proud of it! This is who God has made us to be!
EJ: Yes! I’ve got these verses here: “I am not ashamed of the gospel . . ..” That’s Romans 1:16. In fact, in the Aramaic it says: “I refuse to be ashamed . . ..”
That’s my life motto. I just REFUSE to be ashamed of Jesus and His love for me.
I refuse to be ashamed of who He made me to be.
Psalm 34:5: ”They looked to Him and were radiant; they’re faces were never ashamed.”
I’ve got such funny stories of that from on the boat.
NC: Wait, before you tell your story, I wonder if you know, that my father, your grandfather, whom you love so much, that was his Scripture: “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation . . ..”
That was his Scripture. He was not ashamed. We think of him back there in Rotorua, New Zealand, one who was a great entertainer in Agrodome, one of the greatest tourist shows in New Zealand. Then, at the same time, he would be out on the streets preaching. He was not ashamed to own the gospel of Christ.
EJ: Right. That’s so great.
NC: Maybe that’s where you got it from.
EJ: Well, no, we get it from Jesus but of course that carries on down your line. Your children will pick it up and then they become unashamed.
But there were so many funny stories on the boat!
My son said to me, “Mom, nobody gets away.”
I want to tell you ladies that when you wake up, I want that to be your motto:
NOBODY GETS AWAY FROM JESUS IN YOU!
Nobody should get away, whether you’re shopping or it’s your husband or it’s your children. Wherever you are, everyone who touches your atmosphere gets Jesus.
Even if it’s just a word of kindness, because Jesus comes in so many dimensions: He comes with a word of grace. He comes with love. He comes with truth. He comes with a caress. He comes with kindness.
It is His loving-kindness that draws us to repentance. If you haven’t repented and are filled with His presence, then what you are filled up with is only theology. The world is sick of theology. They want His presence because it is His kindness and His presence that brings us to repentance.
If you’re just only giving out law and instruction, well forget it. Unless you’re filled up with this love of Jesus so it’s overflowing then you have no right to give anything out.
But if you are, then nobody gets away and that’s our motto. Nobody gets away without there being a word of kindness from Him because that’s Who Jesus is.
Anyway, on the boat, nobody got away. Actually, before I even got on the boat nobody got away—it was all the taxi drivers and everybody.
I live out here with all my children and they all love Jesus but whenever I’m out, and for people who might not know the Lord or I don’t know where they are, I say, “Lord, I’m an open vessel for you. Who do You want? Is it this one or is it that one needing a word?”
So just get over your shyness. Get over your ashamedness because you’re not ashamed. Just go for it!
Within about two hours the people from the information place on the boat where you can get all your questions answered were yelling out to me, “You are the happiest person that ever walked on this boat since we’ve opened it.”
I’m like, “Yoo-hoo! Yes I am!”
Then they all found out I had ten children and they all just couldn’t believe it. Then I would say, “I’m not even Islamic but I love Jesus!”
They would just stare at me like, “What planet are you from?”
Anyway, in the end, they were just like this is the happiest person that we have ever met.
NC: Amazing!
EJ: These ships have all these people from all around the world. They’re like countries of themselves. I think they have their own security.
They have people working from all around the world. I met all these Filipinos, Slovenians, and Ukrainians.
Before I had even put my luggage in the room I was talking about Jesus and one of them said, “You know, I’m a Christian.”
I said, “But do you love Jesus? See there’s a big difference.”
He’s like, “Yeah, I . . . I think I do.”
I said, “Why are you whispering?”
Then I started yelling, “You are the unapologetic, unashamed lover of Jesus” and all these others came running because they heard me yelling.
They said, “Yeah, we’re Christians, too.”
I said the same thing, “But do you love Jesus?”
They said, “Yes.”
I told them, “From now on, you are not silent. You are the change. You are the ones that on this boat they’re screaming for! “They’re coming on this boat trying to have a good time to party and celebrate. There’s no greater reason than what they’re on this boat for but what you can give them.”
It was just so much fun!
I met so many of them! After about two hours of me telling my story of my whole life and talking about Jesus they would quietly say, “Um, I go to this church . . ..”
I would say, “Oh, well is it a church who loves Jesus?”
They were like, “Yeah, of course.”
“But do you?”
They would respond, “Yes.”
I would say, “Well then, why are you quiet?”
Anyway, there was this beautiful couple that came to me. They had found me two days after and they said, “We have non-stop talked about what you did because we didn’t know that you could actually be happy and be free in Jesus.”
I just want to tell all of you women out there, Jesus calls you the happy mother of children and why? because you know Him, and He’s given you this great life. Don’t hide it. Don’t hide it. Give it out. Bring Jesus.
Your husband doesn’t get away without you showing Jesus to Him today. Your children don’t get away. You’re going to give Jesus to them. Whatever it is, you’re going to give it out.
No one gets away. You are unashamed, you are unapologetic, and you are unoffendable by what anybody can do to you.
NC: That is powerful.
EJ: What stories do you want?
NC: Just tell me some more. We would love to hear some more, wouldn’t you, ladies?
EJ: I met this dear, dear friend and she was about eighty. Everybody I sat by, I got talking of course because they are human lives and we don’t want to sit next to them and stare into space like, “We don’t know you.”
She said, “Who are you?”
I got to telling her all about my life and family. I told her ten children, that I wasn’t even Islamic, but I love Jesus.
She yells out to me, “I love Jesus, too!”
I was like, “WOW! What do you do?”
She said, “I am a writer.”
“That’s incredible! What do you write?” I asked.
She said, “Well I write steamy romance novels.”
Without a beat I go, “You’re joking me! What sort of steamy novels?”
She said, “Well sort of evil sexual ones like that.”
In my brain I’m thinking, “Lady, I love you but you’re like forty years too late. It’s like, come on, come on! That’s old school! Get with the picture.”
When you’re loving on somebody, they know your heart. We’ve already had like twenty minutes where I encouraged her and talked to her and befriended her and she was just lapping it up.
I turned around and said to her, “Have you ever thought of writing for Jesus?”
She just looked at me with shock and horror like, “I’ve never had anybody ask me that before in my whole life!”
She said, “Well, that’s an interesting question because all of the conservative Christians are just full of hate.”
I didn’t even want to get into the argument of it, so I just said, “Yeah, well, Jesus is full of love, isn’t He?”
“Yes He is,” she answered.
She told me she was going to write this book about two men meeting in a church.
I was just like, “Jesus, You are a Man of love and you love us all and it just came out, so I told her!”
I just said, “Jesus is such a man of love and He just loves those people. He just loves them. In fact, I’ve got friends who Jesus loves who are like that. It is sad because in that culture, they are the ones who take their lives more than any other sort of people.”
She said, “Really?”
I said, “Yes, it’s really sad. They’re desperate for the love of Jesus.”
She said, “Yeah, it’s because people are mean to them.”
I said, “You know, it’s more than that. It’s more that Jesus wants to tweak His love. Jesus loves us all, but He tweaks us all because that’s true love. He wants to tweak them. He wants to tweak me, and He wants to tweak you. I feel like He’s wanting to tweak your writing.”
She just couldn’t believe it!
She said, “Man! I wish I had met you a week earlier! This is wild! I’ve never thought about this.”
Don’t be afraid to go out there with the love of Jesus and just bring the truth to challenge people to move into His love and move into His truth because no one else is going to say it to them and no one else is going to give it.
It’s you. That’s why you’re left on earth.
Can I say another one Mum?
NC: Yes! Keep going. This is exciting!
EJ: There were stories from morning to night from taxi drivers. We had ordered five taxis and all of them had sort of canceled on us so when we finally got one, inside of our hearts, like, “Lord, this has got to be Your one.”
But it was more than just His one for us—it was for her.
We got her and she just unraveled her life story. Her husband had just left her, and she was crying in the car. She said, “I’m unloved and I’m unbeautiful.”
It was absolutely a download of God’s love and praying for her.
While she was driving her taxi, she was lifting up one hand and saying, “Jesus! Jesus! Thank You! Amen, sister! God, You are so good! Thank You for loving me! Oh God, You brought these ladies to speak into my heart!”
It was just like WOW! You just don’t know the person whose standing in their shoes next to you or who is giving you the ride. You think you are paying for some ride but it’s really for them.
I knew that God had sent me on this cruise, not just to touch the people from whoever I sat with and talked to or whoever was doing my room or wherever I was but I knew there had to be some person who was desperate for their life.
I kept on praying and it was about the second to last day and I said, “Lord! Lord, who is it?”
Actually, on that day I had gone skin-diving in Belize or somewhere with this group; but I had wanted to go away from the tourists.
They said that six miles up you can skin-dive and that that’s where all the locals go. They said I would have to get a taxi.
I said, “No way! No taxi for me!” so I started running.
I had gone up there and it was fantastic!
NC: That wouldn’t be a lie either because Vange is fit. She walks every day and not one person can keep up with her!
EJ: Well, anyway, it was such a blast! I was running and skin-diving, and it was just glorious because it’s along the second biggest reef in the world.
As I was coming back, I passed this one guy who was about 29 to maybe 31. The Lord says to me, “That’s the one: him.”
I thought, “No, it can’t be him! No, it can’t be him because he looks like he’s a little bit with it. He doesn’t look desperate.”
But you never know. You think how people look tells us if they need or don’t need the love of Jesus, but God knows the heart.
So I just kept on going about five hundred feet past him and the Lord says, “Turn around, that’s the one.”
Now, instead of just coming up beside him and starting a conversation, I had to turn around and walk five hundred feet facing him, directly to him. Who knows what he thought!
Just as I got to him, I saw this big long pipe hanging out his backpack and I said to him, “Dude, what’s your pipe, mate?”
He started telling me what his pipe was for and all of a sudden, I heard myself saying, “What’s your name?”
He gave me his name and I said, “You know, you’ve been smoking on the wrong thing. Up there I passed you and God told me to talk to you and I thought, no, that you’re not the one. I went five hundred feet past you and God told me to turn around and come back and speak to you.”
He just lost it. He opened up his whole life. He said, “My Granddad was a person who loved Jesus just like you. He prayed for whole cities and saw so many people touched by the love of Jesus, but I’ve been running.
“I came on this trip as my last piece of fun before I took my life.”
He just followed me for an hour and half on the way back and all around. We just had the most amazing time of literally sharing the love of Jesus and His forgiveness and how God loves the one who comes back to Him.
We ended up praying and he gave his whole life unashamedly and unapologetically over to Jesus.
I felt like I was witnessing Jesus jump out and love all these people and just rescue this guy from doing something that he had designed to do when he got off the ship.
We don’t know. We think these are our ideas and God just highjacks them. I want you guys to have God high jacking you.
He gives us imaginations to do fun things in life. Let God take over your imagination and be open if God takes you on a holiday.
I met one couple and they were having their anniversary. They were missionaries, just a fantastic couple.
He said, “We go and do missions, but you’ve inspired me that it’s not that we just go and do missions, but even on our anniversaries we ARE missions. We don’t have to hide away even if it’s for self-reasons. Being ourselves IS Jesus and people can’t help but get him.”
I said, “That’s it! If we go out and do anything else, it’s a farse.”
NC: Yes, yes, that’s so exciting to hear, Vange.
EJ: It’s an exciting life, Mum! Life is excitable! I think that we tend to think that it’s all doom and glum and Jesus and bias. Jesus was the most joyful man to ever hit earth. If you think you’ve ever belly-laughed, Jesus laughed more!
The Bible says He was the most joyous man. So you cannot deny that. He laughed more than anybody. He had the biggest smile more than anybody.
We have gotten into this scenario in our culture that to really have a good time or belly laugh until your side is just splitting you have to drink or be drunk. That is why people, most probably, why people think I’m drunk, but I’m not. I’m just happy.
I see women who are so uptight that they actually have to watch comedians to laugh. We pay comedians for joy. Our culture has got so crazy. Yet you see little children laugh so often. He said that unless you become like little children you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven and I think that we take that a little bit too seriously.
What do you see little children do? They’re full of laughter. They’re full of giggling.
Heaven is full of laughter. It is full of joy. We need to get back to basics. Stop hiring your comedians! Start being joyful!
NC: I find comedians boring, don’t you?
EJ: Well half the time it’s just rude and I’m like, SERIOUSLY?
NC: Yes exactly. What does it say the Kingdom of God is?
Romans 14:17 says: “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”
That’s what the Kingdom of God is.
You’re listening to Vange today, sharing these exciting stories as she was out on this cruise, but this is her life every day; when she goes out to the supermarket and anywhere she goes.
Dear mothers, lift up your eyes to see who God wants you to be in your homes, when you go out to the supermarket, when you go here and there. Yes, the home is your nesting place but you go out to do things and so you go out with the joy of the Lord, unashamedly, as Evangeline has said.
What are our words, Vange?
NC & EJ: Unapologetically unashamed!
EJ: And you’re unoffendable. Stop being so offended. God has given you everything you need. You are unoffendable.
NC: Yes, that is so powerful.
I was just thinking about, now at the moment, because you just love to sail and you love going out and getting with these drunken sailors, but you’re more drunk than they are with the Holy Ghost.
EJ: It’s so true and they couldn’t believe it.
Look, if any of you are sailing people, just get in contact with me because it’s been a lifelong thing and I’ve wanted to do it. I’ve just started and I’m going to eventually sail to the Caribbean myself. Right now I’m sailing on a lake and I’ve gotten with all these people who are sailors.
Do you know that sailors are the biggest drunken people? Oh but I love them! They are so great! It’s so funny! It’s just so funny!
NC: But do they think you’re more drunk than them?
EJ: Yes, they do! Of course they do! They just don’t know what to do with me!
NC: You know, sometimes you think, “Oh well, I’m just here in my home and I can’t really serve the Lord.” Then you hear about people who say, “As a woman you don’t have to be stuck in your home. You have to get out there and be an evangelist!”
No, both thoughts are wrong. We are just who God made us to be. We are mothers living our life filled with the joy of the Holy Ghost in our homes and wherever we go out taking the love and the joy of Jesus. Amen!
Anything else you want to say before you finish?
EJ: There are just a few more things here. Like Mum said, you tend to think, “Oh, poor me! I’m in my home.” But you get out and so many of these women are trying to be leaders of corporations and whatnot.
If you’ve got that given to you and it’s a side thing, then that’s great; but so many in that lifestyle have to act a certain way and it pulls the laughter out of you.
I feel like I want to yell my head off and say, “Come off those stupid cracked chairs because you think you’re sitting on a high pedestal of ‘Now my children are out of the house and now I can have a life.’”
It’s a cracked chair. You already have a life.
What I mean by a cracked chair is cracked thinking. It’s cracked thinking.
You have to feel the real earth beneath you and that’s freedom. The real earth beneath you is right, now whether you’re married, whether you’re single, whether you have children—that’s the earth beneath you.
Just start having fun with the real earth beneath you, okay?
Any chair that makes you feel more important than where you and where God has got you, not that you can’t aspire to things, is cracked thinking. It’s a chair that’s rustic, ruined, and sad, and will control you.
It wipes the happiness right out of you.
NC: That’s powerful.
I know you’ve been blessed today by a world-changing episode!
Evangeline, well we call her Vange of course, I’d like you to pray today for the ladies. I always pray for them at the end, so you pray today.
EJ: “Lord, You are so good. You’re just so good to us, You’re so good! “You love us so much. Thank You for Your presence and Your love.
“Lord, I ask more than anything that they would feel Your presence. That they would seek Your presence, seek Your face, that they would know You because none of this that we’re talking about can be had without, not the knowledge of being puffed up about You, but Lord Your friendship. Your kindness. Your love towards us. Your forgiveness and all You’ve done for us, Lord, and all that You bring every day.
“Let it be better than any movie or any book; that it’s so much more dynamic, Your Words to us every day, Lord, let them live and sing out in our lives.
“Lord, Your exuberance for life, Your excitingness amongst all the bad things that they hear every day, let them just yell and leap in their hearts as if they’re rushing through the beautiful wind on a mountaintop, even if they’re in a one roomed cabin.
“Let that be their heart and their experience and their atmosphere in the dimension of what they live out because You are inside them.
“Thank You, Jesus, thank You, Jesus, thank You, Jesus, thank You, thank You, Jesus.”
NC: Amen, be blessed and revolutionized and never the same again!