366 | Training Dads, Leading Fatherhood Initiatives, and Restoring the Value of Fatherhood (Ron Hauenstein)
Episode Description
Ron Hauenstein, leader of the Spokane Fatherhood Initiative, shares how fatherhood training can strengthen families, churches, and communities. With heartfelt stories and eye-opening facts, he’ll inspire you to take simple, practical steps to combat fatherlessness and create a lasting impact in your community.
-
Ron Hauenstein is the president and founder of the Spokane Fatherhood Initiative. SpoFI offers comprehensive fatherhood training and parenting classes, equipping fathers with vital skills for every stage of parenting. Ron and his wife Becky have two grown children.
-
· Changed dads change everything.
· If you feel led to start a fatherhood organization, ask people whether they think programs to support fathers are important, and you’ll get an overwhelming response.
· Around 75% of people consider fatherlessness to be a serious issue.
· As a dad, you occupy a space in your kids’ hearts that no one else can fill.
-
· Send a Voice Message to DadAwesome
· Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
· Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word “Dad” to (651) 370-8618
· Spokane Fatherhood Initiative
· The Externally Focused Church by Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson
-
Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:00:39] I believe that the strength of a community depends on the strength of its churches. The strength of churches depends on the strength of families and the strength of families depends on the strength of fathers. So our communities will not grow and prosper and thrive without changing, improving, building, strengthening fathers.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:01:00] Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, today, Episode 366, I have Ron Hauenstein joining me from Spokane, Washington. Ron and I met at the DadAwesome Summit, a gathering of fatherhood ministry leaders last summer. He is the founder and director of the Spokane Fatherhood Initiative. And the reason, today, I was like, yes, Ron today, Episode 366. So, today is the seven year birthday of DadAwesome. So we started January, end of January of 2020, I'm sorry, 2018. So seven years ago we dropped the first episode of DadAwesome and it's just fun for Ron to join today because we're going to talk about the birthplace of Father's Day, the family who started Father's Day in Spokane, Washington. And just what has, you know, what came about seven decades later with it becoming a national holiday and some of Ron's vision for a turning of hearts, a turning of culture, a turning of the family and fathers taking ownership and seeing a different future than we're experiencing right now in this generation of dads. So glad you guys are joining today for Ron Hauenstein. Now, before I jump to him, though, I want to invite you guys, we're right at the edge, we've got about a week left till the deadline of the DadAwesome Accelerator, the next cohort. So we've got an application process. I've spoken about this quite, quite often to you guys. I've invited you in. Man, the DadAwesome Accelerator is a six week cohort, only ten dads, we're going to grow together, we're going to learn together. The trajectory, the future of our fatherhood will be different because of six weeks invested. I want you guys to hear from Sam. So Sam joined us, was a part of the first cohort, and he had this to say about the DadAwesome Accelerator.
Sam: [00:02:51] Hey, my name is Sam. I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Being a part of the accelerator has made a huge impact on my family and my fatherhood. I'm still a work in progress. I'm not perfect. There's still areas of being a dad that I need to work on, but having the accountability in that group, having the structure that Jeff has put together, just taking it seriously, like making a commitment, has already made a huge impact on the way we structure our family and the way I support my family and from being a dad. I would just say this, if you're a dad, period, and you haven't gone through the Accelerator, you need to go through the Accelerator. It's that powerful, it's that helpful, it's that transformational. How many times do we sign up for coaching for our careers or our businesses? I've spent $0 on being a dad, and I knew that that was backwards. So it's not even about the money, it was just about the transformation that I knew I would go through by making that commitment to join a program like this. So again, if you're a dad, you haven't gone through it, you need to go through it or find something like it where you're committing to something with time, with money, with resources, and that's going to help you be a better dad. And I can't think of a better way to do that than to go through the Accelerator with Jeff Zaugg and the DadAwesome team. It's going to make a huge impact on your life.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:14] So, if you are interested in even just exploring and filling out the applications, just the first small step to being a part of the next cohort of the DadAwesome Accelerator, email awesome@dadawesome.org and you'll get an immediate bounce back email with all the framework and the link to the application. So just send an email to awesome@dadawesome.org. All right, let's jump right in. This is episode 366 with Ron Hauenstein. I'd love to hear a little bit of the back story, you've given your life to helping dads, to building dads. Where did this start? Where did it come from?
Ron Hauenstein: [00:05:00] Before we forget to mention this, the Spokane is the birthplace of Father's Day.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:07] Yes.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:05:08] Yeah. You can look it up on Wikipedia. In the early 1900s, a young woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, her mother died, Dad raised the six kids, and she noticed lots of support for moms in the community, but nothing for dad. So on a Sunday in June, I believe it was June 19th, 1910, she got all the pastors in Spokane to preach a sermon about fathers. So fatherhood is is deep in the spiritual soil of Spokane. And so it's always been a very natural thing that this community should have a fatherhood initiative, an organization that promotes and helps fathers. So I could trace, I think, my appearance on this podcast to a book I read in 20 something 16, maybe 2014, 2012, I don't even know, somewhere in there called The Externally Focused Church. And it was a profile, excuse me, of about a dozen churches in America that were taking Christ to the community and not just preaching to themselves. And so I, I started asking questions like that in my church, are we an externally focused church or an internally focused church? And found out, you know we're largely preaching to ourselves very few found salvations, wonderful people. I thought, well if I'm going to preach externally focused church, I practice it. So in, and this was back, that's right, I read that book in 2007, August of 2008, I began volunteering, excuse me, February of 2008, began volunteering at a women's shelter, shelter for homeless women and children. There's, there's a ministry, okay. And a faith based ministry, Union Gospel Mission, here in Spokane. They welcomed, really encouraged Godly men to be at that, at that site. And so I had the most amazing experience there for the next ten years. And I saw dozens and excuse me, hundreds of women with 2 and 3 or 4 kids, most of them fatherless, most never married, very few collecting child support, as such a contrast to my experience. I'm 72 years old, graduated from high school in 1970, back in the time when the out-of-wedlock birth rate was moving from 5 to 10%, okay. In 1960, 5%, 1970, 10%. We can get later on in the podcast to where it is today. But everybody, when I was a kid, everybody had a mom and dad. Everybody lived together. We didn't have step sisters and brothers and half brothers and sisters and these kids, their behavior was wild and, and without judging them, I just thought these kids, these moms are dooming these children to poverty, raising them in this atmosphere. Much of the issue that, that created homelessness was addiction. So we have to have lots of grace, you know, for that. And many women told me, by the way, that I wouldn't be alive if I hadn't become pregnant. And it was that decision to raise a child that convinced me, I've got to get off drugs. I can't be on drugs while I'm pregnant. So, so there's this, this heart in me, to, to serve kids without dads. And so in 20, the fall of 2016, I began pulling some people together, and actually, let me get, if I may, one more important event. January 20th, 2016, about 100 Christian leaders met at the Union Gospel Mission in Spokane to talk about how the church could impact the community. I wasn't an organizer. I was an attendee. Spokane Fathere Initiative didn't exist. There were 12 tables, 8 people to a table. Very early on, the out of town facilitator says, What's the number one issue confronting the city of Spokane? Each table can have one vote. So eight people had to collaborate. 10 out of 12 tables said fatherlessness. Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:16] Wow.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:09:17] Yeah. This guy had talked this workshop on every continent except Antarctica and said he'd never seen unanimity like that. Passionate Christians, you'd think abortion, crime, you know, all these things. But no, people said the broken family, primarily fatherlessness is the issue. So I was inspired by that, encouraged by that, and began having some community meetings, just conversations at the coffee shop with people, and eventually formed an organization together, Incorporated as a nonprofit in the fall of 2017, began teaching fatherhood classes in the fall of 2018.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:57] So you just like press the next step, the next step, gathering partners, gathering resources, leading, and you moved from caring for these single moms and their kids to looking a little bit upstream at the like, can we help build into dads?
Ron Hauenstein: [00:10:14] Yeah, it was, it was an amazing process. We were always about mission before money, okay. And so we just started doing this with very little funds. Nobody was being paid. We got a church to give us a classroom and helped us recruit and we had 12 guys in our first class. September 2018, we graduated 11 out of 12. 12 out of 12 had addiction history, 12 out of 12 were non-custodial or 11 out of 12 non-custodial dads. One had just become married and became a stepdad to three daughters. And we graduated 11 out of 12. Since, since then we've, we've issued 625 certificates of completion with a 93% graduation rate. Blows me away.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:02] Blows me away. I'm like, Ron, the pictures, so I've seen you on your website and I've seen your articles, the pictures of kids in their dad's arms holding their certificates or in what that means to graduate from a program like this, as a dad in the, the these little eyes shining of my dad, it's incredible.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:11:26] We had a dad who separated from his daughter, had, could visit her in Seattle. So it's a four hour drive, five hour drive from Spokane. And he did it every weekend. And at graduation, she was able to attend graduation with him and his parenting plan reversed, basically, he got full custody, you know, by then. She walks out of graduation into the parking lot, shouting, Hey, everybody, I get to go home to my dad, I get to go home with my dad.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:59] Wow.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:12:01] I'm going, you know, kids today, I grew up knowing where my home was. A kid who's the child of divorce or even separated parents, he didn't have my house. I have my dad's house, my mom's apartment, you know. And I, I contend that's a serious emotional issue. There's a sense of security knowing where home is, right. My childhood was far from perfect, but I always knew where home was. Home was, someone was there to welcome me, cook me a meal, a bed to sleep in on a good day, do my laundry, you know. But, and so that created a sense of security in me. That's part of who I am to this day. You know, and we've lost that in our culture through the breakdown of the family.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:54] I want to connect a thread from Father's Day to what you just just explained. And Father's Day, 1909 started by Sonora Dodd. And it was the 70s under presidential oversight of Richard Nixon that it actually became a national holiday. Did I get that? Did I get that right?
Ron Hauenstein: [00:13:15] Yeah. Yeah. She poured a lot of energy into getting it and faced opposition. People said it would just become a Hallmark holiday. And then things happened in her life and she kind of lost the cause for a while and came back to it later in her life. And you're right, wasn't until then. Do you know in World War two, men were drafted to go into service, fathers were exempt from the draft? [00:13:41][25.9]
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:43] I did you not know that.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:13:44] It was federal government policy that said fathers are so important to our culture, our society, we're not going to send them to war. It wasn't until Pearl Harbor.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:55] Later drafts, yeah.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:13:56] That they said that we can't, we need, we need another 4 million men. We have to, we have to tap into the fatherhood pool.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:03] Wow.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:14:04] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:05] So that's, that's fascinating. The thread, though, of six decades, you know, a couple generations of like, you know, like before it like, became a national holiday, not that Father's Day being a national holiday fixed everything. But there's a, there's a dream that took a lot of time to come to fruition. And when I think about the dads that you serve, the dads listening right now, there's small adjustments, small victories of, I went this week to this fatherhood group, or I, Hey, I went I graduated and have a diploma. And it doesn't mean that the challenges are over. In that case, it's, but it's a step. It's a step towards generational change when their kids know my dad was present, my dad cared, my dad was less angry. One of the testimonies I read from your work is just like, Hey, my dad, the way he talks to us is different now. It's not, he doesn't yell at us like he used to.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:15:02] Yeah. And those kids were parent the way they were parented.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:05] It levels forward.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:15:08] They, they, you know, that's, that's how we learn parenting is, you know, how did my mom and dad parent me? And that's the model I'm going to follow. Or you deliberately choose to do the opposite. Yeah, I know, I had a lousy dad. I'm not going to do that to my kids who make a vow and a commitment and, and it works out. Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:28] So, so here we are, you know, eight ish years since you kind of gave, like, your passion, your energy, and I know you've done this as a volunteer director all these years, which is incredible, just being so all in. So many people head towards the golf course in a season of, you know, 60s, 70s, like and and I'm so inspired by you, Ron, and then just like the I'm all in and it matters these 625, I think you said. Like this, like talk about trajectory changing the difference but one of the phrases that I know you've spoken over the dads that you serve is you've told them over and over, you're worth it. You're worth it. Would you explain a little bit what you mean by that and how the change that comes with those words?
Ron Hauenstein: [00:16:16] We're, we're a faith based nonprofit and we use secular training materials and, and we don't use the word Christ very often or hide it necessarily. People don't walking in the door here and being greeted, brother, brother, you know, let me pray for you, you know. We prayed for a meal, and people see Christ in the way we treat them. So part of "you're worth it" is, is that Christian value that everybody is worth it. Many of your listeners probably know a fictional homicide detective named Harry Bosch.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:50] Sure.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:16:51] Okay. Harry Bosch had a philosophy as a homicide detective that it didn't matter if my victim is a prostitute or the mayor's daughter, they're going to get the same effort from me and find out who killed him. Okay. His motto was, Everybody counts. Everybody counts. And that's really kind of the feeling here, is it didn't matter what you look like, where you been, what your story is, that doesn't disqualify you from the help that we're going to give you. Okay. Just come in. So, so whether we use those words, "you're worth it" or not, I think men, men feel and that's why they keep coming back. I think it's a big part of our 93% graduation rate. So this man lives about 25 minutes from our offices but doesn't drive and was very reluctant to ask for help. He's one, you know, like a lot of men, I don't want to be a burden, you know, a sense of false pride. I don't want to bother anybody. It's a low view of self, you know, his self-worth wasn't anywhere near where it should be. And I said after about three classes, I'm going to get you here. I'm going to figure out what is going to take to get you here. And I found a friend that went and got him, and then one of the guys in class said, I'll take care of it from here. And, and he's gotten a ride, you know the rest, got to ride the rest of times. But in the course of arranging this, he apologized to me in a text. I really don't want to be a burden on anybody. And I said, you're worth it. Well, he came to the next class and he shared that story and he shared those words. He said that's only the second time in my life anybody has said that about me. Can you imagine that? Being 41 years old and never hearing those words or feeling that feeling, I'm worth it, I'm valuable, I'm important and I have a place in life, I have a purpose.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:39] Speaking life, speaking value, speaking to someone who then, naturally is going to bring those same words forward to his kids. And that's where I wanted you to share your framework for the church, the community, the family, the dad. There's an interplay that as the dads go, it ripples forward. And it's, I think we need to remember this because often we think fatherhood is just one aspect of so many areas of life, fatherhood and our role as dads and where statistically that's not the case. Can you share kind of how you see them interplay?
Ron Hauenstein: [00:19:17] Well, we believe that changed dads change everything. You know, our founding principle, which we're modifying a little bit, is that fatherlessness is a root cause of nearly all of society's problems. The positive way of stating that is dedicated, committed fathers change society, improves society, changed dads change everything. So I believe that the strength of a community depends on the strength of its churches. The strength of churches depends on the strength of families, and the strength of families depends on the strength of fathers. So our communities will not grow and prosper and thrive without changing, improving, building, strengthening fathers.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:06] And when you say strengthening fathers, what are some of and I'm familiar with some of the tools, some of the curriculums that you guys have leveraged to help equip, but what are just kind of top of mind? What are some of the aspects when you say strengthening fathers that you're putting your focus on?
Ron Hauenstein: [00:20:23] Our classes use a curriculum from the National Father Initiative called 24:7 Dad. And in both the basic and the advanced sequence is 12 sessions each, the first four sessions all looking inward. Okay. What was my fatherhood story like? What was my dad like and how did it affect the kind of father and person I am today? How do I deal with my emotions? Okay, What is my view of myself in the world? My my sense of purpose? So we begin to dig in pretty deep into all of those things and, and teach some principles around them, the remaining eight lessons focus more on practical tips and tools, communication skills and discipline, work, family and balance. How do I treat the mother of my children? How do I co-parent? Those kinds of things, so but we're really about changing character. One of our dads had a wretched history, homeless since he was 14. Just about every kind of ugly experience you could imagine, prostitution, drugs, theft. And he gets his life moving in a positive direction, finds us and graduates from all the stuff he could take here. And his testimony is that more than any other program I've been involved in, any other recovery program I've been involved in, SpoFi has been the anchor. In other words, we were better than anything else that he took, and we're not a recovery program. So, you know, it's, it's the power of Christ, again, running through us, not necessarily explicit, that's changing people. Because, you know, if someone treats me with respect, I'm going to honor that and return that way. I'm going to respect them. And it's just a just amazing thing to watch, Jeff. I just, I'm just honored and blessed to be doing this.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:30] Ron, from our time last summer together into our time today, connecting like I, I'm like, just want to applaud the work you're leading and the stories and the life change and the work with the city in a way that the city is celebrating. Like look at that, like look at like this matters greatly. I think there's some dads listening that say, well, that's not for me. I'm not the kind of change maker that starts an initiative that impacts the community. I can't do something that impacts 600. So I'm going to, I'm just going to let other people lead those initiatives. And I think I'd love for you just to share for a moment around, is it are you a superhero and is it inaccessible for other dads or what you've done, could another dad take initiative and see, see change?
Ron Hauenstein: [00:23:18] Yes, Yes, I'm a superhero, of course. But I'm very humble about it, you know. We've, we've got two dads here in Washington in communities, a couple of hours from Spokane that said, hey, would you come help us start a fatherhood program in my town? I said, no. You start it. I will tell you the path we took. I will show you the resources and I will help you any way I can. I'll come to your town and help you do this. But I'm not interested in franchising what we do. I think, I think character selection, you know, the kind of people that that are involved in this is very, very important. And so, right inspiration, right vision. And I shouldn't say anybody can do this, there's no question it takes some, some leadership skills, some ministry skill. But vision and passion go a long, long way. I would, there's been a number of of public opinion surveys over the last 20 years, asking people if they think fatherlessness is an important issue in our society, and 75% say yes, it's so. And when I've gone around at the very, very beginning, long before incorporating, I'd say, I think I'm starting a fatherhood ministry. And before I'd say anything else, I get the same answer from everybody that is so needed. That is so needed. So if anybody is listening and feeling led to lead a fatherhood organization, just start asking people, Do you think fatherhood is important in our culture? Do you think programs to support fathers would be important? And you get an overwhelming answer, and then eventually, again, we were in mission before money, go out and start doing. Find a way to do it for free and the money will follow. I'm very convinced of that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:25:10] Wow. I think this ties with the broader, you said when you were a child 5% of kids born were born to unwed mother. Then when you were older, a teenager, it was 10%. That number has spiked to, if I have this right under 25, the babies born to under 25 year olds, it's 80% are born to unwed moms.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:25:36] Eight out of ten babies coming into the world in that age range.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:25:41] Yeah, which is where most of the babies are born, though, under 25.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:25:44] Overall, the average is approaching 60% now out of wedlock, but in that age range is 80. What does that mean for our society? I know you grew up, I think, in a married household.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:25:57] Yeah.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:25:58] I grew up in a married household. And, but, but a child born into an unwed household is not likely to marry themselves as an adult. Children of divorce, ultimately very high percentage will end up being divorced. What's, you know, the marriage model is people willingly sacrificing for one another, for living for something greater than themselves. We've, we're experiencing a 2 or 300 year trend that elevates self, the opposite of Christianity, right. Christianity's other centered. We have a culture that's self centered, in the state of Washington you can get a divorce in 90 days. 90 days, okay. And it used to be before no fault divorce. You had the prove, you know, the other party's at fault. You had a lot to do, a lot of work to do to get divorce. And now it's, I want out. I want out. It's not what's best for me. It's what's best for my family and my children, I, the elevation of self. And so. So walking through our door, are all these dads separated from their children because they sometimes, many times because of mistakes they made and now they want to repair that damage. But other times it's the mother of their children saying, I want out. This is too hard. I teach this, here's a biblical principle as your marriage or your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend relationship, a covenant or a contract? If it's a contract...
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:35] Tear it up. Move on. Yeah.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:27:37] We both have expectations, you didn't live up to your end if the deal, I'm gone, right. But if it's a covenant. What is that? An eternal promise before God, regardless of how you treat me, whether you live up to my expectations or not, it's others centered, not me centered.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:54] In the stream that we're all swimming in now as a country, certainly, we haven't talked about global statistics, but as, as a country we're swimming in a stream of kids are not experiencing an intact family. So then when they think about marriage or not that, well, that wasn't the norm. So I'm not it's going to it's going to keep heading without leaders like you, Ron, without leaders like the guys listening right now that could step in and play a leader role in some degree with some kind of an initiative to, to help encourage and tell dads that they're worth it and give them some tools to look inward like you talk about, and then tools of intentionality and to lead from like this, it just matters. And so I think once, you know, every so often we need to, at DadAwesome, elevate the broader like opposition that we're going to have to having a culture of normalized, I say normalize with all there's, there's more gravity than what sounds like right now. Like, we need dads to see this role as such a treasure, a gift and a responsibility and a covenant. And I'm grateful for you, really grateful.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:29:02] I live, I live in one of the most liberal states in America. We're one of the bluest of, of blue states. And yet our state government is willingly funding what we do. Yeah...
Jeff Zaugg: [00:29:14] Yes.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:29:15] Yeah, unsolicited. I'm smart enough to answer the phone when it rings. We have a $30,000 grant opportunity to teach relationship education and parenting skills to high school kids. Are you interested? Tell me more. Yeah, unsolicited. In 2019, after doing these classes for just a year, the state came to us and say, We're hearing great things about your program, we want you to teach these classes to men involved in child protection services, CPS. Come in in the childhood, kids in the child welfare system, are you willing to do that? And we've had a contract with the state ever since. Last year, a proposal came across my desk to, to launch a program to reduce child abuse and neglect. Now, is that fatherhood training? I said, I think it is. And we submitted a proposal, there were 28 proposals across the state of Washington, 4 contracts were awarded, and we got one of the four. We're teaching the exact same course we always have, we're just doing it in a specific neighborhood in the States, picking up the tab to do that. They didn't say what to teach. We said, This is what we want to teach. They said, Great.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:30:32] Well, Ron, I wanted to end here and asking you to pray over the dads listening and that if there is even a small flame of man, I think I maybe you should do something in this area to help other dads be a builder of dads, that it would be fanned upon that flame. And then secondly, just I think just praying for a turning of hearts. You know, we talked the Malachi mandate, we talk about all the time, a turning of hearts. And you're seeing it locally in Spokane, Washington. I've seen it in pockets all over the place. But we're just praying for a turning of hearts that, that, that the country would look on, and that the world will look out and say there is something shifted. And so, yeah, would you pray over all of us as we close?
Ron Hauenstein: [00:31:17] Can I tell a quick story before?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:31:18] I would love that. Yes.
Ron Hauenstein: [00:31:20] In 2019, there was a community event, we had a booth there. Wonderful August evening, I'm the only guy in the booth and it's clearly labeled Spokane Fathered Initiative. Three teenagers come walking up and they're not looking left or right. They're on a mission. They're going right straight to the Spokane Father Initiative. Boy, girl, boy. Turns out they're all 15. They walk up to the booth and they don't ask the normal questions like, what's this about? How do I sign up? Can you give me more information? No, the first words came from the girl in the middle. And this is what she said, she said, Is this where I come to get a dad? Yeah. And I looked at her before I could say anything. She said, What do I have to do to get a dad? And I still didn't have a chance to respond before, she said, Will you be my dad? I'm a stranger, okay. And she's sharing with me the deepest pain in her heart. I said, What's going on with your dad? He's a druggie. He's got seven kids. Now, listen to what she said next, I don't mean anything to him. So I talked to her a little bit and said, Can I pray for you? And she said, Yeah. I prayed lots of things. I prayed that she would come to see herself as the way God created a special, beautiful, one of a kind created for a purpose, but mostly that she would come to know God as her Heavenly Father. I said, Amen, she says, God doesn't love me. I said, why do you say that? And she said, Because I'm gay. And I said, Well, the Bible says that every human being is created in the image of God. I can promise you that God loves you. She says, okay, thanks and walked off from me. I prayed for that young woman every day. Okay. Can you hear the pain of this fatherless generation? Okay. Fatherhood is a role you cannot escape. You can flee from your kids all you want, but you are still dad. You occupy a space in their hearts that no one else can take. No one else can have. I'm a father. I will stay a father. We have a fatherhood pledge that in our classes, that's one of the lines we have the men stand up and say out loud, I'm a dad, I'll stay dad and I will be a dad to my children. So I can't remember what you asked me to pray about, but I'm going to pray now. Gracious Heavenly Father, we lift up the pain that is brought on by fatherlessness. And for every father listening to this story, this podcast, I pray that you hear from God about how important and significant and special and valuable you are that you come to recognize, if you haven't, that you have that special place in your child's heart that is reserved just for you. And that your children are so hungry for your affirmation, they so long to hear your words, I'm proud of you, my son, proud of you, my daughter. I love everything about you and I miss you terribly. So, Lord, for dads who have made mistakes, dads who feel remorseful about their past, they don't feel they have anything to offer, I ask that You speak to them, that You turn their hearts, that You soften their hearts and give them the courage to reach out and take the first step. And don't be discouraged about rejection, okay. Your children, if you've been separated them for a while and they likely do that too, to test you. How serious are you about this relationship, Dad? And so Lord Your, Your word is full of wonderful ways to teach fathers how to connect with their children. And I just ask that You open all of those avenues to men now. I thank You for Jeff and his heart, and his passion, the example that he has to other dads, the way he loves his children and his wife. But he lives for a higher purpose than himself. He loves to follow You, and so do I, Lord. And I just ask that You show the men listening to this podcast that that's the path that's going to lead to prosperity and happiness and changed lives and changed communities because changed dads change everything. Amen.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:35:54] Thank you so much for joining us this week for episode 366 with Ron Hauenstein. All the conversation notes, the action steps, the transcripts, and some of the key quotes are going to be found at dadawesome.org/podcast. I want to encourage you guys, it is, it is the seven year birthday of DadAwesome, this episode and if DadAwesome has been helpful at all in your journey as a dad, I want to encourage you, maybe one of two things. You can either leave a some feedback on whatever podcast platform you listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever the platform is, you can leave a rating and review. That's super helpful. Another thing that we would just invite you to do is share DadAwesome with another dad. So just simply text out dadawesome.org, the website or just recommend, hey, search on your podcast app DadAwesome with no space. So that's a way you can kind of cheer us on for our seventh birthday. And then lastly, to pray about and consider joining our team of monthly supporters. We're a nonprofit organization and we have a team of 36 families and a couple of businesses that have said, we're behind you, we want to support on a monthly basis. You can go to dadawesome.org/give to join our monthly support team, that would mean a ton and it would help fuel and keep this mission of reaching more dads. So with all that said, thank you for celebrating with us the seventh year. Thank you for listening this week and have an awesome week.
-
· 19:18 - "We believe that changed dads change everything. Our founding principle is that fatherlessness is a root cause of nearly all of society's problems. The positive way of stating that is dedicated, committed fathers change society, improves society, changed dads change everything."
· 33:23 - "Fatherhood is a role you cannot escape. You can flee from your kids all you want, but you are still dad. You occupy a space in their hearts that no one else can take. No one else can have. I'm a father. I will stay a father. We have a fatherhood pledge in our classes, that's one of the lines we have the men stand up and say out loud, I'm a dad, I'll stay dad and I will be a dad to my children."
Connect with DadAwesome
Learn about our Fathers for the Fatherless events in 2023:https://f4f.bike/
Follow@dadawesome on Instagram
Make a Donation to DadAwesome (tax-deductible)
Join the DadAwesome Prayer Team
Receive weekly encouragement by texting "dad" to 651-370-8618