Show notes
0. Introduction to The Savvy Sauce **Transcription Below** Revelation 12:11a (AMP) “And they overcame and conquered him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony," Laura Dugger loves Jesus, is married to her best friend, Mark, and is a joyful mom to (update: 4) beloved daughters. She acquired a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Illinois State University before receiving her Master’s Degree from Richmont Graduate University with a specialization in Christian sex therapy. As a licensed marriage and family therapist, she started her career seeing clients in a private practice in California, then taught as an adjunct professor in Indiana before creating The Savvy Sauce while living in central Illinois. She and Mark have moved 9 times in marriage and now Laura is excited to combine her love of people, curiosity, and learning through questions to start her dream job as host of The Savvy Sauce. Natalie Baker loves the Lord and is a wife, mom, nurse, and sound engineer for The Savvy Sauce podcast. She grew up in a small town in the Midwest where she and her husband returned to raise their 3 children. She has a Bachelor’s degree in the Science of Nursing and is a Certified Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurse with a background in Wound Care and Hyperbaric Oxygen Medicine. These days, Natalie can most likely be found at home with her sweet and active 3-year old son, experimenting in the kitchen for her husband, or coordinating her 7- and 9-year old daughters’ Irish dance, swim, gymnastics, drama, rock climbing, and soccer schedules. She is a lover of Jesus, coffee, and travel. She is happiest when road-tripping with her husband and kids. Lauren Sauder has been married to her husband, Steven, for 10 years and keeps busy with 3 little kids-a son and two daughters. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a double major in Education and Spanish and attended graduate school at Moody Bible Institute for Spiritual Formation. She and her husband were missionaries in Thailand for 6 years where they started a real estate company and a food truck. They have since moved back to Central Illinois and Lauren likes to call herself an "accidental farmer's wife". Being from a big city, small-town farm life has been an adjustment, but she loves the community and slower pace of life. When she's not having dance parties with her kids, you can find Lauren in the kitchen cooking or running the social media outlets for The Savvy Sauce. Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast! Our Favorite Things… Life: Beautiful Magazine Fair & Simple Linen Origami Pouches Liv Thai Bracelet Samples of encouraging Scripture God revealed as we pursued launching The Savvy Sauce: Luke 7:47 (NIV) “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven-for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Luke 1:45 (NIV) “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” Matthew 6:33 (KJV) “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Proverbs 4:5 (AMP) “Get [skillful and godly] wisdom! Acquire understanding [actively seek spiritual discernment, mature comprehension, and logical interpretation]! Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth.” James 1:22 (NIV) “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Mark 12:29-31 (NIV) “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mission: We exist to invite you to a space to meet with Jesus and be filled to overflowing Our prayer for The Savvy Sauce: Dear God, we ask that The Savvy Sauce will be a loving, safe, warm, welcoming, inclusive, encouraging, generous and fun environment, where we do hear Your Word and we understand how to apply it personally! We ask you, God, to use Your Holy Spirit to specifically and uniquely speak to everyone who listens. In Jesus Name, we pray, Amen! Laura's Values: Reminders for her to personally to stay on track…feel free to hold her accountable: 1. Be inspired. 2. Share! 3. Sow generously 4. Don’t compare! We believe all Truth is God’s Truth. We don’t feel the responsibility to agree with 100% of each guest’s beliefs, but we do believe our guests have been given some piece of God-given wisdom and we want to do our part to share it with you! Some guests you may agree with more than others, but we encourage you to help us make this a safe, inviting, welcoming space where we can have these candid conversations and hopefully learn something new to apply to our life to make each day a little bit better and brighter! That’s the heart behind this podcast 😃 Thanks for joining us! Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“ Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“ Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” **Transcription** [00:00:00] <music> Laura Dugger: Welcome to the Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. [00:00:17] <music> Laura Dugger: Hey friends! We're so glad that you're here, and we wanted to let our first episode be an introduction to our team, where we can also share the backstory behind The Savvy Sauce. If you prefer not to listen to all these background details, simply click over to Episode 1, where we have a fantastic guest waiting for you. If you do choose to stick around, we're going to hear from our current team, our editor and my sister, Natalie Baker, our social media lead, Lauren Sauter, and me, your host, Laura Dugger. We'll then briefly share how The Savvy Sauce came to be, and near the end of this episode, we're going to let you know how to participate in our first Rafflecopter giveaway. Okay, so let's get started. Natalie, can you tell us more about yourself? Natalie Baker: You bet. So, sis, you and I were raised in a Bible-believing, church-going family. We were surrounded by a wonderful community of believers. [00:01:19] When I graduated high school, I decided I wanted to become a nurse, and I chose a state university with a four-year nursing program. I had heard from a bunch of family and friends that the program was really difficult once you got into your junior year. And I guess I kind of took that as a challenge to have as much fun the first two years as I could. So I started attending parties on a weekly basis. I really was just looking for ways to have the most fun. But there was this large group of students from our hometown and from our church, and they would get together every week for Bible study. And I noticed they had a support group, they seemed to be having a great time, a lot more so than I seemed to be having at the parties I was going to, and they had a purpose to what they were doing. The more I sort of evaluated the Christian life, the more I decided I was crazy not to want it, but I still had no idea what it meant to live as a Christian. I gave my life to Christ one night after talking and praying with our brother and some friends. [00:02:21] And I will never forget the feeling of peace that washed over me as I was beginning to just understand what it meant to live for Him. Growing up, we had memorized scripture, we had read the Bible, we had gone to Sunday school, and I felt like I had a pretty good knowledge of what was in the Bible, but I had never experienced the joy and intimacy of really knowing the God of the Bible. And I was so humbled at how much He cares for us, each individually. Not long after becoming a Christian, I formed a small, close group of friends, including my amazing husband, Luke. And I wouldn't say it was necessarily love at first sight, because we are two strong personalities who often disagreed, but I had so much respect for him. He's extremely intellectual, and I enjoyed being challenged when I was around him. By the time I graduated the nursing program, God was working in each of our hearts to bring us together, and we will celebrate our 15-year anniversary this December. We have three sweet children, two daughters and one son, ages 9, 7, and 3, who keep us busy with all sorts of fun activities, and never cease to amaze us with their curiosity and endless energy. [00:03:26] We love to travel every chance we can get, and we're trying to preserve that sense of wonder that our kids have about the world around them. My greatest joy and challenge is to be a good wife and mom to the wonderful family God has entrusted to me. Laura Dugger: We couldn't be more thrilled to have you here, so thank you for sharing your story. Lauren, you're up. Will you share a snapshot of your story? Lauren Sauter: Okay, so I grew up in a Christian home as well. When I was in third grade, my mom had a near-death experience. We were at my brother's Little League baseball game, and she had a cardiac arrest. She was clinically pronounced dead for more than 10 minutes. It was a very traumatic experience as a nine-year-old, but by a complete miracle, she survived and ended up making a full recovery. As I look back, I can realize and see that it marked my life as a 9-year-old and kind of put me on a path of believing in Jesus. I remember her coming home from the hospital, sitting me down, and telling me that she had gone to heaven. [00:04:27] She explained in full detail, telling me how beautiful it was, how at peace she was. She talked about this warm, embracing light she felt, the people she saw, and how she didn't want to leave. That was something that was striking to me as a little girl, very attached to her mom. The fact that, you know, my mom had three young kids, a 9, 11, and 13-year-old, and how she had gone to heaven and didn't want to leave. So that kind of really struck me. She had told me that she had this conversation with her grandma while she was there, and her grandma had told her that she had to go back, and my mom said that she didn't want to. She wanted to stay in heaven forever. But her grandma had said, "You can come back, but now's not your time. Go take care of your husband and your kids." And so that was when she woke up in the hospital. So from a pretty young age, I felt like I understood, as much as I could, and grasped that heaven was a very real place and that faith in Jesus was the way to heaven. [00:05:30] So that kind of put me on this path of following Jesus. And I would say, though I had ups and downs throughout the course of my teen years, I still had a really strong faith in Jesus. I ended up going to college at the University of Illinois, so fast forward through a lot of years, but somehow, by the time I had graduated college, I had fallen in love with a farmer and wanted to be a missionary. So, if you would have known me growing up, you would know how funny that was. I grew up in a swanky suburb outside of Chicago and honestly didn't even know that farmers still existed. So it was a very different plan than the one I had growing up. But like most things, God's plan is always better. I married my husband, Steven, a couple years after we graduated, and we headed off to Thailand as missionaries. My husband is an entrepreneur at heart, and so we went there to do a thing called Business as Mission, which is just essentially starting a business to help impact the community, your customers, and your employees. [00:06:39] We thought it was a great way that we could use our gifts while also allowing just a lot of opportunities for us to bless those in Thailand. And so, yeah, I think it would be impossible to sum up our time in Thailand in a couple of minutes, so I'll just say that it was really hard, but God was faithful even when we weren't. We were in Thailand for six years, and now we have been in central Illinois for about two years. We have three kids, and my husband is farming, and so now I'm learning how to be a farmer's wife. My vision for The Savvy Sauce and social media, if I could sum it up in one sentence, I would say I want to use social media for good. I just want it to be a space that allows people to connect. We want to hear from you guys. We want to hear your stories and see how listeners are applying what they're learning from the podcast into their everyday life. [00:07:39] We also just want it to be a place for pictures of giveaway winners, feel like you're a part of a greater community, share your best practices of what you're learning, and any upcoming Savvy Sauce announcements.…
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