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266. Choosing Fun and Adventure in Your Marriage and with Your Family: An Interview with Dan & Sam Mathews Isaiah 55:12 MSG “So you’ll go out in joy, you’ll be led into a whole and complete life. The mountains and hills will lead the parade, bursting with song. All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause. No more thistles, but giant sequoias, no more thornbushes, but stately pines— Monuments to me, to God, living and lasting evidence of God.” *Transcription Below* Dan and Sam Mathews have been married since 2014 and currently reside in Missouri with their two kids, Canyon and Ember. Since the moment they got married, Dan and Samantha have been living a life of sacrifice and faith. From backpacking in Arkansas to RV road trips across the US, they have always taken the adventurous route. Sam is a lifestyle vlogger and content creator, and Dan hosts a hunting podcast in addition to his social platforms. Together they share their life of adventure online with millions of followers. Follow them on socials @wearedanandsam. Thank You to Our Sponsor: Sam Leman Eureka Questions and Topics We Cover: What are a few adventures you're so grateful you said yes to in life? Matthew 25:26 MSG says, "That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that!" So drawing your wisdom from the Lord, how does your faith fuel your sense of adventure? How can we begin to enjoy an adventurous life in our marriage and with our family? Other Episodes Mentioned from The Savvy Sauce Podcast: 82 Traveling with Your Family with Katie Mueller 242 Stories Series: He Gives and Takes Away with Joyce Hodel Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook, Instagram or Our Website 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* Music: (0:00 – 0:09) Laura Dugger: (0:11 - 1:47) 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. The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today over 55 years later at Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka. Owned and operated by the Burchie family, Sam Leman's Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at lemangm.com. Dan and Sam Mathews are my guests for today, and you may know them from all the social platforms at WeAreDanAndSam. They live a life of high faith and delightful adventure, and their book, Always Choose Adventure: One Couple's Journey of Chasing the Things in Life That Matter Most, is actually going to release this month. I would highly recommend it. It was an amazing read. I read through it so fast, and it was a great combination of enjoying the stories but learning so much along the way. It's kind of like our chat for today. We're going to cover various stories, but Dan and Sam are also going to give us simple and practical ideas and tips for adding a sense of fun into our marriage and into our family life. Here's our chat. Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Dan and Sam. Dan Mathews: (1:47 - 1:48) Thank you for having us. We're excited. We are really excited. Laura Dugger: (1:49 - 1:59) Well, I'm so excited to journey back and get to hear more of your story, but will you first just give us an overview of what current life looks like right now? Sam Mathews: (2:00 - 2:29) Yes. Currently, I'm 22 weeks pregnant with our third baby. We have two kiddos. Canyon is almost nine. Ember is seven. We live in Southern Missouri. We love adventuring and traveling, and Dan hunts. We share life on every platform, so just lifestyle, vlogging, and sharing our adventures. We recently settled down in a home, and so this is our first time doing DIYs for ourselves. Yeah, it's a fun season right now. Dan Mathews: (2:29 - 2:46) And Sam loves to host, so I think we have 48 parties scheduled this summer and knocked out a couple already, but yeah, we're excited about life, excited about adventure, and sharing that with people and how they can actually get out and adventure more. Laura Dugger: (2:47 - 3:01) You do that so well, but if we're going back then to more of the origin stories, will you both share your journey of growing up and your stories that eventually led for the two of you to overlap with one another? Sam Mathews: (3:01 - 3:37) Yeah, definitely. It's always been me, my mom, and my sister. My mom was a single mom raising us, born in California, but then she moved us to Southern Missouri when I was young, and this was a great place to raise us. In the Bible Belt, we were raised pretty much in church. She did an amazing job as a single mom, just caring for us and pointing us to Christ. We got plugged into a church very early on. We volunteered there. My sister and I worked there. We attended there, and so we're really involved, and that's how I met Dan when he came to Bible College. Dan Mathews: (3:37 - 4:58) Yeah, I grew up in central Wisconsin. We went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, was very, very involved with the kid’s ministry and youth group and just any opportunity I could be around that church community, I was. We had a group called Master's Commission that would come up and do outreach at our church. They were from Florida, and I was like, man, I want to do that one day. These guys are awesome. They're doing human videos, and they're all musical. My dad's brother and his family moved down to Southern Missouri, and I get a call one day right after high school. They were like, “Hey, there's a Master's Commission program down here. If you want to do it, we'll pay for it.” I was like, “Sure, let's do it.” Almost no questions asked, just kind of like, all right, tell me the date I have to be there. Then, I started packing stuff up and quit my job and moved down knowing absolutely nobody. I got plugged into the church. I became very, very involved, and then just built a community, and through that, I went there with Sam's sister, her older sister, and I got to know Sam, and then I ended up working out at the gym that she worked at. Sam Mathews: (4:59 - 5:00) Which was at our church. Dan Mathews: (5:00 - 5:15) Which was at the church, and so we were just around each other all the time, and that kind of developed over years and years and years. Then one day, I was like, wow, this chick is awesome, and now we're here doing podcasting. Laura Dugger: (5:16 - 5:32) Which is incredible. Okay, so just to pause, and you go into more of these stories, love your books, so easy to read, but can you take us back to what you both first thought of one another when you were meeting those days at the gym? Oh, gee. Sam Mathews: (5:33 - 6:22) For sure, Dan is the life of the party, like he is comedy, and just, he has all the jokes, and definitely a charmer with all the ladies, but so fun to be around, and not only his humor draws you in, but I didn't grow up with a father, and so I liked the, I don't know, like strong aspect that he had, just like the confidence, and then his relationship with the Lord was something that I desired to have for myself, you know, a leader in a couple like together, someone to point me towards Christ, but the lightheartedness and jokes and humor keep the hard days fun, but that for me was, you know, I always can count on you for a good joke. Dan Mathews: (6:23 - 6:41) Yeah, I, when I first met Sam, it was kind of in a group setting, and it was with her older sister with my younger brother, and it was like, oh, this is, you know, Justine's sister. Little sister. Didn't really think a whole lot of it, but after a couple years, I think you were probably a sophomore at that time when I first met you. Sam Mathews: (6:41 - 6:42) Yeah. Dan Mathews: (6:42 - 7:36) And, and then after a couple years, it was like she was volunteering in the youth group, and she was on the recreation staff at our camps, and so it's like we were spending more time together, and I'm like, oh, Justine's sister's kind of cute, and yeah, we started, we started just kind of a friendship. We were just around each other all the time. I mean, like before we were dating, we're really interested in each other. It's like I was walking back from the lake, and she'd hop on my back, and I'd just give her a piggyback ride up to the cabins, and then looking back, I'm like, wow, our lives just were really intermingled and overlapped for years and years, but early on, she was younger. She had braces. She was a hip-hop dance instructor, so I mean, she would have like one sweat pant leg rolled up, high-top Nikes on all the time, like thought she was the coolest thing ever. Laura Dugger: (7:36 - 7:52) I was. I didn't think. Oh, that's amazing. I love that, and my husband and I were also friends first, and I feel like that does set you up well in marriage. Like you've got your built-in buddy. Sam Mathews: (7:53 - 8:30) Exactly. I was going through pictures yesterday, because I was going to post a trend online, and it was like, oh, how cute. How many months have you been married? And it's like months? You put a picture for every year, and it's like we've known each other since like 2008, maybe 2009. Then, like started our like dating in 2010. I look at pictures of us from 2010 as a couple. I'm like, oh, my gosh, we've grown so much just like, you know, like physically, but even just relationally and spiritually, and like it's crazy looking back, and so thankful for so many years of friendship with him, but you know, relationship-wise, it's been great. Dan Mathews: (8:30 - 8:52) Well, and I feel like doing life together is a great model before ever like the romantic side comes in. You get to know the person in group settings. You get to know who they are without the interest, because people can put on a different face once you're trying to impress somebody, you know, but we were just being our genuine selves around each other for a long time. Sam Mathews: (8:52 - 8:59) Probably saw some stupid moments, some hard moments, but that's, yeah, that's what you want to see before you get into a relationship with someone. Laura Dugger: (9:00 - 9:12) Absolutely. Yeah. And as we're starting back that far, then when you reflect back, what are some of the adventures that you're most grateful you've said yes to in life? Sam Mathews: (9:13 - 10:38) Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I feel like dating, we weren't even dating at this point, the canoe trip when you did a master's commission, and that was so fun. It was like all of his friends, my sister, all the master's commission group went kayaking, and I decided to tag along as a sibling, and his brother did, and maybe a couple others. And that was fun, but it also gave me an opening into how Dan adventures, because his way of adventuring is way different than mine. I grew up, like I said, with a mom. We would camp at a cabin, and you'd pack the car full of everything you need. Dan would literally just put everything in a backpack and hike in two miles to go camping. And so being in that group, going kayaking, it was so fun, and it sparked this new love for adventure and new desire to learn a new way of adventuring. That was so fun. I mean, that was before we were married, but this is kind of jumping far ahead, but when we were married, we moved to Colorado for a couple of years, and although it was a hard season for us, we learned so much. We gained so much from it. A lot was birthed in us in that season. I mean, physically, I welcomed my daughter. We welcomed our second child in Colorado, but spiritually, I think God planted a lot of seeds that it may not have been a tangible adventure of being out in the woods, but spiritually, we were in the woods, and we grew so much, and I'm glad we said yes to it because it opened the door and led to so many other things. Dan Mathews: (10:38 - 12:31) Yeah, I feel like a lot of our adventures, some are traditional. I mean, a big adventure for me was leaving home. I mean, I moved straight out of my parents' house to a different state, and that was totally crazy for me. But then watching Sam, I mean, she moved out to California for a summer, went to a ministry out there. Then I saw her go to Colorado and Nanny for a couple, all summer long, and so I was like watching this, and we were talking, and I realized, like, we're both all in on an adventurous life, and even when we don't have the answers, it's like, is the Lord telling you not to do it? No? Okay, well, then we'll see what happens, and I thought that was really cool to watch her just like, oh, I'm going to…
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