Raising a healthy family today can be a challenge, especially with negative influences in today’s culture. Nurturing children makes a big difference and one Florida couple is spreading the word about the importance of doing so God’s way.
They saw the blessing in their own family and as a result have started a new faith-based parenting program called “Nurture Generation.”
After 33 years of marriage, Michael Puder still remembers the day he met his wife, Kandi, for the first time at a church Bible study.
“She just stood out. She walked in, wearing a royal blue coat, and a well-worn Bible in her hand. And I went, she’s beautiful,” Michael said.
As they began their life together, the Puders wanted to know how to make love last, and how to honor God with it.
“One of the things we started looking at was, ‘what does God want us to look like as a family?'” Michael said.
“And ‘how does He nurture us?'” Kandi added.
“How does He train us from being an infant Christian and bring us all the way through childhood growth to maturity? So, we started modeling and laying out a vision for our kids,” Michael said.
After having five children in six years, Michael and Kandi say they couldn’t find in the Bible what they needed for sleepless nights, temper tantrums, and the overall stress that accompanies family life.
“When we were having issues with our children – you can only discipline so much before pulling out your hair. You get with them and ask God, ‘what’s going on here?'” Kandi said.
They found their answers by calling His name.
“We started crying out to the Lord and God started showing us what we needed to do to organize our house and to train our children. One of the things God showed us from the get-go, was that he was a God of order. God is a God of order, and he is very calculated,” Kandi said.
Through diligent prayer, Kandi says the Lord gave them a 30-year vision for each of their five children. A vision that nurtured them using Biblical principles. She says it blossomed from simply writing down their desire for the childrens’ temperaments.
“Children are a gift to us from God,” Kandi said. “And what we do with them is our gift back to Him. And we wanted to give God a really good gift. We wanted to give him children that were healthy, educated, that could worship Him – that knew the Word – that would obey Him.”
Over the years, they experienced God’s blessing in their family by nurturing with Biblical discipline. And with addition of a grandchild, saw how that blessing can become generational.
Today, the couple is teaching others how to raise future generations for God.
“Nurture Generation is a vision to see a man and woman come together and be made whole, then to raise healthy, godly families,” Michael said.
Nurture Generation shares training and education for parents on how to approach everyday issues from a faith-based perspective. The program started in August and they hope it will become a resource for the church.
“We’ve done more parenting for our kids in their twenties than I think we did all along – because they have lots of questions walking through life and they want someone to talk to – someone to mentor them through the hard things of life,” Kandi said.
Their content provides lessons on inner healing, deliverance, and training on basic Biblical principles.
“It does no good to try and fix a child when the parents are still broken,” Kandi said.
As thhe Puders expand, they plan a podcast, and plan to host church conferences with hands-on training.
“The Word of God says that children are a blessing from the Lord. Yet we treat them like they’re a curse – we want to change that in the family and in our country,” Kandi said.
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN