There are five Olson children.

So when dad told us that he was going to take on this Both Hands thing full-time, there were five different immediate reactions. Grace smiled and kept playing with her food. I’m pretty sure she understood that, as the only Chinese member of our family, she’s a big part of Both Hands.

Nick was angry. He didn’t get why dad would walk away from a “normal” job when we didn’t have a Playstation 3. He looked at the situation as the kiss of death for all those…things that we didn’t have yet. And in his defense, he was kind of correct. We still don’t have a PS3.

Daley was excited, if a little reserved. She was proud of my dad for his willingness to just go for it like that. I think she saw that it was dangerous, that from a worldly perspective, the job change made very little sense, but what’s neat is that she recognized this as faith in action. I know that parents set examples for their kids in everything they do, but we kids don’t always see the lesson we are learning right away. I know it had to be good for my dad to hear that she understood the fact that a job as a source of income wasn’t point of it all.

Max broke out into tears. He was terrified, because in his mind, the move to a nonprofit meant that we would have to move out of our house and into a cardboard box. Poor guy was trying to take all of the stress of a father of five on his then 12-year-old shoulders.

I don’t think it’s completely fair to put my reaction in the same boat as those of the rest of my siblings, because really, I stood the least risk. I’d already moved out to Baylor University, and my bedroom had been commandeered, so the possibility of my parents moving wasn’t as jarring for me as it was for my siblings. But when my dad told me that he was going to devote his time and energy to widows and orphans, it was like the world snapped back into place. For years I had been struggling with and wrestling with the whole idea of careers and money and the purpose of it all. I had been asking questions like “what’s the point of getting a job?” and “how can I eat these $7 chicken fingers when there are kids in Africa whose stomachs are eating themselves from the inside out.” I was trying to reconcile American luxury with the life of service that I felt called to, and I couldn’t seem to make the pieces fit.

I had no idea that I was really just dying for an example.

And since that summer, it’s been incredible, because God has provided for us. See, we still have our house. My siblings still get plenty to eat, and while we may not have a PS3, we haven’t had to have a garage sale to pay our electricity bills.

I also feel like it’s important to say that while Max was terrified at first, he’s come around. In fact, if you watch some of the videos of the Both Hands projects, He’s the Olson child you’re most likely to see. It’s cool how God has used Both Hands to do more than help widows and orphans. It has grown my family in more ways than one.