2020 — who could have predicted it? It didn’t catch the Lord by surprise, though, and we are so grateful for His provisions at Mama Bear Apologetics this year. As we were preparing for this wrap-up piece, we re-read our goals for 2020, and wow! What did we want to accomplish in 2020? Check out this list:

develop a study guide for the Mama Bear Apologetics book (out February 2021, preorder here)

increase the number of monthly podcasts

plan another Mama Bear book (to be released in 2021)

prepare new presentations

speak at women’s conferences, and

bring on additional team members.

We hit every single goal and more! We were also able to:

completely rebrand and overhaul our website

increase traffic on social media

expand the content on our YouTube channel (subscribe here!)

sell nearly 35,000 more copies of our first book (we’re up to almost 57,000 total!)

hit 1,000 reviews of our first book on Amazon

form a prayer team dedicated to pray for our Mama Bears and their families

develop new downloadables for our website, including our recent Christmas guide

create two YouTube series with Foundation Worldview (Quality Quarantine and Daily Discipleship [thanks to the generosity of one of our Patreon donors])

raise more financial support this year than any previous year! (Oh my gosh! We can finally get paid!)

When we look at the lists above, we can hardly believe it! God is SO good. Even in the midst of trials, storms, tribulations, and a worldwide pandemic. Yes, we’ve had team members get Covid-19. Yes, we’ve experienced loss and hardship because of the virus. Yes, several of us had to adjust to working at home while our kids were also at home all day. Would we want to re-live 2020? Probably not. But we also see so much good that occurred amidst the not-so-good. In the words of Job, “Shall we accept good from the Lord and not accept adversity? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” 

Messages of Encouragement

We hear from Mama Bears like you every day. One that really stuck with us in 2020 was this beautiful message from one of our Patreon supporters:

[The Mama Bear Apologetics book] empowered me to fearlessly lead these tough discussions with my kids at a time we’re programmed by society to feel like we aren’t equipped to handle that responsibility or that by doing so, we’re somehow destroying their innocence. Your book was the gateway book for me to invest so much time and energy into apologetics and pour myself into other people, and especially my children, with questions. I [used to] treat my faith like my own little secret but Mama Bear Apologetics helped me come out of the Christian closet, if that’s a thing. So now, as a mama bear, I am teaching my kids ownership. Ownership of their words. Ownership of their communities. Responsibility to their neighbors and themselves to be able to ask and answer tough questions. I can’t say thank you enough for your book and podcast.

Letters like this help keep us motivated. We know that God formed this ministry to empower Mamas, and it is so amazing when we get to experience some of the fruit. Thank you for sharing your journeys with us!

Onward to 2021!

You might be asking yourself what we’ve got planned for 2021. First, we encourage everyone to read James 4:13-15. No seriously… it’s just good advice. Secondly, if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we should expect the unexpected. Soooooo…. if it is the Lord’s will, we are excited to return to in-person events and conferences (we miss you! And we’ll be announcing our many upcoming events soon!), continue to create great video content for our YouTube channel, increase our team so that we can keep getting the workload done effectively and efficiently, expand our prayer team, potentially begin a Mama Bear discipleship program (if we can raise the funds!) and begin working on yet another book (eek! — We’re not even done with book 2 yet! But yes, we are already slated for one more after this one with our amazing publisher). It’s all too much! But that’s what we said last year, and here we are. Thankfully, we are not working on this ministry alone. Shoot… it’s not even our ministry. The LORD man, the Lord… And just like Aslan, He is on the move.

If you’d like to join us for our journey into 2021, it’s not too late to make your end-of-year gift to Mama Bear Apologetics. We’ve got a few ways you can donate, so check out our website for more details.

Thanks so much for your love and support, Mama Bears. We’re all in this together!