DAVE RAMSEY, HOST: Welcome to “The Dave Ramsey Show”, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.
Tis the season. Merry Christmas. It’s this season of giving. So tonight, what we’re going to do is we’re going to hear creative ways that you have come up with to open your hearts, open your wallets, open your lives, and give to someone else. Around here we always say live like no one else, so that later you have the ability to live like no one else. Part of that formula is to live like no one else so that later you can give like no one else. And that’s what this show’s about tonight.
So call me with your giving stories. This is an amazingly giving country. I mean, we give an amazing amount of money, time, effort, talents away, not only in our own communities, but around the world. And I’m convinced that that heart of charity is one of the things that makes America great.
So we want to hear from you this Christmas season. How you doing some cool, different, creative ways of giving? And that’ll inspire other people to do the same. You know, it will. It always catches on.
So we need your phone calls. Our number is 1-888-825-5225. Or of course, you can go online at daveramsey.com. And click on Dave’s email. Please keep those brief and to the point and we’ll do our best to answer them as a part of the show here this evening.
All right, let’s go to Rob in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hey, Rob Merry Christmas to you.
CALLER: Merry Christmas to you, Dave.
RAMSEY: So tell me your giving story?
CALLER: All right. Well, we had an opportunity to read your book Financial Peace and quickly followed that up with Financial Peace University that set us on a track to getting our family debt-free. I would say we’re not all the way there yet, but we’re close.
And part of being in that position enabled us to respond to a need that we heard last fall we had a couple come back to our area that has been serving as missionaries in southern Mexico at a children’s home called Casa Garbenita Juarez (ph) in Mohaca (ph), Mexico. (Casa Hogar Benito Juarez in Oaxaca, Mexico) And they needed to come back to our area for the summer of 2009. And that would leave a real void in the children’s home down there, the ministry down there. And after we heard about the need, we thought we can do this. As a family, we can plan, we can budget, and do the fundraising we need to do, and take their place for the summer.
RAMSEY: Whoa. Very cool. So how long were you there?
CALLER: We left when school let out the first week in June. And we were down there until two weeks before school started this fall at the end of August.
RAMSEY: Wow, so kind of a short-term mission trip, but a fairly long one.
CALLER: Yes. It was pretty much a full three months when you factor in the travel time.
RAMSEY: Yeah, pretty amazing. Whoa. So I mean, what did that do with your kids?
CALLER: Our kids were our biggest question mark as we were getting into this. We didn’t know how they would respond to living in a foreign country where they don’t speak the language or any of that.
RAMSEY: How old are they?
CALLER: At the time, they were 11, 9, 8 and 3.
RAMSEY: Oh, my goodness, four of them? Okay.
CALLER: Four kids. And we were very relieved to see that when got down there, they adjusted in about 15 minutes.
(LAUGHTER)
They were immediately just one of the kids, running, and playing, and having a great time with all the children that live there.
RAMSEY: Came home speaking Spanish fluently probably.
CALLER: You know, they picked up the language every day. They learned a little more. Even the three year-old.
RAMSEY: I would imagine. I would imagine. Pretty impressive. So you know, where does this leave your family now? You guys come home and I guess changed forever?
CALLER: Absolutely. We feel like it’s something that God has given us to do is to serve as missionary temps, so to speak. And we are open to future opportunities to do the same kind of thing maybe in other areas. So.
RAMSEY: Very good.
CALLER: Absolutely life changing to be able to give that way.
RAMSEY: And the only way you did it, of course, is to have your finances under control so that you could afford to take a whole summer off.
CALLER: Absolutely. We — not only seeing the debt eliminated, we were able to use the budgeting skills and set a budget for the entire summer, including the month after our return to make sure everything was in order to do it almost seamlessly.
RAMSEY: Wow. Very cool. I love it, Rob. Very good. Great giving story. Phenomenal stuff. Nice, nice, nice. And what a great experience for your kids. I mean, life changing. Very fun.
You know, the weird thing about giving is it does that. The paradox is you feel like when you give something that you somehow that’s gone, of course, it is physically mechanically gone, the item, whether it’s you give away money or you give way something else, you’re then short by that. But there’s a reality that is there and it’s not just Pollyanna. And it’s not just a spiritual statement or anything. But it is all of those, I guess. But there’s a reality that says that you do get more than you ever give.
And so, in a situation like that where they went to serve, they went to help out, they come back having been blessed as much or more than they were blessing. That’s how that kind of stuff works.
So that’s what we’re talking about tonight is giving.
Please pray that the right buyer will come along for this great house! 403 Donita Ave. has served us very well and we will remember many great times here over the past 10+ years. 
