Lora Andrews: Hopeful Neighboring

What do you get when you combine a beautiful story, an off-script podcast, and a surprise phone call to your friend? This episode! When hosts Adam and Matt sat down to record what Adam had dubbed "The Super Fun Happy Hour" episode, they had no idea that this would happen next.…Buckle up, and tune in to this hilarious crazy beautiful episode!

Alright, that was the spoiler-free introduction to today's podcast. If you would like to be a bit more surprised with what happens in this episode, we would suggest you stop you reading now....

Okay, spoiler time! What ends up happening in this episode is that Adam and Matt quite spontaneously interview one of our dear friends, Lora Andrews. Among so much more, Lora is an extremely joyful, justice-oriented person and a committed neighbor. She works as the senior pastor of a church in the Kansas City suburbs, and the powerful story that she shares today revolves around some of the action her congregation is taking in order to address racism. The story is just beautiful, like insanely beautiful, and it also speaks to how neighboring can play a part in the work of anti-racism. It's the most hopeful story we could have imagined for The Super Fun Happy Hour!

As has been the case with some of our other episodes, this episode contains discussion of spiritual and religious topics. Because Lora's church is a Christian church, Christian spirituality is referenced in this conversation. As always, we want to reiterate that we do not present these episodes to promote any one spirituality or religion, Christianity included, but instead because we think they are helpful and encouraging for all neighbors, regardless of their relationships to spirituality or religion.

As a final note, there is one swear word a couple of minutes into the episode, and it may or may not be said by one of our hosts....Like our last episode, if that is not something you are interested in hearing, please feel free to turn off the episode and do something else!

As always, thank you for listening, and happy neighboring!

Anna Almendrala: This Is Our House, As Well

Greetings, friends! We are so very excited to present today's episode, in which hosts Adam and Matt sit down with Anna Almendrala, a health care journalist who recently wrote a powerful opinion article that was published in The Los Angeles Times and centered around a story of neighboring.

We are so honored to be joined by Anna on the virtual front porch! She is an incredibly compassionate person with a heart for justice, a way with words, and a fantastic sense of humor. Anna covers health care policy for California Healthline, a health news site independently published by Kaiser Health News. She previously worked at HuffPost for nine years, where she reported on health and lifestyle news and was the creator and host of a podcast about infertility called "IVFML." Yes, Anna is a podcaster herself (a much better one, too, we might add)! The podcast was a Webby finalist in 2019 and a Webby honoree in 2018. It also won a 2019 Excellence in Podcasts award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Check it out! In addition to HuffPost, her work has appeared in publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, NPR, USA Today and on NBC and Univision. She is so very talented!

Anna and Adam are longtime friends, so the episode begins by the two talking about how they know one another and sharing stories. Then, Anna takes it from there and tells the powerful story that she wrote about in her opinion article. If you would like to read the article before hearing her tell the story in this episode, you can do so here. The first part of the story details an experience Anna had in her neighborhood that is extremely disturbing and speaks to the racism present in America and around the globe. It is an experience that Anna had, and others are having, that we cannot ignore. Then, the second half of the story details Anna's bold and compassionate response to the experience. Listeners, Anna participates in neighboring of the most difficult kind. We have so much to learn from her. We mean it when we say it, you are not going to want to miss this episode!

As we note at the beginning of the episode, this particular episode contains more swear words than our episodes normally do. We are very open to this language on our podcast because we know some people use swear words in order to express themselves, process experiences, and tell stories, and we want those people to feel welcome doing so during their episodes. It also feels important to note that Anna would not be able to tell her story accurately without the use of swear words. If you would rather not hear these words, that is, of course, totally fine! Please feel free to skip this episode.

All of this being said, we are so very excited to present this episode to you all! You will definitely want to read more of Anna's work when you are done, and you can do so by visiting her author page here. You can also get in touch with her via Twitter @annaalmendrala. Thank you, as always, for listening!

Krissy Matthaei with Ashley Barlow-Thompson: Setting Boundaries with Neighbor Kids

Welcome back to The Neighbor Next Door! Today, host Adam is honored to sit down on the virtual front porch with Krissy Matthaei and Ashley Barlow-Thompson in order to talk about setting boundaries with neighbor kids.

It is an honor to welcome Krissy Matthaei to the virtual front porch! Krissy is a supermom and a gifted educator. With two kids of her own and twenty years of teaching experience in the Wichita area, Krissy possesses an incredible amount of knowledge around fostering relationships with young people. Krissy is also joined by Adam's wife, Ashley Barlow-Thompson, and it is always a joy to have Ashley on the front porch! Together, the two friends and moms tag team in sharing stories and tips around what setting boundaries with neighbor kids looks like.

Recently, a new family with kids moved in a couple houses down from the Barlow-Thompsons. While this was super exciting, and Prescott, Ashley and Adam's son, was super pumped to have neighbor kids to play with, it was also a bit nerve-wracking for Ashley and Adam as they started thinking about the boundaries they would have to set. So, they called up their friend Krissy for advice! This conversation details the story and the advice that Krissy gave them and would give other families.