Katie van Straten, founder of Tending Lambs and co-host of the Tending Lambs podcast, is a stay at home mom, currently living in the Netherlands, with her husband and 1 year old son, Calvin. She worked as a nanny for many years, and as Montessori toddler-teacher, before making the decision to stay home.
She loves Jesus, and her family, and enjoys cooking, gardening, and singing. Working to align her own parenting with the biblical model of loving our neighbors, and helping others do the same, are the main reasons she wanted to create Tending Lambs. As someone once said, you learn best through teaching!
She hopes you are encouraged and strengthened by what you find at Tending Lambs!
Abby Alam, Tending Lambs team member, blog contributor, and co-host of the Tending Lambs podcast is a stay at home mom to Evelyn and Jude and wife to Abe. Currently residing in sunny Florida, Abby loves to take advantage of year-round dress weather and December park days. Abby is an avid reader, coffee consumer, and amateur house-fixer-upper.
While investigating her own views on parenting, she became passionate about gentle parenting from a Christian worldview and never looked back.
She hopes that Tending Lambs is a place that you will be challenged and encouraged where ever you are on your parenting journey!
Sam Matherly, Tending Lambs podcast co-host and content contributor, is a wife to Aaron and an unschooling/ gameschooling mom of four (Weston, Poet, Isla, and baby Wilder). She lives with her family on a little plot of land in central Virginia where she and the kids enjoy roaming and learning to identify edibles when they aren’t playing board games, doing crafts, or cooking up fun recipes in the kitchen.
Sam and Aaron began their parenting journey punitively but, by God’s grace, were forced to revisit and study scripture and to reconsider their parenting philosophy when it became clear authoritarian parenting was leading to power struggles and stress rather than a peaceful home and strong relationships. Gentle parenting has opened the door to more fully modeling the Gospel to their children while also being able to enjoy witnessing their unique personalities bloom.