December 2, 2025 • 39 mins
Dr. Gabrielle Clowdus is the founder of Settled, which helps churches build "Sacred Settlements", tiny home villages on their property where people experiencing homelessness and church members live in community. When she started this work of radical hospitality, she believed it was a homelessness ministry. Today, she believes that it's a ministry to all of us, as we all have some homelessness in us!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Four homes are filled with people coming out of chronic homelessness.
On average, they were on the streets for ten years.
If this church hadn't stepped in and invited them home,
they would have died on the streets. They are the
most expensive to the public because they cycle in and
out of the emergency rooms and detoc centers and jails,
because we make homelessness illegal, most expensive to the public,
(00:27):
with the least amount of options available. This is the
group of people that we look away from. We step over,
we see them holding a sign saying anything, anything, anything,
and we make all of our quick judgments.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm a football coach and Inner
City Memphis, And that last part it somehow led to
an oscar for the film about one of our teams
films called Undefeated Guys. I believe our country's problems are
(01:05):
never going to be solved by a bunch of fancy
people and nice suits using big words that nobody ever
really uses on Sannon and Fox, but rather by an
army of normal folks. That's us, just you and me
deciding hey, maybe I can help. That's what Gabrielle Cloudius,
(01:25):
the voice you just heard, has done. Gabrielle is the
founder of Settled, which partners with churches to build tiny
home villages on church land for both people experiencing homelessness
and church members to live in community together. And while
it started as a homelessness ministry, she's discovered that really
(01:49):
it's a ministry for all of us, as we all
have some homelessness in us, a desire for human connection
that's greater than what we have today. A really cannot
wait for you to meet Gabrielle right after these brief
messages from our general sponsors. Gabriella cloud Ust No, Gabrielle,
(02:19):
what I say?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
He said, Gabriella, like, which, in.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
A second, can we just call you Gabby?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, it's the a go to make this difficult. I
was so I was so focused on not saying Gabriella
and making the first a hard for gabriel L. I
put an a where the E is and now my
vowels almost.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
It's happy cheese God, gay bri L gay gay hel God,
happy God.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You know that's interesting because if I drew a horse, okay,
all right, and then I grew the ocean. Yeah, and
I grew a and drew a bird speaking what is
that course? See bird speaking meyorcy boku. Yes, so I
(03:19):
do phonetic imagery for things all the time. So, gabriel Oh,
how hard is that?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
The only person that's ever helped?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I got it? Okay, Gabrielle uh Childice. Welcome to Memphis.
Thanks from you. Fill out of Minneapolis. I guess dry
flight straight to Memphis like delta, so nice. It takes
(03:50):
two hours. Yeah, so you flew in today? Are you
flying out to nider.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Staying flying out tonight?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
You're not even gonna enjoy city girls.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I need to get home. Yeah, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Whoever another taking care of the four little girls can
give you one day off?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I love them?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, well I loved mine too, but I sure needed
a day off of them. I need a day off
of them all the time. I don't know how Lisa
did it. Ours were one, two, three, and four.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Okay, that's crazy, that's crazy. We staggered. I mean we've
got three years apart.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
That's pretty sure. Yeah, okay, so welcome to Memphis. And everybody.
Gabriel L. Cloudis is the founder of Settled in Saint Paul, Minnesota,
which is a really kind of groovy, interesting deal that
you're doing. And I love the word settled. I mean,
(04:47):
it makes so much sense. What a great title. And
obviously I'm gonna cliffhang it a little bit. We'll get
to that, okay, obviously, because that's why you're here. But
let's go back to the beginning and my information you
picks up about when you were twelve and when on
a mission trip, and I just kind of want to
(05:08):
hear about that experience and how that kind of formed
and evolved who you are and why you went this way.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Sure, okay, I'm twelve years old. My parents just get
a divorce. It's in the nineties. It was the thing
to do. And I get invited.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Where were you living?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I lived in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Get invited on a mission trip with my best friend's family.
We're going to Guatemala this summer. Do you want to come?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
What else do I have going on?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
That's cool, stay at home when my parents are fighting
over me? No?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Thanks?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
All right, Let's go on a mission trip to Guatemala.
Get to Guatemala within days, see real poverty for the
first time. Visit the city landfill where there was a group,
a community of three thousand people living in the landfill.
They were literally carving their homes out of trash.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
What do you mean, like making igloos out of trash heaps,
like compacted trash heaps and carving shelter.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yes, really, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I mean I've seen some of the pictures, and I've
heard of the children, the unparented children, and parts of
the world hanging around traffic. I think I've read about
in India, but hanging around or maybe South Africa, I
can't remember, but that.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Peter Muda, Basi and Uganda. Yeah, but I've never heard
of Yeah, your experience, I've never heard of in the
world before.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Neither. But I've heard of kids living around just basically
for this. But you're saying a whole community of three thousand,
we're talking on a small town in Guatemala. Yeah, and
they're making igloo hugs out of compacted trash heaps. How
do they eat, how do they clothe, how do they bathe?
How do they do anything? How do they educate?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I don't know about that education, but clothing and food
is being picked out of the trash. I mean that
is their entire world.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
So they're literally human waste, don't they're literally humans in waste?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I don't think there is such thing as human waste,
So don't hang on what I said there. But what
I am said, I see your face, But what I'm
saying is literally they're humans in waste.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah. So as a young white girl from America seeing that,
I couldn't unsee it. It was like, Okay, now that
I have seen this, what do I do with it?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
How long were you there?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Two weeks doesn't take long.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
What were you doing with the three thousand people in
the human waiste?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Huse? We just came to share the love of God?
And you know, how do.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You share the love? Let me ask seriously, how does
someone that's living in it to have reaked stench? Wise?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
All right, so these people had to wreak themselves because
that's what they lived in, and I can't imagine there's
a lot of running water or bathing going on. Okay,
So how when you're living in a trash igloo searching
other people's literally waste for your means? Why does anybody,
(08:26):
they even want to hear about God. I would think
they'd be wanted to hear about just how they're going
to get their next meal. You understand what I'm saying.
I mean, how could that be on their hierarchy of needs?
I mean, a twelve year old kid coming to say
God loves you even though you live in a waste
how does that even work? I really, when I read that,
I was like, how does that even? How does that work?
(08:47):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, I don't know. I mean the most impactful experiences
in life are ones where it changes everyone involved, right,
And so when we we we drove a bus to
the landfill, we showed up. The stench is uh revolting,
It's it's beyond what you can imagine. I didn't even
(09:10):
want to get out of the bus. And and then
I heard the laughter of kids outside the bus and
was just sort of drawn out of it. And the
kids were happy and laughing, and they just wanted you know,
there were foreigners there that probably were bringing treats, and
they wanted to play. And so we came with our
treats and they embraced us as as friends instantly, and
(09:36):
and we were just playing and somehow God's love was
present and it transformed us and you know, certainly brought
joy to them. It didn't change their circumstance. They were
still in extreme poverty. But it did, you know, it did.
It did touch us. It did transform my life to say,
(10:02):
now that I've seen this, my life will look different.
I will spend my life thinking about what I have
seen and caring for people that are living in extreme poverty.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
And then you did it again, but not to go
out them all right.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, So the next year I went to Russia. I
was thirteen. I saw girls my same age being drugged
and prostituted, and it was so shocking. It was just so.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Shocking when you didn't think the trash heap could get worse,
Let us show you this, I mean honestly, Yeah, yeah,
how heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, it's really heartbreaking. You know. I didn't go back
the third year. It took me a lot of years
to process what I had seen in Russia.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I'm actually surprised that a mission took someone your age
to see that. That is that's I mean, that's traumatic.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
It's also the moment, you know, I mean, it's the
coming of age. It's the time when you're defining and
deciding who you are as a human right, like what
am I going to do? Why am I here? What's
my purpose? What's my plan? And so it's such a
defining moment in a human life at twelve or thirteen
years and it was so significant.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Did you have any perspective on who was drugging these
children and putting in the prostitution? I mean, how did
that even happen? Is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, I'm not sure. That wasn't really explained to us.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So would you just talking to girls who'd been rescued
from that we're trying to No.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
No, we were watching it happening.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Oh my gosh, yeah, oh my gosh. That I don't
guess that's an impression that could ever be a race
for you can't unsee that.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
No, you can't un see that. And not only can
you not unsee it, but there's there's some responsibility that
comes with it, you know. I think often we talk
about human rights, and it's also like and what is
our human duty? Like what is our duty to one another?
If I have seen something, if I have been exposed,
if I know now now what? And that seems to
(12:22):
be true for just about anything. Once I learned about
slavery and chocolate, or slavery and in coffee, it's like, okay, well,
now I'm not gonna support that anymore. If you know,
if I know about oceans being polluted, okay, now I'm
going to make different decisions. Or I know about Chinese factories, Okay,
(12:44):
I'm going to I'm gonna buy my things differently. It's
every time we're exposed to a truth, we we get
the choice to make a new decision and to be
part of upholding what is good and what is right
and what is lovely in the world. And you know,
it's every time our eyes are open to something, it's
such a gift and then we have the opportunity to
(13:07):
make new decisions.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And now a few messages from our generous sponsors, But first,
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(13:36):
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Speaker 4 (13:57):
Okay, so you're thirteen, You've experienced a lot, you're starting
to form the beautiful things that you just said, which
are phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And as I was listening to you, I was thinking,
I don't know how, with the over abundance of news
channels we have, and the over abundance of social media
that we just flood our brains with, how any American
could not be aware of some of the things that
you say. But how very few change their lifestyle or
(14:28):
their purchasing habits or anything as a result of it.
I don't know if that's apathy or a lack of concern,
or just choose not to think of it. But it's
interesting what you just said about slavery and chocolate, slavery
(14:50):
and coffee, children working in Chinese factories, ugurs being re
educated and forced to work in Chinese factories that are
now exporting products that we buy every day in the US. Yeah,
(15:10):
I mean, I'm guilty of it. I don't think about
it every time I make a purchase or any of that.
So I just think it's interesting that you have this
constructed as a teenager as a result of these mission experiences.
So what happens after that? I mean, you're a kid.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I'm a kid. It takes a long time to process
what I've seen.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Are you talking to friends about it? Or are you
internalizing it?
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Probably internalizing it? Yeah, you know, so I'm still also
going through my own.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
You're also a kid. You're trying to figure out what's
going on with your body and your brain and who
you are.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Sure. Yeah, and in the meantime, my family is breaking apart. Yeah,
so just internally kind of processing what is this? What
does God think about this? How what is my role
in responding? I go to college for architecture. I'm really
(16:16):
interested in humanitarian architecture. Where go to Texas Tech.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
That's cool, school, hold it, But what's humanitarian architecture? I
don't know what that is.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It's like, Okay, you're building your homes out of trash.
What if we could, you know, come up with designs
with the kind of vernacular materials that you have available
to you that would add more durability, strength, beauty.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's interesting? All right, So you're going to school for architecture.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Going to school for architecture, Start traveling again, specifically in
Central America. Start going around Central America. Go get my
master's in humanitarian architecture. Continue down this path.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
There is such a thing a master's Humanitarian Architecture also
from Texas Tech.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
That is from New School of Architecture. Okay, cool, and
I don't know if the degree is actually humanitarian architecture,
but that was my concentration and that was that was
my real focus and finish my masters, I think, I'm I'm,
you know, start working for a nonprofit. We are converting
(17:31):
shipping containers into preschools and orphanages and clinics and c
South America actually kind of all over the world. Really,
it was a really neat, little nonprofit, scrappy and uh,
you know, I'm I don't know, twenty two years old,
and they put me as like a head of architecture.
Tiny and and you know, way bigger of a role
(17:56):
than I probably should have taken on, but doing cool stuff,
and just felt like, Okay, this is this is the path,
this is what we want to do. Eventually move I
want to move overseas and and continue on in this
We I get married and we have this really cool
opportunity to spend a year renovating a home on a
(18:19):
private beach in Florida.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Okay, so that's pretty nice.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
We say yes to that, and so we moved from
southern California to Florida. We live at this home, renovating
it for a year, and my husband and I we
our lives were so full in southern California, like so
so full full with really good things, amazing things. We
volunteered and we worked at nonprofits, and we taught at
(18:47):
our university, and we part of social clubs and went
to a lot of different churches and we're very very
active in them, like full of really good things, but
we desperately wanted to hear the voice of God for
our lives, like we I'm forgetting who said it. There's
a famous saying that's like I'm I'm just a coin
(19:08):
in the pocket of God, like spend spend me, spend
my life however you wish. And that was our heart.
It was like, you can do whatever you want with
our lives. You can whatever you want. What do you want?
And so we just spent that year we just kind
of committed to like not making friends, not being on
the internet, not watching TV, just you know, not being
(19:29):
involved in church, like just going to church, consuming and
then leaving, not helping and just like a year of
really just lisp whisp like waiting for the whisper of God.
We just feel like God often talks in a whisper
because he's so interested in us coming really close to
his heart, and and so he whispers so that we'll
(19:52):
come closer and closer. And so we just quieted everything
in our lives and we said, we're just a coin
in your pocket. Spend us however you wish. And that
that led to deciding to get a PhD in housing
at the University of Minnesota. I know this sounds ridiculous,
(20:15):
but I didn't even know Minnesota was like a state.
I'm like, where is Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
It's up north, it's real near Canada.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, I mean maybe I knew it was a state,
but like, I wasn't interested in visiting, let alone living there,
and this is where we were going to move. It
was it was one of the only housing PhD programs
in housing in the nation.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
A PhD in housing, Yeah, just briefly, Okay, what is that?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Well, it's not, it's no longer a thing. I was
the last student that they accepted into their program and
the last student that that went through it. So I
suppose as a society, the academic institute has decided that
we don't need to study housing. We figured it out.
But housing affects every single human being on the planet,
(21:13):
and it seems important to give some time and attention to.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
So it was just getting an enormous amount of information
and right dissertations on like US housing data and who
has housing and the cost of how it just all things.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Have all things housing. It was called housing studies, And
now I.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Would think that that would be really interesting to people
in New York.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
The reason is I'm in the lumber business, right and
when I read that, this is one of the reasons
I was so interested is lumber is a really huge
predeterminer of future economic activity. The reason is you don't
just go if you're going to build something, my lumber, hardwood, lumber,
(22:05):
softwood's build a house, hardwoods, furnish it. My lumber goes
to cabinets and flooring and millwork and doors. Well, you
can go. You can go to any building materials out
and pretty much get a housing package in a week
because they are two by fours four by six four rays.
But you have to order cabinets six months in advance.
You have to order doors four or five months in advance.
(22:26):
You have to order flooring months in advance, especially if
it's custom to your application. So when our orders are robust,
you can guarantee in six months the economy is going
to be pretty good, because that's a real indicator that
housing's happening, because people are pre ordering. When my business
and I'm the lumber so it takes me three months
(22:49):
to get lumber to a cabinet guy, it takes them
five months to cabinet, so we're like eight months in
front of the bell curve pretty much all the time.
If my orders stink, there aren't being cabinets and doors
and flooring and millwork being ordered, which means the housing
market in six, seven, eight months is probably going to
be really really soft, which is going to have a
(23:09):
drag on the economy because housing is such a big
thing in our economy.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
How are we doing right now?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Terrible? Shoot, I know, But the point is, I would
think that people in the world of stocks, bonds, economics,
to all these tea leave reader, people would love a
person with a background and understanding housing like you would
(23:38):
and looking at those indicators, and so I get your
world was housing from more of a more practical sense
for those who need housing. But I'm just curious. Was
there any conversation about that and the PhD program and
all that?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Oh? Yeah, I mean it was phenomenal. It was a
really phenomenal degree. And it's you know, everything from the
sociology of it, to the economics of it, to the
to the policies. I mean it was it was cool,
all right, So now I was not. They really shouldn't
have said yes to me. Okay, I don't know why
(24:12):
I was accepted to the program. I have a bachelor's
and masters in architecture.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Well housing.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
The housing program really had nothing to do with design,
it was it was a social science. I'm a designer.
And so we you know, we spent this year meditating,
listening to God's voice, what do you want with our lives? Right?
And so then he moves us to the Midwest to
a PhD in housing and we get there and I
(24:39):
learned really quickly that like, I have no business being
in this degree. I don't have the background for this degree.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We will be right back. What's your husband's name.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
My husband's name is John David.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
John David. Does he go by John David John David.
He should have come grown up in the South. We
do two first names. Oh that's Mary John David John
Paul Great, yeah, Mary Grace. I mean we're full of
two name people. What's he do for a living?
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Stay at home papa.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Stay at home papa? Even then?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, really, So when we moved to Minnesota, you know,
I was I was going I was going to school
research and and you know, working twelve hours a day,
and so you really can't get like a nighttime architecture job.
He's also an architecture So we just really sensed like
(25:50):
we didn't want to be put our We had our
first child, we didn't want to put her in daycare.
We're just like, you know, anyone's gonna be with her
for eight hours a day. We want to be it.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So how old are you at this time?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Ish twenty eight?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Okay, twenty eight MoMA one getting a PhD doing an
architecture John Davidson. I'm taking care of the kid because
you don't want to send him wish. I love that
to whatever. And you've got all this back experience. You're
obviously really bright, and you're going through life. I'm just curious.
(26:28):
I'm a planner. What are you thinking about what's next
at this point? Seriously? I mean, okay, you're coin and
I get it, but there's a human reality to all
of it. Is you got to pay your bills, You
got to think about what's next.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, okay, here's the craziest part. My first date with
my husband. On our very first date, he tells me
that he has one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in
student loans.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yikes. On the second date, what was he studying architecture
where she was?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
We went to a private architecture school.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
He must be really really good looking.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, yeah he is, he is, he really is. My goodness,
he's the best human I know.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
So I was twenty two and one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, didn't I didn't really know what that meant,
and like a lot I was like, well, I mean,
you're gonna be a famous architect. It's gonna be fine.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Oh good, great, John David Lloyd Wright exactly, Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
No problem, this is going to be great. Yeah, you
will fund my humanitarian architecture. You'll be a famous architect.
The loans won't be a big deal. Turns out one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Lot, and you all go to Minnesota to get your doctorate. Okay,
So anyway, so.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
We go, we moved to Minnesota. We put a fleece
out there. Are you familiar with the concept of a fleece. No,
it's sort of like, hey, God, if this is you, you'll
will you answer it in these ways? So we say, hey, God, oh,
I thought maybe.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
It was you're fleecing your personal finances. Go ahead, No, there.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Were no personal finances to fleece, okay, And so hey,
if you really want us to do this, uh, you know,
I'll get into I only applied to one program, just
the one at the University of Minnesota. If you want
us to do this, I'll get into this program. I'll
get this advisor, and they will not only pay for
my schooling, but they'll pay me to go to school.
(28:32):
And so turns out they did all those things. So
move to Minnesota, get in the degree, get the advisor.
They pay me to do the work, but our pay
was only enough to just cover our rent, nothing more
than that, and not enough to cover that student loan.
And then we also feel like John David's called to
(28:53):
just stay at home, be at home, stay at home
Papa for our first one, and it looked it looked bleak.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I was about to say, dire.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I will say that we definitely had some family and
friends that were like, what are you doing with your life?
But if you've spent a year meditating in the presence
of God and just saying what do you want with
our lives? It makes it really easy to, uh, to
take leaps of faith. And you know, and I feel
like so many times He's brought us to the edge
(29:27):
of the cliff and said, okay, jump and we looked
down and you can't see the bottom and there's no net,
and uh, you know, several times in our lives we've
just grabbed hands and we've jumped. And every time God
has been faithful. Every time He's brought us to greater
heights and more favor and more calling and more joy.
(29:47):
So I would never you know, I now welcome the
scary jumps, the scary leaps. But so we're living there.
We're two months into living in UH in Minnesota. We
live in the very cool artists Loft and you know,
just barely making it. We get a call from a
(30:12):
person that we're barely connected with, and they call and say, hey,
how are you doing on those student loans. We had
no idea that they even knew about the student loans.
My husband says, hey, it's kind of like a David
and Goliath story. Every month, like we're just like waiting
on God to like pay our bills. And they say, well, okay,
like how much are they? I'm in a backtrack about
(30:35):
one month earlier than that, We're standing in our bedroom
in our new apartment and I say, hey, John, David,
We've got forty six thousand dollars coming to us. He's like,
what what do you know that? I don't know. I'm like,
I have no idea. I don't even know why I'm
saying this, but I just feel like God's saying that
we've got forty six thousand dollars coming to us. Okay,
that's great. So fast forward a month, we get this
phone call from this distant person. They ask how much
(30:58):
are your student loans? And I tell them, you know,
there's there's five student loans. Two of them have ten
percent interest, which is can we just say like totally
criminal that student loans can have that kind of interest,
and so they were like, Okay, send me the information
for those two loans. I'd like to pay those off
for you. We're just like overjoyed. Get off the phone.
(31:22):
We're so excited. I don't know, I don't know why.
We go look up those loans. I add up those
two loans. You'd think that I'd be able to add
two simple numbers very easily in my own brain, but
I couldn't, and I was using my phone add it up.
I'm standing in the exact spot that a month earlier
I had been standing in and told John David and
the number on my phone is forty six thousand dollars.
(31:45):
So we fall to the floor. We're we're crying, we're
praising God. And by the time we pull ourselves off
the floor, go to our computer to email them the
information for those two loans. We have an email back
from them, and they said, I look through all my
finances and it looks like I can pay off all
five loans. Send me the information for all five of them,
(32:05):
and I will pay them off tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Why did this person do this?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Because they love you so much and they're so impressed
by you.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
They barely knew us. They said that the Lord told
them to pay it off. They asked that we never
share their name, and asked never to be repaid, but
that we would just we would just do the will
of God with our lives.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
So can you tell us their name? I'd like to
give them a shout out? Okay, so not as bleak,
not as bleak.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, okay, So when you experienced, send them.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
This podcast episode. I don't know if you want me
saying this out lot or not. Maybe we should send
them this podcast episode and you can talk to them
about classics business loans.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Keep going, all right?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Are going to delete that out of there?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, well you could. You don't have to delete it,
but just let's just say I need a benefactor worth
more than forty six thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Go ahead, What is that you need a miracle?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
What's that you need a miracle? No? I got a
miracle about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
You did?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, different way, but yeah, yeah. I started my business
in two thousand and one, was seventeen thousand dollars on
a wing and a prayer. And that was September first.
Eleven days later our world fell apart, right not to eleven,
and I'd spent every time I had, and somehow we
(33:40):
got over that. And then my first CFO at embezzled
four hundred thousand dollars from us, which is all the
money we had, and I went back to zero, and
I thought it was going broke, built up, and then
the housing crisis of two thousand and seven happened, and
it was then that I genuinely thought we were going
to lose everything, and Mini did in my industry, and
(34:06):
Second Third and Fortune Rational companies did. And I was
a guy who started five years earlier with no family money,
no backup, no dad, my parents. My mom was married
divorced five times, so you went through it once. I
went through five times, so dad was not involved nothing.
I had no backboard whatsoever. And we just, out of
(34:34):
the blue, two big customers that we've been calling on
for five years who didn't want to do any business
the Legend company both showed up in one month and
gave us fistfuls of orders, and it got us over
the hump. And we now have one hundred and forty
employees and we'll do almost steady mean and sales this
year only fifteen years later. So yeah, no, I know
(34:56):
what it is to be looking into the abyss things
to be dire and wonder how you're going to feature
kid when the gig is finally up. And I also
understand falling to your knees in the elation of andy
weight being lifted off your shoulders of we may make it.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
What do you attribute it to?
Speaker 2 (35:21):
We certainly have always been faithful insteadfaster our faith. You
know a lot of people have different experiences with regard
to look I don't ever feel like God has literally
(35:44):
spoken to me. I, as a Christian obviously read the
Bible and know there's miracles, and if miracles could happen
a thousand years ago or two thousand years ago, why
can't they happen today? I get it all I do.
I guess I'm a doubting Thomas ish I do have.
(36:08):
I have personally a difficult time understanding that someone actually
hears the word of God. I personally feel like, if
you're quiet and you're still, and you're prayerful and you're faithful,
that the answers that come to you when you're in
(36:31):
a decision making mode or a crisis mode, but those
are the words of God, the answers that you arrive
at that's God leading you if you just put your
ego aside and have sense enough to listen to what
your brain's trying to give you. The answer to that
is to me, So what do I attribute it to?
(36:51):
Staying completely committed to the process of working hard, doing
things honestly the right way, and being still long enough
to hear the answers when they're given to you. And
yeah's I guess what I attributed to you? And the
(37:14):
hard work of a whole bunch of really dedicated people
who believed in my vision and believed in me enough
to stick with it. When in two thousand and seven
I had sixty I'd laid I had, I had one
hundred and ten employees, I had to lay off fifty
(37:37):
and the rest of them all took a twenty five
percent back cup Wow, and nobody quit me. They took
the twenty five percent bay cut and stayed. So it
doesn't also come with selflessness and dedication and commitment on
a whole group of people who are buying into your
vision of what you can build. So in that too, Yeah,
(37:59):
but I'm interviewed in you, I don't know why you're
asking the questions. So here we go. The only thing
ILL add is a right.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
We have had several guests say they've heard the voice
of God, and I also believe them.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
And but anyway, you keep going with your story. It's
not that I don't believe them. You're not calling anybody
who's ever said that dishonest. I am saying a hard
time and that kind of physical revelation understanding that, And I.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Think it's an interesting conversation, that's all I'm saying. We've
had a variety of perspectives on the show.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
It's a very interesting conversation. But I'm not saying I
don't believe it. I'm just saying it hasn't.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Happened to you, and you wanted to what do you
want it to? Nope, Okay, might be it hasn't happened.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Sure don't. I don't want to because I don't want
to have to explain it to anybody. So anyway, let's
keep progressing with your story. I'm not sure that we're
not saying the same thing re built to us in
different ways. Yeah, and that concludes part one of our
conversation with doctor Gabriel Claudis, and you want want to
(39:07):
miss part two. It's now available to listen to. Together, guys,
we can change this country, but it starts with you.
I'll see in Part two.
Four homes are filled with people coming out of chronic homelessness.
On average, they were on the streets for ten years.
If this church hadn't stepped in and invited them home,
they would have died on the streets. They are the
most expensive to the public because they cycle in and
out of the emergency rooms and detoc centers and jails,
because we make homelessness illegal, most expensive to the public,
(00:27):
with the least amount of options available. This is the
group of people that we look away from. We step over,
we see them holding a sign saying anything, anything, anything,
and we make all of our quick judgments.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm a football coach and Inner
City Memphis, And that last part it somehow led to
an oscar for the film about one of our teams
films called Undefeated Guys. I believe our country's problems are
(01:05):
never going to be solved by a bunch of fancy
people and nice suits using big words that nobody ever
really uses on Sannon and Fox, but rather by an
army of normal folks. That's us, just you and me
deciding hey, maybe I can help. That's what Gabrielle Cloudius,
(01:25):
the voice you just heard, has done. Gabrielle is the
founder of Settled, which partners with churches to build tiny
home villages on church land for both people experiencing homelessness
and church members to live in community together. And while
it started as a homelessness ministry, she's discovered that really
(01:49):
it's a ministry for all of us, as we all
have some homelessness in us, a desire for human connection
that's greater than what we have today. A really cannot
wait for you to meet Gabrielle right after these brief
messages from our general sponsors. Gabriella cloud Ust No, Gabrielle,
(02:19):
what I say?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
He said, Gabriella, like, which, in.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
A second, can we just call you Gabby?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, it's the a go to make this difficult. I
was so I was so focused on not saying Gabriella
and making the first a hard for gabriel L. I
put an a where the E is and now my
vowels almost.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
It's happy cheese God, gay bri L gay gay hel God,
happy God.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You know that's interesting because if I drew a horse, okay,
all right, and then I grew the ocean. Yeah, and
I grew a and drew a bird speaking what is
that course? See bird speaking meyorcy boku. Yes, so I
(03:19):
do phonetic imagery for things all the time. So, gabriel Oh,
how hard is that?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
The only person that's ever helped?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I got it? Okay, Gabrielle uh Childice. Welcome to Memphis.
Thanks from you. Fill out of Minneapolis. I guess dry
flight straight to Memphis like delta, so nice. It takes
(03:50):
two hours. Yeah, so you flew in today? Are you
flying out to nider.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Staying flying out tonight?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
You're not even gonna enjoy city girls.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I need to get home. Yeah, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Whoever another taking care of the four little girls can
give you one day off?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I love them?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, well I loved mine too, but I sure needed
a day off of them. I need a day off
of them all the time. I don't know how Lisa
did it. Ours were one, two, three, and four.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Okay, that's crazy, that's crazy. We staggered. I mean we've
got three years apart.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
That's pretty sure. Yeah, okay, so welcome to Memphis. And everybody.
Gabriel L. Cloudis is the founder of Settled in Saint Paul, Minnesota,
which is a really kind of groovy, interesting deal that
you're doing. And I love the word settled. I mean,
(04:47):
it makes so much sense. What a great title. And
obviously I'm gonna cliffhang it a little bit. We'll get
to that, okay, obviously, because that's why you're here. But
let's go back to the beginning and my information you
picks up about when you were twelve and when on
a mission trip, and I just kind of want to
(05:08):
hear about that experience and how that kind of formed
and evolved who you are and why you went this way.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Sure, okay, I'm twelve years old. My parents just get
a divorce. It's in the nineties. It was the thing
to do. And I get invited.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Where were you living?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I lived in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Get invited on a mission trip with my best friend's family.
We're going to Guatemala this summer. Do you want to come?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
What else do I have going on?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
That's cool, stay at home when my parents are fighting
over me? No?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Thanks?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
All right, Let's go on a mission trip to Guatemala.
Get to Guatemala within days, see real poverty for the
first time. Visit the city landfill where there was a group,
a community of three thousand people living in the landfill.
They were literally carving their homes out of trash.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
What do you mean, like making igloos out of trash heaps,
like compacted trash heaps and carving shelter.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yes, really, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I mean I've seen some of the pictures, and I've
heard of the children, the unparented children, and parts of
the world hanging around traffic. I think I've read about
in India, but hanging around or maybe South Africa, I
can't remember, but that.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Peter Muda, Basi and Uganda. Yeah, but I've never heard
of Yeah, your experience, I've never heard of in the
world before.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Neither. But I've heard of kids living around just basically
for this. But you're saying a whole community of three thousand,
we're talking on a small town in Guatemala. Yeah, and
they're making igloo hugs out of compacted trash heaps. How
do they eat, how do they clothe, how do they bathe?
How do they do anything? How do they educate?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I don't know about that education, but clothing and food
is being picked out of the trash. I mean that
is their entire world.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
So they're literally human waste, don't they're literally humans in waste?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I don't think there is such thing as human waste,
So don't hang on what I said there. But what
I am said, I see your face, But what I'm
saying is literally they're humans in waste.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah. So as a young white girl from America seeing that,
I couldn't unsee it. It was like, Okay, now that
I have seen this, what do I do with it?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
How long were you there?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Two weeks doesn't take long.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
What were you doing with the three thousand people in
the human waiste?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Huse? We just came to share the love of God?
And you know, how do.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You share the love? Let me ask seriously, how does
someone that's living in it to have reaked stench? Wise?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
All right, so these people had to wreak themselves because
that's what they lived in, and I can't imagine there's
a lot of running water or bathing going on. Okay,
So how when you're living in a trash igloo searching
other people's literally waste for your means? Why does anybody,
(08:26):
they even want to hear about God. I would think
they'd be wanted to hear about just how they're going
to get their next meal. You understand what I'm saying.
I mean, how could that be on their hierarchy of needs?
I mean, a twelve year old kid coming to say
God loves you even though you live in a waste
how does that even work? I really, when I read that,
I was like, how does that even? How does that work?
(08:47):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, I don't know. I mean the most impactful experiences
in life are ones where it changes everyone involved, right,
And so when we we we drove a bus to
the landfill, we showed up. The stench is uh revolting,
It's it's beyond what you can imagine. I didn't even
(09:10):
want to get out of the bus. And and then
I heard the laughter of kids outside the bus and
was just sort of drawn out of it. And the
kids were happy and laughing, and they just wanted you know,
there were foreigners there that probably were bringing treats, and
they wanted to play. And so we came with our
treats and they embraced us as as friends instantly, and
(09:36):
and we were just playing and somehow God's love was
present and it transformed us and you know, certainly brought
joy to them. It didn't change their circumstance. They were
still in extreme poverty. But it did, you know, it did.
It did touch us. It did transform my life to say,
(10:02):
now that I've seen this, my life will look different.
I will spend my life thinking about what I have
seen and caring for people that are living in extreme poverty.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
And then you did it again, but not to go
out them all right.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, So the next year I went to Russia. I
was thirteen. I saw girls my same age being drugged
and prostituted, and it was so shocking. It was just so.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Shocking when you didn't think the trash heap could get worse,
Let us show you this, I mean honestly, Yeah, yeah,
how heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, it's really heartbreaking. You know. I didn't go back
the third year. It took me a lot of years
to process what I had seen in Russia.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I'm actually surprised that a mission took someone your age
to see that. That is that's I mean, that's traumatic.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
It's also the moment, you know, I mean, it's the
coming of age. It's the time when you're defining and
deciding who you are as a human right, like what
am I going to do? Why am I here? What's
my purpose? What's my plan? And so it's such a
defining moment in a human life at twelve or thirteen
years and it was so significant.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Did you have any perspective on who was drugging these
children and putting in the prostitution? I mean, how did
that even happen? Is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, I'm not sure. That wasn't really explained to us.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So would you just talking to girls who'd been rescued
from that we're trying to No.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
No, we were watching it happening.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Oh my gosh, yeah, oh my gosh. That I don't
guess that's an impression that could ever be a race
for you can't unsee that.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
No, you can't un see that. And not only can
you not unsee it, but there's there's some responsibility that
comes with it, you know. I think often we talk
about human rights, and it's also like and what is
our human duty? Like what is our duty to one another?
If I have seen something, if I have been exposed,
if I know now now what? And that seems to
(12:22):
be true for just about anything. Once I learned about
slavery and chocolate, or slavery and in coffee, it's like, okay, well,
now I'm not gonna support that anymore. If you know,
if I know about oceans being polluted, okay, now I'm
going to make different decisions. Or I know about Chinese factories, Okay,
(12:44):
I'm going to I'm gonna buy my things differently. It's
every time we're exposed to a truth, we we get
the choice to make a new decision and to be
part of upholding what is good and what is right
and what is lovely in the world. And you know,
it's every time our eyes are open to something, it's
such a gift and then we have the opportunity to
(13:07):
make new decisions.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
And now a few messages from our generous sponsors, But first,
please consider signing up to join the Army at Normalfolks
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(13:36):
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Speaker 4 (13:57):
Okay, so you're thirteen, You've experienced a lot, you're starting
to form the beautiful things that you just said, which
are phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And as I was listening to you, I was thinking,
I don't know how, with the over abundance of news
channels we have, and the over abundance of social media
that we just flood our brains with, how any American
could not be aware of some of the things that
you say. But how very few change their lifestyle or
(14:28):
their purchasing habits or anything as a result of it.
I don't know if that's apathy or a lack of concern,
or just choose not to think of it. But it's
interesting what you just said about slavery and chocolate, slavery
(14:50):
and coffee, children working in Chinese factories, ugurs being re
educated and forced to work in Chinese factories that are
now exporting products that we buy every day in the US. Yeah,
(15:10):
I mean, I'm guilty of it. I don't think about
it every time I make a purchase or any of that.
So I just think it's interesting that you have this
constructed as a teenager as a result of these mission experiences.
So what happens after that? I mean, you're a kid.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I'm a kid. It takes a long time to process
what I've seen.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Are you talking to friends about it? Or are you
internalizing it?
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Probably internalizing it? Yeah, you know, so I'm still also
going through my own.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
You're also a kid. You're trying to figure out what's
going on with your body and your brain and who
you are.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Sure. Yeah, and in the meantime, my family is breaking apart. Yeah,
so just internally kind of processing what is this? What
does God think about this? How what is my role
in responding? I go to college for architecture. I'm really
(16:16):
interested in humanitarian architecture. Where go to Texas Tech.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
That's cool, school, hold it, But what's humanitarian architecture? I
don't know what that is.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It's like, Okay, you're building your homes out of trash.
What if we could, you know, come up with designs
with the kind of vernacular materials that you have available
to you that would add more durability, strength, beauty.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's interesting? All right, So you're going to school for architecture.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Going to school for architecture, Start traveling again, specifically in
Central America. Start going around Central America. Go get my
master's in humanitarian architecture. Continue down this path.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
There is such a thing a master's Humanitarian Architecture also
from Texas Tech.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
That is from New School of Architecture. Okay, cool, and
I don't know if the degree is actually humanitarian architecture,
but that was my concentration and that was that was
my real focus and finish my masters, I think, I'm I'm,
you know, start working for a nonprofit. We are converting
(17:31):
shipping containers into preschools and orphanages and clinics and c
South America actually kind of all over the world. Really,
it was a really neat, little nonprofit, scrappy and uh,
you know, I'm I don't know, twenty two years old,
and they put me as like a head of architecture.
Tiny and and you know, way bigger of a role
(17:56):
than I probably should have taken on, but doing cool stuff,
and just felt like, Okay, this is this is the path,
this is what we want to do. Eventually move I
want to move overseas and and continue on in this
We I get married and we have this really cool
opportunity to spend a year renovating a home on a
(18:19):
private beach in Florida.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Okay, so that's pretty nice.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
We say yes to that, and so we moved from
southern California to Florida. We live at this home, renovating
it for a year, and my husband and I we
our lives were so full in southern California, like so
so full full with really good things, amazing things. We
volunteered and we worked at nonprofits, and we taught at
(18:47):
our university, and we part of social clubs and went
to a lot of different churches and we're very very
active in them, like full of really good things, but
we desperately wanted to hear the voice of God for
our lives, like we I'm forgetting who said it. There's
a famous saying that's like I'm I'm just a coin
(19:08):
in the pocket of God, like spend spend me, spend
my life however you wish. And that was our heart.
It was like, you can do whatever you want with
our lives. You can whatever you want. What do you want?
And so we just spent that year we just kind
of committed to like not making friends, not being on
the internet, not watching TV, just you know, not being
(19:29):
involved in church, like just going to church, consuming and
then leaving, not helping and just like a year of
really just lisp whisp like waiting for the whisper of God.
We just feel like God often talks in a whisper
because he's so interested in us coming really close to
his heart, and and so he whispers so that we'll
(19:52):
come closer and closer. And so we just quieted everything
in our lives and we said, we're just a coin
in your pocket. Spend us however you wish. And that
that led to deciding to get a PhD in housing
at the University of Minnesota. I know this sounds ridiculous,
(20:15):
but I didn't even know Minnesota was like a state.
I'm like, where is Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
It's up north, it's real near Canada.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, I mean maybe I knew it was a state,
but like, I wasn't interested in visiting, let alone living there,
and this is where we were going to move. It
was it was one of the only housing PhD programs
in housing in the nation.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
A PhD in housing, Yeah, just briefly, Okay, what is that?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Well, it's not, it's no longer a thing. I was
the last student that they accepted into their program and
the last student that that went through it. So I
suppose as a society, the academic institute has decided that
we don't need to study housing. We figured it out.
But housing affects every single human being on the planet,
(21:13):
and it seems important to give some time and attention to.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
So it was just getting an enormous amount of information
and right dissertations on like US housing data and who
has housing and the cost of how it just all things.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Have all things housing. It was called housing studies, And
now I.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Would think that that would be really interesting to people
in New York.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
The reason is I'm in the lumber business, right and
when I read that, this is one of the reasons
I was so interested is lumber is a really huge
predeterminer of future economic activity. The reason is you don't
just go if you're going to build something, my lumber, hardwood, lumber,
(22:05):
softwood's build a house, hardwoods, furnish it. My lumber goes
to cabinets and flooring and millwork and doors. Well, you
can go. You can go to any building materials out
and pretty much get a housing package in a week
because they are two by fours four by six four rays.
But you have to order cabinets six months in advance.
You have to order doors four or five months in advance.
(22:26):
You have to order flooring months in advance, especially if
it's custom to your application. So when our orders are robust,
you can guarantee in six months the economy is going
to be pretty good, because that's a real indicator that
housing's happening, because people are pre ordering. When my business
and I'm the lumber so it takes me three months
(22:49):
to get lumber to a cabinet guy, it takes them
five months to cabinet, so we're like eight months in
front of the bell curve pretty much all the time.
If my orders stink, there aren't being cabinets and doors
and flooring and millwork being ordered, which means the housing
market in six, seven, eight months is probably going to
be really really soft, which is going to have a
(23:09):
drag on the economy because housing is such a big
thing in our economy.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
How are we doing right now?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Terrible? Shoot, I know, But the point is, I would
think that people in the world of stocks, bonds, economics,
to all these tea leave reader, people would love a
person with a background and understanding housing like you would
(23:38):
and looking at those indicators, and so I get your
world was housing from more of a more practical sense
for those who need housing. But I'm just curious. Was
there any conversation about that and the PhD program and
all that?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Oh? Yeah, I mean it was phenomenal. It was a
really phenomenal degree. And it's you know, everything from the
sociology of it, to the economics of it, to the
to the policies. I mean it was it was cool,
all right, So now I was not. They really shouldn't
have said yes to me. Okay, I don't know why
(24:12):
I was accepted to the program. I have a bachelor's
and masters in architecture.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Well housing.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
The housing program really had nothing to do with design,
it was it was a social science. I'm a designer.
And so we you know, we spent this year meditating,
listening to God's voice, what do you want with our lives? Right?
And so then he moves us to the Midwest to
a PhD in housing and we get there and I
(24:39):
learned really quickly that like, I have no business being
in this degree. I don't have the background for this degree.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We will be right back. What's your husband's name.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
My husband's name is John David.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
John David. Does he go by John David John David.
He should have come grown up in the South. We
do two first names. Oh that's Mary John David John
Paul Great, yeah, Mary Grace. I mean we're full of
two name people. What's he do for a living?
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Stay at home papa.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Stay at home papa? Even then?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, really, So when we moved to Minnesota, you know,
I was I was going I was going to school
research and and you know, working twelve hours a day,
and so you really can't get like a nighttime architecture job.
He's also an architecture So we just really sensed like
(25:50):
we didn't want to be put our We had our
first child, we didn't want to put her in daycare.
We're just like, you know, anyone's gonna be with her
for eight hours a day. We want to be it.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So how old are you at this time?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Ish twenty eight?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Okay, twenty eight MoMA one getting a PhD doing an
architecture John Davidson. I'm taking care of the kid because
you don't want to send him wish. I love that
to whatever. And you've got all this back experience. You're
obviously really bright, and you're going through life. I'm just curious.
(26:28):
I'm a planner. What are you thinking about what's next
at this point? Seriously? I mean, okay, you're coin and
I get it, but there's a human reality to all
of it. Is you got to pay your bills, You
got to think about what's next.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, okay, here's the craziest part. My first date with
my husband. On our very first date, he tells me
that he has one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in
student loans.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yikes. On the second date, what was he studying architecture
where she was?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
We went to a private architecture school.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
He must be really really good looking.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, yeah he is, he is, he really is. My goodness,
he's the best human I know.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
So I was twenty two and one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, didn't I didn't really know what that meant,
and like a lot I was like, well, I mean,
you're gonna be a famous architect. It's gonna be fine.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Oh good, great, John David Lloyd Wright exactly, Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
No problem, this is going to be great. Yeah, you
will fund my humanitarian architecture. You'll be a famous architect.
The loans won't be a big deal. Turns out one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Lot, and you all go to Minnesota to get your doctorate. Okay,
So anyway, so.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
We go, we moved to Minnesota. We put a fleece
out there. Are you familiar with the concept of a fleece. No,
it's sort of like, hey, God, if this is you, you'll
will you answer it in these ways? So we say, hey, God, oh,
I thought maybe.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
It was you're fleecing your personal finances. Go ahead, No, there.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Were no personal finances to fleece, okay, And so hey,
if you really want us to do this, uh, you know,
I'll get into I only applied to one program, just
the one at the University of Minnesota. If you want
us to do this, I'll get into this program. I'll
get this advisor, and they will not only pay for
my schooling, but they'll pay me to go to school.
(28:32):
And so turns out they did all those things. So
move to Minnesota, get in the degree, get the advisor.
They pay me to do the work, but our pay
was only enough to just cover our rent, nothing more
than that, and not enough to cover that student loan.
And then we also feel like John David's called to
(28:53):
just stay at home, be at home, stay at home
Papa for our first one, and it looked it looked bleak.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I was about to say, dire.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I will say that we definitely had some family and
friends that were like, what are you doing with your life?
But if you've spent a year meditating in the presence
of God and just saying what do you want with
our lives? It makes it really easy to, uh, to
take leaps of faith. And you know, and I feel
like so many times He's brought us to the edge
(29:27):
of the cliff and said, okay, jump and we looked
down and you can't see the bottom and there's no net,
and uh, you know, several times in our lives we've
just grabbed hands and we've jumped. And every time God
has been faithful. Every time He's brought us to greater
heights and more favor and more calling and more joy.
(29:47):
So I would never you know, I now welcome the
scary jumps, the scary leaps. But so we're living there.
We're two months into living in UH in Minnesota. We
live in the very cool artists Loft and you know,
just barely making it. We get a call from a
(30:12):
person that we're barely connected with, and they call and say, hey,
how are you doing on those student loans. We had
no idea that they even knew about the student loans.
My husband says, hey, it's kind of like a David
and Goliath story. Every month, like we're just like waiting
on God to like pay our bills. And they say, well, okay,
like how much are they? I'm in a backtrack about
(30:35):
one month earlier than that, We're standing in our bedroom
in our new apartment and I say, hey, John, David,
We've got forty six thousand dollars coming to us. He's like,
what what do you know that? I don't know. I'm like,
I have no idea. I don't even know why I'm
saying this, but I just feel like God's saying that
we've got forty six thousand dollars coming to us. Okay,
that's great. So fast forward a month, we get this
phone call from this distant person. They ask how much
(30:58):
are your student loans? And I tell them, you know,
there's there's five student loans. Two of them have ten
percent interest, which is can we just say like totally
criminal that student loans can have that kind of interest,
and so they were like, Okay, send me the information
for those two loans. I'd like to pay those off
for you. We're just like overjoyed. Get off the phone.
(31:22):
We're so excited. I don't know, I don't know why.
We go look up those loans. I add up those
two loans. You'd think that I'd be able to add
two simple numbers very easily in my own brain, but
I couldn't, and I was using my phone add it up.
I'm standing in the exact spot that a month earlier
I had been standing in and told John David and
the number on my phone is forty six thousand dollars.
(31:45):
So we fall to the floor. We're we're crying, we're
praising God. And by the time we pull ourselves off
the floor, go to our computer to email them the
information for those two loans. We have an email back
from them, and they said, I look through all my
finances and it looks like I can pay off all
five loans. Send me the information for all five of them,
(32:05):
and I will pay them off tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Why did this person do this?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Because they love you so much and they're so impressed
by you.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
They barely knew us. They said that the Lord told
them to pay it off. They asked that we never
share their name, and asked never to be repaid, but
that we would just we would just do the will
of God with our lives.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
So can you tell us their name? I'd like to
give them a shout out? Okay, so not as bleak,
not as bleak.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, okay, So when you experienced, send them.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
This podcast episode. I don't know if you want me
saying this out lot or not. Maybe we should send
them this podcast episode and you can talk to them
about classics business loans.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Keep going, all right?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Are going to delete that out of there?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, well you could. You don't have to delete it,
but just let's just say I need a benefactor worth
more than forty six thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Go ahead, What is that you need a miracle?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
What's that you need a miracle? No? I got a
miracle about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
You did?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, different way, but yeah, yeah. I started my business
in two thousand and one, was seventeen thousand dollars on
a wing and a prayer. And that was September first.
Eleven days later our world fell apart, right not to eleven,
and I'd spent every time I had, and somehow we
(33:40):
got over that. And then my first CFO at embezzled
four hundred thousand dollars from us, which is all the
money we had, and I went back to zero, and
I thought it was going broke, built up, and then
the housing crisis of two thousand and seven happened, and
it was then that I genuinely thought we were going
to lose everything, and Mini did in my industry, and
(34:06):
Second Third and Fortune Rational companies did. And I was
a guy who started five years earlier with no family money,
no backup, no dad, my parents. My mom was married
divorced five times, so you went through it once. I
went through five times, so dad was not involved nothing.
I had no backboard whatsoever. And we just, out of
(34:34):
the blue, two big customers that we've been calling on
for five years who didn't want to do any business
the Legend company both showed up in one month and
gave us fistfuls of orders, and it got us over
the hump. And we now have one hundred and forty
employees and we'll do almost steady mean and sales this
year only fifteen years later. So yeah, no, I know
(34:56):
what it is to be looking into the abyss things
to be dire and wonder how you're going to feature
kid when the gig is finally up. And I also
understand falling to your knees in the elation of andy
weight being lifted off your shoulders of we may make it.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
What do you attribute it to?
Speaker 2 (35:21):
We certainly have always been faithful insteadfaster our faith. You
know a lot of people have different experiences with regard
to look I don't ever feel like God has literally
(35:44):
spoken to me. I, as a Christian obviously read the
Bible and know there's miracles, and if miracles could happen
a thousand years ago or two thousand years ago, why
can't they happen today? I get it all I do.
I guess I'm a doubting Thomas ish I do have.
(36:08):
I have personally a difficult time understanding that someone actually
hears the word of God. I personally feel like, if
you're quiet and you're still, and you're prayerful and you're faithful,
that the answers that come to you when you're in
(36:31):
a decision making mode or a crisis mode, but those
are the words of God, the answers that you arrive
at that's God leading you if you just put your
ego aside and have sense enough to listen to what
your brain's trying to give you. The answer to that
is to me, So what do I attribute it to?
(36:51):
Staying completely committed to the process of working hard, doing
things honestly the right way, and being still long enough
to hear the answers when they're given to you. And
yeah's I guess what I attributed to you? And the
(37:14):
hard work of a whole bunch of really dedicated people
who believed in my vision and believed in me enough
to stick with it. When in two thousand and seven
I had sixty I'd laid I had, I had one
hundred and ten employees, I had to lay off fifty
(37:37):
and the rest of them all took a twenty five
percent back cup Wow, and nobody quit me. They took
the twenty five percent bay cut and stayed. So it
doesn't also come with selflessness and dedication and commitment on
a whole group of people who are buying into your
vision of what you can build. So in that too, Yeah,
(37:59):
but I'm interviewed in you, I don't know why you're
asking the questions. So here we go. The only thing
ILL add is a right.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
We have had several guests say they've heard the voice
of God, and I also believe them.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
And but anyway, you keep going with your story. It's
not that I don't believe them. You're not calling anybody
who's ever said that dishonest. I am saying a hard
time and that kind of physical revelation understanding that, And I.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Think it's an interesting conversation, that's all I'm saying. We've
had a variety of perspectives on the show.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
It's a very interesting conversation. But I'm not saying I
don't believe it. I'm just saying it hasn't.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Happened to you, and you wanted to what do you
want it to? Nope, Okay, might be it hasn't happened.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Sure don't. I don't want to because I don't want
to have to explain it to anybody. So anyway, let's
keep progressing with your story. I'm not sure that we're
not saying the same thing re built to us in
different ways. Yeah, and that concludes part one of our
conversation with doctor Gabriel Claudis, and you want want to
(39:07):
miss part two. It's now available to listen to. Together, guys,
we can change this country, but it starts with you.
I'll see in Part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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