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December 17, 2024 46 mins

This title doesn't make much sense, unless you listen to the episode. JT is the founder of Both Hands, whose own Army of nearly 145k normal folks in 45 states has raised $21 million to adopt 1,648 kids by serving 1,632 widows! 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Sixteen years later, you've done one thousand, three hundred and
fifty two projects and forty five states, Fifteen hundred and
forty one widows have been served, fifteen hundred seventy one
kids are no longer orphans, and you've raised to date
almost twenty million dollars. We got new stats.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
We had five products this past week, fourteen hundred and
fifty two projects in forty five states. Okay, one thousand,
six hundred and thirty two widows have been served in
one thousand, six hundred and forty eight kids, and we
just passed twenty one minute, twenty one minute.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
All giddy.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
It just makes me giddy.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur,
and I've been a football coach in Inner City Memphis.
And the last part it unintentionally led to an oscar
for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. I
believe our country's problems will never be solved by a

(01:17):
bunch of fancy people and nice suits talking big words
that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather by
an army of normal folks us just you and me deciding, Hey,
maybe I can help. That's what jt Olsen, the voice
you just heard, has done. JT is the founder of

(01:37):
Both Hands, which raises money for adoptions by doing service
projects for widows. And you're going to have to keep
listening to understand how any of that makes any sense.
But I'll tell you this, James one seven, that chapter
and verse has something to do with it. I can't
wait for you to meet JT. Right after these brief

(02:00):
messages from our general sponsors. Jt Olsen, Welcome to Memphis.

(02:21):
Nice to be here. Did you drive down? I did drive? Yes,
you live in Franklin. I live in frank Well. Brentwood, Yeah, Brightwood. Yeah,
I live in live in about a three hour ride
down the road. Good weather or weather was fine. That's good. Thanksgiving. Oh,
I'm not supposed to timestamp these things, but the holidays

(02:42):
are coming up. In a nice little fall ride down
the road. No, I can't wait to drive home the
day see all the leaves, everybody. JT is the founder
of Both Hands and the author of the orphan The
Widow and Me came out around twenty sixteen, seventeen, and
a really interesting dude with an interesting idea that has

(03:03):
now become a thing that we're going to get into.
Tell me what both hands is in an elevator pitch,
and then we'll unpack it all.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Okay, yeah, both hands. What we do is we help
families raise money for adoptions, and we do it by
serving a widow, which is crazy.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
I know. That's when you say, that's it. You help
you help families raise money for adoptions, and you do
it by serving widows. Now again, we're going to really
get into unpacking it all. But why do you need
to help families with adoption? Is it that expensive? Oh?

(03:44):
My word, yes, I.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Mean it's much more expensive now than it was ten, twenty,
thirty years ago. I mean, when someone's adopting thirty or
forty years ago, they'd pay a lawyer a little bit
of money. Some would contact them an orphanage. There were
orphanages then, you know, I mean it was just a
different situation. But oh yeah, nowadays adoptions will run anywhere
from thirty to sixty or seventy thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
That's a lot of money to do something good, I know.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
And a lot of it is just I mean, there
are several costs, legitimate costs. I mean these are adoptions.
You know, there are adoption agencies. They have people that work.
You have to pay them. I mean they're not gonna
you know, they'd love to donate their time, but they
have to earn a living. There's lawyers just to make
sure things are legal. There's courses you have to take

(04:33):
to make the I mean state governments want to make
sure you are equipped to adopt and should you adopt.
I mean there's all kinds of things they have to do,
and there's an home study that's usually three to five thousand.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Now my understanding is both hands. You started about seventeen
years ago. Yeah, yeah, first probably was two thousand and seven.
That's incredible. We're gonna we're just skipping. We're going to
unpack it. But I got to ask you why why? Yeah,
why start it in the first place.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
I you know, some guy gave me an idea. I mean,
I was doing a golf tournament for Bethany Christian Services.
I was on the board of Bethany and one year
they told me I was in charge of the golf
tournament and I said a fundraiser. When I said, can
I do a golf tournament. They said, yeah, do whatever
you want. I said, So I got a golf room

(05:25):
together where it was a kid where you recruit a
bunch of people, like twenty thirty guys, and everyone sends
letters out to their friends saying, would you sponsor me
while I golf? Just like you know, sponsor me while
I run a five K or do a hula hoop dance.
K I've actually played it. Yeah, So I send my
letters out and I had a buddy who was in
a Bible study with He sends my letter back to me.

(05:46):
Does not include a check. He just took a magic
marker and he scribbled across my letter. He said, JT.
If you told me you were working on a widow's house,
I might sponsor you, but you're just golfing. Nice cause,
but not mine.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Wow. I mean, I hurt my feels a little bit.
But at the same time I'm thinking.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Well, that's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
And I called him a couple of days later.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
We talked about it and laughed, and he still didn't
get HM any money. But the idea just never left me.
Whenever I saw a five K or a golf turn.
After that, I kept thinking if all those people were
working on a widow's house.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Would it be better?

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I just didn't have the orphan part figure out, honestly
until a couple years later. I'm in church running a
good friend of mine hadn't seen him in a couple months.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
I said, hey, Don, what's up?

Speaker 2 (06:34):
And he looked at me and he says, we're adopting
four kids from Moldova. From Moldovadov all places.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, and I'm a Soviet block country and DoD.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Already has to be kids. And so I looked at
him and said, what happened? Maybe the same question I
asked you why? Yes, well, yeah, because what happened is
he went on a mission with sweet sleep in beds
to orphanages in Moldova, very cool, fell in love this
little boy, George, got home, started the adoption process, and

(07:06):
found out in the process George has three siblings. And
Don looked at me and he said, we're not going
to break up the siblings. And that took me back
to when I was twelve living on a farm in
northeastern Io where there was five of us kids, five five.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
What were the ages when you were twelve.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Three, five, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, Wow, and you were on
a farm, not a farm in northeast Nile, a beautiful
part of the country. Got it right, just two miles
for the Mississippi, right right up the river.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
But one weekend, my mom and dad left to celebrate
their sixteenth wedding anniversary, and us kids were kind of
farmed out to different places. And I remember Saturday night
being brought home by one of the neighbors because my mom
and dad were coming home, and you know, I was
in I'd played in the barn all day, so I
had to go in the basement that you My brother
went in the front door. But I remember sitting on

(08:04):
this chair in our basement, bending over, unlacing my boots,
and my brother came down the stairs and I just
kind of looked up on him. I said, our mom
and dad home. And he looked at me and he said,
mom and dad are dead.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
And I said what He said, Mom and dad are dead.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
They were killed in a car accident hour ago, And
he turned around and walked upstairs.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
How old was he? Fifteen?

Speaker 2 (08:33):
He was in ninth grade. I was in seventh. Shocked,
he was in shock. I mean, he was just coming
down to tell me. But I remember that moment. I remember,
and I remember hitting that cold cement floor of our
basement all by myself, wailing like any seventh grader would whale.
I mean, I know what it's like to be an orphan.
I know it's like to wonder what's going to happen

(08:55):
to us. I know it's like to try and wrestle
with the fact that I'm never going to get to
see my mom and dad again this side of heaven.
And oh how I wish my last conversation with my
father was different. And I don't wonder who's gonna take
care of us. But I also know what it's like
to be rescued because my mom and dad, my aunt

(09:16):
and uncle, three months before this accident, they changed their
wills that if anything would happen to one of them,
the other family would take them.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
You're kidding. Three months, Yeah, you talk about timing preminiscent.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, yeah, Well so my aunt and uncle, I mean,
get this.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
They were thirty three years old.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
They lived in a really nice suburb of Milwaukee called Brookfield,
and they had three children, and they had just started
business a.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Year earlier, and it became eight overnight.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
They had a two year old, a third grader, and
a fifth grader. And they took in a three year old,
a five year old, a seventh grader, eighth.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Grader, and a ninth grader. A ninth grader with a
thirty three year old parent. Oh yeah, oh my good.
What amazing people they are.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
I know, they're heroes, they're they're they're people who said
yes amidst a bunch of people friends, you know, in
their best interest saying I don't know better, that's not
a good idea.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
That's going to be hard. You may never have an
extra twenty dollars as long as you live again with
eight kids.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
But I know, but I know what it's like to
have someone come in and say we got you. It's
it may not always be pretty, but we got you.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Do you remember, I mean, you were twelve, and so
the reality in a twelve year old's brain is going
to be much different than reality and you know, a
young adult's brain. But beyond the pain and the and
the sadness and the and the just the the dread

(10:54):
of having lost your parents, which I can't even fathom
that at that age, do you also remember the sense
of what's going to happen to us.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Now, Yeah, yeah, I loved living on the farm. I
loved our life, and I didn't know what was going
to happen. You know, my my father had a brother,
uncle Clive, who lived with us. You know, he was
they were partners in the farming. But I you know,
I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
So in addition to losing your parents, you're losing your friends,
your school, everything, because you've got to go.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
At some point it becomes evident, Yes, something's gonna change,
you know, at some point my aunt and uncle. You know,
it didn't happen right away, but I mean, first of all,
you got to deal with the grief and deal with
all the whole lot of details you gotta deal with.
But yeah, eventually was like, yeah, we're moving to Milwaukee.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
So do you remember feeling I'm just curious, do you
remember feeling thankful that that at that time? Do you
remember feeling thankful that that was your reality rather than
you and your siblings being split up and going off
to orphanages or being farmed out. I mean, you remember

(12:13):
at least that that was some solace in the middle
of all this chaos and trauma. Yes, yes, what was
that you feel like.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
That felt like we're going to the main thing was
the five of us kids are going to stay together.
And you have to Rember, my aunt and uncle, my
mom and my aunt sisters were best friends.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
And I'm not exaggerating, they were best friends. Not only
was she taken in five kids, she lost her best friend. Yeah, yeah,
so she was dealing with grief, yes, and stepped up. Yes.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
And Uncle Ralph and my dad were good friends. I mean,
and we loved Uncle Ralph. You know, I'll go you
know what I mean. He played with us, you know,
played football with us.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
You know.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
My dad was a lot older than my mom. There,
you know, that's another whole story. He was forty two
when they got married. She was twenty one. He was
a Norwegian bachelor farmer that we hear someone talk about
once in a while.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
So what you might call a gentleman farmer. Said yeah,
so you remember arriving in Minneapolis, having lost your parents
and your friends in your school and Milwaukee, I mean Milwaukee,
I apologize Milwaukee. But the first thing that just came
out of your mouth to me was you do remember
at least some solace saying, Hey, my siblings and I

(13:29):
are going to stay together. Yeah, so when you heard
the story of the Moldovian family, you had to have
had some cinema of the same feel for those children.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
And that's exactly what happened. When I think about what
happened with us, you know, my aunt and uncle taken
all five of us in and then I just looked
at don The thought that went through my mind was,
here's a man who's trusting God in a way.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
That I am.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
I mean, I want to have that kind of faith.
And I by then we had adopted. Our fifth child's adopted,
so we knew it was going to be expensive. I
looked at Donn. I said, how much is going to cost?
And he said wehell, they're telling us seventy or eighty thousand.
And I said, yifs any idea, how are you going
to do it? And he said no, and I said

(14:13):
and that's when it hit me. Initially started out you
asking why it hit me. I thought, I got an
idea do and so Don and I put together a
team about fourteen fifteen people. We found a widow in
Nashville who needed help. We got everything donated supply wise
that we need. I mean, we didn't pull a permit.
You know, we're just doing fix up stuff, you know.

(14:35):
And we all sent letters up to people saying would
you sponsor me while I work on this widow's house.
All the money I raised is going to go towards
getting these four kids home from Moldova. And I mean,
the beautiful, beautiful day March two thousand and seven, I'll
never forget it, thirty thirty five people showed up. It
was glorious, and the widow was blessed, she was blown away,

(14:58):
and we ended up raising a little over seventy thousand
when it was all over said and.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Done, and that kind of freaked me out. And now
a few messages from our gener sponsors. But first, I

(15:22):
hope you'll consider signing up to join the army at
normal folks dot us. By signing up, you'll receive a
weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen
to miss an episode, or if you prefer reading about
our incredible guests, we'll be right back. So you're raised

(15:56):
in Milwaukee by your aunt and uncle. Become mom and dad.
I assume, well.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
They became mom and dad to my three year old
and five year old sister. Yeah, us three boys it
was always.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
And uncle Rol, but you're thankful for him and it
is now your family.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Oh yes, yes, and he has to remember we visited
Milwaukee a lot, and my cousins would come to the
farm and stay for the summer for two Yeah. I
knew the neighbors, you know, we had been there before.
So yeah, so it wasn't like, oh, this is all strange.
I mean it was different going to a suburbian a
very nice suburbian school versus.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
The farm farm. That was different. I'm sure it was different.
So you do that, you move on and you meet
somebody in Marrier on my work. Okay, you just took
a few leaps there. But yeah, yeah, so I think
she's germane to the story is uh, as I think

(16:53):
about it all and I just you know, tell me about.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Her, about my bride. Yeah, uh, my bride is wonderful.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
It's Sarah.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
And I met her when she walked into one of
my interviews. I was running when I when I recruited
students to sell books in the summertime.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Tell us about it. I sold books, tell us about
that job. I told all of that because I want
I want people to understand kind of the background That
led up to you supporting your friend in Moldovia. That
led to now what you're doing? Give me that, give
me that background.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Wow, I sold books as a college student. I mean,
you know when I was in high school and that
first year of college, I refer to the junior, senior,
and freshman year in college is the last years because
I was so into a lot of things I probably
should have been into, you know. And and you know,
I went to University of Wisconsin, Madison to go to

(17:52):
college because I wanted to major in party and that
was all.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
My friends were going. And I thought, That's what I'm
going to do. And I did a good job my
freshman year. I have a pretty good school of that.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
That a pretty good school of that, yes, and everyone's
proud of it, you know, I and I took part
of it. But you know, there was something happened in
April that year. I remember I was going to go
back to Wisconsin, to Milwaukee from Madison for the summer
to work at this Cole's had a bunch of food
stores in sixty stores, I worked in the bakery. Was
going to work in the bakery like I'd done in

(18:23):
my park time job for.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Junior and senior year.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
But my roommate came back and said, hey, I got
a great job.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
I got this job.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
I'm going to be selling books this summer.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
I said, you are crazy. He said, no, no, no,
it's a good thing. Look at this bro.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
No, no, no, you're crazy. Anyway, he said, come meet
this guy. So I met him, and the guy laid
it out for me. And initially I did, like I mean,
primarily I loved the product. I thought, Okay, this is
a good product. I could see selling this. And then
the guy explained to me, said we only got to
sell one or two a day. I said, and I
didn't picture myself as a sales guy. And I said okay,
And I went back and told my uncle. Now, my

(18:55):
uncle and I probably weren't. Of all the eight kids,
I was the one he probably got along with the least. Okay,
I was the I mean, I think my sisters, you know,
and they hear, they're gonna say, yeah, he was the
black sheet, you know. I was the one that had
the party that seventy kids came to and my aunt
and uncle left on vacation. And I mean I was,

(19:16):
I was not. I didn't do a good job and
a lot of things I wish I hadn't done. But
but my uncle he said wait, and he was running
a business, so he was a sales guy and an
engineering sales guy, and he said, well, man, you only
sell one or two a day, or even three a day.
You're you're going to do real well. He said you

(19:36):
should do that. And I think my uncle was trying
to think, how can I make sure he's not home
for this summer. He's going to be trapper out selling
books anyway, But he said, yeah, you should do it,
and I think he also knew that I needed something
like that. But I went and sold books that summer,
and I remember I knocked on doors. They it's a
group where they it's a Southwestern company. It's it's like
one hundred and eighty one hundred ninety year old company,

(19:59):
I mean out of Nashville. It's one of the original
companies that's still in Nashville. But it was a great
company and just a lot of great godly men and
women who lead that place. And it's just I learned
a lot and I grew a lot. When you knock
on doors for three months, you knock on three thousand
doors and you have to meet and deal with people
you know and make it good for some pression ten fifteen,

(20:19):
twenty seconds. You learn a lot and I ended up
doing it for six summers.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
And when doors get slammed in your face, you also learned,
well that was that door.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Let me go this next, and just let's move it
fast as we pops. We can't and most people don't
slam doors in face by way. That's kind of a stereotype,
you know. And we're not told to put our foot
in the door. That's a stereotype. It was totally different
and it was a great experience for me.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
I sold waterless cookware two summers when I was in college,
door to door waterlessokwear, waterless cookware, zig kind of thing,
exactly the exact same stuff, okay for Royal Prestige, which
is exactly who he worked for. And during my first
year doing it, I became as zig Zigglar disciple because

(21:02):
he was the waterless cookwear guy, and actually got to
meet him once as a result of that, sure did
and got to listen to him talk for about twenty minutes.
But the whole point was, I know what that is,
and it's all summer long and sometimes you go to
one or two different cities and you were with a
bunch of other college kids and you're selling books and

(21:23):
or waterscoocore or whatever, and you're making money. And it
is one heck of a learning experience.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Oh yeah, it's like you get a master's in sales.
I mean, people who live in Nashville, they know Southwestern
because a lot of the business leaders who built the
big buildings and ran the banks and did all that, they.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
All started selling books and they living in Nashville. So
you evolved working for them right full time? Is that right?

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah? I mean I sold for first four summers and
I graded from college. I sold the summer after that
because I didn't have a career lined up, you know,
and it was a good deal. I could have made
more money in three months than I would have taken
a salary job, you know, back in nineteen sixty seven nine.
But then after that summer, they said you want to
come in and do this full time? I said, I
wasn't sure. But I had a good friend of mine

(22:07):
he said he was a salesman. He said, Jat, you know,
this has changed your life. If you do this, If
you don't do this, you're going to always look back
and regret I didn't at least give it a shot
because my picture of being a district sales manager with
the Southwestern Company. It's the hardest job in the world.
You work real hard. I mean, the rewards were great.
I heard you got good pay, you know, but I
didn't know, and I said, Okay, I'll give it a shot.

(22:27):
And honestly, part of it was, I tell you it
was after my first summer. Here's what really when I
look back on my life and some of the major
fence posts that first summer. I remember, after the whole summer,
my student manager, the guy who recruited me, Dick Justman,
he was driving me back to my headquarters after a
Sunday meeting because we always have Sunday meetings. You'd work

(22:48):
six days, and you know, we all stayed in the
same area. I was in Los Angeles, al Hamburg. That's
where I was knocking on doors. That's correatt. I cut
my teeth in LA. But I remember he was driving
me home and I wasn't going to see him again
till he got back to school because I was leaving.
He was staying on another week and I looked around
at the freeway going by me, all the buildings. I'm
in Los Angeles, first time i'd seen the Pacific Ocean,

(23:10):
first time I'd done so many things that a farm
kid or a kid from the Midwest hadn't seen, and
I learned a lot. And I looked at Dick and
I said, Dick, I just want to say thank you
for getting me into this thing and for being here
and for helping me.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Go through this.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
You were really it's you've really made a difference. And
he just kind of like, ah, JT you could have
done it yourself. You didn't mean that much. I said, no,
you really, you really helped me.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
I'm grateful.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
And then I remember we both were kind of quiet
looking at the freeway going by. But the thought that
went through my head was he must feel awesome right now,
because if he doesn't, it's because I didn't communicate well
enough to him the impact he made in my life.
And then the next thought hit me, wouldn't it be
cool if someone could feel that way about jt Olsen's

(23:59):
And that's what made me think this is leadership thing
is kind of neat, and if you can impact people's
lives and so every summer. Every year I recruited teams
to go out and sell books and had an impact
on kids in the years. Every year I learn more
about management, about leadership. Made a lot of mistakes, screwed
up a lot, but you know, did some things right too.

(24:20):
And when they said I could be a sales bander,
I said, Okay, let's try it. And that leads me
to you know, my second or third year as a
sales bander. You recruiting kids, recruiting college students. I'm at
at the Howard Johnson's and Madison, Wisconsin, you know, and
running an interview or one of my actual approgiate, one
of my young students is running an interview and ten

(24:41):
people are in that room, and there's one very sharp
looking young lady. I mean outrageously beautiful, stark, raving, gorgeous
is what I would say. That's how it smoking hot.
That's my life still today after forty years. She's amazing.

(25:01):
But and my student manager ran that meeting and he was,
you know, he was doing the best he could. But anyway,
when it was all over, she was one of them
that said, yeah, I want to do this. So I
got to know her a little bit She went out
and sow books that summer, came back for a second
summer to be a student manager, and I just you know,
she was just one of the students. And that's that
was kind of the the rule you use. They're students,

(25:24):
and you don't do you know, you keep your distance.
But she came back and she had decided that she
loved She really wanted to make a difference. She ended
up being the top of the eighteen twenty years. I
was a sales pager.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
I've never had a student recruit as many as she did.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
I think she recruited a twenty four person team to
come to Nashville. That's hard. Most kids recruit two. If
you really get a good one, they recruit ten. Yeah, okay,
she recruited twenty four.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
It doesn't hurt to be good looking when you do that,
I know. And there were some sharp guys recruited.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Sheets are really sharp guys, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
And I talked to her, but you see when someone's
doing that, coach, it's just like when you got to
team someone on your player who's really in charge of things,
you spend more time with them. And plus she had
a quart of work. Was like, okay, now she's got
twelve people. Okay, how are you going to manage your time,
your school, everything else? How are you gonna do this?
And we just spent because of what the job she
was doing. We spent a lot of time together and

(26:22):
there was a mutual respected development.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Seems like it, you know, so sore, we got married,
we eloped. Actually did you really love at school? We'll
be right back, all right, So there's the love affair there.

(26:54):
You are, You're on your way, You have your life,
and then you ran in to depth.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
That's that's a story. It'll change your life.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Because every year, every year at Southwestern, this company would
have a huge meeting. It was called the Great Recruiters Seminar,
and it was in January because get all the kids
fired up to recruit a team for the spring semester,
sweat and go out and sell in the summertime. But
like seven eight hundred kids would come to Nashville from
all schools all over the country, in Europe and things
like that. That particularly, I think it was one or

(27:34):
ninety two. I had about fifty managers coming in. So
I had a big week ahead of me because I
had had a pretty good sized organization.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Sarah. Yes, and Sarah's involved. Yeah. In fact, she was
so good.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
I mean she would teach a class at the women's
in Sales school every year. So a lot of the women,
even if they weren't working with me, they knew Sarah.
But the ones who worked with me personally, they knew
Sarah because she would come at the sun the meetings.
She'd you know, I mean, we had kids were she
was involved, and and she sold books for four summers,
so she knew the value of it, and so she
was very encouraging. But the first thing one of my
other older managers, King told me, when we got there,

(28:09):
and when the students are getting geary, he says, hey,
I just thought i'd tell you Deb is. Deb is pregnant,
and but she's scheduled for an abortion next week in
Iowa on Wednesday. Deb was a student at the University
of Wisconsin at Madison. And it's just my heart sank
and she and Tim said, well, don't tell me what
I told you, but she would she don't want me

(28:30):
to tell you what I thought you'd better know. And
I went back and told my wife, Miraclis. Somehow we
got childcare for the next two days. We had a
three year old in an infant at that time. Somebody
watched our kids for two days, where my wife spent
the next two days with Deb doing just loving on her, saying,
you know, there's another option. There's another option for this.
You know, there's you know, we can do this. Let's
go get a picture of the baby. No, no, no,

(28:51):
and Deb was just like arms folded, no, no, no way.
My parents are going to be so disappointed in me.
I'm she was kind of the Golden Chado. I mean
she was you know, and she was you know, she
was really effective. She was a great salesperson, a sharp
young lady. And uh we just said, well, tell you
what you know. Jajon and I my wife would said,
Jayon and I want to have kids again. You should
stay with us. We've got to extra over the house,

(29:12):
live with us. We'll adopt this baby. You can go
back to Madison when it's over, and things that life
can just go on.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
And dead was no, no way.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
And when she left on Saturday afternoon, my heart just
was it was sad. We were praying, just it was.
It was sad. Somewhere between Nashville and Madison on Interstate
sixty five, she heard a song that was popular that
year by Eric Clapton, and there was a phrase in
that song I said, would you know my name if

(29:43):
you saw me in heaven? And something snapped, I mean
dev just she changed her mind. She went back, she
told her mom and dad. Her mom and dad loved her,
just like she said they we said, they want, you know.
And then a week later she shows up on our
front porch and said, is that deal still good?

Speaker 3 (30:03):
We said, sure, come on, and we got I mean,
we just did.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
What anyone else would would do. It's I don't know
if you've done what anybody else would do, but good enough.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
She took she took me up on the deal, and
and uh, you know uh and she lived with us,
and at one point during one of the doctor's office
it's a pretty funny story's in the book, but my
wife found out she was pregnant, and and and the
and the just the sovereignty of God.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
I look at this thing.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
I just I can just sit back and say, I
don't know how all this happens, but.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
That was had changed her mind. Living in a house
with the wife that's pregnant, with deb that's pregnant and
two small children and selling books. Well yeah, well I
was managing. Yeah, but you know what I mean, yeah, exactly, Yeah,
it was at all I can say is yikes. We
just like take one day at a time, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
That's It's so that when Dev had.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
A child, Ah, it was amazing and it was beautiful.
And Ashton was born.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
And the.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Father, who was also one of my students. In fact,
i'd worked them for five years and I'd mendored him
for five years. We were good friends. He was mad.
He was mad, and he was thinking like most I mean,
not to his way, but like everybody, let me just
take care of this issue.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
And we'll do it that way. But Ashton was born.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
And it's interesting about a week later, somewhere in there,
a month later, we got a card from Deb's mom
and it was just just a regular card. I think
the title on the front it says, I know how
it is to I know it is to know God.
It's people like you who make him real. But you
open it up. And there were two sentences in there, Coach,

(31:51):
that rocked my world. One of them, the first sense
was thank you for being there when my Debbie needed somebody,
and she said, I'll never be able to thank you
for saving my granddaughter's life. Wow, he read something like that.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
And we didn't do anything.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
We did was say come on in, you know, I
mean that's what we did and and and love Donner.
And it was amazing the way people came around her
and our community group from church, I mean, and we
had another girl's stay with us. At one point, the
whole community group watched her child. You know, why she
went to college. I mean, I've seen the church come
around situations like this and just take care of it.

(32:35):
So it's it's it's pretty amazing. But the cool thing
about well, she's in Dallas, she's married. Her last name
is is right, she married mister Wright.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Hious and uh, but it was funny because well did
deb race her?

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yes, Well, what happened is another sailor of Southwestern eventually
married deb byby became friends. They got married Tim and
she became Tim and Debbie Knight and Ashton. They raised
her in Franklin, you know, right next to where we live. Uh,
And we saw her once in a while, you know,
and things like that.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
I and at her.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
High school got invited to her high school graduation party
and I remember my wife and I walking in there,
and there across the room, I saw Todd, the father,
and he started walking towards me, and I honestly didn't
know if I was gonna get hugged or slugged, but.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
He was there, so obviously something was going on.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
But he walked up to me and shook my hands
like hi, jt Hi Sarah, and then he kind of
stepped back and just kind of set his steps, you know,
and said, I just want to say I'm sorry for
being such a jerk. When when all this happened, he said,
I can't tell you what a joy Ashton has been

(34:01):
in my life. And he tried to finish, and he
couldn't finish. He just started sobbing, and he grabbed me
and hugged me, and it's like one of those hugs
where you feel a man's ribs just moving, like he's
sobbing as a man who's just saying I'm sorry. I
didn't realize when he was six, or when she was
six or seven years old, Todd had married somebody, his girl.
His wife said, you mean, you've got a daughter somewhere

(34:23):
and you haven't had any contact with her, and she
just she encouraged Todd in a very godly way to
be involved, and I mean they did. They Todd got
to know his daughter, and when Ashton got married five
years later, Sarah and I were invited to the wedding
and I got to see Ashton walk down the aisle

(34:43):
by her biological father and her dad or the who
married her mom. Crazy they walked that out about as
well as anyone could. So that's had a huge effect
on us. And in the in the nineties, we had
like four different girls stay with you know who were
in a situation where they said and they were going
to have an a boars and they changed their mind.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
So the reason that story to me is so important
is when you think about what happened to you when
you're twelve, and the gift and blessing of your aunt
and and your recognition even at twelve years old that hey,

(35:27):
me and my siblings are going to stay together, and
then leading up to before you ever thought about doing
the widow thing to raise money for your buddy with
the four kids from Aldovia. Along the course of your life,
children and unwed mothers and kids that have the prospect

(35:51):
of no home and all of those things just kept
being put in your life. It almost feels like you
were being groomed.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
I know, you know what it's like.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
It's like when you look at the tapestry from the backside,
none of that it makes sense.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
I mean you can tell a little bit of an outline.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
It's when you turn it over you were like, oh,
there's where.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
It all is.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
I mean, the accident happened when I was twelve. I
started both hands when I was fifty two. There's a
forty year difference there. I had a radio when the
book came out. I was interviewed a few times.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
You know. One of the radio.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Guys said, you know, there's some biblical significance to the
number forty.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
No kidding, And I said, yeah, and you know what,
it just what.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
It turns out.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
The more I look back, the more I see it,
the more I study, it's like, that's forty years. That
was preparation time. That was preparational. Like God would say, JT.
Everything up between now and here, everything else has been preparation. Now,
this is what you've been preparing for, This is what
you were meant to do. Just tee it up and
swing because this is going to be fun.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
So in ninety seven and you leave Southwestern you had
four kids at the time, and you've been on the
road a bunch and you mentioned it earlier, but you
start working for Bethany Christian Services on well, on the board,
working with not for Bethany Christian Services, which, of course, surprise, surprise,

(37:20):
is an adoption agency. What a shock. I mean, one
more step in the grooming process, and some things happened. Yeah,
that even illuminated your path a little bit more, I guess,
is the way i'd say it.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah, I mean the culmination. What are the culminations the
highlights of that path?

Speaker 1 (37:47):
In there was.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Christmas Eve two thousand and one. I'm headed to the
attict to get the stockings to hang by the chimney
with care, because that's my job.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Right hold on, I got a question, quick intermission. Do
you have a fake Christmas tree or to use real
Christmas tree? Fake? Sorry? Do you feel like a communist?
I hate it, Lisa doesn't. I grew up in apartments,
all right, Okay? Mom was Dad left when I was
home when I was young, and I never had a

(38:24):
I never had a house with a front lawn to
cut until I bought my own when I was in
my thirst. Okay, I never had the organic family Christmas. Now.
We always went to my grandparents and that was a
family Christmas. But I'm talking to mom and Dad, a fireplace,
Christmas tree, all that, and so I am Griswaldian at Christmas.

(38:45):
I want to load I want to load my four
kids up in the family roadster. I want to drive
out some mud somewhere. I want to cut down a tree.
I want to bring it home. I want to spend
the afternoon trimming it. I want some eggnog. I want
to fire in the fireplace. I want to put the
stand on the tree. I want to drag it in.
I want all that. That's what I want, And I

(39:07):
got that for about the first twelve years of my
marriage with my children. And then one Christmas when we
left the tree up a little long and the needles
fell off and Lisa burn up the motor on her
electrologue vacuum in the trees up and that was under
real trees for me, and we went Communists and started
fake Christmas trees that I get out of the attic

(39:27):
now and it it kills me.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
I love not having to clean up all the needles after.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
You are Christmas Communists, so anyway.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, but I do love the good smell, So anyway,
that's that's a small diversion from your story. But I
just thought I might want to tell you, since the
holidays are coming up, that those of you with fake
Christmas trees are.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Doing it wrong. I'm among you, but it is under
protest and at the behest of my beautiful wife Lisa,
because of her electrologues. Okay, go ahead. You're in the.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Attic and I look around the attic and I see
a high chair, I see a stroller, and I see
a crib, and the thought hits me, We've got everything
we need to raise another child.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
This is Christmas of two thousand and one. Yes, okay,
Christmas Eve. And you're working for Bethany, not working on
working with you're on the board of Bethany.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Christian Services, which is an adoption agency, and they ministered
to women in crisis pregnancies. Got right, That's a big
part of what they were doing.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
And so it's Christmas Eve, now is it? Because you
were filled with the holiday cheer and the feelings of
joy at Christmas, at this thing hits you. I mean, really,
what's did you have too much eggnog. What are you thinking?
You already had how many kids?

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Stark raving, gorgeous wife, that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Okay, how many kids, but you already had four kids? Four? Yeah,
you have four kids and you're howled at this time.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
I am forty two forty three.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yeah, so I'm like that you start getting the kids
moved on. Yes, I have your second bite of life. Yes,
that's right. And you had too much egg Now you
have to sharespan communists and do you see this stuff
and you say, hey, we got everything we need for
another kid. When did you decide to mention it to Sarah?

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Well, because previous to that, because I'm on the board
of Bethany, I'm going to these meetings every month. I
come back from a meeting and my wife would say, well,
how was the meeting.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
I said, Oh, it was this.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
We did that, We got that going, we got this
much money.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
This has came in. Oh, when there's two kids down
at Baptist, just just warn the nick you And she.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Said, oh, let's go see you. I said, why.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Sarah's crazy too. She said, well, maybe we could adopt him.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
I said, honey, we just started a business. We were
starting a recruiting business. You know, we've been in it
for a couple of years. I said, we're not really
bringing home that much money. Most of somebody's going out.
We still got four kids living in Brentwood. This is
I mean, do you it would take all our life savings?
Do you want to use our life savings? And that
would quieter down, and then another month to go by,

(42:00):
and I would innotantly come back stupidly forgetting what the
conversation was the mother for and how was the meeting?
Oh we did this, we did that, we did that
about a little little and there's a child that Southern
Hills right now, let's go. And I said, no, we can't.
And at one point, and there were times I talked
to her about it because we're on this board of Bethany,
We're going to these fundraisers, we're meeting all these people

(42:21):
in the adoption world. I didn't find out until later
that there's several people praying for us to adopt. You know,
the question was what are j T and Sarah doing
us adoption? They haven't adopted, but they're in this adoption world.
And we went to a church that had an adoption culture,
I mean, like twenty percent of the kids in the
in the in the child's ministry, we're adopted. I mean,
that's a culture of adoption. So we're all around it.

(42:45):
And finally, one at one point, my wife says to me, listen,
I could be happy with these four kids the rest
of my life. I could be just as happy with
one more. You got four other kids. They'd love to
have a big brother or a little baby brother or
little sister.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
I said, you.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Got five of us in this family. On one side,
there's only one person in this family who's kind of
standing in the way. And you know, you can talk
to your friends about adoption, and you talk to me.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Sometimes you're up for it. Sometimes you're not.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
Talk to your friends, but stop talking to me until
you're ready. So she kind of gave me the what
four I'm at? And then mednight meantime, I'm putting my
kids to bed, and every night these kids are right,
and dear God, please let Dad let us adopt.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
So you're asking me, were there anything, Was there anything
that happened?

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah, there was a few things.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
So that's the background.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
So now it's Christmas Eve, two thousand and one, and
I'm headed to the attic to get the stockings to
hang by the chimney with here, because that's my job.
And I look around and there's a high chair and
a crib and a stroller. And then the thought hits me,
we've got everything we need to raise another child. And
then the next thought hits me, what's wrong with using

(44:08):
life savings to save a life? And it just it
was like God dealt with my greed, my my my fear,
my lack of faith, and my lack of courage.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
And right there's.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Like some some people God takes them, their father takes
them out to the woodshed.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
God took me to the attic.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
And and it just it just hit me, what's what's.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
All this for?

Speaker 2 (44:38):
And I walked down the stairs and my wife was
headed up astairs and I said, honey, we gotta we gotta.
We got cribs, we got a hight chair, we got
a stroller.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
And she thought I was gonna say.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
It's time for a yard, right well, and uh, I said,
we've got everything we need to raise another child. And
I said what's And I looked and I said, what's
wrong with using a life savings to save a life?

Speaker 1 (44:59):
And she said, are you serious. Yeah, Merry Christmas. Yeah, yeah,
she said. Can I tell the kids?

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah, that's the no turning back when that's that's when
the ships are burned, right there, that's the that's Cortes man,
tell the kids the ship is burned. And the next
morning the kids all got a note and they're stocking
talking about they're going to have a new baby brother
or sister. It was amazing Christmas.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
And that concludes Part one of my conversation with jt Olsen,
and I promise you you don't want to 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
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Bill Courtney

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