November 21, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, at the center of JT Olson's Both Hands ministry is a straightforward mission: service and charity. Provide a widow with the repairs she needs and use that same project to help a family offset the cost of adoption. Volunteers spend a day painting, cleaning, repairing, and restoring, and donors support the effort, knowing every dollar moves a child closer to a permanent home.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
It's been said children are our future. One man who's
making that future brighter, one construction project at a time. J. T.
Olson is the founder and president of Both Hands, a
ministry dedicated to helping Christian adoptive families fund their adoptions
(00:30):
by coordinating service projects and fixing up widows' homes.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Here's JT with the story.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
What we do at Both Hands is we help families
raise money for adoptions, and we do it by serving
a widow and whatever. I explain that to somebody, they
usually are very polite. They look at me though, with
this glassy eyes because they think it's real nice, but
they really have no idea what it means. And so
I have found the best way for someone to understand
(01:00):
Hands is to really tell you how it started me.
I mean it was back probably about the turn of
the century. I was on the board of a local
nonprofit here in town had served birth moms, and one
year I was in charge of the fundraiser and I
chose to do a golf fundraiser. It was a kind
of fundraiser where you before the event, you sent letters
(01:20):
out ahead of time asking people to sponsor you. So
I sent my letters out and I had a buddy
who I'm in a Bible study with. He sends my
letter back to me, does not include a check. He
just scribbled on my letter with a magic marker. JT.
If you told me you were working on a widow's house,
I might sponsor you. But you're just golfing. Nice cause,
(01:42):
but not my money. And it hurt my feels a
little bit. But at the same time, I thought, man,
that's a good idea, and the idea just never left me.
Whenever I saw a five K or a golf turn
after that, I couldn't help but thinking if all those
people were working on a widow's house instead, would it
(02:02):
be better? Would it be more powerful? I just didn't
have the orphan park figured out. And so a couple
years later this story develops. I'm in church when a
good friend of mine hadn't seen him a couple months.
I said, hey, Don, what's up. He looked at me
and said, we're adopting four kids from Moldova. And I
was taken aback a little. I mean, he already has
(02:24):
three kids at home, and I said, wow, what happened?
And he said well, I went on a mission trip
with Sweet Sleep You live in beds, the orphanages and
Moldova and fell in low. It was this little boy, George,
And when we got back, we started the adoption process,
and in the process we found out George has three siblings.
And Don looked at me and said, we're not going
(02:45):
to break up the siblings. And when he said that,
it took me back to when I was twelve years
old living on a farm in northeastern Iowa. There was
five of us kids, and one weekend, my mom and
dad left to celebrate their sixteenth wedding anniversary, and us
kids were kind of farmed to different places. And I
remember Saturday night being brought home by one of the neighbors,
and because mom and dad were coming home, and he
(03:07):
dropped me and my brother off, I was dirty. I'd
played in the barn all day at his place, and
so I had to go in the basement to change.
My brother went in the front door, but I remember
sitting in our basement in this chair, bending over, unlacing
my boots, and my brother came down the stairs. I
just looked up at him. I said, our mom and
dad home, and he looked at me and he said,
(03:28):
mom and dad are dead. And I said what he said,
Mom and dad are dead. They were killed in a
car accident hour ago. And he turned around, walked upstairs,
and I mean he had just hurt himself. He was
just coming downstairs to tell me. But I remember that moment.
I remember that hitting that cold cement floor and crying
(03:50):
all by myself for about ten minutes, like any twelve
year old would cry. I mean, I know what it's
like to be an orphan, and I know what it's
like to wonder, you know, what's going to happen to us,
Who's going to take care of us? What now? Are
we going to be able to stay together? Can we
stay on the farm. I mean, all these things that
(04:10):
go through your head and just trying to grapple with
the fact I'm never going to see mom and dad again,
and trying to get that figured out, and how I
wish my last interaction with my father would have been different.
But I also know what it's like to be rescued,
because three months before this accident, my aunt and uncle,
my mom and dad changed their wills that if anything
(04:31):
would happen to one of the families, the other family
would take. My aunt and uncle were thirty three years old,
they had three children of their own. They live in
a really nice suburb of Milwaukee. They took all five
of us. I know what it's like to have someone
come in and say we got you. You know, it
(04:51):
may not always be pretty, but we got you. So
back to the hallway in church, and my buddy looks
at me and says, you know, we're not going to
break up siblings. I mean, I'm the just right guy
to say that too, because I'm not going to sit
there and show you sure. I mean, I am a
recipient of the fact that someone put there yes on
the table, someone said yes, we will do this thing
(05:13):
that is seems impossible right now and gargantuan and just
really a difficult past, but yeah, we'll do it. So
and by then we had adopted. Our fifth child's adopted,
so I knew it was gonna be expensive. I said, Don,
how much is going to cost? He said, well, they're
telling us seventy or eighty thousand. And I said, do
you have any idea? How are you going to do this?
He said no, And I said I think I got
(05:34):
an idea, And so Don and I long story short,
we've recruit about ten, fifteen twenty people. We all sent
letters out to people we knew and said, just with
my buddy suggestion, would you sponsor me for the day
while I work on this widow's house. All the money
I RAI is going to go towards the cost of
this adoption. And we found a widow in Nashville who
(05:56):
needed help. We got I mean, there's just honeydew this stuff,
but we got all the supplies donated. For the most part,
we didn't spend any money. I mean, we spent money
on stamps. We all sent letters out and we spent
the day working. About thirty thirty five people showed up
because work kind of got out about what we were doing,
and we spent the day working. When it was all
over said and done, I mean, the widow was blessed.
(06:16):
Miss Lucille could not believe how much was done for
her that day. And when it was all over, we'd
raised a little over seventy thousand. We've served seventeen hundred
and thirty seven widows and it's exciting. There are all
kinds of stories with families who adopted, I mean, and
the value that the joy you bring these widows. I mean,
(06:38):
I've been in a home where I'm sitting there thanking you, widow,
and thanks for letting us work on our product. And
she breaks down crying it says thank you, thank you me.
She said thank you. She said, I honestly thought God
had forgotten about me. And I remember praying the Dear God,
I can't do any of this stuff. I need some help.
And the next thing, you know, a week later, this
(07:00):
families contact me about can we come and work on
your house. And we've seen projects where the neighbors saw
what was going on and it changed her life because
they saw the hands of Christ and they couldn't believe.
And it's we had one girl show up at a project.
She had really fallen away, but the project brought her back,
took her back to church because she said, she's I
(07:21):
have seen the hands of Christ. This is awesome. And
you know what, this this never gets hold, it never
gets tiring, and it's so much fun. And for me,
I love it because when Satan gets up in the
morning with his little minions and he's got his little list,
and when he gets to my name, I don't want
him checking the box that says, not a threat, because
(07:42):
this is Hotel Earth. Are we here for an impact
or are we here for ease? I think there's more
reward and impact than there is an ease, and that's
what we want to do.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by her own, Greg Hengler and Reagan Habib.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And special thanks to J. T. Olson.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
He's the founder and president of Both Hands, a ministry
dedicated to helping Christian adoptive families fund their adoptions, and
you just heard how by fixing up widows homes. By
the way, he has a book out called The Orphan,
the Widow and Me Paying it Forward with Both Hands,
(08:24):
and it's available wherever you get your books. And what
an inspiring story. So much of this is prompted by
his buddy Don's trip to Maldova, a mission trip in
which he came back with one child, but did not
want to separate the family. He had three siblings this child,
and of course we then find out J. T. Olson
(08:46):
knew a bit about being an orphan. He finds out
at the age of twelve that his mother and father
are dead, that they had died in a car accident
and He said, I know what it's like to be
an orphan who's going to take care of us, and
always grappling with the fact that he was never going
to see his mother and father again. Is Christian faith
(09:08):
a fundamental part of all of this? His comments at
the end about the devil, All many Christians in this
country feel that way, there is a devil, and the
way to have him skip you is too well.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Make it hard for him to attack the story of J.
T Olsen. Here on our American stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
It's been said children are our future. One man who's
making that future brighter, one construction project at a time. J. T.
Olson is the founder and president of Both Hands, a
ministry dedicated to helping Christian adoptive families fund their adoptions
(00:30):
by coordinating service projects and fixing up widows' homes.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Here's JT with the story.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
What we do at Both Hands is we help families
raise money for adoptions, and we do it by serving
a widow and whatever. I explain that to somebody, they
usually are very polite. They look at me though, with
this glassy eyes because they think it's real nice, but
they really have no idea what it means. And so
I have found the best way for someone to understand
(01:00):
Hands is to really tell you how it started me.
I mean it was back probably about the turn of
the century. I was on the board of a local
nonprofit here in town had served birth moms, and one
year I was in charge of the fundraiser and I
chose to do a golf fundraiser. It was a kind
of fundraiser where you before the event, you sent letters
(01:20):
out ahead of time asking people to sponsor you. So
I sent my letters out and I had a buddy
who I'm in a Bible study with. He sends my
letter back to me, does not include a check. He
just scribbled on my letter with a magic marker. JT.
If you told me you were working on a widow's house,
I might sponsor you. But you're just golfing. Nice cause,
(01:42):
but not my money. And it hurt my feels a
little bit. But at the same time, I thought, man,
that's a good idea, and the idea just never left me.
Whenever I saw a five K or a golf turn
after that, I couldn't help but thinking if all those
people were working on a widow's house instead, would it
(02:02):
be better? Would it be more powerful? I just didn't
have the orphan park figured out. And so a couple
years later this story develops. I'm in church when a
good friend of mine hadn't seen him a couple months.
I said, hey, Don, what's up. He looked at me
and said, we're adopting four kids from Moldova. And I
was taken aback a little. I mean, he already has
(02:24):
three kids at home, and I said, wow, what happened?
And he said well, I went on a mission trip
with Sweet Sleep You live in beds, the orphanages and
Moldova and fell in low. It was this little boy, George,
And when we got back, we started the adoption process,
and in the process we found out George has three siblings.
And Don looked at me and said, we're not going
(02:45):
to break up the siblings. And when he said that,
it took me back to when I was twelve years
old living on a farm in northeastern Iowa. There was
five of us kids, and one weekend, my mom and
dad left to celebrate their sixteenth wedding anniversary, and us
kids were kind of farmed to different places. And I
remember Saturday night being brought home by one of the neighbors,
and because mom and dad were coming home, and he
(03:07):
dropped me and my brother off, I was dirty. I'd
played in the barn all day at his place, and
so I had to go in the basement to change.
My brother went in the front door, but I remember
sitting in our basement in this chair, bending over, unlacing
my boots, and my brother came down the stairs. I
just looked up at him. I said, our mom and
dad home, and he looked at me and he said,
(03:28):
mom and dad are dead. And I said what he said,
Mom and dad are dead. They were killed in a
car accident hour ago. And he turned around, walked upstairs,
and I mean he had just hurt himself. He was
just coming downstairs to tell me. But I remember that moment.
I remember that hitting that cold cement floor and crying
(03:50):
all by myself for about ten minutes, like any twelve
year old would cry. I mean, I know what it's
like to be an orphan, and I know what it's
like to wonder, you know, what's going to happen to us,
Who's going to take care of us? What now? Are
we going to be able to stay together? Can we
stay on the farm. I mean, all these things that
(04:10):
go through your head and just trying to grapple with
the fact I'm never going to see mom and dad again,
and trying to get that figured out, and how I
wish my last interaction with my father would have been different.
But I also know what it's like to be rescued,
because three months before this accident, my aunt and uncle,
my mom and dad changed their wills that if anything
(04:31):
would happen to one of the families, the other family
would take. My aunt and uncle were thirty three years old,
they had three children of their own. They live in
a really nice suburb of Milwaukee. They took all five
of us. I know what it's like to have someone
come in and say we got you. You know, it
(04:51):
may not always be pretty, but we got you. So
back to the hallway in church, and my buddy looks
at me and says, you know, we're not going to
break up siblings. I mean, I'm the just right guy
to say that too, because I'm not going to sit
there and show you sure. I mean, I am a
recipient of the fact that someone put there yes on
the table, someone said yes, we will do this thing
(05:13):
that is seems impossible right now and gargantuan and just
really a difficult past, but yeah, we'll do it. So
and by then we had adopted. Our fifth child's adopted,
so I knew it was gonna be expensive. I said, Don,
how much is going to cost? He said, well, they're
telling us seventy or eighty thousand. And I said, do
you have any idea? How are you going to do this?
He said no, And I said I think I got
(05:34):
an idea, And so Don and I long story short,
we've recruit about ten, fifteen twenty people. We all sent
letters out to people we knew and said, just with
my buddy suggestion, would you sponsor me for the day
while I work on this widow's house. All the money
I RAI is going to go towards the cost of
this adoption. And we found a widow in Nashville who
(05:56):
needed help. We got I mean, there's just honeydew this stuff,
but we got all the supplies donated. For the most part,
we didn't spend any money. I mean, we spent money
on stamps. We all sent letters out and we spent
the day working. About thirty thirty five people showed up
because work kind of got out about what we were doing,
and we spent the day working. When it was all
over said and done, I mean, the widow was blessed.
(06:16):
Miss Lucille could not believe how much was done for
her that day. And when it was all over, we'd
raised a little over seventy thousand. We've served seventeen hundred
and thirty seven widows and it's exciting. There are all
kinds of stories with families who adopted, I mean, and
the value that the joy you bring these widows. I mean,
(06:38):
I've been in a home where I'm sitting there thanking you, widow,
and thanks for letting us work on our product. And
she breaks down crying it says thank you, thank you me.
She said thank you. She said, I honestly thought God
had forgotten about me. And I remember praying the Dear God,
I can't do any of this stuff. I need some help.
And the next thing, you know, a week later, this
(07:00):
families contact me about can we come and work on
your house. And we've seen projects where the neighbors saw
what was going on and it changed her life because
they saw the hands of Christ and they couldn't believe.
And it's we had one girl show up at a project.
She had really fallen away, but the project brought her back,
took her back to church because she said, she's I
(07:21):
have seen the hands of Christ. This is awesome. And
you know what, this this never gets hold, it never
gets tiring, and it's so much fun. And for me,
I love it because when Satan gets up in the
morning with his little minions and he's got his little list,
and when he gets to my name, I don't want
him checking the box that says, not a threat, because
(07:42):
this is Hotel Earth. Are we here for an impact
or are we here for ease? I think there's more
reward and impact than there is an ease, and that's
what we want to do.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by her own, Greg Hengler and Reagan Habib.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And special thanks to J. T. Olson.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
He's the founder and president of Both Hands, a ministry
dedicated to helping Christian adoptive families fund their adoptions, and
you just heard how by fixing up widows homes. By
the way, he has a book out called The Orphan,
the Widow and Me Paying it Forward with Both Hands,
(08:24):
and it's available wherever you get your books. And what
an inspiring story. So much of this is prompted by
his buddy Don's trip to Maldova, a mission trip in
which he came back with one child, but did not
want to separate the family. He had three siblings this child,
and of course we then find out J. T. Olson
(08:46):
knew a bit about being an orphan. He finds out
at the age of twelve that his mother and father
are dead, that they had died in a car accident
and He said, I know what it's like to be
an orphan who's going to take care of us, and
always grappling with the fact that he was never going
to see his mother and father again. Is Christian faith
(09:08):
a fundamental part of all of this? His comments at
the end about the devil, All many Christians in this
country feel that way, there is a devil, and the
way to have him skip you is too well.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Make it hard for him to attack the story of J.
T Olsen. Here on our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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