Living Fearless with Donna Winship: Identity Unlocked, Freedom Released, Faith Unleashed

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On this episode of Hope Unlocked, host Kristin Kurtz welcomes Donna Winship of Identity Exchange for a powerful conversation on faith, courage, and living fearless. Donna shares her journey with husband Jamie Winship, their 42 years of marriage, raising a family overseas, and how saying “yes” to God has transformed lives across nations. Discover how identity, freedom, and trust in God’s voice can unlock purpose and ignite bold faith in your own calling.

Donna's Contact Info:

Email - [e-mail]

Website - https://linktr.ee/identityexchange

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Medical Disclaimer: Information in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. The views and testimonies expressed are those of the individuals. Use the information at your own discretion.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome to the Hope Unlocked Podcast.
I'm your host, kristen Kurtz,and I'm also the founder of New
Wings Coaching.
I help and empower wildheartedand adventurous women of faith
feeling caged and stuck, unlocktheir true purpose and potential
, break free from limitationsand thrive with confidence,
courage and hope.
If you're curious to learn moreabout coaching with me, head to
newwingscoachingnet and be sureto explore the show notes for

(00:38):
ways to connect with me further.
Get ready to dive in as weuncover empowering keys and
insights in this episode.
So tune in and let's unlockhope together.
Welcome to the Hope Unlockedpodcast.
I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host.
I pray this episode is like aholy IV of hope for your soul.
Please help me welcome DonnaWinship to the show.

(00:59):
I am so excited to have herhere today.
She has been just one of thecatalysts in my life over the
past couple years, along withher husband, jamie, to help me
move and live fearless.
I call it fear lesser becauseas we journey we get fear lesser
.
So thank you, donna, for beingon here today.

(01:20):
I would love for you to share alittle bit about yourself
before we get into your story.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, my name is Donna Winship.
Share a little bit aboutyourself before we get into your
story.
Yeah, my name is Donna Winship,and a little bit about myself.
Wow, I don't really know whereto start.
Yeah, my husband, jamie, and Imet when we were in college.
We've been married for 42 years.
We have lived in severaldifferent countries, raised our

(01:46):
family mostly in Southeast Asiaand the Middle East.
We have three grown sons.
They're all married and we havesix gorgeous grandchildren, and
we right now live in theSoutheast United States.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Okay, well, I know your journey and for those of
you guys who are listening whodon't know anything about Jamie
and Donna and haven't read thebook that I have right here,
called Living Fearless, I havenoticed that there's a few
people who haven't heard of youyet, so I know that that's going
to change as time goes on.
You could tell me a little bitmore about just even stepping

(02:28):
into this journey of you know,maybe being more public, because
I know that a lot of your time,like you said, was spent
overseas.
Were you guys in the public eyeat that time?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Not really, because I was before the internet.
You know the internet changedeverything about being in the
public eye.
We were very much not in thepublic eye.
When we got married, jamie wasin law enforcement.
We're from the Washington DCarea and so he worked for Metro

(03:05):
DC very large police department.
I was an elementary schoolteacher and just sort of what I
would say living the Americandream.
This was in the 80s and Jamiehad had a few experiences.
He grew up in a very religious,legalistic Christian home and

(03:30):
had had a few experiences Onewhen he was 14 in a movie
theater where he had seen amovie that he felt really named
him and it was a movie about apolice officer.
And then one when he was 17after being in a wrestling

(03:54):
tournament and hurt his kneebadly and had to have surgery.
And in the 14-year-oldexperience in the movie theater
he wanted to be the kind ofpolice officer that he saw in
the movie, someone that notnecessarily that person, but

(04:15):
someone who cared about justice,that really did things
differently, that didn't followthe status quo, that wasn't
corrupt and that really changedthings.
And so then, when he was 17 andhe was in the hospital because
of his knee.
His biggest concern is that hewould be able to pass a police

(04:39):
physical, and the nurse that wastaking care of him shared the
gospel in such a way that he hadnever heard.
And, long story short, he wasso angry about what happened to
him that the love and the carethat she showed him really
overcame his anger, and he hadjust never seen that type of

(05:05):
faith played out, the type offaith he knew was a God that was
angry and condemning, and healways felt judged and like a
sinner, and he never saw thisunconditional, nonjudgmental
type of love.
And that was really pivotal forhim.

(05:25):
And so those two things reallycombined to make him realize
that there's a different way todo things.
And, on the flip side, I didn'tmeet him till I was in college.
I'm growing up those same yearsand I'm from a Jewish family,
have an amazing backstory of mygrandparents both escaping the

(05:49):
horrors of Eastern Europe thatled to World War II and just so
grateful that they were able toget out and get to the United
States.
It's a miracle, really story,that I'm alive, but yet I was
raised in a very traditionalJewish home, went to Hebrew

(06:09):
school, had a bat mitzvah, allof those things, but yet it was
very empty for me.
The culture was very rich, butthe spiritual part was very
empty.
The thrust of Judaism.
The thrust of Judaism, I wouldsay, for me was about keeping

(06:35):
the traditions of Judaism aliveand nothing about a personal God
or a relationship with apersonal God.
A lot of it was based on guiltof realizing carrying this heavy
burden of.
Look at everything yourgrandparents went through so
that you are free to be Jewish,and when you I went to a large
public high school where therewas, I had some anti-Semitic

(06:56):
experiences and always felt likeI didn't fit in, I didn't
belong.
And when I was asking those bigquestions of life that everybody
starts asking, why am I here?
What's my purpose?
Nobody could answer those forme.
In my religious tradition, andthe biggest one for me was what

(07:19):
happens when you die, and nobodycould answer that.
For me and for your listeners,if you're familiar, especially
with the Old Testament, there isno real explanation for heaven
or hell, right?
So nobody could adequatelyexplain that to me and it became

(07:41):
terrifying because it wassomething nobody wanted to talk
about and it was clear that thatdismissal of the subject was
this there was a hidden feararound it, and so it made me
terrified of death.
And you were in your teens atthis point.
I was in my teens, I mean.

(08:02):
That started when I was a younggirl, when you first become
aware that you're going to dieand like our dog died.
I was about five years old,like what happens when you die.
I didn't realize that's goingto happen to me one day.
And you know, I got answerslike oh, don't think about that,
let's think about your birthday, it's coming up.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, coming up, yeah , yeah, so you would.
You say you're more of acurious person too, in essence.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I want to know the deeper things.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Some people don't.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
I would say yes, and I've always wondered about that
because I don't see in the restof my family that spiritual
curiosity.
I'm the only, you know,believer in my family in terms
of you know, following Jesus andbelieving that Jesus is the
Messiah, even believing you knowjust the deeper things of

(08:57):
spiritual life and I alwayswonder why am I the only one
that has this spiritualcuriosity?
And I had it from a young ageand nobody could entertain that
with me.
The subject would always bechanged when I would ask these
deeper questions about life.
So I'm growing up with that andI get to high school.

(09:18):
I had some other negativeexperiences and I started to
take on this identity of I don'tbelong, I don't fit in.
I went to a huge public highschool.
There were very few there was ahandful, but very few Jewish
people in my high school andjust never felt like I fit in.

(09:40):
I didn't feel like I fit in athome, didn't feel like I fit in
at school and felt very insecure.
I had some negative experienceswith teachers that shamed me.
So then I didn't feel smartenough and I'm sure people can
relate to this.
You know you don't feel smartenough, you don't feel good

(10:01):
enough.
You don't.
You know, you name it somethingnot enough.
And then you start to realizedeep down inside that I'm just
not enough and mix that with nobelief in some person.
I believed in God, but I justdidn't know if he believed in me
right, or if he even knew Iexisted, and then just the

(10:27):
weight of that guilt,generational guilt from
generations.
Look what everything the Jewshave done to survive and you
better make sure you hold fastto these traditions of Judaism.
But if you don't have that deepspiritual, it's just legalism.
You don't have some deeperspiritual connection to the God

(10:53):
of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
What's?
the point right, and I didn'tknow anybody that had that.
It was just legalism.
And bacon sure smelled goodwhen you walked into a
restaurant, right, not allowedto eat that.
Anyway, went off to collegewith all these insecurities and

(11:18):
that's where I met Jamie, and hewas actually the first person
to ever share the gospel with me, and that's a long funny story
that's out there on a lot ofpodcasts.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
We'll have to link one of your favorite interviews
that people can go back andlisten to, because it is
incredible.
I mean truly like his hand onyou being together.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, it's amazing how we met and the timing of
that, yeah, but fast forward.
Jamie was a police officer, Iwas a teacher.
We were really living thatAmerican dream, you know, went
from apartment buying our firsthouse, selling the motorcycle
because I'm pregnant we betterget a car.

(12:03):
You know things like this.
And Jamie's fifth year beingpolice officer, he was already a
detective.
He had won officer of the yearbecause he was always asking
this question is there a betterway to do this?
I love that.
Do this.

(12:29):
I love that.
Can I love people that aredifficult to love?
The way that nurse loved me?
She didn't witness to me theway people in church witnessed
to me by telling me I'm a sinnerand I'm going to go to hell.
She loved me into the kingdomof God.
Her love overcame my anger andwon me to Jesus and he had never
seen that before.
You know, we overcome by theblood of the Lamb and the word

(12:53):
of our testimony, and that's howhe overflowed into his police
work.
Can I do things differently?
How can I not arrest criminals?
How can I win criminals?

Speaker 1 (13:14):
And so it's such a flip the script.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
And I was the same way with my students.
I wanted every student.
I never felt like I had ateacher that cared about me and
I developed this false identitygoing through school of I'm
stupid, I'm not smart enough,but I was smart enough.
But it's just.

(13:38):
You know, we get a sense ofidentity from what we do, what
we have and what people think ofus, and that's really a false
identity, because true identity,you're born with it.
You don't necessarily know whatit is, but it's something to be
discovered and it's a gift fromGod and it's part of God.

(14:02):
We're made in His likeness andHis image.
It's a facet of God that heputs inside of us, to be
discovered through our lifetime.
And I'll tell you this, kristenhe doesn't make anybody stupid.
He doesn't make anybody avictim.
He doesn't make anybodyhopeless.
He doesn't make anybodyhopeless.

(14:28):
And this is how I was feeling asI went through my high school
years and into college.
And, yeah, so we're living ourlife and I'm talking about the
American dream, jamie's in hisfifth year and as he's doing

(14:50):
well in policing.
I became a teacher because Iwas feeling I always felt stupid
and not good enough and notsmart enough and different in
school.
So I became a teacher because Iwanted every single one of my
students to feel like they werethe teacher's pet.
I wanted every one of mystudents to know that they
belong.
I wanted every one of mystudents to know that they had a
safe place at school.
Because my student teachingexperience was in the heart of

(15:12):
Appalachia, that's very poormountain communities in kind of
the southeast mid-Atlanticstates.
I'm from Virginia and themountainous regions of Virginia,
west Virginia, east Tennessee,and so a lot of poor,
disadvantaged students.

(15:33):
And, yeah, I just wanted everyone of them to know that school
was a safe place and that Iloved them and they fit in here
and they belonged.
And then, when I taught them.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
I share something with you really quick.
You know I want to just makesure the listeners are catching
this.
So what you experienced in anegative aspect growing up, you
know, in an environment, inschool, you took something that
you experienced and then kind ofyou're like I want to do
something to like make thisbetter for people coming behind

(16:07):
me.
I actually just watched a movieand I love, like the underdog
movies, the overcomer movies.
I don't know if you've seenthis movie movie before.
It's called radical.
Uh, maybe it's.
It's out of mexico and it'sactually I had to watch it in
closed captions because, or inEnglish subtitles, I should say

(16:28):
it was.
So I literally just watched itthis last weekend.
It literally sounds like itepitomizes everything you're
just talking about, because myheart, like I love to see people
out there, like helping kind offlip systems, like it's you
know, know, jamie was out ingovernment, in essence, like
bringing his love and his truthto these spaces, like what you

(16:49):
were bringing to, you know, theeducation system.
Um, so if you guys want to gowatch a movie, and even even you
too, it's so good.
I, I was just like, oh my gosh,it's like everybody needs to
watch this movie.
Um, a teacher out of Mexico andthere's also another movie
called a million miles away.
Have you seen that one?

(17:10):
I'm writing these down as you'resaying oh good, another teacher
that like literally impactedsomebody, and I think maybe a
first grader, that completelychanged the trajectory of his
life and went back and was likeyou were the reason.
So the reason I'm threadingthat in is because of what you

(17:30):
mentioned about Jamie.
You know this woman at, youknow physical therapy.
She wasn't coming with like aplaybook, she was coming with
like her heart and the love.
And I mean because I want youto catch that with, like her
heart and the love.
And I mean you guys, I want youto catch that Like truly, and

(17:56):
you brought that to the schools.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, yeah, so often we look for formula, right, we
think it's our job to witness tosomebody, and witness just
means to share the sameexperience you've had.
Right, it doesn't mean it'syour job to save somebody by
using some formulaic steps to itdidn't work for me.

(18:20):
Yeah, just what's yourexperience?
What's what's been yourexperience?

Speaker 1 (18:25):
yeah, and so, yeah, so I have to share that with you
because I just really wantpeople to capture, yeah, your
experience and jamie'sexperience, because you know,
sometimes people can gloss overthese podcasts and it's just
really important to like justfully be who god created you to

(18:45):
be and go out there and do thething.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, you know, every person that we encounter we can
99% guarantee that they feelstuck and alone.
They're walking in a falseidentity, in a separated
worldview.
They're in the wrong worldviewand by just giving them

(19:12):
information about the Bible,about God, information doesn't
change anybody's life.
We don't see Jesus giving outinformation.
There was actually no Bible.
Jesus didn't have a Bible.
People didn't have printingcapacity for books and things

(19:35):
like this.
They had the Torah scrolls, butthey were in the synagogues.
You know Jesus is going aroundfacilitating spiritual
transformation and informationdoesn't change anybody's life.
It's not bad.
It adds to your base ofknowledge, but it's experience,

(19:57):
it's an experience of being withthat changes your life and
that's what you're talking aboutJamie being with that nurse and
seeing Jesus.
She was literally Jesus to him,she was an aspect of Jesus.
It was her identity that shewas giving away, she was

(20:21):
overflowing onto Jamie and itchanged his life.
And you know the same thing ofwhat I'm saying about?
I wanted those students tobelong because I never felt like
I belonged and when I met Jesus, I realized I didn't have to go
looking for belonging at afraternity house with people

(20:44):
partying, because how long isthat going to last One night.
And how are you going to feelthe next morning?
Full of guilt and shame.
Exactly Right, and, man, if wecan get that young.
I always say you can't giveaway what you don't have.
Yeah, say that again you can'tgive away what you don't have.

(21:05):
But you're only going toreflect what you have received.
And I feel like most of my lifewhat I was receiving was a
sense of fear, a sense of shame,a sense of guilt.
Of course, I had great momentsalso.
I had a very stable family,great memories of going to the

(21:27):
beach and you know balletrecitals and tennis tournaments
and great memories of all thatthat you know formational,
foundational years ofdevelopment.
But you know what sticks inyour mind.
All that not to get into toomuch brain science all those

(21:48):
good memories are stored in yourhippocampus, like in the
library of your mind.
But what you remember are thesemore traumatic memories.
They're right there in theforefront of your mind, so that
you know what to do when youencounter a difficult situation.
That's how your brain works.
It brings it up quickly so youcan respond when you see a snake

(22:12):
, when you see a cliff, whenyou're about to, you know, cross
the street and a car's comingand so it's right there, you
know.
So you're ready to react, andthat's why those traumatic
memories, those feelings that weget attached to them, are so
prominent and we feel that fearso often.

(22:33):
And it takes a lot of work toretrain your brain.
But this is Romans 12 too.
Do not be conformed any longerto the patterns of this world,
not the world out there, thepatterns of your world, the way
you are thinking this is thatrepentance, which means metanoia

(22:57):
, have a change of thinking byhaving the Greek word, have a
change of thinking by having anexperience of being with Jesus.
This is the Greek definition ofrepentance.
It doesn't mean saying you'resorry.
We think it means oh, I'm sorry, I smoked a cigarette, oh, I'm

(23:20):
sorry, I felt jealous, I'm sorry, I felt jealous.
No, have a change of thinkingafter having an experience of
being with Jesus and walk in thenew way.
And this is how we stop thatanxiety loop, that fear loop
that we learned.
I'm kind of really going allover the place.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
No, this is good.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, but I'm just saying that's what I learned
through these negativeexperiences, especially middle
school and high school, withteachers, with friends, with
people who I thought werefriends but weren't really out,
didn't really have my best inmind and I'm looking for

(24:06):
belongings, so anybody thatwould let me be in their group,
even if it was a bad group.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Right, I get that.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, so anyway, let's fast forward.
Yes, so we're going alongliving our life and Jamie gets
recruited by the statedepartment.
We're going along living ourlife and Jamie gets recruited by
the State Department.
He's in the Washington DC areaand they have all kinds of
people scouting out the StateDepartment looking for good
candidates to do StateDepartment-type work.

(24:37):
He was interviewed it's a verydramatic story and offered a job
to live overseas in a Muslimcontext to infiltrate radical
groups and pacify them.
I was pregnant at the time.

(24:58):
I'm Jewish.
He was offered this job in theMuslim world.
I said no way.
He said yes, we're doing it.
And we laugh.
Now we say this is the story ofour marriage.
We call it yo.
He says yes.
I say no, no-transcript.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, complementary, right Exact opposites yes,
complementary.
And we did not actually takethat job, but we did move to the
country and do the work.
We wanted to do it from a morekingdom of God perspective in

(26:06):
Indonesia, and I took a job withthe New Zealand government who
was doing a literacy project outin the villages and we took our
five-year-old, three-year-oldand 10-month-old baby and we
moved to an island that had 2.5million people, predominantly
Muslim, and I guess you couldsay we left the American dream,
sold our house, sold our cars,yeah, yeah and embarked on a

(26:30):
great adventure.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
I need to go back a little bit.
Okay, okay, he's yes, you're no, you eventually say yes.
What was that process like togo from the no to eventually?
Obviously you did say yesbecause you left.
Like there's a process therethat happened for you,
especially because I'm thinkingof the listeners who maybe

(26:59):
they're in a marriage and theyhave complimentary spouse
relationship, where one's alittle bit more what I would say
wild and one's a little bitmore tame, right, and you know,
I feel like there's a little bitof a story here that could
really help somebody to maybetake that step.
What would that look like foryou?

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah, I'll go into it a bit.
For Jamie it was a dream job.
He was in law enforcement.
He got promoted really fastbecause he's doing what I would
call we didn't know at the timewe wouldn't have used that
phrase listening prayer Likething but he was doing listening
prayer and asking God.
I'm sorry, it's okay, it's onDo Not Disturb, I don't know why

(27:56):
.
Anyway, he was doing listeningprayer and always asking God.
Is there a different way to dothis?
And he was solving kidnappingcases.
That seemed impossible.
This is before the internet,before cell phones, before GPS.
He was solving these hugeburglary rings.
He was, you know he wouldinvite gang members home for

(28:17):
dinner.
You know they would have thishuge experience with God and
change the gang, go home and,you know, break up the gangs and
you know just really radicalstuff he was doing.
He got quickly Officer of theYear, promoted to detective.
Then he was scouted out by theState Department, by the State

(28:39):
Department, and it was a dreamjob for him and it was a lot of
money, especially compared to apolice officer's salary.
And I told you I was pregnantwith our second child, very
pregnant, and I didn't want todo it.

(28:59):
And he really wanted to do it.
And we're young, we're 27.
Okay, we've been married likefour years and I mean we were
really young and, I don't know,naive, and so, just like any

(29:20):
wise couple would do, we didn'ttalk about it for about two
weeks.
We couldn't talk about itwithout arguing, and he was
going through the motions of theprocess because of course, he
had to go through applying andbeing interviewed and just not

(29:42):
wanting to just say no rightaway and cut it off.
But he listened to me.
I mean we love each other, youknow, and he always honored, you
know, my opinion, but it wasdifficult for us to talk about,
and so that whole applicationprocess and all took several

(30:06):
months, a few months, and wewere praying about it the whole
time and during that time we hadalready scheduled to go away to
the beach for vacation.
And we went to the beach and myfriend had given me a book to
read and I didn't even know whatit was and I just packed it, I
didn't even pay attention towhat it was, and we got to the

(30:29):
beach and again we were talkingto each other, but it was a
little tense, let's say.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
At the surface level.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, because it's just like the deep thing, like
we couldn't talk about itwithout getting in a heated
discussion.
And we got to the beach andhe's like I forgot to bring
anything to read.
Remember, before you could getiBooks or audio books, he's like
I forgot to bring anything toread.
Do you have a book?
I'm like, oh well, my friendgave me this book and I handed

(31:00):
it to him, again not reallypaying attention to what it was,
and he started reading it andlike he devoured the book, he
couldn't put it down.
And so we're sitting there onthe beach and I'm kind of
looking over trying to read theback cover, like what is this
book?
Thinking?
It was some spy thriller, whichis what he likes to read, likes
to read and it was calledThrough Gates of Splendor by

(31:23):
Elizabeth Elliot, which in the50s, her and Jim Elliot were
missionaries.
Some of your listeners may knowthe story.
It's pretty antiquated now, buther and her husband and their
team were missionaries inEcuador to a Stone Age tribe in
the jungle and they weremartyred.

(31:43):
All the men were martyred fortheir faith trying to reach this
Stone Age tribe.
And Elizabeth Elliot stayed inthe jungle and she baptized the
man who murdered her husband.
He came to faith.
I'm going to start crying.
It's an incredible story.
Read the book.
But Jim Elliot was a deeplyspiritual deeply, I don't know

(32:10):
what that even means spiritualman, had an incredible
relationship with Jesus and asJamie was reading that book,
there was a quote in there thatsaid soon, this life shall pass.
Only things done for Christwill last.
And he had this realizationthat he wanted to take the job

(32:32):
offer for the prestige and forthe money.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
That was the initial reason.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
And as he read that book, he realized that he was
made to do the job because ofhis love for people and that he
had a calling, because of thatnurse, because of that movie, to
reach hard people that nobodywanted to reach, people that

(33:08):
nobody wanted to reach.
The movie gave him that passionfor justice and not to be
corrupt and to go aftercriminals, not to arrest them
but to win them.
And the nurse gave him thepassion to not be religious but
to love people unconditionallyand to reach hard people.
My love can overcome your anger.
That mixed with my sense ofcalling of making each person

(33:33):
feel special and like theybelong.
So think of women in a Muslimcontext who are often abused,
often feel shame.
And it was at that beachvacation where we came into
oneness about the decision to goand infiltrate radical Muslim

(33:58):
groups.
But do it in a real way, with areal job, but do it for the
kingdom of god, yes, and sothat's what we did.
We do read the book too.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Oh, I devoured the book, okay yeah, and you were
able to bring your gifting intothat first job oh yeah, because
I worked in the villages.
I loved it Um tell us a littlebit about that.
Um what did that look like tobring Um?

Speaker 2 (34:30):
yeah.
So, uh, jamie worked inuniversity setting doing well we
he yeah, he didn't take the job.
They were shocked that hedidn't take the job.
Yeah, he didn't take the job.
They were shocked that hedidn't take the job.
And we went to seminary for twoyears and, yeah, you look so
surprised.
I don't know that.

(35:04):
I knew that Indonesia and wedid language study for a year on
one island.
Then we moved to where we weregoing to be.
We had a small team of sevenpeople and the men worked in the
university and the wives workedin the village with this New
Zealand project and one of thewives was a nurse.
I was a teacher and I can'tremember what the other one's

(35:25):
degree was in.
Oh, she was a teacher too.
And, yeah, and it was awesomebecause the women, new Zealand
was trying to help a lot oftourism, new tourism was coming
to this island.
It was very third worldunderdeveloped Tourism was
coming to this island.
It was very third worldunderdeveloped and the New
Zealand government was trying tohelp them get their handicrafts

(35:45):
to international quality,especially the pottery,
beautiful pottery If you couldsee my house all these kind of

(36:09):
things.
And they weren't even literatein their own language and so I'm
like adapting.
We were fairly fluent inIndonesian and so I'm trying to
figure out how to teach phonicsin Indonesian, to help them be
literate in Indonesian, beforewe could even teach them English
so that they could conversewith tourists.

(36:34):
But we became such good friendswith the women that the New
Zealand director had picked torun the project yeah, the
director of the program and youknow it was all these village
women that would never have anykind of job like this and we

(36:56):
would go out there three or fourtimes a week and we got very
involved in their lives times aweek.
And we got very involved intheir lives.
And you know they had all thesepractices, like one of the
women who was the director ofthe project, a young woman.
She had a baby and when youhave a baby you go to the local

(37:18):
for lack of a better word witchdoctor and they believe evil
spirits can get in the babythrough the umbilical cord.
So they take manure and put iton the umbilical cord to ward
off evil spirits.
Well, every baby gets sick andthey don't know why the baby
gets sick.
So, to be able one of our teammembers was a nurse, so to be

(37:40):
able to explain to her not to dothis when she had the baby and
to show them how to care for theumbilical cord so it shrivels
up and falls off.
You know and it was, she wasthe first person in the village
to never do the manure, but itchanged the whole village
because they saw the baby didn'tget sick and the belly button

(38:03):
looked normal.
You know, just to have that typeof you know, jesus cared for
the whole person.
He didn't just want somebody topray a prayer and get saved, he
healed people, he fed people.
And we had the opportunity youknow, in America it's, I don't
know, you have opportunity forthat, but when you're in this

(38:25):
type of situation you have suchopportunity for that.
And then that gave us audiencewith the most powerful person in
the village, which was thewitch doctor, and of course he
didn't want to talk to the women, but our husbands came with us.
But our husbands came with usand you know we just saw

(38:45):
miraculous healings and just somany things happen because of,
and then we gave them a chanceat a life with a job and money
to get out of such a povertystricken environment.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
How long?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
were you there?
This is the kingdom of God.
You know we were there for fouryears.
Environment.
How long were you there?
This is the kingdom of God.
You know we were there for fouryears At the same time your
kids were there.
Oh yeah, our kids would runaround and play with the village
kids chase chickens and andwhat an experience.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
I mean water out of the well, because you know it's
a hundred degrees there, youknow instead of being at a
splash pad, it's water from awell and they're splashing each
other and you know yeah, it'samazing eating meals communally.

(39:39):
You know, with their fingersrice and chicken.
Yeah, you compare it to, youknow, life here in America, even
though they might have a witchdoctor, like, are there things
there that you can still lookback on and say, wow, we can
bring this back to America, likewhat we learned?
Oh, it's simple.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
I'd say the biggest thing is community, the value of
community.
Nobody, they don't even have.
They have a word in thelanguage for I, but nobody uses
it, Even when they're talkingabout themselves.
They just use their first name.
They never say the word I,because there's no concept of

(40:14):
individuality.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
It's very communal, everything's done in community
and I would say that, and evenwhen we moved into the Middle
East, it's the same the valuesof community, hospitality,
general.
We sit with people.
These are the poorest of thepoor people that live in huts

(40:40):
that have mud floors, poorpeople that live in huts that
have mud floors and they'resharing their food with me.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
You know that's love, that's love.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Beyond measure and we have no concept of that here.
Well, I've been to people'shouses here that are normal

(41:28):
upper-middle-class people, andI'll sit there for two hours.
They don't even offer me adrink Nice people, you know what
I mean Just they don't evenoffer me a drink, and why, I
don't know why, but it's just.
I learned so much aboutgenerosity, hospitality, showing
honor to people, and that hasnothing to do with the internet
electricity you know, technology, it's the value system of honor
that we are so lacking in, andcommunity, it's this.
You know, muslims get a badreputation because of terrorism
in the world, but we haveterrorism too, school shootings

(41:51):
and horrible things.
You know, only 0.1% of theMuslim world are terrorists and,
like I said, there's Christianterrorism also.
But the values in Muslimculture, you know, there's these
pillars of core values, and oneof them is honor.

(42:16):
One of them is family, one ofthem is generosity, and once you
experience that, it reallyimpacts you.
And showing honor means younever show up at a person's
house when you go to visitwithout looking your best

(42:37):
because you're representing yourfamily, and you would never go
to someone's house and dishonorthem by wearing sweatpants and
flip-flops and no makeup.
Sure, like you wouldn't takethe time to have good hygiene
and put on nice clothes to notonly show the honor of your

(43:00):
family, but to show them honor.
And you would never go tosomebody's house without
bringing them a gift, you know,without bringing them flowers or
some chocolate or, you know, abowl, a basket of fruit.
It's so impacted me.
I can't, you know, I've been outof that world since 2016.

(43:22):
To this day, I can't.
If someone invites us over fordinner, I can't.
You know, I've been out of thatworld since 2016.
To this day, I can't.
If someone invites us over fordinner, I can't.
Can I bring anything?
Oh no, you take a night off,I'll have everything covered.
I still bring something.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Maybe it's not a contribution to dinner.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Like I said, it's flowers, it's a basket of fruit
or both like, because the othervalue is generosity and we don't
have this in our culture.
You know, I read this bookabout this gal who went to the
Middle East to study and it's agreat book and I can't recall
the name of it right now.

(43:57):
But she had a littletwo-year-old son and she was
living in Jerusalem, right nearthe old city, and the man next
door, you know it's wherethere's a mix of Jews and Arabs
and Jews and Muslims andChristians.
We used to live there.
It's very diverse and every dayshe would come out of her house

(44:19):
and there was a man, a man, avendor, selling like pastries on
the street, which is verycommon and every time she'd come
out of the house she'd have hertwo-year-old and he would put a
little cookie or a little pieceof baklava in the boy's hand
and he loved it and he'd eat itand it got to the point where he
was expecting it.

(44:39):
He knew the man would do it, tothe point where he was
expecting it.
You know, he knew the man woulddo it, and so when he would get
to the door he would atwo-year-old gimme, gimme, gimme
.
You know, I want the cookie, Iwant the.
And so one day, her husbandshe's American and so is her
husband.
One day, her husband talked tothe vendor and said stop giving
my son the cookies.
You're spoiling him.

(45:00):
He's demanding the cookie.
He's demanding to come outside.
And the Arab man said I willnever stop giving him the cookie
.
I am not spoiling him.
I'm teaching him how to begenerous.
I'm modeling generosity to himand I'll never stop doing it.

(45:21):
I mean, we've lost that.
We have lost that.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
How can we bring it back?
Like if you were to likesomebody's listening.
They're like well, what do I do?
What do I do?
Like well, we could use yourquestions that you guys both.
What do you want me to know?
What do you want me to do?

Speaker 2 (45:46):
Right, yeah Well, yeah Well, that's if we get back
to the story.
I haven't even gotten into thestory, yeah, of how we went,
underwent huge transformation,but we do teach that now, asking
God in your true identity,fully connected to him, to know

(46:15):
and listen before we say, whatdo you want me to do?
Because it's your being thatinforms your doing.
We don't know how to act unlesswe know who we are, and we act
without knowing who we are.
So we're acting out from asource of fear, from a source of
not enough and that generosityvalue you said.
How do we get back from that?
We live with a scarcity mindsetbecause we're not fully

(46:41):
connected to God, and so we livedisconnected, in a false
identity, feeling like there'snever enough.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
There's not enough time.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
There's not enough money, there's not enough time,
there's not enough money,there's not enough resources,
there's not enough jobs.
How many times do you gothrough a day feeling like
there's not enough?
And eventually, if you reallythink about it, it comes down to
I'm not enough, I'm not a goodenough parent, I'm not a good

(47:11):
enough spouse, I'm not a goodenough employee, I'm going to
lose my job.
All of this comes because we,at the bottom line, are
separated from our true selves,which means we're separated from
God.
We think we know God, whichmeans we're separated from God.

(47:31):
We think we know God, we callourselves believers, but do we
really love God with all of ourheart, all of our soul, all of
our strength?
Do we really love ourselves sothat we can love our neighbor?
This is the greatestcommandment.

(47:52):
How much time do we spendworking on this?
How much do you believe aboutyourself, what God believes
about you?
That's a question to repeat.
Do you believe about yourselfwhat God believes about you?

(48:13):
Abraham did, and it wascredited unto him as
righteousness.
This is the definition ofrighteousness that you believe
about yourself, what Godbelieves about you.
When Abraham, he heard the voiceof God go to the land that I

(48:34):
will show you before anybody.
He was an idol worshiper Idolsdon't talk to people.
And he did it.
And then God said even thoughyou're old, even though your
wife is barren, you are going tobe the father of many nations.
And he changed his name.
God gave him a new identityfrom Abram to Abraham, from

(48:58):
Sarai to Sarah.
And this pattern begins and wesee it.
It's not a formula, but we seeit repeated, but we see it

(49:23):
repeated.
All of these people inScripture walking in a false
identity.
They have this experientialencounter with the living God.
Burning bush.
He realizes who God really isand then he gets a sense of who
he.
You're not a murderer.
You are my deliverer.
Go and deliver your people fromthe hand of Pharaoh.

(49:45):
And he's able to do it becausehe read it in a book.
No, because he heard it on apodcast.
No, we hear a lot of greatthings on podcasts.
No, but because he had anexperience.
God, what do you want me to know?
Who do you say that I am?
I don't really love you withall my do you know what?

(50:10):
If we tell the truth,everything opens up.
We pretend we love God, but arewe really?
Do we really, or are we?
Are we afraid of God?
You can't love what you fear.
I think we're afraid, not thehealthy kind of fear, the
awe-inspiring fear, but I thinkwe're really afraid that if we

(50:33):
say God, what do you want me toknow and what do you want me to
do, he's going to send you tosome foreign country and tell
you to be a missionary and bepoor.
And that's Not for everybody.
God wants to give you.
I went to that country but Iwanted to go.
He gave me the desires of myheart.
He made me to do that and itwas the great.

(50:56):
I wouldn't trade it foranything.
I did it for 25 years in one,two, three, four different
countries.
Do you believe about yourselfwhat God believes about you?

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, when would you say you had that encounter and
what was it like?
Because for me personally youknow I'm 47 now and I feel like
40.
Something happened when I was40.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
I was 42.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
I came out of the wilderness and I heard that
still small voice for the firsttime yeah, that still small
voice for the first time and Iwent through like talk about a
metamorphosis, going in thecocoon and getting like remade.
It was a wild and it wasactually a pretty challenging
journey of that death to selfevery day and hearing him speak

(51:46):
over me and I feel like I'vejust I would say, in the last
few years even it's gotten moresolid.
So could you speak to that?
Because I know somebody, evenlike I'm we'll talk about this
later but I know people in theirlike 60s, 70s who have really
gotten hold of it and it's likeit's never too late, it's never

(52:06):
too late.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
So could you talk about your journey in that it's
never too late and it's alifelong journey of discovery?
The kingdom of God is a mystery, and a mystery doesn't mean you
can't know it.
It means there's this endlessknowability or endless
discoverability, and it's neverone and done.
You never arrive.
The development of youridentity is ongoing and God's

(52:31):
always showing you more and moreand adding to it.
But I was 40, so we're livingthis life I'm telling you about,
and I'm telling you the goodstories.
There's more bad stories.
It was really really, reallyhard.
There are more negative storiesthan positive stories.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Maybe I'll have to have you back another time.
You can share the other part.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
And it climaxed with my husband getting arrested and
facing a 10-year prison sentencefor insulting the Quran and
Islam.
And it's in the end, when hewas at the trial, the main man
who brought the charges wasn'tthere and a new person we didn't

(53:14):
know walked in who had justcome back from four years in the
United States where he wastreated wonderfully by some
Christians.
And Jamie didn't know all that,of course.
And Jamie literally saidgoodbye to our kids I mean and
me because we thought he wasgoing to prison and they had

(53:36):
confiscated our passports and Iwas facing being alone on that
island while he was in prison.
And this man comes in.
We don't know where the man whobrought the charges was and
Jamie could have a lawyer, butwe couldn't find a lawyer that
would defend him, becausenobody's going to defend the

(53:59):
American Christian in theIslamic country.
And the man tells this longstory but in the end he says I
was in America for four yearsand Christians really helped me.
Now we have an American in ourcountry and, even though he made
a mistake, we're going to puthim in jail.

(54:21):
I don't think that's right, butyou decide.
And he turned around and hewalked out, and then the man
presiding over the case bangedthe gavel and he said case
dismissed, you're free to go.
And Jamie freaked out.
He thought the man who spoke upfor him must have been an angel

(54:42):
.
And he ran out the door and theman was leaning against the
wall smoking a cigarette, and sothat blew the angel theory and
he was like who are you?
And he said did you see thatempty chair?
And Jamie said yeah, he goes.
That man was killed last nightin a car accident and everybody

(55:02):
up there is freaked out becausethey were very superstitious
people.
This is Indonesia, you knowthere's a lot of animism and he
said so they're already freakedout.
He said I'm the new guy thattook his place and I saw this
case and I flew here not to helpyou but to pay it forward and

(55:24):
help the and, as a way that theway those guys helped me, they,
you know we didn't know thoseguys, but it was kind of a pay
it forward thing.
And he looked at Jamie and hesaid I know what you're trying
to do.
He said I get it, but youbetter find a different way to
do it because you're going toget yourself killed.
And so that was a big wake upcall for us and we ended up.

(55:48):
You know, our visa ended and weleft that island and we knew
that immigration authoritieswould never let us come back
because of that incident and wehad a couple years in the States
.
It was really a dark time for us.
We really felt lost, we didn'tknow what to do and we ended up

(56:09):
back in Indonesia a couple ofyears later, in a different
island, and we worked at aninternational school and we were
in a place where there were alot of Western business people
and a lot of missionariesbecause of the language, there
was an adult language school and, uh, international school for
kids and, um, we met someamazing people there.

(56:33):
Prior to this, we didn't knowanything about the kingdom of
God.
We didn't know anything aboutidentity.
We didn't know anything aboutlistening prayer.
Even though we were operatingin these things, I was telling
you previously, we couldn't haveput a name to it or a label to
it and we were still verytraditional churchy Christians.

(56:57):
Does that make sense?
But we still were.
You know, you still have asense of calling and identity,
even if you don't know it.
You know a fish is a fish, eventhough they don't know they're
a fish.
They're swimming in water eventhough they don't know what
water is right.
So we met a lot of amazingpeople there.

(57:20):
Because we worked at the school,we knew everybody, because
everybody sent their kids tothis international school, and
we met some people who wereworking with Muslims and Muslims
were coming to faith in Jesusin droves, and so we thought
they're doing something wrong.
They must be syncretistic orpluralistic or lying about

(57:46):
numbers.
There's no way.
And isn't it just so funny,human nature?
We're not seeing any fruit, sowe're doing it right.
We're persevering for the Lord.
They're seeing tons of fruit.
They must be doing it wrong,right, so crazy.

(58:09):
Anyway, one of the women in thisgroup of people you know we've
committed our lives to this.
I wanted to.
I was tired of feelingembarrassed like a failure.
You got to.
You know, write letters home topeople who are behind you and
what you're doing and yourchurch.
And what are you going to say?
Oh, by the way, my husband gotarrested.

(58:30):
No, he's not being persecuted,he insulted the Quran and broke
the law, so, yeah, he gotarrested.
You know what are you going tosay?
So, one of the women who hadthis reputation for helping

(58:51):
Muslim women come to faith inJesus through dreams and visions
, which was very outside the boxfor me.
We were very conservative inour faith at that time.
I went up to her.
I just met her a few times.
I didn't really know her.
She was about 20 years olderthan me I was 40 at this time

(59:15):
and I just said to her you know,I heard you do this leave
Muslim women blah, blah, blah.
I said will you teach me how todo it?
And she looked at me.
She's like you should havethese big blue eyes.
And she looked at me and shesaid Donna, no, I won't teach
you.
And she just stared at me andshe said you can't give away

(59:36):
what you don't have.
And she just stared at me.
Our eyes were just like locked.
It was uncomfortable.
And in that moment I realized,if you can't give away what you
don't have, you're only givingaway what you do have.
And deep down inside, fromchildhood experiences, from my

(59:57):
high school experiences, fromfailures in our first term, what
am I giving away?
Shame, fear, guilt, sense offailure.
Fear, guilt, sense of failure,sense of not good enough.
Oh, I was really good at fakingit.
I was really good at coveringit up.

(01:00:17):
I had lots of coping mechanisms, but that's what I was really
giving away a desperation tohelp people, convince them that
Jesus was the way, convince themthat Jesus was the way, when I,
deep down inside, wasn't evenconvinced because of all the
hardship we had been through.

(01:00:38):
Donna, you can't give away whatyou don't have, but I'll pray
with you and as you experienceJesus in a new way, you'll
naturally know what to do withthe Muslim women you meet.
And so I said I said okay, andit changed everything.

(01:01:01):
I started to meet with her anda handful of other women that
were doing the same kind of work, and it changed my life more
than my salvation experience.
I can't even say how much itchanged my life.
That's where I learned thatyour current circumstance is not

(01:01:22):
the source of your pain, but itcomes from learned beliefs in
childhood stemming fromtraumatic experiences where you
took on a belief system and afalse identity.
You're in first grade, ateacher embarrasses you in front

(01:01:44):
of the class and you take onthis identity of I'm stupid and
everybody laughs at me.
So there's shame mixed with theI'm stupid.
You go home and tell your momand your mom says oh, she didn't
mean it, because trauma is notreally the incidents.
It's your response to theincident, how the incident was

(01:02:07):
handled.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
I'm making this up as an example.
But if the mom had held you,comforted you called the teacher
, made amends, had the teacherapologize probably wouldn't have
had any trauma associated withit.

(01:02:29):
Yes, but this actually is thekind of thing that happened to
me.
I was always told you're toosensitive.
Why are you crying?
You know this kind of thing andthat's where the trauma comes
from.
It's not the event.
Two people can go through thesame event, even abuse, abusive,
physical type, abusive events.
One is a total wreck as anadult and one person's fine

(01:02:52):
because it's the response to thetrauma that causes the PTSD.
Anyway, so they started prayingwith me and helping me realize
that in the moment where I'mfeeling anxiety, I'm feeling
fear, I'm feeling stress, I'mfeeling shame as an adult, it's
not because of that moment I'mhaving a fight with my husband.

(01:03:16):
You know I'm lashing out at himfor some reason.
It's because he's triggeringsomething I already believe.
I'm not believing it for thefirst time.
I believed it because he'sreminding me of my brother, who
used to tease me mercilessly andmake me feel right.

(01:03:36):
I need to go back to thatmoment and let Jesus reinterpret
that memory for me, Because hewas there.
He's always been there.
He's never not been with us.
He has never not been with us.
He has never not.
He doesn't start being with usonce we're saved.
He has never not been with us.

(01:03:59):
That's a huge key for somebodytoday.
It is we think we get saved andsuddenly he likes us good
enough to be with us.
He has always been with us.
He knit you together in yourmother's room.
He is Emmanuel God with you.
He's been with you every secondof your life and before the

(01:04:25):
foundations of the world.
Christ died for your sins.
When did he die?
Before the foundations of theworld.
You've already been forgiven.
It's a gift.
He already loves you.
You don't have to get it alltogether before he loves you.

(01:04:45):
So you can go back to thosedifficult memories and let Jesus
reinterpret them, for youbelieved what the world wanted
you to believe, what yourbrother wanted you to believe.
What, wait, I don't have tobelieve that, jesus, you were
there.
What did you want me to know?
In that moment, I took on thisidentity of stupid, because my

(01:05:10):
teacher made me feel stupid.
What did you want me to knowand this is true because it
happened to my son with theteacher.
Oh, my teacher feels stupid allthe time.
So in order to make herselffeel better.
She makes all the kids in theclass feel stupid.

(01:05:31):
She's the one that feels stupid.
I'm not stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
She feels stupid I'm really smart and you were able
to process.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Yeah, that happened to my son and I processed it
with him the day it happened.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
And but, like you said, think of how many people I
mean even me, like up untilaround 40 was when I started
actually kind of digging intosome of the childhood things,
because a lot of us didn't have,we didn't have tools, we didn't
have people to like help usprocess things, and it gets kind
of stuck in here right, yeah.

(01:06:07):
And to be able to walk throughwith somebody and, like you said
, you said reinterpret, did yousay it.
Yeah, and to be able to walkthrough with somebody and, like
you said, you said reinterpret,did you say the enemy is
interpreting your traumaticmemories.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
It doesn't take any faith to believe the enemy.
The enemy is in the world.
Right, he is in the world.
He's the father of lies, he isthe liar and it's just the way
the world is.
And it doesn't take any faith.
But it takes faith to stop andlisten to that still small voice

(01:06:43):
.
And, kristen, that still smallvoice might not be a voice at
all, it might be a picture, notbe a voice at all.
It might be a picture, it mightbe a feeling, it might be a
sense.
Not everybody receives the sameand it takes practice to get to
know how God communicates withyou.
And it might be a combinationof all kinds of things and it

(01:07:05):
might not come immediately.
You might ask a question andthe answer comes tomorrow.
Tomorrow it might come througha person, it might come through
a song.
It's not this exact science.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
But that was the moment, because, you know, I
think a lot of people think it'sgoing to be like I'm going to
just sit here and this boomingvoice is going to come for me,
and it's so different.
I feel like as my likelistening, and I like to call it
like see him in the details andlike hear him in the details.
It's evolved because I'm socurious and I'm every day, I'm

(01:07:41):
looking like, I'm alwayslistening and I don't know if
you've experienced that too, butit's, I feel like I see him in
movies, like that movie Imentioned.
It's like oh my gosh, or likesongs.
I'll hear songs in the morningwhen I wake up.
It's I call it like a lyricalalarm and he'll be singing maybe
even a song from the 60s thatit's not a Christian song.

(01:08:01):
Oh yeah, you know what I mean.
So what would you say tosomebody who you know like?
How would you kind of activatethem in that?

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
A great exercise to do is, in the morning, pray and
say God, help me to be aware ofyour love for me in this day.
And then you live inexpectation.

(01:08:36):
You're just expecting the Lord.
This is Psalm 27.
Expect the Lord, it says.
David is praying and he says helongs to sit in the temple,
gaze upon his beauty and ask himquestions.
And then later, at the end ofthe, it says expect the Lord.
And then when you get tolunchtime, you probably get busy

(01:08:58):
doing stuff whatever, if youwork or if you take care of your
children, or whatever you do.
Stop, take 10 minutes, just 10minutes, and get a pen and paper
and say God, where were youshowing me your love today?
Pen and paper and say God,where were you showing me your
love today?
And I wasn't aware of it.
And write the first things thatcome to your mind.

(01:09:18):
Because here's the crazy thingIn 1 Corinthians it says we have
the mind of Christ.
We have the mind of Christ.
I think it's 1 Corinthians, butlook it up, just type that in
Google.
But we have the mind of christ.
I think it's first corinthians,but look it up, just type that
in google.
But we have the mind of christ.
You can read the verse and soyou're always collaborating with

(01:09:40):
the mind of christ.
So, when things come to yourmind, pay attention, be aware,
choose to pay attention.
We have that's.
I always say, that's yourgreatest superpower Choose,
choice.
You have the choice to be aware, to pay attention.
And so take 10 minutes, god.
Where were you making me awareof your love today?

(01:10:03):
And I wasn't paying attention?
And if you were payingattention, write it down so you
don't forget it and then do itagain before you go to bed.
God, the rest of the day, wherewere you making me aware of your
love?
And you'll see God ineverything, in everything.
Think of Mary Magdalene.
This is kind of extreme, but inJohn 20, at the tomb, she

(01:10:29):
thinks they stole the body.
They don't know what it meanswhen Jesus says in three days,
you know this temple will.
You know the temple will berebuilt, they don't know what
that means.
You know, we know what it meansbecause we know the story and
she's at the tomb weeping.
She is not expecting to seeJesus, Right?

(01:10:52):
So we have at our company'scalled Identity Exchange, we
have these core values, and oneof them is look for Jesus in
unexpected places because ofthat verse.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
I didn't know that that was one of your core values
.
Yeah, that's one of our corevalues.
Look for Jesus, I'm living it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Yeah, look for Jesus in unexpected places.
Because Mary's standing thereweeping Woman.
Why are you weeping?
Because they have taken thebody of my Lord.
And then he says Mary, hespeaks to her in her identity
and she recognizes his voice andjoy washes over her Because she

(01:11:29):
realizes she didn't expect him.
So, lord, where were you makingme aware of your love?
And I didn't realize it.
And you'll just be amazed atjust even the littlest things.
And then you start to expect itand you'll start seeing it
everywhere, everywhere, all thetime.
It's a great thing Like committo just doing that for two weeks
and see It'll change your life.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Yes, listeners, do it .
Let me know if you do it.
Let let Donna know if you dothis.
Um, somehow, some way, I feellike this is just going to be
like it's almost like the joywill wash over you every day,
because you can't help but feelthat joy and experience the joy
when you see him and everythingRight, that's right.
What is your favorite way toexperience him, like what has

(01:12:16):
been kind of a repeating themefor you in the way that he
speaks to you?

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
You know, I have developed in my prayer life to
realize that I'm praying withoutceasing and that, understanding
that he is always with me, Ihave every spiritual blessing in
the heavenly realms.

(01:12:43):
He'll never leave me, fail meor forsake me.
Nothing can separate me fromthe love of God that's in Christ
Jesus.
I said this one.
We have the mind of Christ andthe way I experience Him is
realizing that I.
You know, there's times where Ihave to set aside time to

(01:13:06):
intercede for someone or prayabout a specific situation.
But I have done that exercise Itold you about.
I do another thing every singleday where I make some
declarations, and I can makethis available to your listener
too.
We call it the dailyaffirmation, prayer and at the

(01:13:26):
end of it, god, what do you wantme to know today about living
in the truest sense of myidentity Just today, and then
write down what I sense.
But I would encourage yourlisteners we have lots of
resources on our website and youmentioned Jamie's book If

(01:13:48):
they've never gotten that senseof their true and unique
identity, to get a sense of that, because to ask, how can I live
in the truest sense of identityand you don't know what it is.
Maybe you would discover itjust praying that prayer.
That would be awesome, andnothing's impossible with God.
He could reveal it to you thatway.

(01:14:08):
That would be amazing.
There's no set formula.
Ask Him, god, the world I'vetaken on the names that have
hurt me are I'm a failure, I'mnot good enough, I'm stupid, I
am a bad mother.
I feel alone and powerless.
I give them to you.

(01:14:30):
This is what the world hascalled me.
This is what situations havecalled me.
This comes from things I'vedone.
I give them to you.
Who do you say that I am?
You don't look at those things.
Who do you say that I am?
It's that simple.
It's so simple.
Just tune your ears to thatstill small voice that's already

(01:14:55):
in there.
Where is the Holy Spirit's inyou, guiding you to all truth?

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
Yes, yes, it's the great exchange and I love just
the identity exchange.
It's where it comes from thegreat exchange and I love, like,
just the identity exchange.
You know it's where it comesfrom the greatest change.
It's truly.
It's that simplistic, like youhave to release it, put your
hands out.
You know, let go, let go ofthat old.
I like to say bring thatidentity to goodwill, like get

(01:15:23):
some new clothes, go get somenew identity clothing right to
goodwill, like get some newclothes, go get some new
identity clothing Right.
Um well, donna, I would love tohave you just share a little
bit more about how people canlearn more about what you do Um
identity exchange.
I know you have some resources.
Um share whatever you'd like toshare.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Yeah, thank you.
Um, yeah, if you go to identityexchangecom, we have some
classes and resources.
We have a whole training pathif you really want to get
trained in the deeper conceptsof identity, and we also have

(01:16:00):
paid courses and free courses.
We have a fabulous well, Ithink it's fabulous YouTube
channel.
It's just, if you go to YouTubeand type in Identity Exchange,
we drop new content every Mondayand we've been doing this since
January, so there's quite a loton there.
What else?

(01:16:21):
Jamie's book it's called, youshowed it.
It's called Living Fearless byJamie Winship, and we're both on
Instagram at the Jamie Winship,at the Donna Winship, and
that's about all I can think ofso much for being on and you

(01:16:47):
know.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
Thank you as well.
Um, I can say thank you to bothof you for many people I know
as well who've been deeply,deeply impacted and their lives
have literally taken on a wholenew meaning through truly like
an identity exchange to live outthe calling that the gods put
on them.
Um, see their gifts reallyburst forward right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
That's the only.
That's the greatest thing I canhear.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
That's the only reason we do what we're doing,
so thank you, but we appreciateyou and I'm like I said, I'm
speaking on behalf of many.
So one more question what's?
What's something stretchingthat's coming up for you and
jamie in the next year?

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
um, um, the most stretching thing I would say is
um, we have a finished scriptfor a pilot um TV show about, um
, our life.
The first it's a three seasonepisodic TV show and we have a

(01:17:48):
finished, we have an outline forthe whole thing but a finished
script and we're raisinginvestment to be able to make
that pilot episode.
It's millions of dollars, I'lljust say that and so really
believing God that he wants itdone, because the whole thing
has come about miraculously andso yeah, hoping to film this

(01:18:12):
winter, so for us we could putin the show notes if you, if you
need people to donate.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
I don't know what that looks like.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
But it's not a donation, it's an investment.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
Well, I'm excited for you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
Yeah, thank you.
We'll take all the prayer wecan get.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
I'm behind you, I got you back.
So, as we close today, just, isthere anything you'd like to
speak over to?
I do this for the one.
The Lord had me to start thispodcast for the one, for the one
and for the one.
So if you think of the onewho's listening in today, is
there anything else that you'dlike to speak over?
This one?

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
And then would you pray us out today, yeah, yeah,
I'd like to just say that you'renot alone and you've never been
alone and your life is nothopeless and that nothing is
impossible for God.

(01:19:09):
And I think the word for you,whoever you are, is stop looking
for a breakthrough.
I know that's some of yourlanguage, kristen, but it's
really a release.
You just said it.
What are you holding on to?
That's preventing you?
Just really.

(01:19:30):
It's letting go, letting go offear, letting go of, letting
just go of fear.
And there's people that canhelp you, that want to help you.
And, yeah, just you're notalone.
And just some of those prayerprompts we just talked about.

(01:19:54):
There's free resources.
I'm not trying to sell anything,but we have a course that's
free, called Finding Hope inDepression, and it walks through
several listening prayerprompts, including the identity,
how to hear for your identity,so many things.
It's 21 episodes.

(01:20:14):
I just encourage you to go toIdentity Exchange Under Courses,
finding Hope in Depression, andyeah, and so, god, thank you so
much for the opportunity totalk to Kristen and her
followers, who are hungry toknow you, hungry to know their
true and unique identity.

(01:20:36):
As it says in Isaiah 43, 1,.
I have called you by your name,so you will know that you are
mine and God.
We all want to know that webelong, and so I pray for each

(01:20:56):
person listening to this, thatyou would speak to them quietly
in the night, in a moment whereit's unmistakable that it's you,
and they would hear thosetender words of love and
affirmation that you are withthem, that you care about them,
that it would be unmistakableand that they'd be able to

(01:21:16):
receive it just deeply in theirspirit, lord, and then just ask
that question, god, what else doyou want me to know about that?
Lord, we just love you and wegive you all the praise and
honor and glory in Jesus' name,amen.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Amen, donna, thank you so much for being a brave
voice.
Who's setting so many free?
I'm going to close with ouranchoring verse.
It's the may the God of hopefill you with all joy and peace
and, believing so by the powerof the Holy Spirit, you may
abound in hope.
That's my favorite part aboundin hope, and that's Romans 15,

(01:21:55):
13.
So, thank you, donna, thank youlisteners.
I'll be back with anotherepisode next week.
Thank you.