April 1, 2025 • 54 mins
The transformative power of faith takes center stage as Zack Bowles, Executive Director of Resurrection House in Chickasha, Oklahoma, shares his journey from trucking business owner to rescue mission leader. Serving a rural community of 16,000, Resurrection House proves that small towns can address homelessness effectively without merely relocating people to larger cities. Their holistic approach includes emergency shelter, a year-long Life Skills Institute, and a six-month work readiness program, all anchored in strong relationships with local churches to create lasting support networks.
Zack shares stories of incredible transformation, including a former fentanyl and heroin addict who now leads their work readiness program, praying, "God, use me like the drugs used me." We also dive into the heartbreak of relapses and the challenges of leadership, revealing the deep compassion that fuels their mission. Their work goes beyond providing shelter—it’s about fostering a place of hope and healing where people can discover their worth in God's eyes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dear Heavenly Father.
We thank you, Lord, for thisday and your blessings and
provisions.
God, we thank you for this timeand this podcast and, Lord, for
all of the faithful listenerswho listen every week.
Lord, we thank you for thisconversation.
Lord, knowing that the work isgoing on everywhere and that
there are faithful servants allacross the country, pray your
blessing over this conversationand this time In your holy name
we pray Amen.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello everybody, thank you for joining us for
another episode of Our Community, our Mission, a podcast of the
Topeka Rescue Mission here onTuesday, april the 1st 2025.
No kidding, no kidding, nokidding.
This is episode number 262.
Good morning Lamanda Cunningham.
Good morning Topeka RescueMission.
Hello, how are you?
This is actually April 1st,isn't it?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
It is.
And do you know, I've alreadybeen fooled.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You have yes, just today.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, when you have five kids in your house, it's
bound to happen.
But I woke up this morning,walked into the bathroom and all
over the mirror were messagesfrom three of the five kids in
toothpaste.
Oh, but they were really sweetand honest.
They signed their initials so Iknew who did it.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Were they nice messages.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah, happy Fool's Day.
You've been fooled.
I mean, like the whole mirrorand toothpaste I don't know how
I'm going to get it off.
But then it was so cute becausethen it was E, e and B, so I
knew exactly which kids had doneit and which kids hadn't, which
kids have done it and whichkids hadn't.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And then you said to them that was really cute.
I'll be glad to clean that upfor you.
April Fools.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yes, absolutely, you can clean it up yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, amanda, we always like to highlight some
special things about what thesedays are, and our research and
development department, which isright down the table here from
us, and his great team, hascreated this day.
I think it was created by theseguys, and so it's called
International Fun at Work Day,april 1st, and so that was made
(01:51):
for TRM, right, josh?
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
We actually kicked it off.
You did Okay, all right, okay,no other places want to have fun
too, I guess.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It's about time that you created something for
international on this day, orsomething like that.
You've been reading everybodyelse's for so long.
So, josh, why was this daycreated?
What's the point?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Well, I think it was just to well, obviously being
April Fool's Day and then havingfun at work, right?
Like you know, most of us stillwork, so you know you got to
have light fun at work.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So be careful with these guys.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I know I have to watch my back, but it's fun
around here every day.
Even in the midst of the heavyand all of that, we have some
jokesters.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's called group therapy.
Yeah, group therapy.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
We're helping each other through all the muck.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I heard somebody say one time if you're not laughing,
you're crying.
That's very true.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I'm glad you got a day, Josh.
Probably should be the JoshTurley International Fun at Work
Day.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Hey, there you go.
I like that.
I'm going to try and see.
If I can't get that, Make surewe do that next year too Into
law here.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's also National Greeting Card Day.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Do you know my address?
Yes, okay, I'm expectingsomething in my mailbox this
afternoon.
Got it.
It's a sweet Five to sevenbusiness days April fools, april
fools.
It's a way to tell peopleyou're thinking about them, and
so this is probably the biggestpart of today.
It's Boomer Bonus Day.
Boomer Bonus Day.
Do we know what Boomer BonusDay is?
Lamanda?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
You are a bonus every day, Barry.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
A bonus dose of a lot .
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Some of us boomers every day on April the 1st.
Nobody can see this, can they,josh?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Okay, because he's making faces at me.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Is it okay if I pull her chair out from under here?
April Fools so some of us whoare at boomer status, instead of
millennial and all those otherthings, we should be able to get
an extra special discount todayat the restaurant.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
You should.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
It should be a bonus discount Sure yes, anyway, after
one of these days.
Lamanda, you're going to go toa restaurant and they're going
to say, are you a senior, wouldyou like a discount?
And you're going to be insulteduntil you find out and do the
math and go yep you bet I'mgoing to take it.
We're good.
So, Amanda, any updates beforewe get into a very special guest
today who is from Oklahoma.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So any updates in Topeka.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I would just say, if you are on our newsletter list,
make sure that you checked outthe newsletter that you should
have just gotten in the lastweek or two.
It was our annual report andyou know we take that very
seriously.
That's why we do it at the endof first quarter to really
analyze the data for the yearbefore.
But that annual report haseverything on there from
(04:32):
financial reportings to numbersregarding our shelter, food
numbers, street reach numbers,housing numbers, all of those
kinds of things.
It doesn't capture everythingthat we track, of course, but we
do try to put as much aspossible in that spread and I
just want to give a big thankyou to all of our department
heads who help keep up and trackthe data.
(04:54):
You know we're big here onstatistics, but we also know
every statistic equals a storyand we care about the story more
than the stat.
But we have to also report onthe stats.
I also want to give a big thankyou to Josh and Isaiah and
Miriam, who do a lot of behindthe scenes of kind of hearing my
vision and making it happen,and so newsletter every month
(05:19):
with Mike Schottel and Josh.
That is a feat for us three,but the annual report is a whole
different beast because oflayouts and graphics and triple
quadruple checking numbers, allof that.
So please make sure that youcheck that out.
It should have hit yourmailboxes in March.
Have we done the post yet?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, it's posted on social, it's on our website and
then yeah, and then also tryingto do that during the middle of
two warming centers was fun.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yes, so that was interesting.
Um so it's a little bit laterthan normal too.
Um so if anybody has concernswith that, I will apologize.
I will own that, but we kind ofhad to take a pause on
something so that we could dothe warming centers.
I mean that was front andcenter.
People were more important thannumbers.
People were more important thannumbers.
So, numbers came out late, butthat came out late because of me
(06:07):
.
Uh, because we put that on theback burner to operate the
shelters, the warming centers.
So that was the major update.
Want to make sure everybodychecks that out.
Um, and then I just also wantedto express some gratitude you
know I was reflecting um overthe weekend just so much
thankfulness for people who areinvolved in conversations right
(06:28):
now about homelessness, whomaybe never have been and they
are so next steps orsolution-based minded, not just
to cause problems, not just todo this, but bringing their
questions, bringing theuncertainties, the things they
(06:49):
don't understand and sometimesnegative thoughts.
I feel like we're starting tosee that really be aimed in the
right areas right now and peoplereally joining together to say,
hey, I don't understandhomelessness or I don't get this
and those kinds of things.
I've just had some really coolconversations the past several
weeks and I just appreciatepeople wanting to educate
themselves, their businesses orthe groups that they're involved
(07:12):
with.
You know, I know you might wantto say a thing about all hands
on deck, those communitymeetings, but just a lot of
gratitude in my heart right nowfor our rescue mission, not
feeling isolated in this workand really feeling like people
from all walks are trying tojoin into the complexities
instead of running away from it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, you know, I think that the things have
changed significantly,especially post-pandemic, when
things got to be so much morecomplicated and more people on
the streets and so it used to bethe focus was around what is
the Topeka Rescue Mission doingabout this?
Right Now it is what is TopekaRescue Mission and the community
doing about this, with somegood conversation about does it
(07:56):
have to be this way?
And I think that the answer tothat is no.
It doesn't have to be the wayit is.
It could get worse, yes, but itcan get better.
Yes, and so what do we do tomake it better?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, and then I was, you know, to piggyback off of
that.
The last thing that I wouldthink of is if somebody is
listening to this and still like, well, I didn't get to come to
a community meeting for allhands on deck or I'm not able to
volunteer at the rescue mission.
Another way that you can getplugged in that, I could tell
you, is a way that you areimmediately a part of a solution
(08:28):
is to donate non-perishablefood items to the rescue mission
.
You know I want to be verycareful with how I word it and
we don't need to sound alarms,but in the upcoming weeks we are
going to be doing a podcastkind of designated to food
insecurity and what we're seeing, and one of the concerns that I
(08:49):
have right now is because ofpeople's personal budgets being
impacted and uncertainties thatmany people are facing in
donations of canned foods, boxesof non-perishable food items,
(09:09):
canned goods of various things,whether it's the tuna, whether
it's the boxes of rice.
We've seen a significant decline, and so I spent Monday walking
through the distribution centerAgain, a lot of empty shelves
and we're doing the asks.
It's out there.
But I recognize we have a verygenerous community, but I also
recognize we have a communitythat itself is being impacted.
(09:30):
So, if you can, or if you'reinvolved in a church group or
you're involved in a work groupor maybe just even a friend
group that you meet once a month, please consider maybe doing a
canned food drive.
What we see God do with that isyou might bring us 10 cans and
not think that that's enough,and we might have 10
(09:50):
supplemental bags that need acanned good in it and we see
that all the time.
So, whether you're gettinginvolved you know, volunteering
or getting involved in communityconversations or a more
immediate need would be, youknow, shop online.
If you can't come, have it sentto 401 Northwest Norris for our
(10:11):
distribution center so that thecanned goods can go straight to
there.
But that is a way that I canpromise you.
You are immediately meeting aneed that we significantly have
for our area.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, I think people do want to get involved.
That's a very practical waythey can do that.
If you want to learn moreinformation, you could go about
what's happening with homeless.
You could go to the TopekaRescue Mission website that's
trmonlineorg.
Trmonlineorg Also the Facebookpage for Topeka Rescue Mission,
and there's a new developedFacebook page called All Hands
(10:43):
on Deck, topeka, shawnee County.
That's going to really beunpacking the larger issue of
chronic homelessness and how wecan solve this coming up.
So there is a little bit outthere right now, but there's
going to be a series ofdifferent posts that are coming
up over a period of months thatare going to help people to
really know what they can do.
What they can do Well, amanda,one of the things that you have
(11:10):
done this month marks your thirdyear as CEO come April 22nd.
You were on board for a numberof months before that, so we're
running kind of like three and ahalf four years of you being
here.
But one of the things you gotinvolved with was a CityGate
Network annual conference and inthat you were introduced to
some other what would be calledemerging leaders and you've been
able to be able to engage withsome of those leaders and it's
(11:34):
not all executive directors orCEOs from rescue missions around
the country, with what's calledthe CityGate Network, which I
think is approximately 300 inNorth America, and so one of the
things that you have been doingis keeping in touch with them
and having monthly Zoom callsand then when you get to see
each other, and so one of thethings that you wanted to do
(11:55):
which I think is a great idea isto be able to peak a rescue
mission in our community, ourmission, to highlight some of
those rescue missions, therelationships that you had and
today we're going to have herevia Zoom online podcast
technology.
Thank you, josh.
However, you do all this mojo,but it's the director from the
Chickasha, oklahoma rescuemission.
(12:16):
Please introduce your friendand we're going to talk to Zach.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yes, so joined with us today is Zach and Zach.
You know, I know, Barry, we'renot supposed to have favorites.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Well, I know I am so, but yeah, I forgot.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Oh, I'm not the director anymore, that's right.
You're my favorite, april Fool's, but my real favorite would be
Zach and his sweet, sweet wife,gloria, one of the first couples
that I met at the CityGateNetwork Conference, one of the
first conferences that I went to, and you know I was personally
in the stage of I'd been aneducator and I'm switching from
(12:53):
education to go to rescuemission work and definitely did
not feel qualified for that.
But yet, walking in my callingof God, doing that, and what I
found was there were many of usin that room where we were all
like man, all of us feel likewe're unequipped for this and it
(13:13):
just feels like the job is sobig and the pressures are so big
and sometimes some of us feltlike we had really great leaders
to help mentor us into thatrole and some of us felt like we
were kind of more on our ownand I don't know.
Stories just started being toldand Jordan, who we spoke to
last month, and I just realizedlike hey, we need a community
(13:36):
and we don't know what thatlooks like, but we need
something.
That's outside of this annualconference and so it's neat.
A lot of us were able to get toknow each other via social
media.
You know technology is notalways bad.
Even though I'm old school andI like my pencil and paper, I do
like being able to keep up witha lot of my friends and
emerging leaders, and so, yeah,zach, I wanted him to be on as
(14:00):
our second ED CEO level personthat we're interviewing.
Last month we talked to JordanSmith and he is over development
and everything at his rescuemission, and so now I think that
it's neat to be able to switchstates and go to Oklahoma and
kind of hear what's going on,what trends Zach's seeing the
(14:22):
challenges he's facing, but alsoa little bit of his testimony
on what trends Zach's seeing thechallenges he's facing, but
also a little bit of histestimony how to get there.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Well, zach Bowles, chickasha, oklahoma, Zach,
what's the name of your rescuemission there?
Resurrection.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
House Resurrection House.
Thank you all so much forallowing me to come on and I'm
excited to you know.
See you guys and LaManda, andit's just that CityGate thing.
I don't know.
I think we went to our firstcity gate thing at the same time
.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
I think so too.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I think it was both our first ones, and so it was
exciting to be able to see that,just the transformation that
God does in people.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Zach, how long have you been with the rescue mission
there total or in your positionand what's that rescue mission
like in Oklahoma?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Yeah, so I came on on April 1st of 2020.
So the big dreaded date ofCOVID shutting everything down.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Happy anniversary.
Happy anniversary, oh wait, itis my anniversary.
Wow, hey so I've been here forfive years.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Just realized that.
But time goes fast when you'rehaving fun.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So, you came in as executive director at that time
five years ago.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
And I've had zero experience anything.
I did own my own truckingbusiness, so I left it to come
to this.
So I'm sitting here laughing ather education.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I'm like, hey, at least you got education.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I didn't have nothing .
Speaker 4 (15:51):
You know, I just had a call from God, and so it's
exciting to see what God can useout of somebody.
You know, something that I'vealways seen is exciting to me is
when God uses somebody that iscompletely not set up for that
type of mission and he just goesin there and he truly uses that
individual to shake things up abit.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So in the old days he used to say that rescue
missions were the only place youcould crawl in the front door
as a hopeless alcoholic and 10years later be the executive
director.
Sounds like that wasn't yourstory.
But you were walking by thedoor one day and they grabbed
you and brought you in and madeyou the director.
Huh yeah pretty much.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Yeah, my pastor.
He had just came on and so I'dsurrendered to the ministry
under him and he was wanting todo some sort of like addictions
ministry through the church.
And one of our church membershad said that, uh, he didn't
want him to reinvent the wheel.
He's like you know, there'salready a ministry here in town.
Why don't you get plugged inwith that?
And so whenever he met with himthe director at that time, he
(16:56):
was like, hey, I'm looking for aretirement plan, I'm looking to
make my way out, and I justsurrendered, and so they brought
it to me and so I started kindof getting plugged in and about
a year later well, yeah, arounda year later I stepped in the
doors the executive director andthe previous executive director
(17:18):
.
He stayed on with us for aboutseven or eight more months and
then, and then he, he retiredand left it all to me.
And I tell you it wasn't the, itwasn't the greatest.
Uh, I remember calling him.
I was on my way to work april1st listening to the radio of
everything getting shut down,and I called him.
I was like, hey, what am Isupposed to do?
Here he goes.
(17:38):
I don't know.
You're the executive director,you get to make that decision.
So be trusted in God and moveforward.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
There's been probably six times now that I call Barry
and Barry has got to be and Iknow I'm biased, but he's got to
be, hands down the best mentoron earth.
April.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Fools again.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
No, that's not an April Fools, I'm being nice but
I love it and I love that I canbring anything to him and all of
that.
But last week I broughtsomething to him and he does
this thing where he chuckles andthen he says, well, I don't
know Cause I never had thathappen.
And so last week I told him, Isaid, if I hear that out of your
(18:22):
mouth again, wise out, we'regoing to have a problem.
And he said, well then, quithaving junk happen that I have
no experience with.
And we just laughed.
But when you said that you know,three years into this role,
there's still stuff that justhappens.
And I'm like, okay, the wisething here is to go to your
mentor.
And then I go to my mentor andBarry reminds me like, like it's
(18:44):
something new all the time,even with all of the wisdom, all
of the experience he has.
You know he did it 36 yearsbefore retiring or 37.
There's still stuff that justcomes up and you don't know.
But it's incredible to havesupport, whether it's through
friendship, whether it's throughcity gate mentorship, whatever
it is, so that when you go, hey,what am I supposed to do about
(19:05):
this?
Somehow between that villageyou figure it out, and the Lord,
of course, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Zach we've all had our first day and unless we
worked in rescue mission work,LaManda had not done that, I had
not done that, you had not donethat.
I can't imagine your first timein the door you get a pandemic
thrown at you at the same time.
I mean time in the door you geta pandemic thrown at you at the
same time.
I mean, who had radar for that?
Who had understanding for that?
So you believed, you understood, not believe, you really
(19:35):
understood.
The Lord called you there, andso what was that like to have
this whole thing in your handsnow and then this pandemic, and
you call your former directorand he goes man, I've been there
, done that.
So what went through your mind?
Go back to trucking.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
No, no, it was simply , um, trust in the Lord.
I knew that I could.
I couldn't look at every otherbusiness or every other church
or whatever in the same light ofwhat we were doing, because we
would do with it.
We were putting people's livesat risk if we didn't open our
doors, and so we just had tohave faith and trust in the Lord
(20:09):
.
And that's what we did.
We just kept moving forward.
We did as many precautions aswe could, but we just kept going
on and the Lord blessed that.
The Lord bless that.
(20:31):
The lord.
Uh, you know, um, we had maybetwo or three small outbreaks,
like not during that time,though it was after everything
had opened up.
So, during the time of wheneverything was closed down, we,
uh, we really were able to moveforward and and, uh, no, nothing
real bad.
I don't think we had anythingfor about a year of any type of
COVID in the building, and then,honestly, I think it was the
(20:53):
staff that got it first and thensome of the folks here.
So, yeah, just trusting the Lord, and whenever you do this, I'm
sure y'all understand there's alot of that trust in the Lord,
because there's a lot ofquestions that you don't have,
and that's something I'm supergrateful for CityGate, I didn't
(21:16):
I'm not trying to be rude oranything but the previous
director that we had, once hestepped away.
He stepped away, and so Ididn't have anybody that I could
sit there and call up on otherthan my own pastor, and he had
never done anything like thisbefore either.
So it was both.
(21:36):
So that's where CityGate camein and played a huge, huge role
in our developing where we aretoday and just continuing to
grow and continuing to serve theLord.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
For those that don't really know much about CityGate,
it's an organization, anassociation of rescue ministries
in North America that's beenaround for over 100 years and
it's predominantly relationalpeople getting to know each
other, some technical training,but it's missions sharing with
missions, about what they'velearned, what they're doing,
(22:10):
director sharing with directors,food service sharing with food
service and those kind of things.
So I was in the same boat asyou.
When I came, there wasn'tanybody around and there was no
one to show me the ropes.
And, yeah, you trust the Lord.
And then you're grateful whenyou get that call hey, would you
like to come to a meeting wherethere's some other people doing
your stuff?
And you go, yeah when, likethis afternoon maybe, no, down
(22:35):
the road, we didn't have thetechnology back then.
We had three times a year thatwe could get with folks and
actually we did have telephonesback then, which was really kind
of cool, but we had no emailsor internet or those kind of
things, and so it was prettymuch desert until you got a
chance to go meet with the folks.
But now, because of thetechnology, you guys can get on
(22:55):
a Zoom like we're doing rightnow, share information back and
forth.
So, zach, talk to us about therescue mission there in
Chickasha.
How long has it been around?
Who do you serve?
How big is the community ofChickasha?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, so we've been around for 34 years Actually, no
, 36 years now, man, 36 yearsand really it just started to
help serve those that wereliving under the bridges here in
Chickasha.
Chickasha is a rather smallcommunity.
We have 16,000 people in ourtown and so really the people
(23:37):
that we serve I wouldn't say Iwould say it's more of a middle
class community, not necessarilyhigh class or low class, but we
deal with a lot of drugs andI'm sure, like everybody, mental
health is a huge thing here.
But the drugs we have twointerstate systems that run kind
(24:00):
of right right around Chickashaand they're both large state
systems and so we see a lot ofdrug trafficking and really we
haven't had to deal with a wholelot of sex trafficking or
anything, but I would say thedrug trafficking and the mental
health, those are our two mainmain individuals that we serve.
(24:22):
But our goal is just to committo provide life skills, training
and shelter for families andindividuals in our area for
Christ.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So it's interesting 36 years ago you guys were
starting and at that time it wasa response to a pretty small
community, 16,000 or so peoplewho were experiencing
homelessness at that time.
But it does make sense whenyou're talking about mental
health and addiction issues thatwere affecting even a small
community in what might beconsidered rural Oklahoma.
(24:53):
How close are you to OklahomaCity or Tulsa?
Those areas?
Speaker 4 (25:01):
So we're about a 30-minute from Oklahoma city and
then about two and a half hoursfrom from Tulsa, um, and so we
have that.
And then we have a community,uh Southwest of us, called
Lawton.
I don't know if y'all haveheard of Lawton, oklahoma, but
uh, they've got quite a bit ofuh struggles with poverty there.
(25:23):
They're a larger town, about100,000.
And so we see some folks comingfrom there as well.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
So you do see some spillover from those communities
too.
You know, in Kansas there'scommunities of 16,000, a little
more, a little less that have noresources for their homeless
population.
It sounds like what happened 36years ago is they said we don't
necessarily want to just sendthem over 30 miles away to
Oklahoma City, we need to takecare of our own, which says a
(25:53):
lot about you guys and whatstarted almost 40 years ago.
Talk about the services of yourrescue mission there.
You mentioned families.
So we have single men, singlewomen and families, and
approximately how many people doyou serve at a time?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Yeah, so we have one building but we've kind of got
it divided into two buildingsreally.
But we serve women, men andfamilies.
We're pretty limited oncapacity on families, but we
also don't see a whole lot offamilies as well.
But we see, probably ouraverage is probably around 25
(26:33):
men a night and then we haveusually around 10 to 15 women,
so much more men come throughhere.
We see, right now we're seeingmaybe three or four families a
year, so we really don't see awhole lot of families.
(26:56):
But yeah, that's the mainthings.
We have a shelter which is whatis actually called the
Resurrection House.
We have three differentprograms.
So we have the ResurrectionHouse, which is considered our
shelter, and then we also havethe Life Skills Institute.
So that's our program.
It's a one-year program and ourgoal in that is to really walk
(27:16):
alongside these individuals andwalk alongside their churches
and kind of just encourage thatrelationship to grow, because we
know that we're not going to behere forever for them but their
church should be, and so that'sour goal is to kind of just
(27:36):
mend those two relationships andthen help them to walk together
.
We also have a work readinessprogram help them to walk
together.
We also have a work readinessprogram.
Something that I was unaware orof thinking about was that, you
know, my thought was get hereand help them get a job.
But whenever you realize thatthere's a lot of them,
(27:57):
especially with the mentalhealth or the backgrounds that
they may have, it's not thateasy.
And so we developed a workreadiness program, which is a
six-month program that theyworked with us through that and
then at the end of that programwe helped them get a job that's
able to be a good start for them.
(28:17):
So that's our three programs,but really the the our biggest
hope and prayer is that theyhave a good relationship with
Jesus Christ At the end of theirstay with us.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Zach, what changes in the last five years have you
seen in regards to the needsthere in Chickasha, and how has
a resurrection House respondedto those needs?
Has there been any needs?
Again, you came in during apandemic.
Things were starting to reallyunravel in so many different
areas, so maybe you don't haveany radar prior to the pandemic,
(28:53):
but has there been an increasein people who are unsheltered,
an increase in people strugglingwith mental illness and
addiction there?
And are you looking?
Are things pretty status quo,or are you maybe busting at the
seams and maybe need to dosomething more?
Speaker 4 (29:11):
No, I mean really what I would say was addiction
rose during COVID.
People didn't rely on what youknow us, as Christians are able
to rely on.
They rely on different sources,and so we did see addiction
rise, which led people to badcircumstances.
(29:33):
We have a county jail.
That's also a transport systemfor the, you know, for national
inmates and stuff, and sofederal inmates.
So we did see, we do see a lotof people coming from the jail
system here, but so that waswhere we saw an increase.
(29:55):
And then mental health, I think.
I think mental health's beenpretty steady since I've been
here.
I wouldn't say it's necessarilygotten better or worse.
I would say our main thing thatI've noticed is the addiction
seemed to get worse and thenkind of going down.
(30:17):
Now, as far as us, we have anincredible building that God
blessed us with.
Our biggest need is the fundsto be able to hire the staff.
So, like right now, we're kindof lower on numbers, but
whenever it's the winter months,the middle of summer, we see a
lot of people and we're justkind of handling what we can
(30:40):
handle with the amount of staffwe have.
We have four no five stafffull-time staff members and then
three part-time.
So it can get a littleinteresting whenever we do see
numbers.
We kind of put our cap for howmany people we're able to serve
here as 35 to 40, just dependingon the needs.
(31:02):
But it's pretty rare that weget up to that.
I would say we we can kind ofget up to that 35 number pretty
easily, but it's it's rare tosee 40.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Zach uh.
Rescue missions, um, are kindof downstream from a lot of
society problems.
Talk about the addiction, themental illness, homelessness
itself as a condition of otheror symptom of other conditions.
Talk about what you'vediscovered in your relationship
with Jesus Christ and how thisis so important to you
personally as well as the peopleyou're trying to serve.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Well, I think, as the Bible talks about the Great
Commission, I think we all havea certain responsibility of
spreading the gospel.
But the thing is you don't seemany people that have the idea
that the gospel is the way oflife or that Christianity is the
way of life.
(31:59):
It's kind of an idea or aone-time thing.
It's kind of an idea or aone-time thing, but what we try
to share here and encourage hereis to live by the principles of
the Bible and the gospel,because that's really where you
see growth, you see peoplechanging their lives.
You do see, you know, I've seenChrist do incredible miracles
(32:22):
to people that I really didn'tpersonally have a whole lot of
hope for.
But it doesn't stop there.
And so, just teaching them tocontinue that life, a lot of our
curriculums that we do we kindof put together ourselves
because we want to make surethat they get the point of there
is, even if we have somebodythat's not a believer, there's
(32:44):
still core principles in theBible that can teach you how to
live a healthy lifestyle, and sowe just completely surround our
, our people that come in andeverything we teach with with
the core values of Christ andwhat he teaches.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So what would you say to the listener here who really
doesn't exactly understand theChristian life or what that
could be for a person who issuffering from the different
things we've talked about?
And you talk about thesemiracles of people.
Maybe you weren't sure therewas much hope for, but you saw a
(33:24):
miracle happen.
Give us a paint, a picture onthat for us.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
Well, I just I have a gentleman here that now works
for us he's actually ourdirector for our work readiness
program and he came in addictedto fentanyl, addicted to heroin,
and really had just no hope forlife.
That would be pretty seriousstuff, yeah, and whenever he
(33:52):
came in fentanyl, I'm just kindof learning about it.
And all I'm hearing is peopledying right and left.
And so I see this guy come inand he's broken.
So I see this guy come in andhe's broken.
He's been through multiplerehabs, multiple secular
programs, different things thathe's just like you know.
(34:12):
He's kind of starting to get tothe point where he's giving up
hope.
He is tired of hurtingrelationships with his family,
he is tired of hurting hisfriends and just continuing down
that path and so.
But the reaction to the gospelwith him completely changed his
life, because it was.
People think that we live inAmerica, everybody's heard of
(34:35):
Jesus Christ, everybody's heardof the gospel, but people may
have heard the name but theydon't understand what power he
holds.
And so him actually changinghis life for Christ.
Now he's in the ministry fulltime, now he's doing things, and
this is somebody like that hasno signs of any type of mental
(34:59):
health problems today, as we cansee, but has been through
mental health facilities,through.
So it tells you how much drugsreally mess up with your mind
and everything.
And now you're talking about aguy who's completely freed from
all of that, and so that's ourhope and it's a blessing that he
gets to work with us, becausethat guy walks around the
(35:21):
facility every day as an example.
Yes, it can be done and God,just God, uses so many different
examples to be able to use tohelp people overcome something.
We don't always know exactlywhat somebody is going through,
but God, god works through allof us to be able to kind of hit
(35:46):
that spot that somebody couldactually relate to him, and so
I'm sure we all have wonderfulpictures of what it looks like
for God to take hold of somebody.
But that's what we have hereand our case manager, he's been
through it, he's went throughanother program but we've
(36:07):
brought him in.
Uh, and just the passion, um,he has a, he has a saying that
say it says God used me like thedrugs used me and that's his,
and that's his go-to and and hegoes hard for those people.
I mean he will go to the thickand the thin and the rough and
(36:28):
everything just to share thegospel with somebody.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Can you imagine these five years now, your
anniversary day, just reflectinghearing what you're saying?
This is probably what reallykeeps you in the game, doesn't
it?
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Oh yeah, I remember what's what's wild um.
And another, another example ofgod um, the gentleman that we
have now me and him are superclose friends as well and, uh, I
had just got burned by a guythat I was really kind of um,
discipling.
He was doing good.
Well, then I found out that hehad been using some drugs that
(37:04):
weren't passing on or popping upon UAs and stuff, and it really
hurt me because I was reallyclose with him and found out
that he is, you know, in my mindhe's betraying me this and that
.
But I had to grow from that andlearn that that's just how
addiction works sometimes.
But I was kind of at mybreaking point.
It wasn't that I was ready toquit, it was that I was just
like I'm lost, I don't know whatto do here.
(37:26):
I remember praying to God.
I said, god, I need you to sendsomebody that I can look at as
an example and say, okay, you'redoing something here, you're
doing something in me.
And I look back and I'm like,well, god answered my prayer.
It's not one of those thingswhere you see it immediately.
You know, sometimes it takes alittle bit, but just to see the
(37:48):
I mean the heart and everythingof these individuals that come
from addiction and come fromthese struggles, and once
they're sold out, they're soldout.
I mean they are there and readyto serve the Lord.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Well, amanda, you have been, as we said, here
almost four years now in totalrescue mission work.
You've had Christ in your lifefor many years, but it's hard
work, a lot of heartbreaks inmany areas that people don't
even know about, talk about, asmaybe Zach has.
How does this Jesus factor playinto your ability to do what
(38:26):
you do and to keep you movingforward?
Speaker 3 (38:30):
You know, I think, like Zach kind of mentioned, you
know he has to walk throughthis lesson right when you're
talking about the betrayal andthen you have to give it to the
Lord.
And because we're people tooright I'm trying to do, we're
ordinary people trying to dosuper ordinary things that
(38:50):
require the Lord because wecannot do it in our power.
But I think one of the biggestlessons that I've learned in
this work, in this ministry, andit's also it's been so
rewarding I don't know if that'sthe right word, but also
corrective in my life but it'sthat Christ's character is not
(39:15):
determined by circumstance.
Christ's character is notdetermined by circumstance.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
What's an example of that?
Speaker 3 (39:24):
character is not determined by circumstance.
What's an example of that Ithink I have, you know you
mentioned.
You know I was saved at eightand I was a very mature kid,
kind of had to be because of myupbringing and I remember loving
people deeply.
My mom tells a story oftentimesabout um, we would be walking
in a store, particularly Walmart, before they were supermarts,
and they she would turn aroundand she would be going down the
(39:44):
first aisle and she'd realize Inever came in the store because
I was sitting next to someone atthe front door and I told her
well, they were hurting, so Iwas talking to them.
So I mean this has been kind ofembedded in me.
But even growing up in church Ifelt like God is punitive when
you're bad and he's loving whenyou're good.
(40:05):
That's kind of how I had thismentality and over the years
that has molded and I thinksoftened and understood and all
of that, especially as a teacher, special education teacher, and
then as a principal and thengetting into some leadership
stuff, I started realizing likeGod's character he does not
(40:26):
change because of thecircumstances that change in
this world, like who he was inthe Bible is exactly who he is
today and will be until he comes, and so I've wrestled with that
on my own things.
So when I've messed up, I feellike you know the lesson I was
supposed to learn of that iswell, what's?
What am I getting punitivelyfrom the Lord and what?
(40:48):
How am I going to be punished?
And this, this and this.
And what I've realized is that,even in the struggles regardless
if it's addiction, regardlessif it's mental health,
regardless if it's sin,regardless of whatever it is
that we serve a God who made usin his image and we serve a God
(41:11):
who does not like those thingsbut loves the person.
And when Zach has talked thiswhole time about just being so
excited of the transformation, Iwould have to agree with him.
And when you look at that, Ithink the biggest thing we need
(41:31):
to be telling people is thatChrist doesn't change.
Even when we do so, if thatperson is in the middle of
addiction and is strung out,passed out, whatever, there is a
God that's still looking uponthat person lovingly and is
breaking for that person and iswanting that person to come to
(41:52):
him ready to transform thatheart and that soul, and it is
so cool to be a part of that,that we see it.
But then I think it's alsopowerful and I hope many leaders
are doing it that we look atourselves that same way and that
sometimes, when we're hard onourselves because we don't have
the answers, zach, or we mightmake a mistake, or we walk in
the flesh because our feelingsare hurt because of betrayal or
(42:14):
worry or whatever, that, thatsame God that loved people in
the scripture, even when there'sconsequences and stuff, god is
so, he's so just that.
That same God is the same onefor us that is telling us like,
hey, I love you, son, I'vecalled you to this, or daughter,
I see what you're strugglingwith, but you have that power,
(42:37):
you have me in you and to me.
That is what motivates me,because I'm not sure as a
society we truly understand thecharacter of Christ, because
we've made it so reformed, we'vemade it so ritualistic, we've
made it so checkboxy.
And I just need people to knowthat people that seem very
(43:03):
unlovable on the streets or inour shelters or in the midst of
the, whatever struggle it is,that they are truly loved by the
Creator and the Creator is notwaiting to sit there and put His
hammer on them.
And we're called to share thathope.
And that same level of hope oftransformation also happens in
(43:25):
us as leaders, if we allow theLord to work in us.
And that is what is somotivating to me, but also
corrective, because God hasshown me.
I did not understand hischaracter until this role.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, amanda Zach, I think that one of the things
that the world is very hungryfor is the authentic Jesus and
we have reformed him to utilizehis name.
And without the power andunfortunately that becomes
legalistic law, and there's somany people, even in church
today, in church today.
(44:03):
One of the things that I'veenjoyed about a rescue mission
experience is not only thatpractical help and getting me to
see God step into these placesmiraculously, that we couldn't
do, you couldn't have done thepandemic without the Lord, none
of us could have navigated.
You can't navigate.
You couldn't have navigatedthese five years without the
Lord.
You know that this is too hardwork, it's impossible work.
But not only do we get to be inthat space where we can walk
(44:25):
with the people that Christwalked with, but also the other
people that Christ walked withthat don't necessarily know they
need him and to be able to bethat reflection of so that's
authentic Christianity.
Not because of us you mentioned.
We're people.
We're kind of messy.
Sometimes it's a messy world.
(44:45):
Jesus came for messy people,but we get to see God walk in
the middle of the mess and Zach,amanda and other rescue mission
staff members, volunteers,people they get to walk in the
mess and they get to see theJesus in the middle of the mess,
and there's no covering it up,there's no.
You can't make it look prettyand shiny, it's just not.
(45:07):
But it's authentic, it's real,it's it's, it's.
It's a place you can findChrist, because we're desperate
for him and the people that arecoming through the doors are
desperate for him too.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Can I say one thing on that?
I think that's.
I love how Zach mentioned likethe hurt a little bit when
somebody whether it's a relapseor maybe someone seems like
they're on a path and thenstumbles.
You know, I think that we needto start talking about that more
too.
I think there's a lot ofpressures on leaders.
I have never been asked,whether it's in a church,
(45:44):
speaking event or whatever.
I've never had somebody come upto me and say, well, how many
people have relapsed?
But everybody wants to know thesuccess, outcomes, what looks
good, right, what's what'shappened, and I think those
things are great.
But I also think that we'reshooting ourselves in the foot a
little bit, because there werea lot of successes with that
(46:05):
individual that you mentioned,zach.
Like there's a lot of successesthat he was able to jump
through and to do.
And just because there is abackslide does not mean that
that's an outcome we shouldn'tbe reporting on.
And the other side of that isthat's probably the hardest part
of my job on a spiritual levelis the they're not ready yet and
(46:29):
I don't have the answers tothat.
I don't.
I don't know if that ever getsbetter.
I don't know.
I don't know if you, if youjuggle it better, but the Lord
is really correcting me.
There's a pattern here.
If you haven't picked up on it.
I'm going through a lot ofcorrection in my life.
(47:09):
No-transcript, because we alsoserve a God that has given us
free will and choice, and all ofthat because he is a just God
and he's a father.
But that's probably one of mybiggest challenges now and has
been since I've been in thisrole, and I'm not sure it gets
better.
But it's just the worry thatcomes along when someone's not
(47:34):
ready yet.
And where did they go?
Are they okay?
And a couple of them have endedin death and I still wrestle
with that.
I still wrestle with that andjust hope that they were healed
in a way that that couldn't bedone on Earth.
But I think I think that thereneeds to be more outlets for
leaders, particularly to be ableto talk about those mishaps,
(47:58):
the relapses, the backslides,because those hurt a lot for
ourselves and our teams andsometimes we don't get to talk
about that part of the humanitypiece.
We should hurt one another.
Speaker 4 (48:11):
Something that helps me through that is, a lot of
people are like well, how manypeople return to your facility?
How many people leave and thencome back?
Well, there's a few, but thereason they're coming back is
because they realize that thepath that they decided to leave
for was not the right path, andif they would have never saw
(48:32):
that through us in the firstplace, they wouldn't have
anywhere to return.
So it may not be the first time, may not be.
I've seen I'm sure y'all havetoo three, four, five times
where people come in and come in, and then they finally get it
right.
But that is something I have toalways hold dear to, that I
can't be the one who's makingthe timing, but I can at least
(48:55):
plant the seed.
And then also, I always have torealize that this is not for
anybody, but for the Lord, mymission.
At the core of it I'm servingGod, and so even whenever I fail
, I know that I've brought gloryto him in some way.
So if you stop bringing gloryto God, that's whenever we're
(49:16):
messing up, sure.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
When others hurt, we're supposed to hurt with them
.
That's the full definition ofcompassion.
There's hurt, we're supposed tohurt with them.
That's the full definition ofcompassion.
That Greek word, splagnesomai.
When Jesus saw the multitudes hehad, splagnesomai he got hit in
the gut when they were hurtingbecause of all their needs.
But he didn't stop with thehurt.
He then began to minister tothem, to touch them, to love
(49:40):
them, to heal their sick and tofeed their hungry.
And that's what we've beencalled to do.
But we're still going to hurt.
And if we don't hurt, then weprobably should get a different
job.
And so but you're right, we'renot the finisher of the story.
And so we're just a piece of thestory.
So, Zach, anything else you'dlike to share with us today?
(50:02):
Our listeners are not only herein Topeka, Shawnee County in
Kansas.
There are a lot of differentplaces.
Might be even somebody fromChickasha, Oklahoma, that's
going to get a chance to listento this.
I hope so.
Anything else from yourperspective there in Oklahoma
Rescue Mission work now fiveyears city gate.
Anything else you'd like for usto know?
Speaker 4 (50:22):
I think the biggest thing that's been a big part of
my heart, like you had mentioned, rural areas.
They don't get touched a wholelot.
This is very rare to have aministry like this in a rural
community.
My heart's big on it doesn'ttake a lot, it takes somebody.
It takes somebody just to moveforward and say, hey, you know
(50:44):
what, we're going to putsomething together where these
ones that want help I understandit's tough for the ones that
they have that back and forthand they all want help, but some
of them desire a different wayof getting it.
But to create a path for theones that are ready to make a
change, I think every communityneeds that, whether you're 5,000
(51:06):
people or a million people.
So I just I pray that we seemore churches and more community
efforts to the smallercommunities as well, where it
may be not put so much pressureon the big cities that are
already dealing with their huge,huge crisis of, of, uh, of
(51:30):
homeless.
But we can.
We can help with what we haveand so, uh, that's that's been
my heart and that's where I'mhoping that I'm leading this
ministry is to continue growingon that aspect.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
I really appreciate hearing that.
Um, we're struggling with someof that in our part of northeast
Kansas right now.
Some of the smaller communitiesare beginning to see things
they've never seen before andtheir solution is send them to
Topeka, send them to Lawrence,send them to Kansas City to be
able to move them out.
But I think you know, zach,just understanding a little bit
(52:03):
more about you and what you'vedone, what people did before you
, could be a great role modelfor some of our other
communities to know what theymight do locally as well.
So don't be terribly surprisedif I don't pass your information
on to somebody else here in.
Kansas.
You may get a call, but, yeah,share with them and, of course,
the most important foundationalthing is about the relationship
(52:24):
with Christ.
So, zach, thanks for joining ustoday.
Lamanda, anything else?
Speaker 3 (52:28):
No, thanks, zach, for coming on and thanks for what
you do, thanks to your wife,because I know that that is a
sacrifice, right, because theposition is demanding and it
impacts everyone, the good, thebad and the ugly.
So you're just very special tome, you're very special to
CityGate Network and weappreciate you sharing your
(52:48):
heart and your thoughts aboutyour own self, your ministry,
what you're seeing and your area.
So glad you're on.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
Thank you all so much for having me on.
And, amanda, I've been tellingyou for like three years now
that one day we're going to comeup there and visit y'all.
So, I'm still holding to it.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
I don't know when that's going to be, and it is
coming up here.
Speaker 4 (53:07):
I'm super grateful for what y'all are doing and I'm
grateful for both of y'all,especially Amanda, being there.
I mean, there's been calls bothways for support so thank y'all
both.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
That's why they call it the network.
So, anyway, we've heard fromthe executive director of
Resurrection House in Chickasha,oklahoma, zach Bowles, who's a
member of the CityGate Networkand just wanted to highlight
this relationship it's TopekaRescue Mission benefits from, as
well as also contributing to inthis bigger work of helping our
(53:41):
neighbors and loving the onesin front of us.
Thank you for listening to ourcommunity, our mission, a
podcast of the Topeka RescueMission.
If you'd like more informationabout TRM, you can go to
trmonlineorg.
That's trmonlineorg.
Thank you for listening.
Dear Heavenly Father.
We thank you, Lord, for thisday and your blessings and
provisions.
God, we thank you for this timeand this podcast and, Lord, for
all of the faithful listenerswho listen every week.
Lord, we thank you for thisconversation.
Lord, knowing that the work isgoing on everywhere and that
there are faithful servants allacross the country, pray your
blessing over this conversationand this time In your holy name
we pray Amen.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello everybody, thank you for joining us for
another episode of Our Community, our Mission, a podcast of the
Topeka Rescue Mission here onTuesday, april the 1st 2025.
No kidding, no kidding, nokidding.
This is episode number 262.
Good morning Lamanda Cunningham.
Good morning Topeka RescueMission.
Hello, how are you?
This is actually April 1st,isn't it?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
It is.
And do you know, I've alreadybeen fooled.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
You have yes, just today.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, when you have five kids in your house, it's
bound to happen.
But I woke up this morning,walked into the bathroom and all
over the mirror were messagesfrom three of the five kids in
toothpaste.
Oh, but they were really sweetand honest.
They signed their initials so Iknew who did it.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Were they nice messages.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah, happy Fool's Day.
You've been fooled.
I mean, like the whole mirrorand toothpaste I don't know how
I'm going to get it off.
But then it was so cute becausethen it was E, e and B, so I
knew exactly which kids had doneit and which kids hadn't, which
kids have done it and whichkids hadn't.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And then you said to them that was really cute.
I'll be glad to clean that upfor you.
April Fools.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yes, absolutely, you can clean it up yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, amanda, we always like to highlight some
special things about what thesedays are, and our research and
development department, which isright down the table here from
us, and his great team, hascreated this day.
I think it was created by theseguys, and so it's called
International Fun at Work Day,april 1st, and so that was made
(01:51):
for TRM, right, josh?
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
We actually kicked it off.
You did Okay, all right, okay,no other places want to have fun
too, I guess.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It's about time that you created something for
international on this day, orsomething like that.
You've been reading everybodyelse's for so long.
So, josh, why was this daycreated?
What's the point?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Well, I think it was just to well, obviously being
April Fool's Day and then havingfun at work, right?
Like you know, most of us stillwork, so you know you got to
have light fun at work.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So be careful with these guys.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I know I have to watch my back, but it's fun
around here every day.
Even in the midst of the heavyand all of that, we have some
jokesters.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's called group therapy.
Yeah, group therapy.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
We're helping each other through all the muck.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I heard somebody say one time if you're not laughing,
you're crying.
That's very true.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I'm glad you got a day, Josh.
Probably should be the JoshTurley International Fun at Work
Day.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Hey, there you go.
I like that.
I'm going to try and see.
If I can't get that, Make surewe do that next year too Into
law here.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's also National Greeting Card Day.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Do you know my address?
Yes, okay, I'm expectingsomething in my mailbox this
afternoon.
Got it.
It's a sweet Five to sevenbusiness days April fools, april
fools.
It's a way to tell peopleyou're thinking about them, and
so this is probably the biggestpart of today.
It's Boomer Bonus Day.
Boomer Bonus Day.
Do we know what Boomer BonusDay is?
Lamanda?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
You are a bonus every day, Barry.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
A bonus dose of a lot .
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Some of us boomers every day on April the 1st.
Nobody can see this, can they,josh?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Okay, because he's making faces at me.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Is it okay if I pull her chair out from under here?
April Fools so some of us whoare at boomer status, instead of
millennial and all those otherthings, we should be able to get
an extra special discount todayat the restaurant.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
You should.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
It should be a bonus discount Sure yes, anyway, after
one of these days.
Lamanda, you're going to go toa restaurant and they're going
to say, are you a senior, wouldyou like a discount?
And you're going to be insulteduntil you find out and do the
math and go yep you bet I'mgoing to take it.
We're good.
So, Amanda, any updates beforewe get into a very special guest
today who is from Oklahoma.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So any updates in Topeka.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I would just say, if you are on our newsletter list,
make sure that you checked outthe newsletter that you should
have just gotten in the lastweek or two.
It was our annual report andyou know we take that very
seriously.
That's why we do it at the endof first quarter to really
analyze the data for the yearbefore.
But that annual report haseverything on there from
(04:32):
financial reportings to numbersregarding our shelter, food
numbers, street reach numbers,housing numbers, all of those
kinds of things.
It doesn't capture everythingthat we track, of course, but we
do try to put as much aspossible in that spread and I
just want to give a big thankyou to all of our department
heads who help keep up and trackthe data.
(04:54):
You know we're big here onstatistics, but we also know
every statistic equals a storyand we care about the story more
than the stat.
But we have to also report onthe stats.
I also want to give a big thankyou to Josh and Isaiah and
Miriam, who do a lot of behindthe scenes of kind of hearing my
vision and making it happen,and so newsletter every month
(05:19):
with Mike Schottel and Josh.
That is a feat for us three,but the annual report is a whole
different beast because oflayouts and graphics and triple
quadruple checking numbers, allof that.
So please make sure that youcheck that out.
It should have hit yourmailboxes in March.
Have we done the post yet?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, it's posted on social, it's on our website and
then yeah, and then also tryingto do that during the middle of
two warming centers was fun.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yes, so that was interesting.
Um so it's a little bit laterthan normal too.
Um so if anybody has concernswith that, I will apologize.
I will own that, but we kind ofhad to take a pause on
something so that we could dothe warming centers.
I mean that was front andcenter.
People were more important thannumbers.
People were more important thannumbers.
So, numbers came out late, butthat came out late because of me
(06:07):
.
Uh, because we put that on theback burner to operate the
shelters, the warming centers.
So that was the major update.
Want to make sure everybodychecks that out.
Um, and then I just also wantedto express some gratitude you
know I was reflecting um overthe weekend just so much
thankfulness for people who areinvolved in conversations right
(06:28):
now about homelessness, whomaybe never have been and they
are so next steps orsolution-based minded, not just
to cause problems, not just todo this, but bringing their
questions, bringing theuncertainties, the things they
(06:49):
don't understand and sometimesnegative thoughts.
I feel like we're starting tosee that really be aimed in the
right areas right now and peoplereally joining together to say,
hey, I don't understandhomelessness or I don't get this
and those kinds of things.
I've just had some really coolconversations the past several
weeks and I just appreciatepeople wanting to educate
themselves, their businesses orthe groups that they're involved
(07:12):
with.
You know, I know you might wantto say a thing about all hands
on deck, those communitymeetings, but just a lot of
gratitude in my heart right nowfor our rescue mission, not
feeling isolated in this workand really feeling like people
from all walks are trying tojoin into the complexities
instead of running away from it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, you know, I think that the things have
changed significantly,especially post-pandemic, when
things got to be so much morecomplicated and more people on
the streets and so it used to bethe focus was around what is
the Topeka Rescue Mission doingabout this?
Right Now it is what is TopekaRescue Mission and the community
doing about this, with somegood conversation about does it
(07:56):
have to be this way?
And I think that the answer tothat is no.
It doesn't have to be the wayit is.
It could get worse, yes, but itcan get better.
Yes, and so what do we do tomake it better?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, and then I was, you know, to piggyback off of
that.
The last thing that I wouldthink of is if somebody is
listening to this and still like, well, I didn't get to come to
a community meeting for allhands on deck or I'm not able to
volunteer at the rescue mission.
Another way that you can getplugged in that, I could tell
you, is a way that you areimmediately a part of a solution
(08:28):
is to donate non-perishablefood items to the rescue mission
.
You know I want to be verycareful with how I word it and
we don't need to sound alarms,but in the upcoming weeks we are
going to be doing a podcastkind of designated to food
insecurity and what we're seeing, and one of the concerns that I
(08:49):
have right now is because ofpeople's personal budgets being
impacted and uncertainties thatmany people are facing in
donations of canned foods, boxesof non-perishable food items,
(09:09):
canned goods of various things,whether it's the tuna, whether
it's the boxes of rice.
We've seen a significant decline, and so I spent Monday walking
through the distribution centerAgain, a lot of empty shelves
and we're doing the asks.
It's out there.
But I recognize we have a verygenerous community, but I also
recognize we have a communitythat itself is being impacted.
(09:30):
So, if you can, or if you'reinvolved in a church group or
you're involved in a work groupor maybe just even a friend
group that you meet once a month, please consider maybe doing a
canned food drive.
What we see God do with that isyou might bring us 10 cans and
not think that that's enough,and we might have 10
(09:50):
supplemental bags that need acanned good in it and we see
that all the time.
So, whether you're gettinginvolved you know, volunteering
or getting involved in communityconversations or a more
immediate need would be, youknow, shop online.
If you can't come, have it sentto 401 Northwest Norris for our
(10:11):
distribution center so that thecanned goods can go straight to
there.
But that is a way that I canpromise you.
You are immediately meeting aneed that we significantly have
for our area.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, I think people do want to get involved.
That's a very practical waythey can do that.
If you want to learn moreinformation, you could go about
what's happening with homeless.
You could go to the TopekaRescue Mission website that's
trmonlineorg.
Trmonlineorg Also the Facebookpage for Topeka Rescue Mission,
and there's a new developedFacebook page called All Hands
(10:43):
on Deck, topeka, shawnee County.
That's going to really beunpacking the larger issue of
chronic homelessness and how wecan solve this coming up.
So there is a little bit outthere right now, but there's
going to be a series ofdifferent posts that are coming
up over a period of months thatare going to help people to
really know what they can do.
What they can do Well, amanda,one of the things that you have
(11:10):
done this month marks your thirdyear as CEO come April 22nd.
You were on board for a numberof months before that, so we're
running kind of like three and ahalf four years of you being
here.
But one of the things you gotinvolved with was a CityGate
Network annual conference and inthat you were introduced to
some other what would be calledemerging leaders and you've been
able to be able to engage withsome of those leaders and it's
(11:34):
not all executive directors orCEOs from rescue missions around
the country, with what's calledthe CityGate Network, which I
think is approximately 300 inNorth America, and so one of the
things that you have been doingis keeping in touch with them
and having monthly Zoom callsand then when you get to see
each other, and so one of thethings that you wanted to do
(11:55):
which I think is a great idea isto be able to peak a rescue
mission in our community, ourmission, to highlight some of
those rescue missions, therelationships that you had and
today we're going to have herevia Zoom online podcast
technology.
Thank you, josh.
However, you do all this mojo,but it's the director from the
Chickasha, oklahoma rescuemission.
(12:16):
Please introduce your friendand we're going to talk to Zach.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yes, so joined with us today is Zach and Zach.
You know, I know, Barry, we'renot supposed to have favorites.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Well, I know I am so, but yeah, I forgot.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Oh, I'm not the director anymore, that's right.
You're my favorite, april Fool's, but my real favorite would be
Zach and his sweet, sweet wife,gloria, one of the first couples
that I met at the CityGateNetwork Conference, one of the
first conferences that I went to, and you know I was personally
in the stage of I'd been aneducator and I'm switching from
(12:53):
education to go to rescuemission work and definitely did
not feel qualified for that.
But yet, walking in my callingof God, doing that, and what I
found was there were many of usin that room where we were all
like man, all of us feel likewe're unequipped for this and it
(13:13):
just feels like the job is sobig and the pressures are so big
and sometimes some of us feltlike we had really great leaders
to help mentor us into thatrole and some of us felt like we
were kind of more on our ownand I don't know.
Stories just started being toldand Jordan, who we spoke to
last month, and I just realizedlike hey, we need a community
(13:36):
and we don't know what thatlooks like, but we need
something.
That's outside of this annualconference and so it's neat.
A lot of us were able to get toknow each other via social
media.
You know technology is notalways bad.
Even though I'm old school andI like my pencil and paper, I do
like being able to keep up witha lot of my friends and
emerging leaders, and so, yeah,zach, I wanted him to be on as
(14:00):
our second ED CEO level personthat we're interviewing.
Last month we talked to JordanSmith and he is over development
and everything at his rescuemission, and so now I think that
it's neat to be able to switchstates and go to Oklahoma and
kind of hear what's going on,what trends Zach's seeing the
(14:22):
challenges he's facing, but alsoa little bit of his testimony
on what trends Zach's seeing thechallenges he's facing, but
also a little bit of histestimony how to get there.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Well, zach Bowles, chickasha, oklahoma, Zach,
what's the name of your rescuemission there?
Resurrection.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
House Resurrection House.
Thank you all so much forallowing me to come on and I'm
excited to you know.
See you guys and LaManda, andit's just that CityGate thing.
I don't know.
I think we went to our firstcity gate thing at the same time
.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
I think so too.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I think it was both our first ones, and so it was
exciting to be able to see that,just the transformation that
God does in people.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Zach, how long have you been with the rescue mission
there total or in your positionand what's that rescue mission
like in Oklahoma?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Yeah, so I came on on April 1st of 2020.
So the big dreaded date ofCOVID shutting everything down.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Happy anniversary.
Happy anniversary, oh wait, itis my anniversary.
Wow, hey so I've been here forfive years.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Just realized that.
But time goes fast when you'rehaving fun.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So, you came in as executive director at that time
five years ago.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
And I've had zero experience anything.
I did own my own truckingbusiness, so I left it to come
to this.
So I'm sitting here laughing ather education.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I'm like, hey, at least you got education.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I didn't have nothing .
Speaker 4 (15:51):
You know, I just had a call from God, and so it's
exciting to see what God can useout of somebody.
You know, something that I'vealways seen is exciting to me is
when God uses somebody that iscompletely not set up for that
type of mission and he just goesin there and he truly uses that
individual to shake things up abit.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So in the old days he used to say that rescue
missions were the only place youcould crawl in the front door
as a hopeless alcoholic and 10years later be the executive
director.
Sounds like that wasn't yourstory.
But you were walking by thedoor one day and they grabbed
you and brought you in and madeyou the director.
Huh yeah pretty much.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Yeah, my pastor.
He had just came on and so I'dsurrendered to the ministry
under him and he was wanting todo some sort of like addictions
ministry through the church.
And one of our church membershad said that, uh, he didn't
want him to reinvent the wheel.
He's like you know, there'salready a ministry here in town.
Why don't you get plugged inwith that?
And so whenever he met with himthe director at that time, he
(16:56):
was like, hey, I'm looking for aretirement plan, I'm looking to
make my way out, and I justsurrendered, and so they brought
it to me and so I started kindof getting plugged in and about
a year later well, yeah, arounda year later I stepped in the
doors the executive director andthe previous executive director
(17:18):
.
He stayed on with us for aboutseven or eight more months and
then, and then he, he retiredand left it all to me.
And I tell you it wasn't the, itwasn't the greatest.
Uh, I remember calling him.
I was on my way to work april1st listening to the radio of
everything getting shut down,and I called him.
I was like, hey, what am Isupposed to do?
Here he goes.
(17:38):
I don't know.
You're the executive director,you get to make that decision.
So be trusted in God and moveforward.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
There's been probably six times now that I call Barry
and Barry has got to be and Iknow I'm biased, but he's got to
be, hands down the best mentoron earth.
April.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Fools again.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
No, that's not an April Fools, I'm being nice but
I love it and I love that I canbring anything to him and all of
that.
But last week I broughtsomething to him and he does
this thing where he chuckles andthen he says, well, I don't
know Cause I never had thathappen.
And so last week I told him, Isaid, if I hear that out of your
(18:22):
mouth again, wise out, we'regoing to have a problem.
And he said, well then, quithaving junk happen that I have
no experience with.
And we just laughed.
But when you said that you know,three years into this role,
there's still stuff that justhappens.
And I'm like, okay, the wisething here is to go to your
mentor.
And then I go to my mentor andBarry reminds me like, like it's
(18:44):
something new all the time,even with all of the wisdom, all
of the experience he has.
You know he did it 36 yearsbefore retiring or 37.
There's still stuff that justcomes up and you don't know.
But it's incredible to havesupport, whether it's through
friendship, whether it's throughcity gate mentorship, whatever
it is, so that when you go, hey,what am I supposed to do about
(19:05):
this?
Somehow between that villageyou figure it out, and the Lord,
of course, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Zach we've all had our first day and unless we
worked in rescue mission work,LaManda had not done that, I had
not done that, you had not donethat.
I can't imagine your first timein the door you get a pandemic
thrown at you at the same time.
I mean time in the door you geta pandemic thrown at you at the
same time.
I mean, who had radar for that?
Who had understanding for that?
So you believed, you understood, not believe, you really
(19:35):
understood.
The Lord called you there, andso what was that like to have
this whole thing in your handsnow and then this pandemic, and
you call your former directorand he goes man, I've been there
, done that.
So what went through your mind?
Go back to trucking.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
No, no, it was simply , um, trust in the Lord.
I knew that I could.
I couldn't look at every otherbusiness or every other church
or whatever in the same light ofwhat we were doing, because we
would do with it.
We were putting people's livesat risk if we didn't open our
doors, and so we just had tohave faith and trust in the Lord
(20:09):
.
And that's what we did.
We just kept moving forward.
We did as many precautions aswe could, but we just kept going
on and the Lord blessed that.
The Lord bless that.
(20:31):
The lord.
Uh, you know, um, we had maybetwo or three small outbreaks,
like not during that time,though it was after everything
had opened up.
So, during the time of wheneverything was closed down, we,
uh, we really were able to moveforward and and, uh, no, nothing
real bad.
I don't think we had anythingfor about a year of any type of
COVID in the building, and then,honestly, I think it was the
(20:53):
staff that got it first and thensome of the folks here.
So, yeah, just trusting the Lord, and whenever you do this, I'm
sure y'all understand there's alot of that trust in the Lord,
because there's a lot ofquestions that you don't have,
and that's something I'm supergrateful for CityGate, I didn't
(21:16):
I'm not trying to be rude oranything but the previous
director that we had, once hestepped away.
He stepped away, and so Ididn't have anybody that I could
sit there and call up on otherthan my own pastor, and he had
never done anything like thisbefore either.
So it was both.
(21:36):
So that's where CityGate camein and played a huge, huge role
in our developing where we aretoday and just continuing to
grow and continuing to serve theLord.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
For those that don't really know much about CityGate,
it's an organization, anassociation of rescue ministries
in North America that's beenaround for over 100 years and
it's predominantly relationalpeople getting to know each
other, some technical training,but it's missions sharing with
missions, about what they'velearned, what they're doing,
(22:10):
director sharing with directors,food service sharing with food
service and those kind of things.
So I was in the same boat asyou.
When I came, there wasn'tanybody around and there was no
one to show me the ropes.
And, yeah, you trust the Lord.
And then you're grateful whenyou get that call hey, would you
like to come to a meeting wherethere's some other people doing
your stuff?
And you go, yeah when, likethis afternoon maybe, no, down
(22:35):
the road, we didn't have thetechnology back then.
We had three times a year thatwe could get with folks and
actually we did have telephonesback then, which was really kind
of cool, but we had no emailsor internet or those kind of
things, and so it was prettymuch desert until you got a
chance to go meet with the folks.
But now, because of thetechnology, you guys can get on
(22:55):
a Zoom like we're doing rightnow, share information back and
forth.
So, zach, talk to us about therescue mission there in
Chickasha.
How long has it been around?
Who do you serve?
How big is the community ofChickasha?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, so we've been around for 34 years Actually, no
, 36 years now, man, 36 yearsand really it just started to
help serve those that wereliving under the bridges here in
Chickasha.
Chickasha is a rather smallcommunity.
We have 16,000 people in ourtown and so really the people
(23:37):
that we serve I wouldn't say Iwould say it's more of a middle
class community, not necessarilyhigh class or low class, but we
deal with a lot of drugs andI'm sure, like everybody, mental
health is a huge thing here.
But the drugs we have twointerstate systems that run kind
(24:00):
of right right around Chickashaand they're both large state
systems and so we see a lot ofdrug trafficking and really we
haven't had to deal with a wholelot of sex trafficking or
anything, but I would say thedrug trafficking and the mental
health, those are our two mainmain individuals that we serve.
(24:22):
But our goal is just to committo provide life skills, training
and shelter for families andindividuals in our area for
Christ.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So it's interesting 36 years ago you guys were
starting and at that time it wasa response to a pretty small
community, 16,000 or so peoplewho were experiencing
homelessness at that time.
But it does make sense whenyou're talking about mental
health and addiction issues thatwere affecting even a small
community in what might beconsidered rural Oklahoma.
(24:53):
How close are you to OklahomaCity or Tulsa?
Those areas?
Speaker 4 (25:01):
So we're about a 30-minute from Oklahoma city and
then about two and a half hoursfrom from Tulsa, um, and so we
have that.
And then we have a community,uh Southwest of us, called
Lawton.
I don't know if y'all haveheard of Lawton, oklahoma, but
uh, they've got quite a bit ofuh struggles with poverty there.
(25:23):
They're a larger town, about100,000.
And so we see some folks comingfrom there as well.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
So you do see some spillover from those communities
too.
You know, in Kansas there'scommunities of 16,000, a little
more, a little less that have noresources for their homeless
population.
It sounds like what happened 36years ago is they said we don't
necessarily want to just sendthem over 30 miles away to
Oklahoma City, we need to takecare of our own, which says a
(25:53):
lot about you guys and whatstarted almost 40 years ago.
Talk about the services of yourrescue mission there.
You mentioned families.
So we have single men, singlewomen and families, and
approximately how many people doyou serve at a time?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Yeah, so we have one building but we've kind of got
it divided into two buildingsreally.
But we serve women, men andfamilies.
We're pretty limited oncapacity on families, but we
also don't see a whole lot offamilies as well.
But we see, probably ouraverage is probably around 25
(26:33):
men a night and then we haveusually around 10 to 15 women,
so much more men come throughhere.
We see, right now we're seeingmaybe three or four families a
year, so we really don't see awhole lot of families.
(26:56):
But yeah, that's the mainthings.
We have a shelter which is whatis actually called the
Resurrection House.
We have three differentprograms.
So we have the ResurrectionHouse, which is considered our
shelter, and then we also havethe Life Skills Institute.
So that's our program.
It's a one-year program and ourgoal in that is to really walk
(27:16):
alongside these individuals andwalk alongside their churches
and kind of just encourage thatrelationship to grow, because we
know that we're not going to behere forever for them but their
church should be, and so that'sour goal is to kind of just
(27:36):
mend those two relationships andthen help them to walk together
.
We also have a work readinessprogram help them to walk
together.
We also have a work readinessprogram.
Something that I was unaware orof thinking about was that, you
know, my thought was get hereand help them get a job.
But whenever you realize thatthere's a lot of them,
(27:57):
especially with the mentalhealth or the backgrounds that
they may have, it's not thateasy.
And so we developed a workreadiness program, which is a
six-month program that theyworked with us through that and
then at the end of that programwe helped them get a job that's
able to be a good start for them.
(28:17):
So that's our three programs,but really the the our biggest
hope and prayer is that theyhave a good relationship with
Jesus Christ At the end of theirstay with us.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Zach, what changes in the last five years have you
seen in regards to the needsthere in Chickasha, and how has
a resurrection House respondedto those needs?
Has there been any needs?
Again, you came in during apandemic.
Things were starting to reallyunravel in so many different
areas, so maybe you don't haveany radar prior to the pandemic,
(28:53):
but has there been an increasein people who are unsheltered,
an increase in people strugglingwith mental illness and
addiction there?
And are you looking?
Are things pretty status quo,or are you maybe busting at the
seams and maybe need to dosomething more?
Speaker 4 (29:11):
No, I mean really what I would say was addiction
rose during COVID.
People didn't rely on what youknow us, as Christians are able
to rely on.
They rely on different sources,and so we did see addiction
rise, which led people to badcircumstances.
(29:33):
We have a county jail.
That's also a transport systemfor the, you know, for national
inmates and stuff, and sofederal inmates.
So we did see, we do see a lotof people coming from the jail
system here, but so that waswhere we saw an increase.
(29:55):
And then mental health, I think.
I think mental health's beenpretty steady since I've been
here.
I wouldn't say it's necessarilygotten better or worse.
I would say our main thing thatI've noticed is the addiction
seemed to get worse and thenkind of going down.
(30:17):
Now, as far as us, we have anincredible building that God
blessed us with.
Our biggest need is the fundsto be able to hire the staff.
So, like right now, we're kindof lower on numbers, but
whenever it's the winter months,the middle of summer, we see a
lot of people and we're justkind of handling what we can
(30:40):
handle with the amount of staffwe have.
We have four no five stafffull-time staff members and then
three part-time.
So it can get a littleinteresting whenever we do see
numbers.
We kind of put our cap for howmany people we're able to serve
here as 35 to 40, just dependingon the needs.
(31:02):
But it's pretty rare that weget up to that.
I would say we we can kind ofget up to that 35 number pretty
easily, but it's it's rare tosee 40.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Zach uh.
Rescue missions, um, are kindof downstream from a lot of
society problems.
Talk about the addiction, themental illness, homelessness
itself as a condition of otheror symptom of other conditions.
Talk about what you'vediscovered in your relationship
with Jesus Christ and how thisis so important to you
personally as well as the peopleyou're trying to serve.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Well, I think, as the Bible talks about the Great
Commission, I think we all havea certain responsibility of
spreading the gospel.
But the thing is you don't seemany people that have the idea
that the gospel is the way oflife or that Christianity is the
way of life.
(31:59):
It's kind of an idea or aone-time thing.
It's kind of an idea or aone-time thing, but what we try
to share here and encourage hereis to live by the principles of
the Bible and the gospel,because that's really where you
see growth, you see peoplechanging their lives.
You do see, you know, I've seenChrist do incredible miracles
(32:22):
to people that I really didn'tpersonally have a whole lot of
hope for.
But it doesn't stop there.
And so, just teaching them tocontinue that life, a lot of our
curriculums that we do we kindof put together ourselves
because we want to make surethat they get the point of there
is, even if we have somebodythat's not a believer, there's
(32:44):
still core principles in theBible that can teach you how to
live a healthy lifestyle, and sowe just completely surround our
, our people that come in andeverything we teach with with
the core values of Christ andwhat he teaches.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So what would you say to the listener here who really
doesn't exactly understand theChristian life or what that
could be for a person who issuffering from the different
things we've talked about?
And you talk about thesemiracles of people.
Maybe you weren't sure therewas much hope for, but you saw a
(33:24):
miracle happen.
Give us a paint, a picture onthat for us.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
Well, I just I have a gentleman here that now works
for us he's actually ourdirector for our work readiness
program and he came in addictedto fentanyl, addicted to heroin,
and really had just no hope forlife.
That would be pretty seriousstuff, yeah, and whenever he
(33:52):
came in fentanyl, I'm just kindof learning about it.
And all I'm hearing is peopledying right and left.
And so I see this guy come inand he's broken.
So I see this guy come in andhe's broken.
He's been through multiplerehabs, multiple secular
programs, different things thathe's just like you know.
(34:12):
He's kind of starting to get tothe point where he's giving up
hope.
He is tired of hurtingrelationships with his family,
he is tired of hurting hisfriends and just continuing down
that path and so.
But the reaction to the gospelwith him completely changed his
life, because it was.
People think that we live inAmerica, everybody's heard of
(34:35):
Jesus Christ, everybody's heardof the gospel, but people may
have heard the name but theydon't understand what power he
holds.
And so him actually changinghis life for Christ.
Now he's in the ministry fulltime, now he's doing things, and
this is somebody like that hasno signs of any type of mental
(34:59):
health problems today, as we cansee, but has been through
mental health facilities,through.
So it tells you how much drugsreally mess up with your mind
and everything.
And now you're talking about aguy who's completely freed from
all of that, and so that's ourhope and it's a blessing that he
gets to work with us, becausethat guy walks around the
(35:21):
facility every day as an example.
Yes, it can be done and God,just God, uses so many different
examples to be able to use tohelp people overcome something.
We don't always know exactlywhat somebody is going through,
but God, god works through allof us to be able to kind of hit
(35:46):
that spot that somebody couldactually relate to him, and so
I'm sure we all have wonderfulpictures of what it looks like
for God to take hold of somebody.
But that's what we have hereand our case manager, he's been
through it, he's went throughanother program but we've
(36:07):
brought him in.
Uh, and just the passion, um,he has a, he has a saying that
say it says God used me like thedrugs used me and that's his,
and that's his go-to and and hegoes hard for those people.
I mean he will go to the thickand the thin and the rough and
(36:28):
everything just to share thegospel with somebody.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Can you imagine these five years now, your
anniversary day, just reflectinghearing what you're saying?
This is probably what reallykeeps you in the game, doesn't
it?
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Oh yeah, I remember what's what's wild um.
And another, another example ofgod um, the gentleman that we
have now me and him are superclose friends as well and, uh, I
had just got burned by a guythat I was really kind of um,
discipling.
He was doing good.
Well, then I found out that hehad been using some drugs that
(37:04):
weren't passing on or popping upon UAs and stuff, and it really
hurt me because I was reallyclose with him and found out
that he is, you know, in my mindhe's betraying me this and that
.
But I had to grow from that andlearn that that's just how
addiction works sometimes.
But I was kind of at mybreaking point.
It wasn't that I was ready toquit, it was that I was just
like I'm lost, I don't know whatto do here.
(37:26):
I remember praying to God.
I said, god, I need you to sendsomebody that I can look at as
an example and say, okay, you'redoing something here, you're
doing something in me.
And I look back and I'm like,well, god answered my prayer.
It's not one of those thingswhere you see it immediately.
You know, sometimes it takes alittle bit, but just to see the
(37:48):
I mean the heart and everythingof these individuals that come
from addiction and come fromthese struggles, and once
they're sold out, they're soldout.
I mean they are there and readyto serve the Lord.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Well, amanda, you have been, as we said, here
almost four years now in totalrescue mission work.
You've had Christ in your lifefor many years, but it's hard
work, a lot of heartbreaks inmany areas that people don't
even know about, talk about, asmaybe Zach has.
How does this Jesus factor playinto your ability to do what
(38:26):
you do and to keep you movingforward?
Speaker 3 (38:30):
You know, I think, like Zach kind of mentioned, you
know he has to walk throughthis lesson right when you're
talking about the betrayal andthen you have to give it to the
Lord.
And because we're people tooright I'm trying to do, we're
ordinary people trying to dosuper ordinary things that
(38:50):
require the Lord because wecannot do it in our power.
But I think one of the biggestlessons that I've learned in
this work, in this ministry, andit's also it's been so
rewarding I don't know if that'sthe right word, but also
corrective in my life but it'sthat Christ's character is not
(39:15):
determined by circumstance.
Christ's character is notdetermined by circumstance.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
What's an example of that?
Speaker 3 (39:24):
character is not determined by circumstance.
What's an example of that Ithink I have, you know you
mentioned.
You know I was saved at eightand I was a very mature kid,
kind of had to be because of myupbringing and I remember loving
people deeply.
My mom tells a story oftentimesabout um, we would be walking
in a store, particularly Walmart, before they were supermarts,
and they she would turn aroundand she would be going down the
(39:44):
first aisle and she'd realize Inever came in the store because
I was sitting next to someone atthe front door and I told her
well, they were hurting, so Iwas talking to them.
So I mean this has been kind ofembedded in me.
But even growing up in church Ifelt like God is punitive when
you're bad and he's loving whenyou're good.
(40:05):
That's kind of how I had thismentality and over the years
that has molded and I thinksoftened and understood and all
of that, especially as a teacher, special education teacher, and
then as a principal and thengetting into some leadership
stuff, I started realizing likeGod's character he does not
(40:26):
change because of thecircumstances that change in
this world, like who he was inthe Bible is exactly who he is
today and will be until he comes, and so I've wrestled with that
on my own things.
So when I've messed up, I feellike you know the lesson I was
supposed to learn of that iswell, what's?
What am I getting punitivelyfrom the Lord and what?
(40:48):
How am I going to be punished?
And this, this and this.
And what I've realized is that,even in the struggles regardless
if it's addiction, regardlessif it's mental health,
regardless if it's sin,regardless of whatever it is
that we serve a God who made usin his image and we serve a God
(41:11):
who does not like those thingsbut loves the person.
And when Zach has talked thiswhole time about just being so
excited of the transformation, Iwould have to agree with him.
And when you look at that, Ithink the biggest thing we need
(41:31):
to be telling people is thatChrist doesn't change.
Even when we do so, if thatperson is in the middle of
addiction and is strung out,passed out, whatever, there is a
God that's still looking uponthat person lovingly and is
breaking for that person and iswanting that person to come to
(41:52):
him ready to transform thatheart and that soul, and it is
so cool to be a part of that,that we see it.
But then I think it's alsopowerful and I hope many leaders
are doing it that we look atourselves that same way and that
sometimes, when we're hard onourselves because we don't have
the answers, zach, or we mightmake a mistake, or we walk in
the flesh because our feelingsare hurt because of betrayal or
(42:14):
worry or whatever, that, thatsame God that loved people in
the scripture, even when there'sconsequences and stuff, god is
so, he's so just that.
That same God is the same onefor us that is telling us like,
hey, I love you, son, I'vecalled you to this, or daughter,
I see what you're strugglingwith, but you have that power,
(42:37):
you have me in you and to me.
That is what motivates me,because I'm not sure as a
society we truly understand thecharacter of Christ, because
we've made it so reformed, we'vemade it so ritualistic, we've
made it so checkboxy.
And I just need people to knowthat people that seem very
(43:03):
unlovable on the streets or inour shelters or in the midst of
the, whatever struggle it is,that they are truly loved by the
Creator and the Creator is notwaiting to sit there and put His
hammer on them.
And we're called to share thathope.
And that same level of hope oftransformation also happens in
(43:25):
us as leaders, if we allow theLord to work in us.
And that is what is somotivating to me, but also
corrective, because God hasshown me.
I did not understand hischaracter until this role.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, amanda Zach, I think that one of the things
that the world is very hungryfor is the authentic Jesus and
we have reformed him to utilizehis name.
And without the power andunfortunately that becomes
legalistic law, and there's somany people, even in church
today, in church today.
(44:03):
One of the things that I'veenjoyed about a rescue mission
experience is not only thatpractical help and getting me to
see God step into these placesmiraculously, that we couldn't
do, you couldn't have done thepandemic without the Lord, none
of us could have navigated.
You can't navigate.
You couldn't have navigatedthese five years without the
Lord.
You know that this is too hardwork, it's impossible work.
But not only do we get to be inthat space where we can walk
(44:25):
with the people that Christwalked with, but also the other
people that Christ walked withthat don't necessarily know they
need him and to be able to bethat reflection of so that's
authentic Christianity.
Not because of us you mentioned.
We're people.
We're kind of messy.
Sometimes it's a messy world.
(44:45):
Jesus came for messy people,but we get to see God walk in
the middle of the mess and Zach,amanda and other rescue mission
staff members, volunteers,people they get to walk in the
mess and they get to see theJesus in the middle of the mess,
and there's no covering it up,there's no.
You can't make it look prettyand shiny, it's just not.
(45:07):
But it's authentic, it's real,it's it's, it's.
It's a place you can findChrist, because we're desperate
for him and the people that arecoming through the doors are
desperate for him too.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Can I say one thing on that?
I think that's.
I love how Zach mentioned likethe hurt a little bit when
somebody whether it's a relapseor maybe someone seems like
they're on a path and thenstumbles.
You know, I think that we needto start talking about that more
too.
I think there's a lot ofpressures on leaders.
I have never been asked,whether it's in a church,
(45:44):
speaking event or whatever.
I've never had somebody come upto me and say, well, how many
people have relapsed?
But everybody wants to know thesuccess, outcomes, what looks
good, right, what's what'shappened, and I think those
things are great.
But I also think that we'reshooting ourselves in the foot a
little bit, because there werea lot of successes with that
(46:05):
individual that you mentioned,zach.
Like there's a lot of successesthat he was able to jump
through and to do.
And just because there is abackslide does not mean that
that's an outcome we shouldn'tbe reporting on.
And the other side of that isthat's probably the hardest part
of my job on a spiritual levelis the they're not ready yet and
(46:29):
I don't have the answers tothat.
I don't.
I don't know if that ever getsbetter.
I don't know.
I don't know if you, if youjuggle it better, but the Lord
is really correcting me.
There's a pattern here.
If you haven't picked up on it.
I'm going through a lot ofcorrection in my life.
(47:09):
No-transcript, because we alsoserve a God that has given us
free will and choice, and all ofthat because he is a just God
and he's a father.
But that's probably one of mybiggest challenges now and has
been since I've been in thisrole, and I'm not sure it gets
better.
But it's just the worry thatcomes along when someone's not
(47:34):
ready yet.
And where did they go?
Are they okay?
And a couple of them have endedin death and I still wrestle
with that.
I still wrestle with that andjust hope that they were healed
in a way that that couldn't bedone on Earth.
But I think I think that thereneeds to be more outlets for
leaders, particularly to be ableto talk about those mishaps,
(47:58):
the relapses, the backslides,because those hurt a lot for
ourselves and our teams andsometimes we don't get to talk
about that part of the humanitypiece.
We should hurt one another.
Speaker 4 (48:11):
Something that helps me through that is, a lot of
people are like well, how manypeople return to your facility?
How many people leave and thencome back?
Well, there's a few, but thereason they're coming back is
because they realize that thepath that they decided to leave
for was not the right path, andif they would have never saw
(48:32):
that through us in the firstplace, they wouldn't have
anywhere to return.
So it may not be the first time, may not be.
I've seen I'm sure y'all havetoo three, four, five times
where people come in and come in, and then they finally get it
right.
But that is something I have toalways hold dear to, that I
can't be the one who's makingthe timing, but I can at least
(48:55):
plant the seed.
And then also, I always have torealize that this is not for
anybody, but for the Lord, mymission.
At the core of it I'm servingGod, and so even whenever I fail
, I know that I've brought gloryto him in some way.
So if you stop bringing gloryto God, that's whenever we're
(49:16):
messing up, sure.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
When others hurt, we're supposed to hurt with them
.
That's the full definition ofcompassion.
There's hurt, we're supposed tohurt with them.
That's the full definition ofcompassion.
That Greek word, splagnesomai.
When Jesus saw the multitudes hehad, splagnesomai he got hit in
the gut when they were hurtingbecause of all their needs.
But he didn't stop with thehurt.
He then began to minister tothem, to touch them, to love
(49:40):
them, to heal their sick and tofeed their hungry.
And that's what we've beencalled to do.
But we're still going to hurt.
And if we don't hurt, then weprobably should get a different
job.
And so but you're right, we'renot the finisher of the story.
And so we're just a piece of thestory.
So, Zach, anything else you'dlike to share with us today?
(50:02):
Our listeners are not only herein Topeka, Shawnee County in
Kansas.
There are a lot of differentplaces.
Might be even somebody fromChickasha, Oklahoma, that's
going to get a chance to listento this.
I hope so.
Anything else from yourperspective there in Oklahoma
Rescue Mission work now fiveyears city gate.
Anything else you'd like for usto know?
Speaker 4 (50:22):
I think the biggest thing that's been a big part of
my heart, like you had mentioned, rural areas.
They don't get touched a wholelot.
This is very rare to have aministry like this in a rural
community.
My heart's big on it doesn'ttake a lot, it takes somebody.
It takes somebody just to moveforward and say, hey, you know
(50:44):
what, we're going to putsomething together where these
ones that want help I understandit's tough for the ones that
they have that back and forthand they all want help, but some
of them desire a different wayof getting it.
But to create a path for theones that are ready to make a
change, I think every communityneeds that, whether you're 5,000
(51:06):
people or a million people.
So I just I pray that we seemore churches and more community
efforts to the smallercommunities as well, where it
may be not put so much pressureon the big cities that are
already dealing with their huge,huge crisis of, of, uh, of
(51:30):
homeless.
But we can.
We can help with what we haveand so, uh, that's that's been
my heart and that's where I'mhoping that I'm leading this
ministry is to continue growingon that aspect.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
I really appreciate hearing that.
Um, we're struggling with someof that in our part of northeast
Kansas right now.
Some of the smaller communitiesare beginning to see things
they've never seen before andtheir solution is send them to
Topeka, send them to Lawrence,send them to Kansas City to be
able to move them out.
But I think you know, zach,just understanding a little bit
(52:03):
more about you and what you'vedone, what people did before you
, could be a great role modelfor some of our other
communities to know what theymight do locally as well.
So don't be terribly surprisedif I don't pass your information
on to somebody else here in.
Kansas.
You may get a call, but, yeah,share with them and, of course,
the most important foundationalthing is about the relationship
(52:24):
with Christ.
So, zach, thanks for joining ustoday.
Lamanda, anything else?
Speaker 3 (52:28):
No, thanks, zach, for coming on and thanks for what
you do, thanks to your wife,because I know that that is a
sacrifice, right, because theposition is demanding and it
impacts everyone, the good, thebad and the ugly.
So you're just very special tome, you're very special to
CityGate Network and weappreciate you sharing your
(52:48):
heart and your thoughts aboutyour own self, your ministry,
what you're seeing and your area.
So glad you're on.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
Thank you all so much for having me on.
And, amanda, I've been tellingyou for like three years now
that one day we're going to comeup there and visit y'all.
So, I'm still holding to it.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
I don't know when that's going to be, and it is
coming up here.
Speaker 4 (53:07):
I'm super grateful for what y'all are doing and I'm
grateful for both of y'all,especially Amanda, being there.
I mean, there's been calls bothways for support so thank y'all
both.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
That's why they call it the network.
So, anyway, we've heard fromthe executive director of
Resurrection House in Chickasha,oklahoma, zach Bowles, who's a
member of the CityGate Networkand just wanted to highlight
this relationship it's TopekaRescue Mission benefits from, as
well as also contributing to inthis bigger work of helping our
(53:41):
neighbors and loving the onesin front of us.
Thank you for listening to ourcommunity, our mission, a
podcast of the Topeka RescueMission.
If you'd like more informationabout TRM, you can go to
trmonlineorg.
That's trmonlineorg.
Thank you for listening.
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