Beyond Comfort, Just Surviving: Stories from the Streets and Serving

Join the Neighborhood Church staff as they dive deep into their recent mission trips and explore what it truly means to serve others. In this candid and heartfelt episode, Pastor Joe and the team share stories from their missions to Fayetteville and Winston-Salem, revealing powerful moments of human connection, service, and unexpected transformations.

Key Takeaways:

• Mission isn't just about service, it's about building relationships
• Sometimes serving means stepping out of your comfort zone
• Small acts of kindness can create significant life changes
• Housing insecurity is complex and requires compassion

Memorable Quotes:

• "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me." - Biblical reference
• "God showed up" - Tracy (mission trip participant)
• "When you give, it's not about what they're gonna do with it" - Staff discussion on helping others

Highlights:

• Youth mission project experiences
• Encounters with housing insecure individuals
• Personal stories of unexpected connections
• Reflections on Christian service and community

A raw, honest look at mission work that will inspire and challenge listeners to see the world - and each other - differently.

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:00):
Two minute podcast.

(00:00):
Okay,welcome to the TNC podcast.

(00:04):
Recorded live. No, I'm justkidding, recorded in studio,
live, pre recorded. It's liveover recorded, it's live or
recorded, but live when we putit back out, not when you're
listening to not when you'relistening in studio, in front of
an online audience, in front ofan online audience, there are
zero people in the church rightnow listening to this podcast,
we are literally just having aconversation among staff. That's

(00:24):
true. That is what this podcastis. It is a breakdown of the
message on Sunday, breakdown alittle bit of life of the
church. You getting somewonderful links, and you get to
hear from your beloved staff atthe neighborhood church. You get
to little know a little bit moreabout them. Let's introduce who
is with us today on the podcast.
To my left the director ofoperations at the neighborhood
church. It is Roseanne bowling.
Roseanne bowling. And if youdon't know, just so we can be

(00:46):
clear as we set her up forlater, Roseanne has her own
segment on the podcast, which Iabsolutely love. And now, I
mean, there's a lot of pressure,because you basically started
off saying you had some notes.
We created a segment. You got tosing it. It's gonna have sing
it. It is 123, roses, No, later,yeah, later, yeah. That's gonna

(01:06):
be great. So we'll have a littlebit of your notes from Sunday
message as a person sitting inthe church just listening
intently to the Word of God, thestories of testimony, the
mission of the church, and thenproviding feedback on what you
find important, or, as you'vesaid in previous podcasts, what
you didn't find a value so onone of my messages. So if we're

(01:27):
gonna let go of that, it stillhurts. Yep, it still hurts a
little bit. So alright, to myright, newly on staff within the
last week, officially, as thepastor of care and education at
the neighborhood church, it isPastor Tom, yes, you'd had to
say the same. People still say,hey pastor, and I turn around
and look for you behind me.
Yeah, that's right. No, it's youknow, it's you right? First time

(01:48):
I heard that, I was like, who'sKaren? Yeah, educating. Karen,
yeah, that's great. Karen,education. Funny, good, yeah.
And then also, next to us,right? The Director of Music and
worship here, as is theneighborhood church. It is Tavo
table. That's great. It'swonderful. So we're on the
podcast today, having a greattime talking through the

(02:09):
messages on Sunday, which wasunique. I have been gone for a
week and a half, only oneSunday, but gone for really two
weeks, actually, on mission,back to back mission trips. It's
exciting. Love to jump in withthe youth two mission projects.
One was down in Fayettevillewith Ozark mission project,
which we've done for about fiveto seven years now. It's
awesome. It is from theMethodist tradition the

(02:30):
denomination, which we can talkabout in a little bit, but and
we'll give a little feedback ofwhat that is. And then the
second one I went on was withSpark dwell, and that was with
the dwelling in North Carolina,led by Pastor Emily Harkins, who
came and preached earlier in theyear, and then, and also with
the spark nonprofit out there,which helps out with the housing
insecure and different otherdifferent organizations and

(02:52):
community nonprofit areas out inWinston Salem, North Carolina.
So so just an opening for thepodcast. Is our jingle,
1-234-793-6722, 85neighborhood church. Thank you
so much. I appreciate that. Thatwas a great note, Roseanne.

(03:16):
Roseanne notes that was just asinging note, which that was
good, see, I pulled the note.
Okay, thanks. No.
So with that, Okay, never mind.
Let's talk about mission, andlet's just kind of see what's
going on here. Have you guys?

(03:36):
Have you guys been on youthmission before? Tommy, you've
been on youth mission as aleader. One day, one day, well,
we had the youth gathering,which was the gathering, and one
of those days was a day ofmission. Oh, okay, in the
community, yeah, you led thegathering. Led the gathering
trip. Okay, great. And then wehad one day in the community
working on a community garden.
That's great. That was the themission day for the How did the
community garden go? Did thatgo? Well, it went really good.

(03:58):
It was a little terrifying,because I can tell like the
people that set it up had agreat idea. They found people,
Hey, we need tools. We gettools. They didn't think about
turning teenagers loose withthings that could cut all their
fingers off. What were yougardening with that could cut
all the fingers off? Well, we'rebuilding raised beds. Oh. And so
had all the wood. Oh, yeah. Andthen you they had,

(04:19):
they had skill saws,and then saw horses and links,
and then a bunch of teenagers.
And said, here's all the sawsand all the batteries and Wow,
and so. But I brought anurse who actually teaches
nursing classes with me, one ofthe dads, because, you know,
handy to have, right? And sohe's Jeff Cordell. He's looking

(04:40):
at me like, because he's workedon those people who've come in
like, you know, waving witheight fingers now, and I'm like,
okay, so I went and got mytourniquet. Oh, wow. I prepared.
So I had that with me, and I hada nice, honest conversation the
kids about what it looks like,feels like, sounds like, when
somebody cuts through bone witha saw. And.
And and had a good you basicallyscared the kids. And I had a

(05:04):
three or four minute graphicdiscussion, oh my gosh,
injuries. And they were socareful. I was so proud of you.
Were so proud of them, becauseyou scared them. And I stood
right there by the guy with thesaw the entire time. That's
great. Make sure where they didand didn't put their hands,
because otherwise you startpushing what? Yeah, no, that's a
horrible idea. Did you get theraised beds built? They did,
yeah? We did great. Nobodypassed out. We got them all
built. Everybody coming fromwhat before, was just cutting

(05:26):
out fingers. Now, they passingout. Tom. What kind of group are
you leading? What is happening?
You turned me loose? Well, itwas, it was, it was New Orleans
in July, okay, yeah, context isimportant. We're going right
through the middle of the day,yeah, started late morning,
ended early afternoon, it washot. Yeah, the kids were feeling
the heat. These are, it's agamer generation. They're not
outside a whole lot. Generationthat's yeah, attack that a lot.

(05:49):
Yeah. They're not used to thelack of air conditioning. But
proud of it. There's nocomplaining, no griping, lots of
blisters, still no complaining.
Well, you threaten them withcutting their fingers off. Well,
and the kids on the saw, really,they weren't even talking in
fear in a corner. Here's thebest part. Did they do any of
the work, or did you just do it?
Oh no, I didn't do any of that.
Okay, they did all the cutting.
I never touched the tools. Butthe kids with the saws that I

(06:11):
had the conversation with, theyweren't even our
kids. Wow, wait. Where were ourkids? They were doing the
working the shovels and diggingout the areas and clearing the
grass and running thewheelbarrows together. We're
gonna place the raised beds in.
Yep, okay, yeah, great. But Isaw the kids that I had never
met before that they wereturning loose with skill saws.
I'm like, not gonna happenthat's rough on a gamer. If you
you can't, you know, was thatpart of his speech? Yes, you

(06:33):
can't play video games if youcould have a finger. Jesus loves
you. Open your bottle. You can'topen your bottle of Coke. You
know you want to eat frenchfries like this with your thumb.
This with your thumb and pinkyfinger. Oh my gosh, you know?
Yeah, okay, all right. Well,what got across? I only had
like, two kids run the saws, andthe others were holding, like,
way at the end of the board. Soit worked. That's really just
the most Tom conversation. It'svery tough. So, yeah, well, I

(06:55):
wish there was a word todescribe the the ELCA. Here is
the word LCA leader there wasgreat. He got us there, and he,
and he was like, seven foottall, and he just kind of
watched everything and leteverybody doing everything. And
I have all his fingers. Yeah, hedid. He wasn't touching the
sauce. It's kind of a RonSwanson thing.
Well, I mean, it's, it's themicro works, it's the, you know,

(07:18):
safety, safety first, versussafety second, like safety is
your own responsibility, okay,yeah, it's like it's your
fingers, so you're responsiblefor this, but your kids. So
here, let's discuss this. Yeah,it was important, so we're gonna
have to add an explicit label tothe podcast today. Yeah, we
really will.
Like, there's no violence SafetyManual. Tom's Safety Manual is

(07:40):
massive. But Tom is safety. Tomdoesn't have a manual. He is the
manual. That is exactly I'vemade dumb mistakes in my life,
but I've got my fingersmiraculously. So, yeah, it
worked. It was interesting. Itwas a good time. The kids had
fun.
They were wore out. It was a itwas a lot of mission packed into
one day. Yeah, yeah. A very kindof sketchy looking neighborhood
in New Orleans, yeah, so let mebreak out Ozark mission project,

(08:03):
because it's a good kind ofsegue. Ozark mission project is
along the same lines, I saw you.
I saw you carry tools. Oh, yeah,five to six churches come
together. We went toFayetteville. We had five youth
from our church go two adults,and then we met down there with
six, seven other churches. Theybreak out in all different
groups, and all of our kidsspread across all the groups,
right? And so we had a home thatneeded a ramp, and built. So we

(08:25):
first built a landing, which wasa four by eight foot landing,
and then you have six posts inthat landing, which is
interesting, because they put iton top of the ground. They don't
actually put the post in, soit's kind of a floating ramp,
yeah, although, as they rot out,yeah, exactly like concrete
footings, yeah, killer concretefootings on the ground, on the
ground. Yeah, it'll last a year.

(08:45):
That's why I built. It'll getoff center. It'll start.
We built four by eight, landingout, and then a turn on a four
by four, and then down. But theit was down into a sloping
driveway that was sloping andalso angled. That was nasty,
yeah, super nice. So it's roughto make match. Oh, yeah. And

(09:06):
then they dropped us some tools,which was great. And we had a
double miter saw, which isawesome. And then I brought our
compound miter saw, yeah, doublecompact, so you could do both
angles right now. And then Ibrought ours, the DeWalt one
that we have on its own stand. Ilooked that up, came and picked
it up, and we went to plug itinto the house, and it blew the
breakers, yeah, so we could notuse it. So it just, it's

(09:28):
probably good every day. Youknow, the the tool that most
causes people to go into the ER,no, I don't table saws, really,
yeah, okay, I wouldn't doubt it,because at one point I tried to
cut a block that was too small.
Yeah, it fired that thing backat me and about 90 miles an
hour, miles and marketed at me.
Yeah? Most people that aremissing fingers, or it's because
of table saws, dang, yeah,that's no good. Yeah, they
actually have them that are willsense human flesh and will,

(09:49):
like, drop the blade out. It's abig thing now, because people,
like, I know multiple peoplethat have cut fingers off with
tables Yeah, that's gonna behorrible. Well, thanks for that
on the start of the podcast.
Really appreciate that.
Was good. So with that table,have you done any youth mission
ever?
No, but growing up, yes and nogrowing up. What we meant by

(10:10):
mission was more like, you know,evangelism. You go out in the
streets and you pray withpeople, and you talk to people
about that, and like going outthe service projects. They just
called the service projects. Itwasn't mission. Yeah, you know,
so, yeah, that's just nointeresting thing. Because I
think in Christianity, there'sbeen a moment where the lines
between evangelism andproselytizing have gotten

(10:31):
blurred, yeah? And people areafraid of going on mission for
evangelism. Well, yeah, that'sdefinitely scarier, yeah, yeah.
And it says just turned intoservice projects, yeah, with a
lot of mission, which is goodtoo, because it's still showing
the love, you know, Christianlove towards our neighbor, yeah?
But I think there's an areawhere we can bridge the gap a
little bit better. Yeah, well,service is hard. It's also safe,

(10:53):
right? Not your service. It'ssafe, like,
because you're doing somethingthat doesn't have really a
straight relationship impact,right? But it's improved. It
requires less, less preparationto prepare somebody to go do
service, yeah, than it does toprepare somebody to go do
evangelism. It reminds me when Itook, when in college, I had to
take a general elective, and Itook Psych 101, or whatever,

(11:13):
yeah, and he had thisassignment, you know, and it was
music school. We didn't reallycare about the class. Teacher
knew that we didn't care. Healso didn't super care, yeah, so
it was just more of a Hangout,you know what I mean? And
that's, you know, qualityeducation for you.
But he had this assignment forus where we just had to go and
do awkward things, you know. Andone of them was you have to get

(11:35):
into an elevator and not turnaround. Do
you know what I mean? Like,walked in and not turn around,
and then just watch people'sreaction and then report, write
a report about it. How manytimes are the cops get called?
Yeah, great. There's all theselittle things that you had to,
like, if you're out in the mall,you had to, like, get up and
stand on the chair and lookaround and then sit back down,

(11:58):
and then just watch people'sreactions, yeah, like, just
random things like that that arejust abnormal behavior, you
know. And see how willing areyou to to to withstand being in,
like, just being different. Andyou ever seen the experiments
wherepeople come into a waiting room
and then every five minutes bellrings, yeah, share that. Yeah.

(12:20):
Sure. What happens? Well, I'mtrying to remember as I go, but
like, a bell rings every fiveminutes, and everybody gets up
for two seconds and sits backdown, yeah. And then it's a
waiting room, presumably for,like, a doctor's appointment
kind of a thing. And then oneperson at a time just gets
called up, yeah, and the lastperson there is just the person
who arrived while the wholestanding up after the bell thing

(12:42):
had been happening, yeah. Andthen there's no one there to
make that last person do itanymore. But reasoning behind,
the reasoning behind, noreasoning at all. But then the
bell rings, and they startlooking around. They don't know,
like, am I supposed to get up?
Then they go and get up for alittle bit, and they sit back
down, you know? And he's like,all of these, like, cultural

(13:03):
conditioning exercises thatwe're used to. You know, the
thing about going out and doingsomething that's awkward, yeah,
it's probably how a lot ofpeople feel walking into a
church with a very differenttradition, or not growing up in
church, and coming into achurch, yeah, and not knowing
what's going on, and wonderingwhy, like, they're reciting this
prayer, and everybody knows it,but me, like, what's you know?

(13:23):
Because I've heard people saythat, like, they've never heard
of the Lord's Prayer. And, like,How does everybody know? Which
is super awkward for him? Yeah,so there's a lot of that. And
how do we make the church in away, it's welcoming that people
don't feel awkward becausepeople don't want to do that.
You don't want to go stand on achair in a mall food so
uncomfortable. That's probablyfor a lot of the people in the
like the unhoused community orthe homeless community, or how,

(13:44):
you know, how you define thatwalking into a church with a
bunch of people wearing clearly,nice, clean clothes and feeling
like that person, yeah, andwhether or not they feel
welcomed or not. And it, it'ssurprising to me that the music
school had that little, thatlittle of emphasis on the
psychology, because there's ahuge tie between music and human
psychology. I mean, there is, Idon't, I don't think that was

(14:06):
intentional. It was more theyoffered a psych class as a
general elective, and some of ustook it, yeah. But, I mean,
there's a huge like, you know,if you're a performer, you have
to get up in a room full ofpeople, and you have to just
perform, yeah? And while peopleare not watching exact
expectation. What's the like?
What we do here on a Sundaymorning isn't the performance,
but I'm gonna use this as anexample, because this size room

(14:27):
is the absolute worst, worstsize room you could possibly
perform it because people arestanding like, three feet from
you, and you can see theireyeballs, yeah, you know. And
it's incredibly tuned in or nottuned in, right? Yeah, yeah.
Very disconcerting, yeah. But Ithink, I think the mission is,
like, a big part of doing thesemissions with with youth is

(14:47):
precisely getting them out ofthat comfort zone, yeah, right,
whether it's service projects orit's approaching people on the
street, which I don't know howeffective that really is, but,
you know, I.
Most of the time, it's justawkward. But, you know,
sometimes, I guess it works. Butyou know, just just being
willing to get outside of thatcomfort zone and be the person

(15:09):
who breaks the awkwardness, whobreaks the mold, is essentially
growing in leadership. And ifwe're going to make disciples
and baptize them in the name ofthe Father, the Holy the Son and
the Holy Spirit, somebody willneed to take some leads, you
know, and it's going to beimportant to have, like, We need
leaders in the church, and sothat's kind of what I think
mission is doing. So two thingsoff of that story, which one's

(15:30):
going to be kind of a reallyprofound narrative from like,
meeting people in serviceprojects. The other one is, I
think we do get uncomfortable inservice, like you said, it also
like you're in, you know, NewOrleans, when you were doing
this, right? You're outside. Itwas hot. The kids are hot,
right? Like, you're not at yourbest self. Like, when you
present yourself for a serviceproject and you fully give into
it, and it's hot and you'resweating and, like, all kind of,

(15:50):
like, it is not a place whereyou want to be around other
people, right? And you exist inthe space where you're like,
okay, like, I've given up theniceties and the comfort, and
I've given up kind of theperception of how I look right,
and what makes me feel strong,and I've just entered fully into
I'm serving right. And itdoesn't all the things wash
away, of the vanity and the kindof the superficial level of how
we look at ourselves in ourrelationship with God, and you

(16:12):
realize that there's just ahumbleness to serving right.
You're serving, not for the sakeof yourself. And again, it was
nasty, gross when we served inour garden day It sparked, well,
oh man, within five minutes,drenched. I mean, absolutely
drenched. And you're like, Yep,I'm just 100% in this. People
are used to being comfortable.
You know, dry, air controlled,humidity, controlled
temperature. Yeah. And you getout of that, and it starts to
turn into a Snickers commercial,oh, yeah,

(16:37):
all day. The other part of thatis, we met our lady that we're
building the ramp for right,Nancy and Tracy and and Nancy
was the mom. Tracy was thedaughter, and she'd been caring
for her mom, 24/7 and so she wasjust emotional about
how God is. She said how Godshowed up in our group being
there, and that was her endresponse again, like God showed

(16:58):
up, God showed up. And it wasreally neat to see. And then we
just got a message from her thatthat she has gone through, you
know, a year of transformationwith her mom and different
things like that, but she wantsto be baptized. And she reached
out to us the neighborhood, andshe said, I really would like to
be baptized the neighborhoodchurch, right, so that, in
response to the service projectwe did down there. And so coming
up in August, we're going tobaptize Tracy right from behalf

(17:20):
of the Ozark mission project,which is going to be super cool.
Super cool. So I think there's agreat relationship of you know
how important it is that we domeet people on the street and
like, what ends up and it thisis not a common story, right?
But it is a story that comesfrom something like this on
mission where, like, hey, thatthat had an impact, and it was
unexpected. I don't know if theyknew what they were expecting
out of this. I knew she onlycame to Ozark mission project,

(17:41):
like, a week before in order tounderstand to understand the
right message. So this wasunexpected for her. It was
unexpected for us. And yet,through all this, God is moving
in an incredible way. So let'sbreak into some scripture. Talk
about Matthew, chapter 25 verses31, through 40. And it's
interesting because this text isused in a large way to
understand how we embracestrangers around us and how we

(18:02):
care for the people around us,as Jesus would have commanded us
to care. But the title of thesection is the judgment of
nations, the judgment of thenations, which is really
interesting to think about howthe first part of the text,
which you're going to hearRoseanne read, really talks
about the difference in peoplebetween the nations and how they
were understanding thosedifferences between each other.

(18:23):
And then it leads into, how dowe care for people coming from
different circumstances, whichwe're going to talk about that
in a second also. So it'sMatthew chapter 25 verses 31
through 40. And Roseanne, whydon't you kick us off into some
scripture? Alright? Verse 31when the Son of Man comes in his
glory and all the angels withhim. Then he will sit on the
throne of his glory. All thenations will be gathered before

(18:46):
Him, and He will separatepeople, one from another, as a
shepherd separates the sheepfrom the goats, and he will put
the sheep at his right hand andthe goats at the left. Then the
King will come and say to thoseat his right hand, come you that
are blessed by my father inheritthe kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of theworld. For I was hungry and you

(19:07):
gave me food. I was thirsty, andyou gave me something to drink.
I was a stranger, and youwelcomed me. I was naked, and
you gave me clothing. I wassick, and you took care of me. I
was in prison, and you visitedme. Then the righteous will
answer him, Lord, when was itthat we saw you hungry and gave
you food or thirsty and gave yousomething to drink, and when was

(19:30):
it we saw you a stranger andwelcomed you or naked and gave
you clothing? And when was itthat we saw you sick or in
prison and visited you?
And the King will answer themtruly. I tell you, just as you
did to just as you did it to oneof these, just as you did it to
one of the least of these whoare members of my family, you
did it to me. Table, you had oneverse. Table, one verse. You had

(19:54):
one had one job. I couldn't letit go. He had one job do it. He
couldn't do it. My gosh. What?
On it to be fair, the sentencestructure is not modern English,
yeah, that was really hard.
Sentence is a really hard Bibleverse, yeah, yeah.
So before we get into this, it'sinteresting that really, you

(20:15):
have this judgment of nations,you have kind of understanding
the different people groups thatare going on in Jesus's
ministry, right? And what'shappening with how they
understand these this paganidentity that's going on the
sheep and the goats andseparating, but then also how we
deal with people in society andwhat it means to welcome people.
And as you can see in thestructure, the disciples and the

(20:36):
people around Jesus are havingtrouble understanding what he's
talking about, right? Because hewas saying, if you've done it to
the least of these, which isthat final statement, because
they said, when did we see youlike, when did we see you in the
space? And did this for you? Andit goes through clothing, and it
goes through food, and it goesthrough prison, and it goes
through all these differenttimes. It goes through being
sick, which are things that wedeal with a lot, right, with the

(20:57):
people around us, but they'reusually in relationships that we
already have structured. Andthis is talking about the people
that are the least of these. Soit's not the family members of
you, it's not the Friends ofyou, it's not the church members
of you. It's the least of these.
And so our spark dwellingmission really dealt with the
least of these from theperspective of the housing
insecure those who were livingon the streets insecure of their

(21:18):
housing. And this is thedifference between homeless,
right, and housing. So homelessis a term that, as we described
on Sunday during the message,that really describes coming
from a place of having a home,and that could be an emotional
home, right, where you feelconnected, as this is my home.
It could represent a house, butusually it's more emotionally
tied. But for a lot of thehousing insecure. That home

(21:40):
could be a place where they feelat home, at a place like the
dwelling, which is where weworshiped, and that's their home
church community, so they're nothomeless, right? The home could
be where they live on thestreets with the people that are
out with them, and they have ahome with those who are in their
environments. So they're notnecessarily a homeless from an
emotional standpoint, or even aconnection standpoint, but they
are housing insecure. Andhousing insecure is much like we

(22:03):
talk about food insecurity. Itdoesn't mean that sometimes
shelter isn't accessible. Itdoesn't mean that sometimes they
don't have a house. What itmeans is that there's an
insecurity there into aprolonged time of having a
sustained house, a currentaddress, right? Is usually a big
and major issue, but it'shousing insecure. We don't know

(22:24):
what the result will be at theend of the day, if this will be
a reality that we live into ornot. And so there's a lot of
ways that they kind of aresensitive to that language with
could be triggering to thepopulation that is housing
secure in Winston Salem, so justas we get into that, have we, or
any of you had any experienceswith those who are housing

(22:44):
insecure because it was sospecifically our mission as we
went into Winston Salem so whathas been some experiences with
housing insecure people?
In my last career, I dealt withwith a lot of people that would
fall into that category. A lotof them had homes that were, you
know, tent you know, tentsencampments. You know, group
encampments, the little eyes,little kind of we called tent

(23:06):
cities in certain places. Buthonestly, all the ones I dealt
with in law enforcement wereusually ones that either had an
addiction issue or a mentalhealth issue, because those are
the ones that people called thepolice on that didn't know what
to do, that we dealt with. Thereare plenty others I know that
are out there that I never dealtwith because they weren't doing
anything to cause, you know,feeling of concern in the
community. But almost all ofthem that I dealt with were,

(23:27):
there was mental illness or anaddiction issue or both, right?
And it happened fairly often,and some of them were kind of
heartbreaking cases, because afew instances I got pretty mad,
because some of them were, youknow, voluntarily unhoused. You
know, they've moved away from,from help, and in some cases,
they had had kids, and we hadto, we've had to take kids away
from, away from a few because akid didn't need to grow up in

(23:48):
that environment. And a lot ofthem are genuinely because the
mental health aspect, fearful ofthe housing opportunities, the
shelters, authority figures. Youknow, there's stuff that is real
in their mind, that's that's notreally real that that causes
them a lot of fear. And soreally it's like, kind of like,
maybe like living suddenlywaking up one day, and you're
living in a Stephen King movieor something, and it's hard to

(24:10):
get them, them help, but it's aspecific niche of the population
that I dealt with, because it'sjust the folks that people saw
them, and they didn't know whatthey're doing. They called 911,
and then I got to deal withthem. Yeah. Now, what was you
said there was a fear in thispopulation right over housing,
right? And sometimes embracingthose, yeah, you say more about
that. So a lot of them, we tryto set them up with shelters or
family members and with ones ofthe mental health issue. And

(24:33):
sometimes, I think it came fromfrom drug abuse. They were
afraid of, like there, and theremust have been like, a network
of them, because I had multiplepeople talking about the fear
of, like an infection ofreptilian DNA on the Government
and Authorities and and so intheir mind, like there are,
there are people out there thatwere a threat that they were
trying to stay away away from,yeah, and so they were fearful

(24:57):
of going to a shelter or evenstaying with family members.
Because of the mental illnessthat caused them a lot of
anxiety and fear of stuff thatthey didn't really need to be
afraid of, and they were kind ofrunning from that, and that
seemed to be a heavy, you know,a heavy influence on a lot of
them as to why they chose tolive that way. Because it was,
it was a fear response. It wassomething that wasn't real, but

(25:17):
in their mind, it was and justkind of heartbreaking, because
you know you can't force them toget help. Well, there's not a
logical response to that.
There's not a logical response.
So there's no way for me tologically find a way to try to
help them, because they don't,they don't want help. And the
legal system, you can't forcethem to get psychiatric help
unless they're a threat tothemselves or others. Yeah. And
so a lot of family members wedeal with, a lot of family

(25:39):
members calling, trying to finda way to help their loved one.
But we, I mean, we couldn'tforce them, force them to do it.
And so it was kind of, therewasn't really anything we could,
we could do, but the other sidethat made it difficult, as a lot
of them would act out in waysthat society, all they need to
do, knew how to do was call thepolice. And so we'd get there,
and sometimes they'd have thatfear reaction from us, and

(25:59):
they'd start doing things thatforced us to to take them into
custody. Well, when you gettaken into custody, there you
get arrested. There's you get anarraignment within 48 hours, and
there's a bond hearing, and theydecide, You know what, what to
do with the person. Then part ofthe bond hearing decision is you
go through and look at ties ofthe community, like, are they a
flight risk, right? You know? Soif you, if you have, you have a
home and the community, job, inthe community of loved ones, in

(26:22):
the community, you're lesslikely to disappear. Well, when
you're you have no address, youhave no identification
documents. There's no way toknow that they're going to show
up, correct. And if they don'tshow up, we have no way of
knowing where to go get them forcourt correct. And a lot of them
wind up, you know, in the jails.
You know, it's not as much now,because there's so little space,

(26:44):
they're reserving more of thespace for the felonies, which
they were usually not, you know,not committing the felonies, but
it does affect bond hearingdecisions, yeah, stuff like
that, because we have no ideawhere to go get them if they
don't show up for court. And sothere's all kinds of
consequences to that. Trying toapply for a job and their
clothes are dirty. They don'thave a place to take a bath.
They don't have ID to fill out aw4 you know, there's just, it's
just compounding consequencesfor somebody that is difficult

(27:09):
to build a help, yeah, I agree.
You know, in thinking throughkind of like, the documentation
and different things that areneeded, we saw a lot of that in
Winston Salem right there, theydidn't have a permanent address,
so they needed to use the churchas a permanent address, and the
church had an address to givethem that would only be mailed
for those who are housinginsecure. So that's a good idea,
and they could get but then theywould use the pastor as like,
the point of reference or thecontact, right? And so they had

(27:29):
this so, but it's an interestingreality, because then you get
all the local need organizationsunderstanding that this is not
an a real address for them. Thisis a church, right? And the
church handles the address formany different people. So then
it becomes a consideration of,how does that impact the weight
of their application forservices? And everything's like
that, knowing that it's not atrue, real address. It's not a
place that they can come findthem if they need to talk with

(27:51):
them. It's a place where they'rejust having mail sent right in
order to be a part of in acommunity there. And so yeah, we
learned a lot about thoseinsecurities and some of the
troubles that it is to even seekservices when you don't have the
necessary documents andpaperwork and everything else
like that too. So it's, I mean,it's hard enough to go do that
stuff when you do haveeverything you need. Yeah, I
still get it wrong, you know,yeah, many times I've been to
the DMV and not had theinformation going there fully

(28:13):
prepared. Yeah, and I've gonekind of once had to leave to get
something else, to get back justto find out it didn't actually
need thatmy entire day. Yeah. Yeah. It
could be. It could be,especially if you are dealing
with anxiety issues or someborderline personality issues,
mental health issues, or justthe shame of the circumstances
you found yourself in, and nowyou're in this group with all

(28:36):
these other people, and you'retrying to figure this out. I
mean, that could be, that's abarrier for a lot of, especially
the younger generation. I know alot of, a lot of, I don't know
what, what generation they'd becalled, the early 20s, that kind
of came out after COVID, andthey're really reluctant to go
sit in those spaces like thatand try to do that stuff. They
want to do it all online. And soit's an intimidating situation
to try to try to sit through. Ifyou don't have an advocate or

(28:57):
somebody to help you, Yeah,correct. Help navigate that with
you. Tim, what about you? David,experience with any housing
insecure or anything else? Ihave some you know, just working
at church, if you're hanging outoutside, we're close to the
Salvation Army, within walkingdistance, and that's obviously
where people find shelter forthe night and

(29:19):
and so people come roaming inhere often, or just
hang out outside, and we findourselves talking from time to
time, and I did, I did have oneoccasion, I think it was, it was
a couple years ago when it hadsnowed a lot, and I had a
practice on Thursday, And we ourparking lot was just covered in

(29:42):
snow, yeah, you know, was justtotally covered. And like, well,
how are people gonna get in thisparking lot? Somebody's got a
shovel, yeah, you know. So Igrab a shovel, and there I am,
shoveling snow, you know, allthe way to the other duties as a
sign, other duties as a sign,you know, the whole driveway.
And I'm just trying.
To make, like, one track for onetire, you know, because

(30:03):
otherwise I want to be there forfour hours shoveling things, and
I'm just, like, just one track,just so our car can get in to
the, you know, to close to thedoor and stuff like that. So I'm
shoveling that. And then thisguy comes in, and I'm like, oh,
man, here we go, you know, like,comes into the churches, yeah,
he's just walking around. Andshe's like, he's hanging out by
the tree, you know, over there,and he sees me out, and then he

(30:24):
starts walking. I'm like, okay,like, it's, you know, it's
usually going to be an exercise,right? Like, it's going to be a
little thing, so Okay. And he'slike, Hey, man, you know, I can
help you, you know? I'm like,Okay, sure. And we just got to
talking, and he's like, I have ason in Fayetteville. I used to
work construction, but now, youknow, now I don't have a home or

(30:47):
whatever, and I just keep askinghim questions about his life and
stuff like that. And he sayshe's, you know, he's trying to,
he's trying to get to Oklahomawhere they have, like, a program
for rehabilitation, you know,stuff like that, where they give
him some experience and he canget a job after it, and stuff
like that. And I'm like, it'salways tough, because the
situations why people findthemselves in, like living on

(31:11):
the streets, are so varied. Ohyeah, you never know to get
there, yeah. You never know,like, how true it is, like, how
true their story is. You neverknow you had. You have to take
it for what it is and just askmore questions and keep asking.
And he seemed, you know,relatively legit and but
ultimately, like, you know,sometimes people say,

(31:35):
like, I won't give them moneybecause they're just gonna buy
drugs, you know. And that'slike, well, that's not your
business. Yeah, right. Like,when you give, it's not about
what they're gonna do with it,you know.
Yeah, exactly. Are you willingto give someone who's in need,
you know?
And so anyway, I've just keptasking him questions, and we
talked and, you know, and henever asked for money. Yeah? I

(31:56):
was like, Okay, well, that'syeah, that was interesting,
yeah. And, and then at the endof it, he finally did see, hey,
is there some money you can, youcan give me? After I was like,
Yeah. Then I looked in mywallet, and I was looking for a
fiver, and, you know, and Ilooked in there, and I'm like,
the big bills, the hundreds, allI had was 50. Oh, 50. And I was

(32:19):
like, oh man, oh my god. What isyour faith? $50 See, my faith
said,Whatever you did to the list,
least of the you know, you didto me, yeah.
And then my faith always alsosaid, Well, there's a whole
bunch more snow that needstraveling. So let's get let's

(32:40):
employ this individual for thenext hour, you know. So I said,
Hey, okay,if you like, if you finish that
all the way to the driveway,then, you know, then I'll give
you some money. And you're like,okay, and then, and I went with
him, you know. And he was like,Are you serious, like, all the
way over there? I'm like, Yeah,we're gonna do it all the way
over there, yeah. And he, youknow, he you know, he told me a
bunch of stories or whatever,and then he told me he, he wrote

(33:02):
a song once for his mom. He lotsof complicated relationship,
yeah, with family, right? Wrotea song to his mom, and that he
would, he was gonna come back,and he would give me the lyrics
to see if I could turn it into amusic. I was like, okay, yeah,
do it. And so then he went away.
It gave him the 50. It was allgood, yeah. And then he did show

(33:24):
up on Sunday. Oh, wow. He showedup. That's great. He waited
after service was over, and hecame up with a little piece of
paper, and he gave me thelyrics. That's great. That's
awesome. And I, you know, itwasn't, you know, I haven't
written the song. I still wouldlike to, yeah, but, but he did.
He did show up. And I don't knowhow we found each other on
Facebook. We're Facebookfriends.

(33:45):
And sure enough, he did go tothe place in Oklahoma. He did do
his construction, he did get ajob, he got a little apartment,
wow. And he's kind of back onhis feet, but he's insecure.
I've seen some posters like, I'mgonna be without homes, yeah?
But then he's back on his feet,and he's kind of on and off, you
know, huh? That's, that's agreat story, right? That's, and
it just, there's a point thatcomes through this, right, that,

(34:08):
I mean, even the interaction,when you see them walking over,
right, and you see this personthat you don't recognize and you
don't know, and it's not arelationship, or maybe not
comfortable with, still walkingover, you're like, okay, and I
think you said it in the rightway. We're in it. Like, yeah,
that's who we are. And as peoplethat are staff at a church,
right? Especially in my reality,like, I know it's part of my
reality. Like, someone's walkinggreat, you know, and I'm excited

(34:29):
to meet you. Like, that'swonderful. I try to treat it the
same I would meet anybody, whichis wonderful. It's not safe for
everybody, nor do people feelsafe in it. But I've had the
same interactions, right? Like,I've had one young buck, come
in, tell me his whole lifestory. Caught an addiction,
wants to get out of addiction,is trying to stay clean, just a
couple days clean. And he'slike, I need somebody. I said,
Great, I need a barn cleaned.
And he's like, all right? And Isaid, Great, you work four

(34:50):
hours, you know, six hours,eight hours, I'll toss you 20
bucks an hour. And he's like,done, man. He hard worker. And I
was like, that was great, right?
I've had people.
Can I sleep out back rightbefore we built the other
buildings, right? Can I throw upa tent? And I was like, Yeah,
you can throw up a tent. I waslike, but you can stay for a
night, you know, like, but throwit up. And here we go, right? So
there's been a lot of differentdirections. I've walked in on

(35:12):
someone that found our way intothe church on, oh yeah, oh man,
that was a moment they foundtheir way into the church on a
Saturday night, coming intoSunday morning and decided to
use the green room eat the food,and in decided it was a great
place for their dog, their 85pound Rottweiler dog, to be in
the church also. And that was asurprise as and I do love this

(35:33):
story, because before the churchprogram was that was before the
kids were, yeah, and I walkedinto the church on a Sunday
morning, early. Thank God. Andand it was really early, so it
was like 5amand I walk in, and as I'm
walking in, he's walking out ofthe restroom, and he looks at
me, and he goes, who are youguys? What? Who are you

(35:58):
the pastor? And it was great.
And we got to meet each other.
And then he got arrested laterin the day for breaking and
entering in another facility.
So, so you know what that'sthat's the way that happens. A
lot of getting to that, yeah,because a lot of damage gets
done sometimes, yeah. And nowour name, but our fault. He
didn't break and enter. Yeah,our doors were left open. So
like, Let's go miss on oursecurity and say, that's why
it's not breaking and entering.

(36:20):
It's breaking or entering. Oh,what is it not breaking and
breaking or you don't have tobreak. You just have to enter.
And so if, if you, if you enterwith the intent of committing a
crime punishable byimprisonment, it's a felony,
otherwise it's a misdemeanor,but it's still a crime to even
if it's just so is it pastor ofcare or education, or is it care

(36:41):
and education, and now it's theeducation as to the Arkansas
State law. Because, yeah, so,yeah, that was, that was a, what
he did was a misdemeanor crime.
But it's like, you know, do youdecide to prosecute? Okay?
But yeah, people like that. Theybecause their understanding of
cultural norms is different,because they exist in a
different culture that that hasdifferent values and

(37:03):
expectations, and they justexist in that. And so that's
just to them. It's like, well,you you know, when you're when
you're desperate for for shelterand for basic needs that most
people aren't, there's differentweights on things. And if
something's available and youcan use it, you use it. And
that's just walk around andstart every door in the whole
facility, yeah. So they found anopen and they, there's so many
that do that at night and justgo look ever and sometimes it's

(37:25):
cars, sometimes it's buildings,it's we, you know, wherever,
wherever they can get. And a lotof people are like, I would
never do that. Well, never beenthat position. Yeah, exactly.
You don't know exactly. Yeah,I had had another experience
once wherethis lady walks in and

(37:45):
she's asking for help, and Istart asking what her story is,
and she said she had, she hadbeen driving from Ohio, and she
needed to get back home toaround Phoenix, where she lived.
I'm like, What are you doing?
Drag driving all this way. Like,does that even make sense? She
said she ended up here becauseher car had some kind of

(38:06):
breakdown, and she used the restof her money to fix the tire, I
think, by the tire or whatever,and she didn't have any gas or
whatever. It was just kind of acommon story. And so, like,
typically, like, okay, the gasstory, okay, yeah, you know, I'm
gonna take that for what it is.
But then started looking insideof her car, and it does look
like she's been traveling, andshe says, Yeah, you know, like

(38:28):
it's my son passed away in Ohio,and they called me. We were
estranged for a while, and theycalled me and they had his
ashes, and the only way I had togo get his ashes was to drive.
I'm like, Okay, that soundsbelievable. Yeah, that sounds a
very specific story. And shepointed at the box, like, those
are his ashes. Oh, my gosh. Ohboy, that's Yeah. And she's

(38:49):
like, Yeah, I went to get hisashes, and I'm going to scatter
them around here, because wevacationed here once, and that's
where I'm going to scatter hisashes, and then I'm going to
continue driving home. But alsoI have a condition, and the
doctors only gave me six monthsleft to live, and then, oh, my
god, she showed me, like,whatever thing she had plugged
into her, yeah, medical device.
And I have, you know, I have noone left, and my family's all

(39:13):
gone, and so I'm alone and andI'm not going to be around for
much longer. I'm just trying toget back home to get my affairs
in order, and just wait until Igo. And then we hugged, and then
we cried, yeah. And then I wentto the gas station. I bought her
$50 worth of gas. $50 is your Ifilled up her tank, and I got
another gift card with gas forher, and just I got her email

(39:35):
and and sent her on her way,yeah, and that's and the
question I asked Emily Harkinswhen she was
here is, how do you go home, youknow, because you you know that
people are going to be sleepingin the cold. Yeah, they come.
They spend time with you. You dothe thing with them, and but

(39:56):
then they go back into thestreet. And how do you live?
Yeah.
Know? And her answer was, like,I I just had, there's nothing I
can do. I just, every day I getout of the church and I pray and
I surrender, yeah, and then I gohome, yeah, show back up the
next day. There's been kind ofmore times, yeah, there's been
more times than I've prayed atthis gas station down here that

(40:17):
people have asked for. I mean,yeah, every time I give a gas
card out, you know, we help onetime to get from point A to
point B, as long as you have aplan right, to continue that
path and make sure that there'splan at the end of that, we'll
help with gas one time, right?
And make sure that you can geton your way. I'll go down, but
as I hand him a gasket, Hey, canI pray with you? And I've had
90% yeses, I've had some hardnos. I've had some I'm not going
to pray, but you can, you know,like, hey, great, we're in but

(40:38):
those small interactions, right?
You can just see someonepresent, right, in a
relationship, listening to astory, right? And caring about
the story, right? Is, is almostalways the interaction. And
largely, when people come to youfrom Salvation Army, there's not
a request for money, right?
They're coming for relationship.
They're coming. Just want to beseen and heard, and that's it.

(40:58):
And so welcome. It's much morerare that I get asked or, Hey,
can I get a shower? Can I get,you know, Can I can I give me a
hotel room? Or I need this food?
I'm like, great, we got a freepantry. Come on, I'll get you
some food, right? And we havethe resources to give them. But
it's rare now that I get askedfor help. It's usually someone
who's passing through that gotstopped, right? And it was like,
Hey, I'm just going to go toevery church and see what's
going to happen, right? It's ahard part when the the scammers

(41:18):
out there that prey on thatstuff that make people hesitant
to do that? Yeah? And like a lotof the panhandlers, yeah, I'd be
sitting intersections workingtraffic, and you see the guy
drive up in a nice car and thennice clothes and put on the
crappy over clothes and get hissign and go sit out an
intersection. I'm like, Dude,you drove up here in a Cadillac,
and I know where you live. He'slike, Yeah, but I make a ton of
tax free money, buddy. Nospecial place for you, yeah, you

(41:42):
know, but it makes peoplehesitant to want to help. And
you gotta have boundaries, youknow, because some things help
people, and sometimes thingscould enable people, depending
on what you got, to learn theirstory. But there, if you think
about it, you know, most people,like most of us, are probably
have some money in savings.
We're getting a regularpaycheck, you know, we have a
plan. We're set up. But imagineif you if you grew up different,

(42:05):
and you didn't have that set up,and you started your life on the
edge all the time, yeah, andthen there's so many things that
could happen outside of ourcontrol that could put us in
that position,you know, like, just a scam, a
bank account issue, somethinglike that, where you get on the
edge and imagine being somewherethat you don't know anybody, and
then one little thing happens,and you could very easily find

(42:25):
yourself like at theyou know, where your only helps
could come from from a stranger,or from a from a church, very
easily. If I mean, even justyou're traveling somewhere, your
car breaks down for some reason,a scam thing. All your credit
cards are locked down, yeah,your cell phone isn't working,
and you have no money in yourbank account, no cash in your
wallet, and then you're juststuck. Well, if you can't get

(42:46):
your car fixed, and you can'tcall anybody, and then you're
just that's where you're at. Itcould happen to you know, worst
possible scenario, it couldhappen to us, but we do things
in our life to make sure thatthose things don't happen, but
we have resources to do that. Ifyou don't have the resources, or
you haven't learned the lifeskills, or there are things in
the way to keep you from doingthat. I mean, that stuff could

(43:06):
happen fairly easily to people,absolutely. So interestingly,
Roseanne, you got to listen tothe message of testimony from
those going on the mission trip,right? To spark dwell this last
week, right? And so we have alittle segment that we love to
call Roseanne. And Roseanne, canyou share with us what your
notes are from Sunday listeningto the message and testimony?

(43:29):
Well, I made a note about thetwo different types of mission
that you talked about. Oh,great, yes. One was service,
yep, where you perform aservice. And the other one was
relationship, where you createrelationships. And I thought
that was interesting.

(43:49):
So my mission experience isgoing to Cambodia. Oh, yeah, and
that was really a relationshipmission.
We just needed to see what theirneeds were and how we could
serve them. But we met so manypeople, and they wanted their

(44:11):
story heard. Yeah, just like yousaid, so and I loved when Tracy,
Ithink it's Tracy said she quoted
Isaiah, and she was talkingabout, oh, lost it. She was just
talking about her experiences.

(44:34):
AndI've had experience with housing
insecure people. A few yearsago, I learned of a childhood
friend who was recovering fromemergency surgery in a hotel
room, oh jeez, becauseshe had nowhere to go,

(44:57):
even though she had children inthe area.
Yeah, they didn't. They didn'twant her drama, right? So I
offered for her to come staywith us while she recovered. And
she was with us for about threemonths, and then she went on her
way. Yeah, yeah. And thenrecently, my older sister, who

(45:19):
has no ID, yeah, okay, no socialsecurity card. Apparently, her
wallet got stolen, and she hadall of her identification in
there. And then Oklahoma doesthis weird thing where, but they
say it's more secure, where youget your a paper ID, and then

(45:41):
within 10 to 20 days, you get aplastic ID. So interesting,
central place, yeah, and thatactually is supposed to be more
secure, but she never got herplastic ID. And so that's
interesting. She is kind of thatperson, non grata or whatever
out there. She so she's startingthat journey

(46:07):
to get her social security cardreplaced and and in talking to
her, it's why didn't you dothis? And she said, because I
was in survival mode. Yeah,right. I didn't care. I had a
job. I didn't have a place tostay. My roommate and I were
staying at a hotel,and I said, but all your money

(46:28):
went to whatever? Yeah, itdidn't seem like you were taking
care of things. And she said, Iwas surviving. That's it. That's
it. Yeah, right. All the otherneeds go out the window. Base
needs are the only thing thatcomes into play. And it was some
place to sleep that wasrelatively safe, something to
eat that was relativelynutritious, and a way to get

(46:50):
back and forth to her job.
That's right, that was it. Howeasy is it? Have you found it to
get the new documentation? It isnot easy. It's not and that's
with access and withtransportation and with all
these means, yes. So she thoughtthe easiest way for her to get

(47:12):
an Arkansas ID would be to get alicense go take the test. So she
did the test, the pre testonline, scored well on him. Did
not realize that she neededanother form of ID. Oh, yeah,
absolutely to take the test. Soshe had her birth certificate,
that was it, okay, but sheneeded her social security card

(47:37):
so she couldn't take the test.
So that was a long trip toPrairie Grove. So then the
tester said, why don't you go tothe DMV and get an ID? We still
need two forms of ID for thatyou're working in. So
yeah, about 100 miles later, wewent home, she was upset.

(47:58):
I well, and during that the airconditioning had gone out on my
car. So what's up with airconditioning? Table? Didn't your
air conditioning go out, ofcourse, because it's summer,
because you need it, right?
That's great. And you have ababy at home, it's really good.
Your air conditioning went outin the car, in the car, Tom,
didn't your air conditioning goout two years ago? Like a year
ago? Yeah, into last year, oh mygosh. When this I had had a

(48:21):
complete overhaul back in thefall, when so it cooled off, and
then it got real hot again, andmy I saw I turned my air
conditioner off, turned it backon when it got hot, and it was
not, oh, no good. So we did acomplete overhaul, which was
expensive, and that failed, andthat's what failed this time.

(48:43):
Yeah, so luckily there was,thank God, thank you. God, no
cost to that replacement. Butyeah, so the air conditioning
went out, so I'm frustrated.
She's frustrated.
Butthe hope continues. Yeah, like
the hope and the faith that whatwe're learning from this

(49:07):
experience ismaybe that you can't, you
shouldn't let go of some ofthose things, like, when her,
her my wallet got stolen threedays before I left for Cambodia.
Oh, oh. So the next day I was atthe DMV. I got getting my

(49:30):
license replaced, and it wasclose enough to renewing it that
she goes, we're just going torenew it. Oh, great. So got
that,got a replacement for everything
else. The only thing I didn'thave was my credit cards. Okay?
So that was kind ofuncomfortable in that there were
places that only took cars, yes?

(49:54):
So, yeah, I experienced some ofthat. But then you, you.
Yeah, so I sat my sister downwhen, when she first got there,
and both my sisters are reallyhousing insecure because I'm
providing the roof over. This istrue. Yeah, this is true. So we
sit down and we made a plan,okay, you need to do these

(50:19):
things for your identification.
Then if you want a job, you canapply for that when you take
care of all of this. Yeah, sonow she has an appointment for
to get her social security card.
Yeah, that's great. I mean, thisis what we experienced in Spark
dwell, is they gave all of theteams different actions to go
back into Winston Salem to findsubstance, you know, abuse

(50:42):
facilities, to make sure that wehad housing, to find
transportation to go out and,you know, meet the needs of any
kind of community need thatwould be out there in the
housing insecure community andand all of us failed. We failed
because we didn't have the rightidentification, we didn't have
the enough time. We couldn't getto the place that we needed to
get to when we got there, itwasn't for we didn't qualify for

(51:04):
the services, even though we hadthe need for the services,
right? And so and as we werewalking with those who were
housing insecure and even ourour person's name was Conte
Conti was awesome, but he wassuper frustrated living in that
community about the servicesprovided, but had no other
access to any other services,right? And wasn't going anywhere

(51:24):
different. So there's a realityin there. Exactly what you're
experiencing is that it's peoplethat we know, it's people that
are from the Salvation Army,it's people that are in our
community. But there's a storybehind every one of these
people. And that was one of themost, I think, things that hit
Tracy and myself while we there,is that one of the first people
that we met told our wholegroup, and she just said, if I
hadn't run away when I was 15,if I hadn't run away when I was

(51:46):
15, and this lady was probably55 at this point, 60, she goes,
if I hadn't run away when I was15, my life wouldn't be like
this. And you're just looking atit on a trip with 15 year olds,
and as parents of 15 year olds,and Tracy and I are looking at
each other, we're like, Oh mygosh. Like, this was a choice
made so many years ago that leddown. And it maybe wasn't that
one choice, but it was theseries of actions from that

(52:08):
right, and it was the hardshipthat came from it. And also,
there's a shame from some of itright that wasn't addressed. And
right, there's some things. Andthen what was the family
structure? But the only way todiscover that is to be in
relationship. The only way todiscover that is to make a
connection and value thatconnection not because of
ourselves. It's not necessarilya friend that we would have like
table your story was amazing,because that relationship

(52:30):
continues, and you have thisrelationship to look back on.
But it might not be that, but itmight be for God to work
something through, and if it'sbeyond ourselves, I think it's
something we need to embrace. Ithink that's the beautiful thing
about the the free, what theycall the freedom of a Christian,
and that we don't have to focusour efforts on our salvation.
That's a free gift given to us,and the commandment we have is
to love our neighbor. And thisthe the lectionary reading

(52:52):
coming up for this Sunday is thestory of the Good Samaritan. Oh,
nice. You're right. And soeverybody, at times, needs
somebody to lean on for support.
Most the time. We get thatthrough our friends. But if
you're a friend group and yoursocietal group has no resources,
yeah, it because a lot of thosefolks will give their very last
dollar, last dollar away, yeah,whereas most people have a lot

(53:14):
of money, don't want to give anydollars away a lot of times. And
so if you if you have a group ofpeople, you friends, you can
lean on when you need help forthings, then we can help hold
each other up. But if you don'thave that, it's hard to get out
of that. You know that that thatrut, but as a Christian, knowing
that we don't have to work forsalvation, but all we've been
asked to do in response to thegift we've been given is to love

(53:36):
our neighbors the way ChristJesus has loved us, and that
that that mission of the churchto care for the needs for those
around us in that givesopportunities for evangelism. It
also gives opportunities for theChristians to go out and care
for the people around them, towalk with them as advocates, to
help them with things likegetting you know ID, talking to
them, sharing their story, letthem feel like a human being in

(53:57):
a relationship with a normalperson, and to just be able to
show some Christian kindness andhelp people get out of those,
out of those ruts. I mean,that's the point of, you know,
God doesn't need our works.
There's nothing we can do forGod, right? That's why God asked
us to give our works to thosearound us. Yeah, and that's
where we can we can benefit eachother. It's not going to give us
salvation, but it's, it's theonly closest way we can come to

(54:19):
thanking God outside of ofgiving thanks to God through
prayer is for loving God'schildren around us. Absolutely,
there's a huge opportunity inthat I can 100% say that
in my situation with my sisters,that it, you know, I joke about
it. I tell the women's group,y'all are my therapy on this.

(54:44):
But really, truly, it is God'sprovision. I am not doing
anything. It is all God'sprovision, and they're being
taken care of. And I can seethat
my older sister, who is verywithdrawn and.
And inside of herself and notsecure, is now blossoming. I

(55:07):
mean, she's caring. She's doingself care. She gets dressed
every day, she helps around thehouse. She feels like she's
contributing. And it's soit's it's a blessing to see that
progression for her. And I thinkthat's the one takeaway you
named it Tom from sparked, well,right? As we look at this, this

(55:28):
is a church, and it's a churchfor the housing insecure. And
the one thing we can all saywalking away from being a part
of that church service is thatthere is faith in the midst of
being in the wilderness daily,right? Not having the security
of the things that we would callcomfortable, right? And maybe
not even think about, there isfaith, and I think that's what
transformed a lot of the youth,is that, like they have nothing,

(55:50):
like we're walking with them onthe streets where they said they
slept here last night, andthey're like, but they had joy
on Sunday, and like, they havefaith, and they say they're a
Christian, and we're like, yeah,like, that's what guides them
through, right? And they findcommunity there, which is really
important. And so, so it's beenprofound, right? It's been
profound to kind of thinkthrough mission. We did change
our series, to think through,like, what was happening in

(56:11):
Texas as we're praying overTexas and the camps that are
there coming back from Camp. Myheart is still breaking. I mean,
I was talking to Jess, Jess andI went on a date last night. Can
I say that out loud? We went ona date and it
was glorious. Went out for likethree hours and just ate and
enjoyed conversation, and walkeddowntown Bentonville for like 45

(56:32):
minutes and just had a wonderfultime. But we were talking about
just how heartbreaking it iswhat's going on and just the
wrestling that we have asparents with what's happening.
And so this series is calledMountain movers, and it's
learning to trust God on themountain and in the valley, and
that's we're gonna be walkingthrough for the next four weeks.
Is, how do you trust God in the,I would say, in the
juxtaposition of the times whenyou feel great with God. And how

(56:55):
do you have faith when you'rehousing insecure, right? And how
do you have faith when themountains ahead of you, right?
And you're, you're looking atthat from a deep, deep, deep
valley. And so it's definitely aseries that's going to move us
into learning to trust God inall areas of our life. Great
time to read job. Oh, man, job,rough, yeah, actually, we had
some people in the housing andsecurity community talk about

(57:16):
job when we were there, like, ifyou read job, I was like, yeah,
they're like, That guyeverything. I was like, Okay,
so, I mean, even they're lookingat it going, dang, you know,
yeah, jobs, rub. So if you wanta good read, just pick it up
tonight. Read Joe, right? Job'sgreat. So I want to cry yourself
to sleep, if you want to cryyourself to sleep, and then
trust God again, right in thatmoment. So, but that's it. So
join us on Sunday as we continuethe mountain mover series, as we

(57:37):
look forward to next week, Andall God's people said, Amen.