Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the
station's staff, management, or ownership.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
A good morning you'll finding out with Pete and the
Poet Gold.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm Peter Leonon and I'm the Poet Gold and we're.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
On the air this morning with Mia. Excise me your
last name again, Bakioki a beautiful name. And before we
get to miss Barryoki and her projects did involve hope.
On our mission, We're going to go right to the
poet Gold for her weekly poem prayer incantation. Gold, please
get it roll.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I'm going to read a poem this morning called the Bridge,
which is inspired by I'm a song called the Sun
Will Rise. The storm clouds move to make way for
the shine, rays of warmth orfer ease to the mind
enveloping the spirit, A presence is within it. Let love
be the breeze for your lift out of the loneliness.
For what breath life is truly listless because we are
(00:56):
blessed with the power of resurrecting and restoring the good
that lies within us. That not the voice of doubt.
Befrien your hope, to make you hopeless, a hopeless there's
it in a bridge, connecting your soul to your spirit,
to your heart, to your mind, leading to your strength.
You may cross it, for it is there the sun
will rise.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
And besides those internal bridges, krame, you make external bridges,
you make social structures. They connect the soul and the
mind and the heart.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
We want to connect hearts.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yes, I'll give us a sense of what Hope on
a mission, what it does, how it started, and you
know what your plans.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
But just awd this thought, Okay, So Hope on a
Mission is exactly that. We're on a mission to share
hope with people who are struggling with homelessness and addiction.
I was given a spark of hope when I was
in rehabit Saint Jose back in twenty thirteen. Someone said
to me that we're here to help you get well,
(01:58):
and you don't have to do it alone. And that
gave me such a sense of hope, and it gave
me a sense of dignity. So Hope on a Mission's
mission statement is restoring dignity with love and grace through
acts of service in the community. So we four times
a week we provide meals to anyone who shows up
at our tables. We set up tables right on the
(02:20):
sidewalk in two locations in the city of Poughkeepsie, and
at those tables we provide a hot meal, a takeaway
bag of food, usually peanut butter and jelly. Everybody loves
the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and bottled water. But
we also have hygiene items and clean, dry, seasonally appropriate
(02:41):
clothing for anyone who asks.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
And I know that when you started you probably didn't
have a team. Was it just you or do you
have people? Immediately just stay with you.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Ten years ago, I got the call. I was home
in my bedroom. I had completed my program at Eye Tap,
and I had completed a lot of other stuff and
graduated from Dutch's Community College with my associate's degree. And
it was a July of twenty fifteen, and I was
(03:12):
just hanging out at home and God said, all right,
it's time to go. So I said, Okay, what does
that mean? Because I hope on a mission had been
given to my heart when I was at Saint.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Jose You just say, God said yes, ok, yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yeah, no, God me here on a first name basis. Yeah,
and we talk all the time. Sometimes I have to
shut up and listen. I like to talk, but he
likes to meet and listen. Yeah. So short story twenty thirteen,
I'm at Saint Jose on the mountain in Santa Lake,
(03:51):
And that's where you bring all of your baggage and
you leave it on the mountain and God restores your
soul and you know if you're willing and want that,
and then when you leave the mountain, you leave with
a full heart and an open mind and hopefully a purpose.
And so my purpose was to become the woman I
had needed when I was homeless, un addicted back in
(04:12):
the eighties. So when I was homemost un addicted from
eighty six about to nineteen ninety, I couldn't take care
of myself. I could not feed myself, clothe myself. I
couldn't do anything other than chase the next dose because
I was so disregulated inside my mind, my soul, my spirit,
(04:34):
my nervous system that the only thing that kept me
moving forward was the next hit of whatever. At that point,
it was anything that would take me outside of myself.
So twenty fifteen, I'm home, I'm clean, and sober two years,
I'm doing really well. And God says, okay, everything we
talked about in twenty thirteen, it's time to put it
(04:57):
to you. So I was like, okay, what and he said,
here's a million dollars go And I was like in
my head kind of freaking out, and in my heart,
my spirit, I knew that God's million dollars looked greater
than anything that man could come up with. So I
didn't look for a physical million dollars. I just knew
(05:17):
that my marching orders were it's time to go, so go.
And he told me to go to Maine in South Clinton,
and so I did. I had a car that I
was borrowing from a friend, and I threw some flip
flops and some bottled water in the trunk and I
went and sat at the corner of Maine and South Clinton.
He told me from six to eight pm on Saturdays.
(05:38):
So I was being obedient and I did that. I know.
I've been doing it ever since, and we've had to
move around a couple of times, but we've never not
been out on the street on a Saturday night from
six to eight somewhere, no matter what. So for nearly
ten years, we've not missed a Saturday night.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
If someone wanted to find out where you know, we're
actually you're going to be on that Saturday from six
to eight, how would they find that out.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
We have a website, now, okay, we're all grown up.
When we have a website, it's called Hope on Amission
dot org. All one word, and there's a calendar and
you can click on the day it'll say dinner or
breakfast and dinner. So Tuesdays and Thursdays we do dinner.
And when you click on dinner, it opens up to
a little bubble and it shows you what time we're
serving a meal and what the address is. So on
(06:24):
Tuesdays and Thursdays it's at six hundred Main Street in Poughkeepsie,
which is the old Queen City car wash. For anyone
who's been here forever, and if you haven't been here
and you only know where Family Dollar, t Day's Pizza
or Pete's Famous are, we're right in that vicinity. On Saturdays,
we're now serving breakfast and dinner at one hundred and
thirty Cannon Street. It's a municipal parking lot right behind
(06:48):
where Time Warner or whatever the cable company has been
but right there in that parking lot, and breakfast is
one hour from eight thirty to nine thirty, Dinner is
still two hours six to eight, and then Tuesday and
Thursday it's a one hour meal from six to seven.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
And you seem to have you show it's the city
of Poughkeepsie you have built into your ministry or your
activities is an urban focus. In other words, is it
accidental that it's in the cities.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
It's not accidental at all. Like I said, God sent
me to Maine in South Clinton. That's where when twenty fifteen,
and in my homelessness and addiction story, primarily between White
Street and Clinton Street was where I ran. My entire
life existed in a two block not even radius, it
was just a two block stretch.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
And that's where I did whatever I needed to do
to get whatever I needed to get, and that's where
the people who I needed to get it from were
hanging out and selling it.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
So that was right.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Our goal is to meet people where they are not
ask much. We don't ask anything of anyone. They have
a hard enough time getting through the day. We're there
to give a blessing to love them. And meet them
where they are and let them know that hope is
not lost, that there is a different life that they
can have, and we will help them get there.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Right right. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to
Finding Out with Pete and the poet Gold, and I'm
the poet Gold, and we're here today talking with Karama Bakiyoki,
who is the founder and executive director of Hope on
a Mission.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And you know, you speak so disharmingly, like comfortably about God.
I'm you know, traditional, sort of politically left Catholic, and
you know, so I'm alert to the fact that the
world is whole and we should act that way. But
I don't have the familiarity. I'm not on a first base,
(08:51):
first name basis with God. Can you explain how that
happened to you? We judging from your name's an Italian name,
so you might have had a brush up with the church.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
So I was born into a family that was Italian.
My dad's family was Italian, his mom was Hungarian or
Austrian something like that, but they were Catholic. My mother's
side of the family were wasps white Anglosastin Protestants. They
(09:21):
were Irish, and Welsh, and they really were. There was
no There was no religious upbringing in my childhood. I
didn't know God. I didn't know of a God. I
didn't know the name of God. And you know, Pledge
of allegiance in school, but that was really it. There
was no practice in my home. My parents separated and
(09:42):
divorced when I was seven, and my mother remarried another
Italian Catholic man because that's her type, and he was
angry at God, and so there was again no religion
his sisters. However, in New Jersey, we're very Italian Catholic,
(10:02):
and so I watched my cousins like make first Holy
Communion and get Confirmation, and I also saw them get
envelopes full of money. So that was my draw. That
was my draw, being honest, you know, I would, being
ten eleven years old, knew in a family I wanted,
I wanted envelopes full of money too. So when we
(10:25):
moved from New Milford, Connectic to Sharon, Connecticut, we moved
onto the Green in Sharon, Connecticut, which is this beautiful
little sort of lawn, and from our home I could
walk to four churches. There was an Episcopal church, a
congregational church, a Roman Catholic Church, and a Methodist church.
I only had familiarity with the Roman Catholic Church because
(10:47):
of my cousins, my step cousins, and also when we
lived in New Milford, there was a family across the
street that had five daughters and they all went to
Catholic church on Sundays, so I used to hijack a
ride with them. But at that point, my like my
tenth and eleventh year, I really started feeling a spiritual pull.
I wanted to do something. I wanted to know, I
wanted to belong to something, and I didn't feel like
(11:11):
I belonged to my step family. Really. I was reminded
often that we were this step not anybody's fault. I'm
not blaming, I'm not a victim of it. It just
was the way it was happening at the time. And
because my mother's biological family was far away and none
of them still her twin brothers, didn't do church, None
(11:35):
of their children did church. Nobody I knew did church
that was in my family, so I had gone. I
met a Jewish kid in school, I went to synagogue.
I went, you know. Then when we moved to Sharon,
I met a family the Fair Services, and the father
was the archaeology and anthropology professor here at Vassar, Yes,
(11:59):
Walter Pherson. This, yeah, So his youngest daughter and I
were very close and I got to run around inside
their home and they had people from around the world
come to their home, so I learned about things from
Pakistan and people from Asia, you know, all parts of Asia,
and it was just fascinating to be there and learn
(12:19):
different things. So I got tastes of things and it
was really awesome, but I didn't again, I didn't really
know where I belonged. So I started Roman Catholic Church
when I was in eighth grade. I got crash course
in Communion and Confirmation and I got the envelopes. That
was great, and then they took Father Reagan away and
(12:40):
I was like, I'm not signing up for this anymore
if you keep moving to people who i'd learned to
trust so because home wasn't really trustworthy, so I trusted
Father Reagan and I went to CCD and all of that,
and then they made him move and I'm like, well,
you know, deuces, y'all, I'm coming back here.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
And then I'm sorry. So what was the place of surrender.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Oh, the short story never a short story. So when
I became nineteen, I was, I was. So I graduated
high school. I'm drinking, I'm drugging because everyone around me
is and I don't. And I still want to belong
So I belong to you know, doesn't have to be
good behavior. You want negative attention. Still, I'm gonna get
(13:25):
it where I can get it. So I'm hanging out
with this crowd and they're smoking weed, which I hated,
and they're drinking, which I hated, but they were using cocaine,
which I found.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Out I loved.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
And then of course I date the dealer in town
who's thirteen years my senior. I'm nineteen, he's thirty two.
Why my father didn't stop that, I don't know. He
just complained about the color of the guy's skin. He
didn't say to me, why is he a predator?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Why is he.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Drugging you up and bringing you home? Like where's but whatever?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Right?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
So I don't know. Oh, my mother said to me.
So he was the first man of color that I dated.
And my mother's like, why do you have to date
black men? And I'm like, well, I could date black
women and she never brought it up, so that was great.
But anyway, I learned how to do a lot of
cocaine things with that person. And then I also learned
that this is not the life I want to live,
(14:18):
and I need to get out. And there was a
Methodist pastor who lived next door to one of my
favorite friends, and he was married to a woman, so
number one, he got to be married, which that's cool.
They had a child, and they had adopted a child
who looked nothing like them. So I was like, I
can sign up for a religion that looks like that
because there's openness, open mindedness. I want to be a
(14:39):
part of that. So that's where I first gave my
heart to Jesus at nineteen years old. I said, all right, God,
come get me, Come get me. And so we had
a really beautiful walk, he and I and then I
would go home and I would be telling my mom
about all the spiritual stuff that was happening inside and
it was really amazing, and she'd be drunk and she'd
ask me if I had to joint was bad? So
(15:01):
I was like, okay, I can't tell you anything anymore.
And then I had to sort of navigate moving away
from my mom, breaking up with the boyfriend who wanted
to continue to use drugs and endanger my life. And
so I thought, I'm going to sign up for chrystal
Er Business Institute so I can drive to Poughkeepsie because
it's a half an hour from Sharon. And when I
(15:23):
got here, I found more people like me. So I
found the school and I was great in school, but
I didn't finish because I was busy hanging out on
College Hill with the other white girls who liked to
hang out with the boys of color. And then I
lost my life. Basically, I just found that cocaine was
(15:45):
way more fun than being normal. I found that losing
my job and losing my housing were not as important
as finding more drugs. And I really just got lost.
And I was lost for a few years. And I
got lost. I left Poughkeepsie and went to Newburgh for
a few I don't know, maybe a year left there,
(16:06):
went to Jamaica, Queens, went to far rockaway, always trying
to find me, but just finding more people like me.
And wherever you go, you bring yourself so wherever you
but you don't know that until you know it. So anyway,
I get back to Poughkeepsie. It's nineteen ninety. I get
busted for shoplifting or something that was one of the
(16:28):
things that I did, and I had to do a
six month sentence. So I'm in jail at Dusha's County Jail,
Hamilton Street Hotel we called it, and I was there
from February to June of nineteen ninety And when I
got out, I said, I'm not going to use anymore.
I don't want to live this life anymore. I really
want something different, and I didn't know how to get it,
and so I hung out sort of homeless. I wasn't
(16:51):
going to use the shelter. I found a friend who
was selling drugs, but she said, I'm not going to
give you any but I could stay there. So I
was staying there with her, and then I started using
again because well, i'll give you can hold the package.
You're doing great. Blah blah blah's shod language, and we
ended up having a fight. I was homeless again. Now
(17:11):
I'm using again. Now I don't know what to do
with myself, and I'm disgusted. And a gentleman whom i'd
met previously pulled up in his car one night and
he said, what happened to you? Why do you look
like that? You don't look like the person I met?
And I didn't remember him from anywhere, but that doesn't
mean he wasn't remembering the truth of me. So we talked.
I hung out with him for a little bit, hung
(17:32):
out with him a couple of times, and he said,
you know, if you can get yourself together, you can
you can stay with me. So one night in October
of nineteen ninety, I was like, can you just come
get me? I can't do this anymore. And he gave
me a ride to Saint Francis Hospital and I checked
myself into the psychia and I said, if you don't
keep me here, I'm going to go to the bridge.
I never would have, but I just was so desperate
(17:54):
to have a different life right and that started me
on a forward path, and so I did some time there.
They sent me up to Ithaco, where I attended an
impatient program, and then I transferred out of that and
I did intensive outpatient and I did some therapy, and
I was living with this gentleman who became my husband,
(18:16):
and we bought a home together and we had babies
and it was all wonderful. And then I divorced him
and started drinking and drugging again, and I found myself
in twenty thirteen, sitting in the same jail cell I
left in nineteen ninety. And that was the point of surrender.
That was the two by four to the head from
(18:37):
my Lord and Savior Jesus who said to me, who
said to me, I have a plan? Can you just
are you done? Are you done? Running around?
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I hold that thought. If you're just tuning in, you're
listening to finding Out with Pete and the poet Gold,
and I'm the poet Gold. And we're here with Karma Bacchioki,
who is the founder and executive director of Hope on
a Mission, sharing her compelling story of recovery to triumph.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yes. Yeah, So I'm sitting in the jail cell that
i'd left in nineteen ninety, twenty three years later, hanging
to myself, how the heck did I get here? Why
am I here again? And I hear that still small
voice saying you left me behind? And I was like, oh,
(19:26):
so I'm taking my fist to God. I'm angry, I'm
calling him out, I'm telling him all kinds and telling
him what a big fat jerk he is, and using
you know.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Other language, spy your words.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah, yeah, And we're going back and forth, and he says,
I love you so my holy spirit. Bumps, I'm gonna cry.
I love you so much. I've waited for you, like
a prodigal child to return home because I have so
much more for.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
You to do the work, to do the work.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
And if you will just be still and listen, listen
and obey. I used to tell my kids, your job
is still and obey, never understanding that those were God's
words to me. Right. So I'm like, oh, dude, that's
what you want from me. You want me to look.
(20:13):
This is why I said to him. I said, look, Adam,
and you've messed up? Can enable messed up? What are
the chances of me getting this right at all without you?
Probably zero to none. Right, So, if humanity is what
you've created, you're in charge of it. You do a
better job than I do. I'm just going to give
it all to you, and you tell me what to do.
And that was that's what we did.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
That's what we did.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So the prodigal daughter is your story. You returned home
to God and he was.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
There yeah, yeah, And he said, you know, everything you've
been through is training. Everything that you have been through
in your life has been training to be the woman
I've created you to be and.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
So, and that training wound up showing yourself as respects,
understanding the dignity of people.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Who Yeah, is that yes? That is one way to
say it. Absolutely training in that. If I haven't lived it,
I can't share the experience. I can't speak to someone
who I can't say to someone who's living that life,
(21:21):
you need to just do blah blah blah. I can
say to them, I have been where you are. I've
suffered some of the child to traumas that you've suffered.
I made the mistakes as a teenager, and I did
these things, and I mistreated myself and my body. I
disrespected myself because of the experiences that I had. I
didn't know my value, I didn't know my worth. And
(21:43):
now I get to say, it doesn't matter where you've
been or what you've been through. God loves you no
matter what. And you don't believe in God, do you
believe that I believe in God? And they usually say
I say good, then just believe in my belief and
we can work from there.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Let me carry you from me and.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
The sacrament that you dispenses, the peanut butter and joby sandwich.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Yes, okay, yeah yeah. Food feed your soul. I'm a
feed your mouth and your belly. I'm a feed your
heart and your.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Soul in the process, right, right, And and the surrender
is the place of honesty, yeah, you know which sometimes
it's difficult for us as humans to get to that
place because we associate sometimes that would shame.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Yes, And our ego is built to protect us from
the shame and to protect us from all of the
harm when but when we get to a certain place
in our lives, at least for me, and when I
got to a certain place in my life, the ego
that had kept me alive and survived so many things
was ultimately what was my downfall, right, And so to
(22:54):
crack open the ego and spill all the guts out,
and that's where the surrender happens. And to leave that
on the floor and say all right, just take me,
do with me what you will, and I will align
with it. It's been a really amazing journey.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
It's an amazing story. And going from you know, having
the meal at Main Street and South Clinton or North
Clinton Street to having an actual organization is a journey
to that or also.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Yeah, so yeah, being obedient, just stepping out in faith.
And then and then so you know, telling everybody all
the time. Soon as they came down off the mountain
in Saranac Lake and I came back to Poughkeepsie to
Joe's halfway house, and then I tapping all of that
and joining a church and going to home based Bible studies.
(23:48):
I told everyone what God had told me. And I
just told everyone all the time, everybody. Every time somebody said,
you know, what are you doing these days?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Here's the story.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
This is what I'm going to do. God told me
to create hope on a mission, and God told me
to do this thing, and I'm gonna do it. I'm
gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I had my
marching orders, and in twenty fifteen he said go and
then I started. And then people who had heard me
talking about it for two years were like, oh, can
I give you some sucks? Can I bring some granola bars?
Can I bring some what? Yes? Yes to everything all
(24:18):
the time, and we still say yes to pretty much
everything all the time when people want to bring something,
it's who am I to tell you? No. If God's
put it on your heart to come join us, then
come and see what we do and tell me where
you fit in, and then let God and your open
heart and your open mind lead you. I don't tell
people what to do when they come to volunteer with us.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
How would somebody give you something? And another? How can
people get in touch with you?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
So Facebook and Instagram we have pages and you can
send a message. You can call me on my cell
phone directly nine one four four five six two six
three three or send me a text on my phone
is public. You can go to our website, Hope on
a mission dot org. You can join us at any
of our meals and just show up. Just show up
(25:07):
and check out what we're doing. And then if there's
something that pulls your heart and you want to participate,
go for it. We love it. We love it. So
people visit and they say, oh, I like to bake brownies. Great,
bake brownies some brownies.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Great.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Oh you have a connection with socks. I mean we
get five thousand pairs of bombas a year. Bombas is real, y'all.
Bombas is real. They are real. Buy your socks at
Bombas because for every pair that you buy, they donate
a pair.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Fantastic.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
It has been amazing and people love Bomba socks in
the street. They make them specifically for people who are
struggling with homelessness. So there's all this technology in them
and they stay dry and they keep your feet toasty.
They're pretty awesome. But yeah, when somebody says I want
to participate on how can I volunteer? I say, show up,
join us and see what works for you. That's how
(26:00):
Kim Green, who is now our volunteer donations coordinator, that's
how she started six almost seven years ago. She had
been traditionally, she'd been doing English as a second language
or literacy, I think one of those things. She was
a nursery school teacher, and she wanted to do more
(26:23):
and something different, so she started coming and hanging out
with us. And then that's when people were donating lots
of things, and I was getting overwhelmed, and she said, well,
can I start collecting some things? And I'm like, yeah,
you can. And then I like, how about a donation's
coordinator name?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And she's like sure, And so now half of her
house belongs to all Wanda mentioned and for a lot
of our volunteers, they all have hoam home corners and
their home hom And.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
One of the things that I think a lot of
people are afraid of white middle classed people like me
afraid we're not going to like people who are homeless
or exicted because there's a way in which our experience
with them can be severe because we addressed them with
a condescension that they obviously pick up and give back
(27:16):
to us. But I guess the simple question, do you
like the people that that you serve them?
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Okay, yeah, so I'd like to address what you just
said in that people feel our lack of respect for them. Right. So,
when when I was struggling with homelessness and addiction and
I had shame over the marks on my arms and
(27:45):
the marks on my face and the lack of body
weight and in ability to stand still, I had a
lot of shame about being me and being in the
body I was carrying at the time. But what always
got through to me with someone looking me directly in
the eyes with a smile. Absolutely, And so that's what
(28:05):
we do. And that's when people say what do I
do or how do I act? You don't act, You
just be be present. If you can be present to yourself,
then you can be present with someone who needs you.
Being present to self is a really tricky game because
not many of us are taught that, or trauma prevents
it from being present with ourselves. And that's a whole
(28:26):
other radio show on another day. However, if you can
step outside of yourself, to get back into yourself for
a second, and just maybe say a meditation first, maybe
say a prayer first. Maybe say it's not about me,
it's about the person in front of me. When you
(28:47):
see a person who you label as other, just look
them in the eyes and smile and say, hi, we're
not going to eat you alive. And if they do,
you're okay. You'd be all right, I promise you.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Said a line I from one of my poems, in
the poems call Love and and one of the lines
is step outside yourself, to see yourself, to be yourself,
to fine within yourself. At the beginning of all you
is love and and that's how we can I see
you right Because we're afraid.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
We're afraid, and fear is the biggest liar on the planet.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yes, it is literally.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
We're not going to get a better line than that.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Camia, you know it's it's wonderful. I'm glad that you
were able to come on today. It's wonderful speaking with you.
Thank you for sharing your story, and you know, go
on the website Hope on a Mission dot org. Is
that correct, and support our organization. And thank you to
our listeners for listening once again to finding out with
Pete and the Poe Go We truly appreciate you.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Thank you, thank you for having me
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the
station's staff, management, or ownership.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
A good morning you'll finding out with Pete and the
Poet Gold.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm Peter Leonon and I'm the Poet Gold and we're.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
On the air this morning with Mia. Excise me your
last name again, Bakioki a beautiful name. And before we
get to miss Barryoki and her projects did involve hope.
On our mission, We're going to go right to the
poet Gold for her weekly poem prayer incantation. Gold, please
get it roll.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I'm going to read a poem this morning called the Bridge,
which is inspired by I'm a song called the Sun
Will Rise. The storm clouds move to make way for
the shine, rays of warmth orfer ease to the mind
enveloping the spirit, A presence is within it. Let love
be the breeze for your lift out of the loneliness.
For what breath life is truly listless because we are
(00:56):
blessed with the power of resurrecting and restoring the good
that lies within us. That not the voice of doubt.
Befrien your hope, to make you hopeless, a hopeless there's
it in a bridge, connecting your soul to your spirit,
to your heart, to your mind, leading to your strength.
You may cross it, for it is there the sun
will rise.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
And besides those internal bridges, krame, you make external bridges,
you make social structures. They connect the soul and the
mind and the heart.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
We want to connect hearts.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yes, I'll give us a sense of what Hope on
a mission, what it does, how it started, and you
know what your plans.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
But just awd this thought, Okay, So Hope on a
Mission is exactly that. We're on a mission to share
hope with people who are struggling with homelessness and addiction.
I was given a spark of hope when I was
in rehabit Saint Jose back in twenty thirteen. Someone said
to me that we're here to help you get well,
(01:58):
and you don't have to do it alone. And that
gave me such a sense of hope, and it gave
me a sense of dignity. So Hope on a Mission's
mission statement is restoring dignity with love and grace through
acts of service in the community. So we four times
a week we provide meals to anyone who shows up
at our tables. We set up tables right on the
(02:20):
sidewalk in two locations in the city of Poughkeepsie, and
at those tables we provide a hot meal, a takeaway
bag of food, usually peanut butter and jelly. Everybody loves
the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and bottled water. But
we also have hygiene items and clean, dry, seasonally appropriate
(02:41):
clothing for anyone who asks.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
And I know that when you started you probably didn't
have a team. Was it just you or do you
have people? Immediately just stay with you.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Ten years ago, I got the call. I was home
in my bedroom. I had completed my program at Eye Tap,
and I had completed a lot of other stuff and
graduated from Dutch's Community College with my associate's degree. And
it was a July of twenty fifteen, and I was
(03:12):
just hanging out at home and God said, all right,
it's time to go. So I said, Okay, what does
that mean? Because I hope on a mission had been
given to my heart when I was at Saint.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Jose You just say, God said yes, ok, yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yeah, no, God me here on a first name basis. Yeah,
and we talk all the time. Sometimes I have to
shut up and listen. I like to talk, but he
likes to meet and listen. Yeah. So short story twenty thirteen,
I'm at Saint Jose on the mountain in Santa Lake,
(03:51):
And that's where you bring all of your baggage and
you leave it on the mountain and God restores your
soul and you know if you're willing and want that,
and then when you leave the mountain, you leave with
a full heart and an open mind and hopefully a purpose.
And so my purpose was to become the woman I
had needed when I was homeless, un addicted back in
(04:12):
the eighties. So when I was homemost un addicted from
eighty six about to nineteen ninety, I couldn't take care
of myself. I could not feed myself, clothe myself. I
couldn't do anything other than chase the next dose because
I was so disregulated inside my mind, my soul, my spirit,
(04:34):
my nervous system that the only thing that kept me
moving forward was the next hit of whatever. At that point,
it was anything that would take me outside of myself.
So twenty fifteen, I'm home, I'm clean, and sober two years,
I'm doing really well. And God says, okay, everything we
talked about in twenty thirteen, it's time to put it
(04:57):
to you. So I was like, okay, what and he said,
here's a million dollars go And I was like in
my head kind of freaking out, and in my heart,
my spirit, I knew that God's million dollars looked greater
than anything that man could come up with. So I
didn't look for a physical million dollars. I just knew
(05:17):
that my marching orders were it's time to go, so go.
And he told me to go to Maine in South Clinton,
and so I did. I had a car that I
was borrowing from a friend, and I threw some flip
flops and some bottled water in the trunk and I
went and sat at the corner of Maine and South Clinton.
He told me from six to eight pm on Saturdays.
(05:38):
So I was being obedient and I did that. I know.
I've been doing it ever since, and we've had to
move around a couple of times, but we've never not
been out on the street on a Saturday night from
six to eight somewhere, no matter what. So for nearly
ten years, we've not missed a Saturday night.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
If someone wanted to find out where you know, we're
actually you're going to be on that Saturday from six
to eight, how would they find that out.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
We have a website, now, okay, we're all grown up.
When we have a website, it's called Hope on Amission
dot org. All one word, and there's a calendar and
you can click on the day it'll say dinner or
breakfast and dinner. So Tuesdays and Thursdays we do dinner.
And when you click on dinner, it opens up to
a little bubble and it shows you what time we're
serving a meal and what the address is. So on
(06:24):
Tuesdays and Thursdays it's at six hundred Main Street in Poughkeepsie,
which is the old Queen City car wash. For anyone
who's been here forever, and if you haven't been here
and you only know where Family Dollar, t Day's Pizza
or Pete's Famous are, we're right in that vicinity. On Saturdays,
we're now serving breakfast and dinner at one hundred and
thirty Cannon Street. It's a municipal parking lot right behind
(06:48):
where Time Warner or whatever the cable company has been
but right there in that parking lot, and breakfast is
one hour from eight thirty to nine thirty, Dinner is
still two hours six to eight, and then Tuesday and
Thursday it's a one hour meal from six to seven.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
And you seem to have you show it's the city
of Poughkeepsie you have built into your ministry or your
activities is an urban focus. In other words, is it
accidental that it's in the cities.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
It's not accidental at all. Like I said, God sent
me to Maine in South Clinton. That's where when twenty fifteen,
and in my homelessness and addiction story, primarily between White
Street and Clinton Street was where I ran. My entire
life existed in a two block not even radius, it
was just a two block stretch.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
And that's where I did whatever I needed to do
to get whatever I needed to get, and that's where
the people who I needed to get it from were
hanging out and selling it.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
So that was right.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Our goal is to meet people where they are not
ask much. We don't ask anything of anyone. They have
a hard enough time getting through the day. We're there
to give a blessing to love them. And meet them
where they are and let them know that hope is
not lost, that there is a different life that they
can have, and we will help them get there.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Right right. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to
Finding Out with Pete and the poet Gold, and I'm
the poet Gold, and we're here today talking with Karama Bakiyoki,
who is the founder and executive director of Hope on
a Mission.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And you know, you speak so disharmingly, like comfortably about God.
I'm you know, traditional, sort of politically left Catholic, and
you know, so I'm alert to the fact that the
world is whole and we should act that way. But
I don't have the familiarity. I'm not on a first base,
(08:51):
first name basis with God. Can you explain how that
happened to you? We judging from your name's an Italian name,
so you might have had a brush up with the church.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
So I was born into a family that was Italian.
My dad's family was Italian, his mom was Hungarian or
Austrian something like that, but they were Catholic. My mother's
side of the family were wasps white Anglosastin Protestants. They
(09:21):
were Irish, and Welsh, and they really were. There was
no There was no religious upbringing in my childhood. I
didn't know God. I didn't know of a God. I
didn't know the name of God. And you know, Pledge
of allegiance in school, but that was really it. There
was no practice in my home. My parents separated and
(09:42):
divorced when I was seven, and my mother remarried another
Italian Catholic man because that's her type, and he was
angry at God, and so there was again no religion
his sisters. However, in New Jersey, we're very Italian Catholic,
(10:02):
and so I watched my cousins like make first Holy
Communion and get Confirmation, and I also saw them get
envelopes full of money. So that was my draw. That
was my draw, being honest, you know, I would, being
ten eleven years old, knew in a family I wanted,
I wanted envelopes full of money too. So when we
(10:25):
moved from New Milford, Connectic to Sharon, Connecticut, we moved
onto the Green in Sharon, Connecticut, which is this beautiful
little sort of lawn, and from our home I could
walk to four churches. There was an Episcopal church, a
congregational church, a Roman Catholic Church, and a Methodist church.
I only had familiarity with the Roman Catholic Church because
(10:47):
of my cousins, my step cousins, and also when we
lived in New Milford, there was a family across the
street that had five daughters and they all went to
Catholic church on Sundays, so I used to hijack a
ride with them. But at that point, my like my
tenth and eleventh year, I really started feeling a spiritual pull.
I wanted to do something. I wanted to know, I
wanted to belong to something, and I didn't feel like
(11:11):
I belonged to my step family. Really. I was reminded
often that we were this step not anybody's fault. I'm
not blaming, I'm not a victim of it. It just
was the way it was happening at the time. And
because my mother's biological family was far away and none
of them still her twin brothers, didn't do church, None
(11:35):
of their children did church. Nobody I knew did church
that was in my family, so I had gone. I
met a Jewish kid in school, I went to synagogue.
I went, you know. Then when we moved to Sharon,
I met a family the Fair Services, and the father
was the archaeology and anthropology professor here at Vassar, Yes,
(11:59):
Walter Pherson. This, yeah, So his youngest daughter and I
were very close and I got to run around inside
their home and they had people from around the world
come to their home, so I learned about things from
Pakistan and people from Asia, you know, all parts of Asia,
and it was just fascinating to be there and learn
(12:19):
different things. So I got tastes of things and it
was really awesome, but I didn't again, I didn't really
know where I belonged. So I started Roman Catholic Church
when I was in eighth grade. I got crash course
in Communion and Confirmation and I got the envelopes. That
was great, and then they took Father Reagan away and
(12:40):
I was like, I'm not signing up for this anymore
if you keep moving to people who i'd learned to
trust so because home wasn't really trustworthy, so I trusted
Father Reagan and I went to CCD and all of that,
and then they made him move and I'm like, well,
you know, deuces, y'all, I'm coming back here.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
And then I'm sorry. So what was the place of surrender.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Oh, the short story never a short story. So when
I became nineteen, I was, I was. So I graduated
high school. I'm drinking, I'm drugging because everyone around me
is and I don't. And I still want to belong
So I belong to you know, doesn't have to be
good behavior. You want negative attention. Still, I'm gonna get
(13:25):
it where I can get it. So I'm hanging out
with this crowd and they're smoking weed, which I hated,
and they're drinking, which I hated, but they were using cocaine,
which I found.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Out I loved.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
And then of course I date the dealer in town
who's thirteen years my senior. I'm nineteen, he's thirty two.
Why my father didn't stop that, I don't know. He
just complained about the color of the guy's skin. He
didn't say to me, why is he a predator?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Why is he.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Drugging you up and bringing you home? Like where's but whatever?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Right?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
So I don't know. Oh, my mother said to me.
So he was the first man of color that I dated.
And my mother's like, why do you have to date
black men? And I'm like, well, I could date black
women and she never brought it up, so that was great.
But anyway, I learned how to do a lot of
cocaine things with that person. And then I also learned
that this is not the life I want to live,
(14:18):
and I need to get out. And there was a
Methodist pastor who lived next door to one of my
favorite friends, and he was married to a woman, so
number one, he got to be married, which that's cool.
They had a child, and they had adopted a child
who looked nothing like them. So I was like, I
can sign up for a religion that looks like that
because there's openness, open mindedness. I want to be a
(14:39):
part of that. So that's where I first gave my
heart to Jesus at nineteen years old. I said, all right, God,
come get me, Come get me. And so we had
a really beautiful walk, he and I and then I
would go home and I would be telling my mom
about all the spiritual stuff that was happening inside and
it was really amazing, and she'd be drunk and she'd
ask me if I had to joint was bad? So
(15:01):
I was like, okay, I can't tell you anything anymore.
And then I had to sort of navigate moving away
from my mom, breaking up with the boyfriend who wanted
to continue to use drugs and endanger my life. And
so I thought, I'm going to sign up for chrystal
Er Business Institute so I can drive to Poughkeepsie because
it's a half an hour from Sharon. And when I
(15:23):
got here, I found more people like me. So I
found the school and I was great in school, but
I didn't finish because I was busy hanging out on
College Hill with the other white girls who liked to
hang out with the boys of color. And then I
lost my life. Basically, I just found that cocaine was
(15:45):
way more fun than being normal. I found that losing
my job and losing my housing were not as important
as finding more drugs. And I really just got lost.
And I was lost for a few years. And I
got lost. I left Poughkeepsie and went to Newburgh for
a few I don't know, maybe a year left there,
(16:06):
went to Jamaica, Queens, went to far rockaway, always trying
to find me, but just finding more people like me.
And wherever you go, you bring yourself so wherever you
but you don't know that until you know it. So anyway,
I get back to Poughkeepsie. It's nineteen ninety. I get
busted for shoplifting or something that was one of the
(16:28):
things that I did, and I had to do a
six month sentence. So I'm in jail at Dusha's County Jail,
Hamilton Street Hotel we called it, and I was there
from February to June of nineteen ninety And when I
got out, I said, I'm not going to use anymore.
I don't want to live this life anymore. I really
want something different, and I didn't know how to get it,
and so I hung out sort of homeless. I wasn't
(16:51):
going to use the shelter. I found a friend who
was selling drugs, but she said, I'm not going to
give you any but I could stay there. So I
was staying there with her, and then I started using
again because well, i'll give you can hold the package.
You're doing great. Blah blah blah's shod language, and we
ended up having a fight. I was homeless again. Now
(17:11):
I'm using again. Now I don't know what to do
with myself, and I'm disgusted. And a gentleman whom i'd
met previously pulled up in his car one night and
he said, what happened to you? Why do you look
like that? You don't look like the person I met?
And I didn't remember him from anywhere, but that doesn't
mean he wasn't remembering the truth of me. So we talked.
I hung out with him for a little bit, hung
(17:32):
out with him a couple of times, and he said,
you know, if you can get yourself together, you can
you can stay with me. So one night in October
of nineteen ninety, I was like, can you just come
get me? I can't do this anymore. And he gave
me a ride to Saint Francis Hospital and I checked
myself into the psychia and I said, if you don't
keep me here, I'm going to go to the bridge.
I never would have, but I just was so desperate
(17:54):
to have a different life right and that started me
on a forward path, and so I did some time there.
They sent me up to Ithaco, where I attended an
impatient program, and then I transferred out of that and
I did intensive outpatient and I did some therapy, and
I was living with this gentleman who became my husband,
(18:16):
and we bought a home together and we had babies
and it was all wonderful. And then I divorced him
and started drinking and drugging again, and I found myself
in twenty thirteen, sitting in the same jail cell I
left in nineteen ninety. And that was the point of surrender.
That was the two by four to the head from
(18:37):
my Lord and Savior Jesus who said to me, who
said to me, I have a plan? Can you just
are you done? Are you done? Running around?
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I hold that thought. If you're just tuning in, you're
listening to finding Out with Pete and the poet Gold,
and I'm the poet Gold. And we're here with Karma Bacchioki,
who is the founder and executive director of Hope on
a Mission, sharing her compelling story of recovery to triumph.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yes. Yeah, So I'm sitting in the jail cell that
i'd left in nineteen ninety, twenty three years later, hanging
to myself, how the heck did I get here? Why
am I here again? And I hear that still small
voice saying you left me behind? And I was like, oh,
(19:26):
so I'm taking my fist to God. I'm angry, I'm
calling him out, I'm telling him all kinds and telling
him what a big fat jerk he is, and using
you know.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Other language, spy your words.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah, yeah, And we're going back and forth, and he says,
I love you so my holy spirit. Bumps, I'm gonna cry.
I love you so much. I've waited for you, like
a prodigal child to return home because I have so
much more for.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
You to do the work, to do the work.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
And if you will just be still and listen, listen
and obey. I used to tell my kids, your job
is still and obey, never understanding that those were God's
words to me. Right. So I'm like, oh, dude, that's
what you want from me. You want me to look.
(20:13):
This is why I said to him. I said, look, Adam,
and you've messed up? Can enable messed up? What are
the chances of me getting this right at all without you?
Probably zero to none. Right, So, if humanity is what
you've created, you're in charge of it. You do a
better job than I do. I'm just going to give
it all to you, and you tell me what to do.
And that was that's what we did.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
That's what we did.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So the prodigal daughter is your story. You returned home
to God and he was.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
There yeah, yeah, And he said, you know, everything you've
been through is training. Everything that you have been through
in your life has been training to be the woman
I've created you to be and.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
So, and that training wound up showing yourself as respects,
understanding the dignity of people.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Who Yeah, is that yes? That is one way to
say it. Absolutely training in that. If I haven't lived it,
I can't share the experience. I can't speak to someone
who I can't say to someone who's living that life,
(21:21):
you need to just do blah blah blah. I can
say to them, I have been where you are. I've
suffered some of the child to traumas that you've suffered.
I made the mistakes as a teenager, and I did
these things, and I mistreated myself and my body. I
disrespected myself because of the experiences that I had. I
didn't know my value, I didn't know my worth. And
(21:43):
now I get to say, it doesn't matter where you've
been or what you've been through. God loves you no
matter what. And you don't believe in God, do you
believe that I believe in God? And they usually say
I say good, then just believe in my belief and
we can work from there.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Let me carry you from me and.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
The sacrament that you dispenses, the peanut butter and joby sandwich.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
Yes, okay, yeah yeah. Food feed your soul. I'm a
feed your mouth and your belly. I'm a feed your
heart and your.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Soul in the process, right, right, And and the surrender
is the place of honesty, yeah, you know which sometimes
it's difficult for us as humans to get to that
place because we associate sometimes that would shame.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Yes, And our ego is built to protect us from
the shame and to protect us from all of the
harm when but when we get to a certain place
in our lives, at least for me, and when I
got to a certain place in my life, the ego
that had kept me alive and survived so many things
was ultimately what was my downfall, right, And so to
(22:54):
crack open the ego and spill all the guts out,
and that's where the surrender happens. And to leave that
on the floor and say all right, just take me,
do with me what you will, and I will align
with it. It's been a really amazing journey.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
It's an amazing story. And going from you know, having
the meal at Main Street and South Clinton or North
Clinton Street to having an actual organization is a journey
to that or also.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Yeah, so yeah, being obedient, just stepping out in faith.
And then and then so you know, telling everybody all
the time. Soon as they came down off the mountain
in Saranac Lake and I came back to Poughkeepsie to
Joe's halfway house, and then I tapping all of that
and joining a church and going to home based Bible studies.
(23:48):
I told everyone what God had told me. And I
just told everyone all the time, everybody. Every time somebody said,
you know, what are you doing these days?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Here's the story.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
This is what I'm going to do. God told me
to create hope on a mission, and God told me
to do this thing, and I'm gonna do it. I'm
gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I had my
marching orders, and in twenty fifteen he said go and
then I started. And then people who had heard me
talking about it for two years were like, oh, can
I give you some sucks? Can I bring some granola bars?
Can I bring some what? Yes? Yes to everything all
(24:18):
the time, and we still say yes to pretty much
everything all the time when people want to bring something,
it's who am I to tell you? No. If God's
put it on your heart to come join us, then
come and see what we do and tell me where
you fit in, and then let God and your open
heart and your open mind lead you. I don't tell
people what to do when they come to volunteer with us.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
How would somebody give you something? And another? How can
people get in touch with you?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
So Facebook and Instagram we have pages and you can
send a message. You can call me on my cell
phone directly nine one four four five six two six
three three or send me a text on my phone
is public. You can go to our website, Hope on
a mission dot org. You can join us at any
of our meals and just show up. Just show up
(25:07):
and check out what we're doing. And then if there's
something that pulls your heart and you want to participate,
go for it. We love it. We love it. So
people visit and they say, oh, I like to bake brownies. Great,
bake brownies some brownies.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Great.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Oh you have a connection with socks. I mean we
get five thousand pairs of bombas a year. Bombas is real, y'all.
Bombas is real. They are real. Buy your socks at
Bombas because for every pair that you buy, they donate
a pair.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Fantastic.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
It has been amazing and people love Bomba socks in
the street. They make them specifically for people who are
struggling with homelessness. So there's all this technology in them
and they stay dry and they keep your feet toasty.
They're pretty awesome. But yeah, when somebody says I want
to participate on how can I volunteer? I say, show up,
join us and see what works for you. That's how
(26:00):
Kim Green, who is now our volunteer donations coordinator, that's
how she started six almost seven years ago. She had
been traditionally, she'd been doing English as a second language
or literacy, I think one of those things. She was
a nursery school teacher, and she wanted to do more
(26:23):
and something different, so she started coming and hanging out
with us. And then that's when people were donating lots
of things, and I was getting overwhelmed, and she said, well,
can I start collecting some things? And I'm like, yeah,
you can. And then I like, how about a donation's
coordinator name?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And she's like sure, And so now half of her
house belongs to all Wanda mentioned and for a lot
of our volunteers, they all have hoam home corners and
their home hom And.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
One of the things that I think a lot of
people are afraid of white middle classed people like me
afraid we're not going to like people who are homeless
or exicted because there's a way in which our experience
with them can be severe because we addressed them with
a condescension that they obviously pick up and give back
(27:16):
to us. But I guess the simple question, do you
like the people that that you serve them?
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Okay, yeah, so I'd like to address what you just
said in that people feel our lack of respect for them. Right. So,
when when I was struggling with homelessness and addiction and
I had shame over the marks on my arms and
(27:45):
the marks on my face and the lack of body
weight and in ability to stand still, I had a
lot of shame about being me and being in the
body I was carrying at the time. But what always
got through to me with someone looking me directly in
the eyes with a smile. Absolutely, And so that's what
(28:05):
we do. And that's when people say what do I
do or how do I act? You don't act, You
just be be present. If you can be present to yourself,
then you can be present with someone who needs you.
Being present to self is a really tricky game because
not many of us are taught that, or trauma prevents
it from being present with ourselves. And that's a whole
(28:26):
other radio show on another day. However, if you can
step outside of yourself, to get back into yourself for
a second, and just maybe say a meditation first, maybe
say a prayer first. Maybe say it's not about me,
it's about the person in front of me. When you
(28:47):
see a person who you label as other, just look
them in the eyes and smile and say, hi, we're
not going to eat you alive. And if they do,
you're okay. You'd be all right, I promise you.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Said a line I from one of my poems, in
the poems call Love and and one of the lines
is step outside yourself, to see yourself, to be yourself,
to fine within yourself. At the beginning of all you
is love and and that's how we can I see
you right Because we're afraid.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
We're afraid, and fear is the biggest liar on the planet.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yes, it is literally.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
We're not going to get a better line than that.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Camia, you know it's it's wonderful. I'm glad that you
were able to come on today. It's wonderful speaking with you.
Thank you for sharing your story, and you know, go
on the website Hope on a Mission dot org. Is
that correct, and support our organization. And thank you to
our listeners for listening once again to finding out with
Pete and the Poe Go We truly appreciate you.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Thank you, thank you for having me
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