September 2, 2024 • 19 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, meet John and Ashely Marsh. Amidst addiction, infidelity, divorce, pending bankruptcy, and suicidal thoughts, John and Ashely miraculously healed their relationship together and now restore dilapidated cities.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
And we continue here with our American stories, and we
love telling stories of redemption, stories to give you hope
amidst your own daily struggles and the noise that's out
there each and every.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Day in the news.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And now our own Joey Cortez brings us one of
these stories, the story of John and Ashley Marsh.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I was on a trail and a track that I
couldn't get off of. I was just in this. I
felt I was in a tug of war and I
was the rope. This pain and suffering just got so great.
I started fantasizing about killing myself. So I figured out
where you got this old house with a huge addic fan.
I'm gonna pull the addic fan out, set up a
huge pulley up in the attic, set up where I
(00:56):
could have it where I knew it wouldn't break, and
I got it all set up where I could hang
myself out of that hole. Our single knights were fourteen
foot so I never hit the floor. It's going to work.
And I went up there to hang myself and had
no reservations.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
John was born in Albany, Georgia.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
The parents that were fourteen and seventeen years old, he
was put up for adoption and taken in by an
incredibly loving family. As a kid, he made good grades
and listened to his parents until I rebelled.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
And rebellion's interesting. It takes you further than you want
to go and cost you more than you want to pay.
And so I stepped across the line and sat with
a little girl. I was thirteen, she was twelve, rode
my bicycle to her house and changed her life. Now,
in hindsight, I was longing for acceptance. I was looking
to matter, to be valuable. Two things I found pretty quickly.
(01:51):
You didn't have to guess whether you were accepted or not.
And that was with girls. And then right after that,
at about fourteen years old, I started working and making money,
and those two things, when you were accepted, you knew it.
So I started to high end car audio business. I
was mentored for a year, and then sixteen years old,
I was making one thousand dollars a week after school's
doing high end audio. And I stepped across the line
(02:13):
and tried drugs for the first time, and then I
proceeded to go with that and be a drug addict
for probably the next for many years of my life,
five seven years of my life. It's something I realized
now looking back on rebellion. When you have rules and
regulations without a relationship, that always equals rebellion. And so
my parents loved me, but they didn't know how to
reach me. I left home by seventeen years old so
(02:36):
as I could graduate, and I barely graduated. I was
no longer interested. It's interested in making money. I said,
why should I listen to y'all? I make more than
you do teaching. I said, this is I don't get it.
You don't get the world y'all trying to put me in.
I didn't want to take and come into my dad's business.
I wanted to do my own thing, and so I
moved to Atlanta for just a short period of time
doing high end audio, helping them launch a shout there,
(02:57):
and then ended up in a place called Auburn, Alabama,
and working for a guy named Big Jimmy Jimmy's Car Stereo,
who's a big, old blonde hair, blue eyed jew that
loved me and we became quick friends. He said, you're
gonna make more money than you ever made in your
whole life. It's gonna be awesome, I said, well, I
liked the sign of that, so I come here. First
year I was here, I made almost one hundred thousand
(03:19):
dollars in cash as an eighteen year old boy. You know,
he didn't like the girl though, that moved here. That
was my girlfriend at the time, and moved here.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
I grew up in Pepol, Alabama. I grew up in
a very simple life. Looking back now into it, I
would say in a poor family.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I grew up in a very hard home.
Speaker 6 (03:41):
I had a lot of different types of conflicts in
my home, from alcoholism to abuse. And first job was
at KFC, and then I started working at different places
in the mall. So I bought a car that my
first car, bought for myself. I was so proud of it.
I didn't have any music, and I love music. I've
always either got music in my ears as playing in
the house. It's always in my car. It's my one thing.
(04:02):
I'd rather have a radio than air conditioner. I don't care.
So I just love to feel the beat in the rhythm,
and I love to move. And so anyway, here I
am in my car, my first car, no radio, and
he's like, I take it to big Jimmy, he'll take
care of you. It's like okay. So we get down
there and John is who Jimmy calls up front and
to check out my speakers because he says they're just
not connected. And John's like, you don't have any speakers.
(04:25):
She has no speakers, Jimmy. So Jimmy's like, okay, I'm
gonna get her some speakers. Gets John installid.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I remember the first time I saw her. I really did.
It's some of those things you know in life where
and I thought she was beautiful, but I recognize something
more than beauty. I told her. I said, first time
I ever saw you, there was a royalty in a
class about you that you were like a queen without
the crown. There was something so special and so unique.
And I said, I saw it the very first time
(04:52):
I saw you.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
Jimmy, It's like, you know what, I'm like you and
I think you're a smart girl. I wants you to
come work for me part of his plans. So he
decided this girl is no more for John, but this
one's the one. So he's like, you know, matchmaker in
heaven going on, And so anyhow, I start working for him,
and the next thing. You know, he has me and
John doing everything together, and I'm just I think he's
(05:15):
just the most amazing thing I'd ever met. You know,
he wasn't from here, thank goodness, because all the dudes
from here are just idiots, is what I thought. He
was like Jamestein to me, a little bit rebellious, which
turned out to me a lot rebellious, drove a gee,
you know, just all the things. He just had, the
looks and the act and everything else about him. So
I was guy guy her. But he had a girlfriend
(05:36):
and she was not too keen obviously on other girls
being around. So Jimmy finally hells me, I don't like
this girl that he's with, but I like you. And
I was like, well that's all good and great, but
he has a girlfriend and I don't date guys with girlfriends.
And he's like, well, so you don't think he can
get them. I was like, oh no, I do not
(05:57):
even get them. That's not a problems. Like, well, I
bet you five hundred dollars you can't. So I took
his bet, I won his bet, and I got the guy.
So that's where we left off, was Jimmy match making us.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
She said she said you're on Fatman.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
I said, you're on Fatman.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
We start dating. Of course, I don't want to be
alone much because I'm not that good of taking care
of myself. I needed someone because I'm bit like an
indie car. Lots of maintenance, required heavy team and lots
of people to keep all the support systems going because
these cars are expensive and they break down a lot,
(06:36):
but their high performance. So I felt like that's the
way I was when it came to it. So Ash
came into our life and we began to live together.
We were dating for a couple of years, and then
this guy came into the car Staio shop and he'd
bring in these cars that have been wrecked that he
was repairing, and the wiring wouldn't work right on him.
He like, can you fix this? Oh yeah, no problem,
(06:57):
I'd fix it pretty soon. I'm fixing quite a few
of these. Like oh, man, me and you need to
do something together. So he's getting wrecked cars fixed up
in North Alabama, taking them and getting the metal work,
the framework and body work done, sending them down here.
We get them painted, and then i'd put them back
together and make them work. And we're making ten thousand
(07:17):
dollars a car doing this. We're starting going, man, we
ought to be doing more this stuff and so and
it really felt like the first time I'd really left
somebody I love deep. And I told Jimmy, I said,
I want to go out on my own and do this.
It was really heartbreaking because he was super close to
me and loved me and a great mentor. And so
we went out and started. I started my first business
(07:38):
in the automobile business. I think I was twenty years
old when we started this business. And Ash and I
living together. Her dad really hated me, really hated me.
His daughter comes in there at eighteen says, I'm moving out.
I'm moving in with this guy. And she had never rebelled.
She had listened to everything her parents had told her
to do and done everything they said all the way
(07:59):
up until then. And so she moved in with us.
And so quite a few nights her mama call say
he's on the way, y'all, watch out, he's drunk and
he's got his shotgun. So he'd come and tap on
all the windows of the apartment so that we would
know that he was serious about it. So he did
not want her living with me did not want us together,
(08:20):
which made it a little more volatile.
Speaker 6 (08:23):
When I moved into the apartment with him, my life
changed completely. I did find out that he was doing drugs.
None of us are who we peacock ourselves to be.
The moments of sitting and listening to Kenny g and
looking into my eyes and you're the most important thing
in the world, and was true only until I moved in.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I didn't know how to love a lady. And that's
one of the things I've realized is it's not intuitive.
I mean, you've got more preparation to get a license
or learners permit for your card and to get married.
And so when we came into this relationship together, I
began to immediately dominate her instead of love her and
tell her what I wasn't gonna do and who she
(09:06):
couldn't be, and she was trapped again. And so within
a short period of time of us living together, looking
back now, I realized she was trapped. I just said
I gotta move forward, and I said, I love this girl,
I'm gonna marry her, and we're gonna keep moving forward.
I was in business. We're running two or three businesses
(09:27):
at that time, by twenty one years old. I was
a million and a half dollars in debt, ninety nine
thousand dollars overdrawn. I was a drug addict. We're running
multiple businesses and we were in serious trouble.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And you're listening to the story of John and Ashley
marsh and do any of the characters sound familiar, because
if they don't, you haven't lived much of a life.
When we come back, we're going to continue with the
remarkable story on our American stories. And we continue here
(10:10):
with our American stories. And we left off with Ashley
discovering that John was a drug addict and in serious debt,
and the two obviously we're not getting along, but despite
the turmoil, the two got married.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Let's return to the story.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Ash and I find out approparaders. But there's just so
many problems, and so I've got a partner. I'm in
this business where in lots of debt. I'm doing the
work myself because I'm gifted with my hands. He's running
the money. He comes to me one day and he said,
I got to tell you something. Ash has been running
around on you for a while. She's seeing one of
our employees pation tactic. But I felt like, well, my
(10:52):
whole life fell apart. Everything I ever wanted, He can't
trust it. And I said, okay, I know what you do.
You get a new wife, a new life, get a
new vehicle, reboot, get the best lawyer you can and
fight started going to the lawyers were setting up the things
and ashing our fighting. I'm doing all I can to
try to find a way to win, to hurt her
(11:14):
and win. The pressure was incredible, and I started hearing
something in my mind, and it kept going, why don't
you kill yourself? Why don't you kill yourself? Why don't
you kill yourself? And it became louder and louder louder.
I felt I was in a tug of war and
I was the rope, and this pain and suffering of
this just got so great. I started fantasizing about killing myself.
(11:36):
So I figured out, when you got this old house
with this huge addic fan, I'm gonna pull the attic
fan out, set up a huge pulley up in the
attic and set up where I could have it where
I knew it wouldn't break. And I got it all
set up where I could hang myself out of that hole.
Our single knights were fourteen foot so I never hit
the floor. It's gonna work. And I went up there
to hang myself and had no reservations. But I got
(11:58):
down on that old plywood floor and started crying out
to God I never met before, and it got reframed.
Instead of killed myself, he said, why don't you die
to yourself? Now? It was so similar yet so different,
and there was light and life in that and I
cried out to a god I never knew, like lightning
struck me. Every hair on my body stood up, time
(12:20):
stood still, and for about two solid hours, every care
her pains, suffering, regret, mistake I made like a syringe,
got pushed out of the bottom of my feet, to
the top of my head and out in tears. And
I said, this one always went, this is what I've
always been looking for right here. Nothing has ever filled
me like this, nothing's ever felt by this. I told myself,
(12:40):
all you, all the days of my life, no matter what,
you have me without any conditions. And so it began
the journey of me beginning to find out what God
had for me. And I didn't quit drugs, they quit me.
I walked out of place for every change got struck
by lightning.
Speaker 6 (12:59):
I was still sick the gentleman that I had committed
adultery with and found out that I was pregnant. And
I didn't know if I was pregnant with John's child
or his child, And that's what broke me, not finding
out I was pregnant, but I ended up losing the child.
And at that moment was when I had nothing left.
There was nothing left. I had no more ideas, no
(13:21):
more solutions, no more energy, nothing to try to figure
out life for myself or why I wanted to be
in and everything else. I never thought about suicide. I
just felt so desperately alone.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
By the skin of their teeth, John and Nash evaded divorce.
They met a few mentors that taught them how to
love and how to be loved, how to forgive and
how to heal, and so their life together began anew
One of our mentors.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
That we met selling the car to that started a relationship.
He actually counseled us. He's liked, got to get out
of living in the basement of this house. You know,
you've got it fixed upstairs. You've got you know, this
is something that's important as your home. We lived in
the basement of our house for six and a half
years in a one bedroom apartment. That's what he's talking
about all Crampton there. It was me, John Nelson, our oldest,
(14:15):
a dog, and a friend. It took us a while
to work on that house, and it was in the
middle of that same neighborhood that had all the prostitutes
and the drug addicts and just destitution no hope. I
mean when you looked around, every house was broken, everything
looked abandoned, and so ours fit in the neighborhood up
until we worked on it, and then we turned the
(14:36):
lights on. The next thing, you know, we were like
a beacon in the neighborhood. But it honestly was just
a reflection literally of what was happening in us. And
so we were working together trying to work on that
house and everything. That's when he transitioned from going from
doing the cars and and he's like, I really like this.
And we got through that.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I was like, what do you want to do.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
He's like, I like this.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I like doing this. So we started doing houses and
we did two things. We're renovating houses there in our town.
And then I got this idea. I ash fell in
love with the house in Albany. She said, Baby, its
beautiful house I loved to buy. And so I started thinking.
I said, what if I unbuilt it backwards? What if
I just disassembled it? Took the last thing they put in,
took that out, and just unbuilt it backwards. So that's
(15:18):
the first house we ever disassembled. We took it apart
in ninety days, driving one hundred and twenty miles one
way after work, and unbuilt it backward to the boards.
We put our thirty three hundred dollars tax returning that
baby sold it made fifteen thousand dollars. That's what we
rolled in to. Doing everything we did. I started architectural
salvage business. Next thing you know, we're doing houses like crazy.
(15:40):
She would do the design work, I'd run the cruise
and next thing you know, we had done seventy five
houses in that one neighborhood with no money. Our guys
started saying, well, John, you need to keep some of this,
because if not, why don't you keep do ten houses
for others keep one for yourself. Well, next thing I know,
we got a pile of property going and I got
we had to come up with the rental business. So
(16:01):
we're running construction business, architectural salvage in a rental business.
And we almost finished everything in our neighborhood over there.
We've done like seventy years sol houses and I was like,
what we're gonna do next. She's like, well, downtown Oblaca
was super Turkey. In fact, right before we started buying
our first houses down there, two ladies were executed by
a gang member downtown Opelaika. It was just it was broken,
and she said, I can't walk by this one more
(16:22):
time and see it this one. We got to do something.
I said, well, let's buy the whole place. She's liked,
we ain't got any money. I said, doesn't matter. If
it's something we're supposed to do, the provision is going
to be there. Provision is down the road. We just
got to keep stepping. I only need enough call and
paint for today, so I have a number today, tomorrow's
going to be there. So now, looking back, we've done
(16:44):
two hundred and ten structures in ten blocks, and we've
helped start over forty businesses to the saving of our city.
And see, God loves cities. It was his idea from
the start. I think God invented cities, but we're interested
in seeing them redeemed, the restoration and redemption for cities,
just like people. And what we began to realize is
(17:06):
we don't just make structures. Structures make us. One thing
I learned about cities, number one is the biggest mistake.
We believe if we fix the buildings, that would save
our city, and it doesn't. Renovation is not revitalization. It's
just renovation. And you can fix the stuff up and
it be dead inside. It's like a movie set. People
(17:27):
in businesses add the life to buildings. And we learn
one of the first things we always do is start
with food, because so much meaningful happens at the table.
You decide who to marry, where to bury, what's going
to happen. Very few things are incarn if you don't
stick a lot inside your body. Food matters, and good
food people will drive where I can get people to
drive the worst part of the neighborhood for good barbecue.
(17:50):
And so we'll start with food and fellowship where we
can build one iconic, amazing food place in a town.
To transform a town. People start coming from an hour away.
When little town we're working in has thirty five hundred people,
and the first restaurant will work on there sees eighty
eight hundred people a month, So it's strong people on arm.
So our work now for ash and I is to
(18:12):
consult help people who want to change cities who share
our same vision and values. We think there will be
a time to come that people are going to recognize
that historic downtowns in this fabric are irreplaceable real estate
when they're under professional management, thoughtful vision, and a team
that has a collaborated approach to where they're going, that
(18:33):
does good and does well. And can you do both? Yes,
accept no less than to do good and do well.
We've got a vision for saving cities.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And we've been listening to John and Ashley Marsh and
what a story this is. I felt I was in
a tug of war and I was the rope. That's
how it started. He was looking to kill himself and
his wife, well, she was at the end of her
rope too.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Then something happened. He said, he cried out to a
god he never knew, and boy did he get a reply.
And ultimately he said, I didn't quit drugs. They quit me.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And they went about restoring not only their lives, but
the lives of the people around them by restoring houses.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
But again, a house without a restoration of the people
inside it is not much. John and Ashley Marsh's story
a remarkable renovation story. Here on our American Stories
And we continue here with our American stories, and we
love telling stories of redemption, stories to give you hope
amidst your own daily struggles and the noise that's out
there each and every.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Day in the news.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And now our own Joey Cortez brings us one of
these stories, the story of John and Ashley Marsh.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I was on a trail and a track that I
couldn't get off of. I was just in this. I
felt I was in a tug of war and I
was the rope. This pain and suffering just got so great.
I started fantasizing about killing myself. So I figured out
where you got this old house with a huge addic fan.
I'm gonna pull the addic fan out, set up a
huge pulley up in the attic, set up where I
(00:56):
could have it where I knew it wouldn't break, and
I got it all set up where I could hang
myself out of that hole. Our single knights were fourteen
foot so I never hit the floor. It's going to work.
And I went up there to hang myself and had
no reservations.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
John was born in Albany, Georgia.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
The parents that were fourteen and seventeen years old, he
was put up for adoption and taken in by an
incredibly loving family. As a kid, he made good grades
and listened to his parents until I rebelled.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
And rebellion's interesting. It takes you further than you want
to go and cost you more than you want to pay.
And so I stepped across the line and sat with
a little girl. I was thirteen, she was twelve, rode
my bicycle to her house and changed her life. Now,
in hindsight, I was longing for acceptance. I was looking
to matter, to be valuable. Two things I found pretty quickly.
(01:51):
You didn't have to guess whether you were accepted or not.
And that was with girls. And then right after that,
at about fourteen years old, I started working and making money,
and those two things, when you were accepted, you knew it.
So I started to high end car audio business. I
was mentored for a year, and then sixteen years old,
I was making one thousand dollars a week after school's
doing high end audio. And I stepped across the line
(02:13):
and tried drugs for the first time, and then I
proceeded to go with that and be a drug addict
for probably the next for many years of my life,
five seven years of my life. It's something I realized
now looking back on rebellion. When you have rules and
regulations without a relationship, that always equals rebellion. And so
my parents loved me, but they didn't know how to
reach me. I left home by seventeen years old so
(02:36):
as I could graduate, and I barely graduated. I was
no longer interested. It's interested in making money. I said,
why should I listen to y'all? I make more than
you do teaching. I said, this is I don't get it.
You don't get the world y'all trying to put me in.
I didn't want to take and come into my dad's business.
I wanted to do my own thing, and so I
moved to Atlanta for just a short period of time
doing high end audio, helping them launch a shout there,
(02:57):
and then ended up in a place called Auburn, Alabama,
and working for a guy named Big Jimmy Jimmy's Car Stereo,
who's a big, old blonde hair, blue eyed jew that
loved me and we became quick friends. He said, you're
gonna make more money than you ever made in your
whole life. It's gonna be awesome, I said, well, I
liked the sign of that, so I come here. First
year I was here, I made almost one hundred thousand
(03:19):
dollars in cash as an eighteen year old boy. You know,
he didn't like the girl though, that moved here. That
was my girlfriend at the time, and moved here.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
I grew up in Pepol, Alabama. I grew up in
a very simple life. Looking back now into it, I
would say in a poor family.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I grew up in a very hard home.
Speaker 6 (03:41):
I had a lot of different types of conflicts in
my home, from alcoholism to abuse. And first job was
at KFC, and then I started working at different places
in the mall. So I bought a car that my
first car, bought for myself. I was so proud of it.
I didn't have any music, and I love music. I've
always either got music in my ears as playing in
the house. It's always in my car. It's my one thing.
(04:02):
I'd rather have a radio than air conditioner. I don't care.
So I just love to feel the beat in the rhythm,
and I love to move. And so anyway, here I
am in my car, my first car, no radio, and
he's like, I take it to big Jimmy, he'll take
care of you. It's like okay. So we get down
there and John is who Jimmy calls up front and
to check out my speakers because he says they're just
not connected. And John's like, you don't have any speakers.
(04:25):
She has no speakers, Jimmy. So Jimmy's like, okay, I'm
gonna get her some speakers. Gets John installid.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I remember the first time I saw her. I really did.
It's some of those things you know in life where
and I thought she was beautiful, but I recognize something
more than beauty. I told her. I said, first time
I ever saw you, there was a royalty in a
class about you that you were like a queen without
the crown. There was something so special and so unique.
And I said, I saw it the very first time
(04:52):
I saw you.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
Jimmy, It's like, you know what, I'm like you and
I think you're a smart girl. I wants you to
come work for me part of his plans. So he
decided this girl is no more for John, but this
one's the one. So he's like, you know, matchmaker in
heaven going on, And so anyhow, I start working for him,
and the next thing. You know, he has me and
John doing everything together, and I'm just I think he's
(05:15):
just the most amazing thing I'd ever met. You know,
he wasn't from here, thank goodness, because all the dudes
from here are just idiots, is what I thought. He
was like Jamestein to me, a little bit rebellious, which
turned out to me a lot rebellious, drove a gee,
you know, just all the things. He just had, the
looks and the act and everything else about him. So
I was guy guy her. But he had a girlfriend
(05:36):
and she was not too keen obviously on other girls
being around. So Jimmy finally hells me, I don't like
this girl that he's with, but I like you. And
I was like, well that's all good and great, but
he has a girlfriend and I don't date guys with girlfriends.
And he's like, well, so you don't think he can
get them. I was like, oh no, I do not
(05:57):
even get them. That's not a problems. Like, well, I
bet you five hundred dollars you can't. So I took
his bet, I won his bet, and I got the guy.
So that's where we left off, was Jimmy match making us.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
She said she said you're on Fatman.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
I said, you're on Fatman.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
We start dating. Of course, I don't want to be
alone much because I'm not that good of taking care
of myself. I needed someone because I'm bit like an
indie car. Lots of maintenance, required heavy team and lots
of people to keep all the support systems going because
these cars are expensive and they break down a lot,
(06:36):
but their high performance. So I felt like that's the
way I was when it came to it. So Ash
came into our life and we began to live together.
We were dating for a couple of years, and then
this guy came into the car Staio shop and he'd
bring in these cars that have been wrecked that he
was repairing, and the wiring wouldn't work right on him.
He like, can you fix this? Oh yeah, no problem,
(06:57):
I'd fix it pretty soon. I'm fixing quite a few
of these. Like oh, man, me and you need to
do something together. So he's getting wrecked cars fixed up
in North Alabama, taking them and getting the metal work,
the framework and body work done, sending them down here.
We get them painted, and then i'd put them back
together and make them work. And we're making ten thousand
(07:17):
dollars a car doing this. We're starting going, man, we
ought to be doing more this stuff and so and
it really felt like the first time I'd really left
somebody I love deep. And I told Jimmy, I said,
I want to go out on my own and do this.
It was really heartbreaking because he was super close to
me and loved me and a great mentor. And so
we went out and started. I started my first business
(07:38):
in the automobile business. I think I was twenty years
old when we started this business. And Ash and I
living together. Her dad really hated me, really hated me.
His daughter comes in there at eighteen says, I'm moving out.
I'm moving in with this guy. And she had never rebelled.
She had listened to everything her parents had told her
to do and done everything they said all the way
(07:59):
up until then. And so she moved in with us.
And so quite a few nights her mama call say
he's on the way, y'all, watch out, he's drunk and
he's got his shotgun. So he'd come and tap on
all the windows of the apartment so that we would
know that he was serious about it. So he did
not want her living with me did not want us together,
(08:20):
which made it a little more volatile.
Speaker 6 (08:23):
When I moved into the apartment with him, my life
changed completely. I did find out that he was doing drugs.
None of us are who we peacock ourselves to be.
The moments of sitting and listening to Kenny g and
looking into my eyes and you're the most important thing
in the world, and was true only until I moved in.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I didn't know how to love a lady. And that's
one of the things I've realized is it's not intuitive.
I mean, you've got more preparation to get a license
or learners permit for your card and to get married.
And so when we came into this relationship together, I
began to immediately dominate her instead of love her and
tell her what I wasn't gonna do and who she
(09:06):
couldn't be, and she was trapped again. And so within
a short period of time of us living together, looking
back now, I realized she was trapped. I just said
I gotta move forward, and I said, I love this girl,
I'm gonna marry her, and we're gonna keep moving forward.
I was in business. We're running two or three businesses
(09:27):
at that time, by twenty one years old. I was
a million and a half dollars in debt, ninety nine
thousand dollars overdrawn. I was a drug addict. We're running
multiple businesses and we were in serious trouble.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And you're listening to the story of John and Ashley
marsh and do any of the characters sound familiar, because
if they don't, you haven't lived much of a life.
When we come back, we're going to continue with the
remarkable story on our American stories. And we continue here
(10:10):
with our American stories. And we left off with Ashley
discovering that John was a drug addict and in serious debt,
and the two obviously we're not getting along, but despite
the turmoil, the two got married.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Let's return to the story.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Ash and I find out approparaders. But there's just so
many problems, and so I've got a partner. I'm in
this business where in lots of debt. I'm doing the
work myself because I'm gifted with my hands. He's running
the money. He comes to me one day and he said,
I got to tell you something. Ash has been running
around on you for a while. She's seeing one of
our employees pation tactic. But I felt like, well, my
(10:52):
whole life fell apart. Everything I ever wanted, He can't
trust it. And I said, okay, I know what you do.
You get a new wife, a new life, get a
new vehicle, reboot, get the best lawyer you can and
fight started going to the lawyers were setting up the things
and ashing our fighting. I'm doing all I can to
try to find a way to win, to hurt her
(11:14):
and win. The pressure was incredible, and I started hearing
something in my mind, and it kept going, why don't
you kill yourself? Why don't you kill yourself? Why don't
you kill yourself? And it became louder and louder louder.
I felt I was in a tug of war and
I was the rope, and this pain and suffering of
this just got so great. I started fantasizing about killing myself.
(11:36):
So I figured out, when you got this old house
with this huge addic fan, I'm gonna pull the attic
fan out, set up a huge pulley up in the
attic and set up where I could have it where
I knew it wouldn't break. And I got it all
set up where I could hang myself out of that hole.
Our single knights were fourteen foot so I never hit
the floor. It's gonna work. And I went up there
to hang myself and had no reservations. But I got
(11:58):
down on that old plywood floor and started crying out
to God I never met before, and it got reframed.
Instead of killed myself, he said, why don't you die
to yourself? Now? It was so similar yet so different,
and there was light and life in that and I
cried out to a god I never knew, like lightning
struck me. Every hair on my body stood up, time
(12:20):
stood still, and for about two solid hours, every care
her pains, suffering, regret, mistake I made like a syringe,
got pushed out of the bottom of my feet, to
the top of my head and out in tears. And
I said, this one always went, this is what I've
always been looking for right here. Nothing has ever filled
me like this, nothing's ever felt by this. I told myself,
(12:40):
all you, all the days of my life, no matter what,
you have me without any conditions. And so it began
the journey of me beginning to find out what God
had for me. And I didn't quit drugs, they quit me.
I walked out of place for every change got struck
by lightning.
Speaker 6 (12:59):
I was still sick the gentleman that I had committed
adultery with and found out that I was pregnant. And
I didn't know if I was pregnant with John's child
or his child, And that's what broke me, not finding
out I was pregnant, but I ended up losing the child.
And at that moment was when I had nothing left.
There was nothing left. I had no more ideas, no
(13:21):
more solutions, no more energy, nothing to try to figure
out life for myself or why I wanted to be
in and everything else. I never thought about suicide. I
just felt so desperately alone.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
By the skin of their teeth, John and Nash evaded divorce.
They met a few mentors that taught them how to
love and how to be loved, how to forgive and
how to heal, and so their life together began anew
One of our mentors.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
That we met selling the car to that started a relationship.
He actually counseled us. He's liked, got to get out
of living in the basement of this house. You know,
you've got it fixed upstairs. You've got you know, this
is something that's important as your home. We lived in
the basement of our house for six and a half
years in a one bedroom apartment. That's what he's talking
about all Crampton there. It was me, John Nelson, our oldest,
(14:15):
a dog, and a friend. It took us a while
to work on that house, and it was in the
middle of that same neighborhood that had all the prostitutes
and the drug addicts and just destitution no hope. I
mean when you looked around, every house was broken, everything
looked abandoned, and so ours fit in the neighborhood up
until we worked on it, and then we turned the
(14:36):
lights on. The next thing, you know, we were like
a beacon in the neighborhood. But it honestly was just
a reflection literally of what was happening in us. And
so we were working together trying to work on that
house and everything. That's when he transitioned from going from
doing the cars and and he's like, I really like this.
And we got through that.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I was like, what do you want to do.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
He's like, I like this.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I like doing this. So we started doing houses and
we did two things. We're renovating houses there in our town.
And then I got this idea. I ash fell in
love with the house in Albany. She said, Baby, its
beautiful house I loved to buy. And so I started thinking.
I said, what if I unbuilt it backwards? What if
I just disassembled it? Took the last thing they put in,
took that out, and just unbuilt it backwards. So that's
(15:18):
the first house we ever disassembled. We took it apart
in ninety days, driving one hundred and twenty miles one
way after work, and unbuilt it backward to the boards.
We put our thirty three hundred dollars tax returning that
baby sold it made fifteen thousand dollars. That's what we
rolled in to. Doing everything we did. I started architectural
salvage business. Next thing you know, we're doing houses like crazy.
(15:40):
She would do the design work, I'd run the cruise
and next thing you know, we had done seventy five
houses in that one neighborhood with no money. Our guys
started saying, well, John, you need to keep some of this,
because if not, why don't you keep do ten houses
for others keep one for yourself. Well, next thing I know,
we got a pile of property going and I got
we had to come up with the rental business. So
(16:01):
we're running construction business, architectural salvage in a rental business.
And we almost finished everything in our neighborhood over there.
We've done like seventy years sol houses and I was like,
what we're gonna do next. She's like, well, downtown Oblaca
was super Turkey. In fact, right before we started buying
our first houses down there, two ladies were executed by
a gang member downtown Opelaika. It was just it was broken,
and she said, I can't walk by this one more
(16:22):
time and see it this one. We got to do something.
I said, well, let's buy the whole place. She's liked,
we ain't got any money. I said, doesn't matter. If
it's something we're supposed to do, the provision is going
to be there. Provision is down the road. We just
got to keep stepping. I only need enough call and
paint for today, so I have a number today, tomorrow's
going to be there. So now, looking back, we've done
(16:44):
two hundred and ten structures in ten blocks, and we've
helped start over forty businesses to the saving of our city.
And see, God loves cities. It was his idea from
the start. I think God invented cities, but we're interested
in seeing them redeemed, the restoration and redemption for cities,
just like people. And what we began to realize is
(17:06):
we don't just make structures. Structures make us. One thing
I learned about cities, number one is the biggest mistake.
We believe if we fix the buildings, that would save
our city, and it doesn't. Renovation is not revitalization. It's
just renovation. And you can fix the stuff up and
it be dead inside. It's like a movie set. People
(17:27):
in businesses add the life to buildings. And we learn
one of the first things we always do is start
with food, because so much meaningful happens at the table.
You decide who to marry, where to bury, what's going
to happen. Very few things are incarn if you don't
stick a lot inside your body. Food matters, and good
food people will drive where I can get people to
drive the worst part of the neighborhood for good barbecue.
(17:50):
And so we'll start with food and fellowship where we
can build one iconic, amazing food place in a town.
To transform a town. People start coming from an hour away.
When little town we're working in has thirty five hundred people,
and the first restaurant will work on there sees eighty
eight hundred people a month, So it's strong people on arm.
So our work now for ash and I is to
(18:12):
consult help people who want to change cities who share
our same vision and values. We think there will be
a time to come that people are going to recognize
that historic downtowns in this fabric are irreplaceable real estate
when they're under professional management, thoughtful vision, and a team
that has a collaborated approach to where they're going, that
(18:33):
does good and does well. And can you do both? Yes,
accept no less than to do good and do well.
We've got a vision for saving cities.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And we've been listening to John and Ashley Marsh and
what a story this is. I felt I was in
a tug of war and I was the rope. That's
how it started. He was looking to kill himself and
his wife, well, she was at the end of her
rope too.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Then something happened. He said, he cried out to a
god he never knew, and boy did he get a reply.
And ultimately he said, I didn't quit drugs. They quit me.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And they went about restoring not only their lives, but
the lives of the people around them by restoring houses.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
But again, a house without a restoration of the people
inside it is not much. John and Ashley Marsh's story
a remarkable renovation story. Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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