WEBVTT - Kim Emch: The Only 3 Generation Family ESL Program (Pt 1) 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:04.640 All the tutoring I did at that inner city school, 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.200 I knew they got a free lunch. I knew it. 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:12.719 I never asked them, what are you doing in the summer? 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.479 Welcome to an army of normal volks. I'm Bill Courtney. 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:26.600 I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.440 I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.120 inner city of Memphis. And that last part is somehow 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.160 led to an oscar for the film about our team. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:40.880 It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.520 be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.080 suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.720 and fogs, but rather by an army of normal votes. 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:55.120 That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what, 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.000 maybe I can help. That's what Kim impsch the voice. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.960 You just heard his stuff. Well, she found out that 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:06.360 thousands of kids in her suburban community were going hungry 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.960 in this summer. Kim couldn't look away from the problem, 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.920 and she dove in. Her nonprofit Festa now feeds over 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.440 eight hundred children in the summer. But as Kim puts it, 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.559 they don't just want to help people live a little 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:25.040 bit better in poverty. So they serve over eleven hundred 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:29.319 people with after school tutoring in English as the second 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:34.240 language classes to help their families escape pography. I can't 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.119 wait for you to meet Kim right after these brief 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:54.920 messages from our general sponsors, Kim Impsh, Welcome to Memphis. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:56.040 Thank you so much. 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:03.360 Phil emcch pronounced impsh. What on God's green planet is that? 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.320 My husband I actually have whole conversations about this. His 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:12.360 family swears it's Swiss, but I understand that half of 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.720 the people in Swiss speak German, so I think it 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:15.520 was that side. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:17.760 So your husband has no idea. 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.200 Really, I tease them that they have no idea. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:26.160 Yeah, so you're from an interesting place that I think 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:28.919 when you grow up there you have to drink scarlet 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.960 and silver juice. Just outside of this place called Columbus, Ohio, 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.399 where they seem to worship a football team. 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:38.480 They do, the Ohio State Buckeyes. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.280 Yeah, what's a buckeye? Isn't that like a pea or something? 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.079 It's a nut from a tree. It's a what it's 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.600 a nut from a tree? I see comes off of 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.919 a tree. And we also make them into candies of 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.280 chocolate peanut butter, which are delicious. 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:56.160 Are they really all? Right? Well, Kim imps everybody from 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.840 the Columbus area. She's actually from Hillard, Ohio, which is 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.720 a suburb. And fair warning, we're going to go through 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:09.440 Kim's story, but you're going to hear some terminology today 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.359 that you've probably never heard. And before I read all 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:18.279 about you, I guess I probably knew this thing existed, 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.880 but I wasn't really in tune with it. And I 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.720 think not only the work that you do and all 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.640 that you've all it's evolved, which obviously we're gonna unpack, 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:35.400 I think is incredibly interesting, but just the genesis of 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.680 it is eye opening and I think something we can 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:40.880 all learn from. But before we get to that, as 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.760 everybody knows, we're going to learn a little bit about you. 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.320 Tell me about you, where you come from? And you 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.840 and I, by the way, I don't know if you 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:50.760 know my story, but you and I have something in 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.360 very incommon in terms of the way we came up. 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.840 But so go with little Kim. Where from what did 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.440 growing up as Kim? What was your maiden names? Well, 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.040 you go from Woods to ips. Oh my goodness, tell 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:07.120 me about what Kim Woods looks like. 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.120 Coming up, I grew up in Mammy, Ohio, a suburb 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.800 of Toledo, and I experienced five divorces by my parents 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.279 by the time I was seventeen, and growing up in 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.880 a suburb, I had godparents who were from Spanish was 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:27.000 their first language, and I was completely unchurched until middle school. 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:31.360 The godparents was that from mom's friends, god's friends, Mom's. 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:32.000 Friends, mom's friends. 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.440 Yep, how did I don't know how, Jorn, I'm not 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.919 going to ask, but I would think back then that 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:41.520 having Spanish speaking friends was unique. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.000 I think about that often because you know in your 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.600 childhood what is normal to you is normal to you. 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.640 Right when you grew up and meet people as an adult, 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.480 you realize it was maybe unique. So I think it 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.719 was unique. My godfather was from Mexico and he became 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.599 a juvenile court judge in Toledo, Judge Joe Flores, and 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.840 so I remember every time he campaigned, we had these 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:08.839 bright yellow shirts with the black writing vote for Judge Flores, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.720 and they actually he's passed and there's a street named 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:16.080 after him in downtown Toledo. So he was very passionate. 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:19.200 He grew up at the YMCA. He grew up that 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:23.080 was the YMCA, was his extracurricular, his group of friends, 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:27.000 his safe place, and of course then he wanted to 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.520 give back and pour into young people. So that was 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:34.240 definitely very left a huge lasting impression on me. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.719 Clearly, that's your godfather. So I am the product of 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.120 five divorces on my mom's side and three on my 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.320 father sad. So you said your parents had five divorces. 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:48.560 What was that like for you? 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:55.000 Yeah, very tumultuous, I mean, very life shaking, trying to 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.960 figure out who's here, who's coming, who's leaving, lots of greed, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.760 lots of loss, and trying to navigate it and figure 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.599 out where my place was in all of it, and 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.840 who could be trusted, who could be depended on. It 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:11.360 was rough. 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:17.040 Did you experience in yourself an unwillingness to trust consistency? 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:23.800 Hmm, that's a great question. I would say being expecting 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.440 or being ready for the next big crisis became sort 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.360 of a norm for me for sure. My last stepfather 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.919 from my mom took us to church when I was 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.719 in middle school, and that was definitely life changing for me. 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.320 Because we didn't even though I had godparents and I 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.880 had been baptized when I was two or three, but 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.000 we didn't go to church. We didn't We weren't around 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:51.080 people who were Christians, or I didn't know. I didn't 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.360 know what I didn't know. And as he took us 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.760 to church at a little Lutheran church in Mommy. Later 0:06:57.839 --> 0:06:59.760 on I learned that it was called youth group, but 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:01.720 I just knew it was this group of people who 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.360 were inviting me to hang out with them. And it 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.880 was some youth leaders, some adults who actually were studying 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:09.800 to become doctors. I don't know how they found the 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.200 time to run this group, and then a bunch of teenagers, 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.320 mostly from my school. But we hung out and it 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.240 was a great community for me, and they started saying 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.720 things to me like, oh my gosh, you are a 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.840 natural leader and started honing my leadership. They said, you're 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.360 smart in your studious you could go to college. No 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.120 one my family had been to college. And I just 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.160 loved being there. I loved going there. We went to 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:40.040 Appalachia to retar coal miners' homes for a service trip, 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.000 and I'll never forget I'm standing on the roof in 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.560 the valley of the Appalachian Mountains. It's one hundred and 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.520 ten degrees, no breeze, huge humidity, humidity. I'm standing on 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:54.880 this roof, tarring this roof, and the owner comes out, 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:57.760 little old man with white hair, with an oxygen tank, 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:01.120 and he's praying for me on the roof. And that's 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.640 when I learned that serving God is this three hundred 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.000 and sixty degree circle where everyone has a need and 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:09.760 everyone can give. 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:14.000 That's kind of cool. Did that stepdad hang around for 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.000 the rest of your life or was he another divorced person. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.840 They divorced, but I still have a relationship. 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:27.040 With him, So clearly not affluent. Nobody's graduated from college, 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:28.840 you said, Is that right? Right? 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.360 My mom went to nurses training and so she was 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.360 a registered nurse. She always had a good job. She 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.200 could always find a job, and it was always a 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.840 good job. So we I was never worried about food, clothing, 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.160 or shelter. I wasn't worried about those things. 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.800 Got it. So a little bit of chaos, a little 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.000 bit of trauma, probably some disassociation. And the only reason 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.479 I'm saying all those things is because I'm just projecting 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.760 on you what I experienced, and you're shaking your head 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.600 up and down. So I guess that experience growing up 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:07.880 that way leaves those impressions. Church obviously became integral in 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:14.520 how it formed the way you thought and clearly which 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.600 I didn't know. The relationship with your godparents I think 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:21.640 also was formulative, which is interesting. So what do you do? 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:23.720 Do you go to college? What happens? 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.360 Yeah, so I'm in this Lutheran church going to this again. 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.960 What I learned later was a youth group getting confirmed 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.440 because in middle school and Lutheran religion, they're teaching you 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.640 everything and I knew nothing. So it was perfect timing. 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.240 But I fit right in with the other young people 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.000 because they were learning it all too And I remember 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:46.320 thinking to myself, I knew there was something else going 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.400 on here. I knew it. I knew it wasn't just 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.120 what I could see, that there was a bigger picture. 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.079 I just felt like someone took me from the acorns 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.920 in the forest up to the airplane level and it 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:02.920 just completely fad and God just completely made sense to me. 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.680 And so I'm sitting in this Lutheran church every week, 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.040 and they had these cards about Capitol University, this little 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:14.720 Lutheran school college in Columbus. Again, the youth leaders are saying, 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:16.800 you should go to college, you should get a four 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.000 year degree. You could do it, you have good grades 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.559 in school. So I fill out this card at church 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.400 and put in the offering plate, and Kathleen University starts 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:29.760 sending me back in the day paper mail, and I'm saying, 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.800 we would love to have you at our school. So 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.280 as I get into college or get into high school, 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.080 I think to myself, well, Capital University wants me, and 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.960 I'm certainly going there. And I remember my guidance counselor 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:44.880 had a meeting with me and she said, you know 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.040 what are you doing after high school? And I said, well, 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:48.920 I'm going to go to Kaperney University. And she said, 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.800 have you applied to Capitol University because I don't see 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.240 any pain of work. And I said, well no, but 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:59.160 I've been email or email snail mail corresponding with them 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.640 for years. Certainly that's where I'm going in she said, well, dear, 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.440 you need to fill out an application. It's a private college, 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.480 so it's expensive. I don't know if your family can 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:11.360 afford that. You need to fill out some financial aid, 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.400 so she really walked me through it and encouraged me 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.280 to go to other schools just in case I didn't 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.600 go there, Like applied to other schools just in case 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.560 they didn't let me in, And so I went. I 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.040 applied to Kent State, but I never went to visit 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.320 because I just knew I was going to Capital. So 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:30.480 I got into Capital, and I say a lot that 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.920 was a whole testament of God because my parents, my 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.280 dad never was able to pay anything for my school. 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.720 My mom was single mom at that time. She could 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.040 pay a little bit, but she could not have paid 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.320 the full amount of a private school. And they had 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.439 said to me, if you keep your grades up, we'll 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.440 make sure you can go here all four years. And 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.880 so I got hell grants. I got scholarships from people 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.680 that I wrote thank you letters to that I never met. Somehow, 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.000 I went to college for four years and had about 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.080 six thousand dollars worth of debt when I left. It 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.200 was amazing, wow, And that was an amazing experience because 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:12.120 I went to a new city, a much larger city 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:17.480 than Toledo, and met tons of people who really were 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.480 influential in my life. Professors and students and I didn't 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:26.000 know what to study, but I liked economics and sociology 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.240 and public speaking, so they said, well, why don't you 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.760 just do all that? So that's what I studied, and 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:32.120 I just enjoyed it. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:33.440 So what's your degree in? 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.400 My major was economics and then had miners in public 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:37.480 speaking and sociology. 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.800 There's a minor in public speaking. That's very cool. 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.319 I thought it was really fun because people said, you know, 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:44.800 most people don't want to speak in front of people, 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:46.840 and I said, I love to. So they said you 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:47.640 should study that. 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:49.640 Then, So what do you go do for a living 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:50.360 out of college? 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:54.520 What happens next economics? People thought banking seemed like a 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.679 good next step for me. So I applied at Huntington 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.800 National Bank and I worked there for eight years and 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.719 again great experience. Met a ton of really wonderful mentors, 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:10.199 people who poured into me and gave me advice on 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.400 how to grow my career. Every nine to twelve months, 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.880 I applied for another position and kept going in the bank. 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.400 I went through a management training program. It just I 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.720 finally got to corporate training and I loved it. I 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.720 got to corporate training and I really figured out that 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:31.439 I enjoy explaining something to someone. When I can see 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.560 the light bulb go off and they get it. 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.400 That's kind of like right now you with me, I'm like, oh, 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:43.280 I get that. And now a few messages from our 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.560 general sponsors. But first, our next live interview in Memphis 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:52.439 will be on June twelfth with Father Mark Hannah. Father 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.000 Mark and a team of four other civilians saved over 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.720 fifty lives on nine to eleven, and the rest of 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:04.120 us team died while trying to save more people. After 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.640 nine to eleven, Mark became a Coptic priest and hence 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.720 the father title. It's part of our lunch and listen 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.199 series that we've been doing at Crosstown Concourses Myphis Listening Lab, 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:21.680 and you can learn more at RSVP at Fathermark dot 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:26.760 Eventwright dot com. We hope to see you there. We'll 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:42.760 be right back. So the point is, you grow up, 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:49.200 you overachieve where your life started and came from. You 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.240 clearly have developed a faith that has helped guiding you. 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:58.840 You have this interesting relationship with godparents, and I assume 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.200 somewhere along here you get married, right yep? Is that 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:04.120 banking time? 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.720 Yeah? That was in college my very final year in college, 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:09.400 I went home in the summers to live with my 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:14.120 mom in Toledo, and actually my dad before he passed away, 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.520 introduced me to who is now my husband for thirty 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:18.000 one years. 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.760 Yeah, this impsh thing, Yeah, the m Sky. Yeah, what's 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:22.680 the's name? 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:23.200 Scott? 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:25.200 Scott Scott, the m S guy. 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.520 It must be pretty great to overcome that last name. 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:32.120 Yeah. So we're just establishing all of this is to 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.840 simply set up kind of who you are. You're a 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.600 person who grew up with a broken family, a godparent 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:44.280 you loved who had an impact on you stepdad. I 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.160 don't know if it's one, two, three, four or five 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.800 step parent, but one of them introduced to the church, 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.000 and through the church, you end up in college and 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:53.960 you do a good job there and you're in a bank, 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.080 and you get married and you start in your family 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:03.520 and you have this quintessential normal folk American life clipping 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.360 or wrong up where they chocolate cover buckeyes. Yep. 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.960 I had two children then, a daughter and a son, 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.680 and living in Lydia and Jared they live in and 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.040 we lived in Hilliard again, that suburb of Columbus, and 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:18.760 just doing our thing. 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:25.960 Doing your thing, lovely, rewarding, blessed, but like most people, 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.440 fairly unremarkable, and nobody's really taken note of your life 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.600 except you, because that's what we all do. Yep, A 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:37.800 normal person, normal folks and Midwest living in an Ohio 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.320 life and probably loving life. 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:45.120 Yeah. Yeah. And then I was tutoring in the inner 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.880 city at a school because one of my best friends 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.320 was a principal there, and she basically was begging for 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.160 people to come help because over ninety percent of the 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.160 children got a free reduced lunch. They were facing poverty. 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.560 She had some Somali Bantu children who came to town 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.000 and they had never seen a flush toilet. They didn't 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:06.760 know how to even use a bathroom. So she was 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.520 just begging people from her life, her church, to say, 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:14.560 would you come and help tutor mentor these children? They 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.040 need more grown ups in their lives who can just 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.720 love them. So I'd been doing that for a seen years. 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.000 Pepe speaking of children who probably came from trauma. Yeah, 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:30.600 Samoian children uprooted from Samoya, dropped in Ohio. And here's 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.440 a toilet. This is toilet paper. And oh, by the way, 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.399 the world is nothing like what you've grown up to 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.680 and let's be honest, Samoia is not the safest place 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.200 in the world, so they'd probably seen all kinds of stuff. 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.119 Yeah. Yeah, So I had been volunteering there for some 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.200 years and then. 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.720 This again in your unremarkable normal life, but just doing 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:52.880 some gift back at this. 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:57.320 Point, Yeah, because after that experience in Appalachia, we went 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.960 back and started a teen crisis telephone line. As teen 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.840 I just service and my religion went hand in hand 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.520 for me from day one. And so I'd been again 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:12.800 volunteering in this inner city school and that was two 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:17.200 thousand and six. I was starting back in the school 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.000 year and I thought, well, I guess I can do 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.080 that again. And I felt like God laid in my heart, 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.840 bring your neighbors with you. And most of my neighbors 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:30.080 were just like me, Caucasian American women who had been 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.760 raising their children for many years, and most had not 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.320 gone back to work yet, and so I felt like 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.360 God was asked me to bring them, and I thought, well, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:38.600 I don't know if they're going to want to go, 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:40.919 so I put it off. Finally I asked them. They 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.400 all said yes. So I drove them in my van 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.080 every week to tutor in the inner city. They weren't 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.120 comfortable driving themselves, so I took them with me and 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:55.639 we tutored. And then my dad died suddenly the Monday 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.320 before Thanksgiving of two thousand and six, suddenly, and we 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.680 had been estrange. She was an alcoholic. I didn't really 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.080 get to say goodbye. It was pretty had a lot 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.359 of grief with it. And one of the women that 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.520 I was taking with me to tutor, she came to 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.640 me in December and she said, what do you think 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.320 happens when someone dies? Because her mother was diagnosed with 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.040 stage four cancer and was terminal, and she knew my 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:22.119 dad had just died. And I started telling her about 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.359 my faith and where my hope comes from, and what 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.439 I believe happens when you die, and what God had 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.159 shown me about my dad, and so we had this 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.800 whole conversation, and I said to her, there's this thing 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.000 at my church for people have questions, and you sound 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.320 like you have questions. I've been a Christian since middle school. 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.119 I still have questions. Would you want to come with me? 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.919 It's called Alpha. It's dinner. We can kind of get 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:46.440 away from our kids and our husbands and just have 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:48.960 a night out once a week and have dinner. Would 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:50.440 you want to come with me? And she said, yes, 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:52.280 I would want to come with you, and so we 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.280 started that in January. It's eighteen weeks and accumulates in 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:57.520 this Holy Spirit Retreat at the end. And I thought, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:19:59.400 she's not going to want to go to the Holy 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.280 Spirit Retreat. She's completely on churched lady. I thought that'll 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.080 seem too churchy for her. And she called me and said, hey, 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:07.680 I want to go to that weekend at the end, 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.320 and I thought, okay, we're going. So we went to 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:14.399 the weekend and they challenged her, you know, after eighteen weeks, 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:18.679 lots of discussion, lots of information, would you want to 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.040 just say a prayer that goes something like this, God, 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.960 if you're real, show me, like, show me that you're real? 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:28.840 And she said I'd like to do that. And then 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.320 they said, to people like me who'd been a Christian 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:36.480 since middle school, maybe you'd like to pray God light 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:38.959 my heart on fire in a whole new way. And 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.359 I thought, okay, I've prayed a lot, but I haven't 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:43.840 prayed like that. So I said that prayer. March thirty, 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.000 two thousand and seven, and I went home and didn't 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.840 feel any different, went back to work Monday, didn't feel 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:53.880 any different. And then on March fourteenth, so eleven days later. 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.720 I believe you remember the dates. 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.240 So powerful, the dates. God has used those dates again 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.440 in my life, that's while they're ingrained in my brain. 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.879 It was a Saturday, March third, by the way, and 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.919 so March eleventh, I learned that there were twenty one 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.760 and fifty eight children in my suburban town who are 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:14.600 getting your free reduced lunch. And I was completely blown 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:15.119 away by that. 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.680 So let's talk about that. This is the at the top, 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:23.040 I said, there's a phrase it kind of turns the 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.520 national narrative a little bit on its ear. And is 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.840 this what is it? Suburban? 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.240 What do you call it suburban poverty? 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.399 Yeah, that doesn't sound right. It's supposed to be urban 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.359 poverty and white flight to the suburbs and everything's okay 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:47.000 in the suburb. And what you discovered is suburban poverty. Yeah, 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:48.280 why don't you explain that? 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:49.000 Yeah? 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:50.040 I was. 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:52.680 I was sitting at a wooden desk in my house 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:54.880 when I called the school district and said, how many 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:58.520 children get a free lunch in the suburb? Of Hilliard, 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.320 the ninth largest school district in the state of Ohio. 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:05.400 And they satuted a suburb of Columbus, a university town, 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:12.119 which typically means fairly affluent, well paid, clean sidewalks, no blight, 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.879 and then a suburb of that place should be really nice. Yeah. 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.560 Yeah, And they said, well, good news, it's only fourteen 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.719 point seven percent. And I said, well, I stayed economics, 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:23.880 you can do a lot with percentages. How many human 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.440 beings is that, because we're not talking about ballpoint pens here, 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.560 we're talking about people, children with faces and names. And 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:31.600 they said, well, we'll have to call you back. And 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:33.480 they called me back and said, well, it's twenty one 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:38.879 hundred and fifty eight. And I was shocked. I was grieved. 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:41.360