Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#246 Tracey: From Broken Rules To Beloved Son
A raw journey from fear-based religion and authority wounds to healing, recovery, and identity as a beloved son. Tracy shares hard stories—addiction, grief, and legalism—and how Jesus redefined his name, his marriage, and his mission.
• Early farm life shaping fear and attachment wounds
• Boarding school legalism fueling secrecy and rebellion
• College drift, contempt for authority, objectifying women
• Nuclear site safety fight and first glimpses of God’s care
• Pain meds, porn, and a terrifying wake-up moment
• Counseling, Celebrate Recovery, and identity work
• Forgiveness letters softening resentment toward family
• Marriage grief after child loss and learning to stay
• Healing from corporate Adventism toward Christ-centered faith
• Baptizing his son into Christ, not a club
• Living daily as a treasured son and offering the same hope
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The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can. And that's why we want you to hear these stories: stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is death to life.
SPEAKER_07:Richard, this was a complete god thing. I had no clue at the time. Her, I did not find out for about a year, but her husband was in sex addiction recovery, and she was a counselor. So all of my BS and smoke and mirrors that I was playing, she saw right through it. And as we start talking, she she starts saying, you know, have you considered that you're a sex addict? And I'm like, no, there's no way. No, no, no, I'm not that. Um, but she led me on a journey. I was so angry, I did not sleep for a week because I started processing how I was raised without proper attachment. Um, and at that same time, I was processing how this woman I was dating, how she was raised, and then how she was raising her children, and it angered me so much because I I had to get through the anger to get to a place of healing because it was so incredibly frustrating. My parents, if if I cried when I was a baby, they did not pick me up. It's too bad. You know, I gotta figure it out. You know, and my family, a lot of my family believes in that type of thing.
SPEAKER_05:Yo, welcome to the Death Alive podcast. My name is Richard Young, and today's guest is Tracy Rittenbach. Now, I've never met Tracy in person, but we had a phone call a few years ago in which uh apparently I said something wild that started him on this journey. And we were able to connect a few weeks ago, and I wanted to hear his story. And uh his story is a common tale, but true in the sense that um we talk about uh boarding school, we talk about uh legalism in boarding schools, we talk about um how workspace religion gets in the way of seeing Jesus, and then how Tracy fell into some stuff and God pulled him out of it. So uh this is gonna be a powerful episode. Tracy goes deep into this stuff, and it's beautiful to hear. You're gonna love it. So uh buckle up and strap in. This is Tracy. Love y'all, appreciate y'all. All right. Uh Tracy, I've never met you, but I met your wife. I I forget how long ago. Your wife and son, when we were in Corvallis, Oregon, years ago.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, there was a couple at least two years ago, I believe. But uh, I I think it was in 22, I want to say, because my son was being homeschooled, yeah, and we we knew you guys were coming to Corvallis, and so we made plans for uh my wife and son to come down there. And I I was stuck at home working, so my wife and son could travel, but you know.
SPEAKER_05:Well, Tracy, you tell me, man, where where does the story begin? Where do you start this thing?
SPEAKER_07:Well, I'm was raised on a farm in North Dakota. I'm the youngest of four kids raised out on a grain and dairy farm.
SPEAKER_05:Um what city in North Dakota? Were you near were you near Bismarck?
SPEAKER_07:I laugh. We we were 90 miles north of Bismarck, a little town called Butte or Russo, North Dakota. Tiny little communities. Uh the Russo had a bar and a post office. That was it. Butte had a few churches. I think when we were there, they had five different churches. Now there's one. Uh yeah, that's exactly at the Luther Church. North Dakota is a big Lutheran community, so yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Sure, I'm sure it is.
SPEAKER_07:But yeah, it was uh, you know, looking back, I loved growing up on a farm. Just the freedom of being out wide open spaces. Um, I I was the youngest of four. I have an older brother 12 years older, another older brother 10 years older, my sister's four years older, and then I'm the youngest. So yeah, I I came along, I was the cute kid, everybody loved me, you know, life was good. Went to Sabbath school and church all the time, you know. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And I I was raised, I've been really processing this with when you reached out and and thinking how to how to say this. I I grew up with the knowledge Jesus is my friend. However, I don't know that I heard it preached from the pulpit, but I certainly came away with the um with the observation that my heavenly father was he was waiting for me to screw up, but Jesus was there to protect me. That that was the impression that I grew up with.
SPEAKER_05:I feel like maybe that's how we preached it, maybe not on purpose, but it gets preached that way, right?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. I I was uh talking with another cousin who was a preacher in the church for 25 years, and he's a little bit older than me. We were talking about that, and he, you know, he said the same thing. He's like, I don't know where we heard that, but definitely that impression. We both agree on that, that that was that was the impression we came away with that that God was a very stern father looking for me to screw up, but but Jesus was my friend. He he was standing between me and the father to protect me from from an angry God, you know.
SPEAKER_05:That's what's wild about John chapter 5, when Jesus is like, uh the Father has given me all judgment, and those who believe in me don't even come into judgment because they've already passed from death to life. And you read that and you're like, whoa.
SPEAKER_07:Well mixed it up. Totally. And and the simple verse, if you've seen me, you've seen the father, period.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:It's yeah. So uh went to went to a public school because we had no church schools in that area where I was growing up, and uh school was a it was it was a shocker to me because I I was a happy-go-lucky kid, everyone loved me. I go to school and I realize um my sister was not necessarily liked, and so I got picked on because of her.
SPEAKER_00:Oh no. Come on, sister.
SPEAKER_07:Well, yeah, I I I developed a real hate relationship for my sister. Oh wow based based on those experiences, and you know, I've I've been through a lot of counseling today, done a lot of recovery work, and been able to process and understand it. But my mother, in her not very good wisdom, gave my sister the authority to be a mom to me outside of the home. And so my sister took that seriously, and uh everything I did. I mean, I I was always in trouble in school with her and because of her. And it was riding the school bus. I I started to learn very quickly. I want to back up just for a moment though. Uh my earliest memory is when I was three years old, and uh the whole family was uh loading hay bales on a uh a trailer, and I cut my inner elbow crawling around on the tractor.
SPEAKER_05:Oh wow. Uh earliest memory.
SPEAKER_07:The earliest memory. I was three years old, traumatic event, okay. Um my parents refused to comfort me and told me I got what I deserved because uh they had told me I shouldn't be climbing around in the tractor. So that that kind of I the I we well, yeah, but the reason I bring that up is that that event and how I was raised without um comfort um and attachment stuff has been a major role in my whole life in seeking unhealthy attachment. And then and then learning to work my way through that and leaving everything in Jesus care as opposed to me seeking for unhealthy attachment.
SPEAKER_05:So this traumatic incident, you said it it started this thing. Do you remember when the first time you tried to secure that attachment after this? Like that's your earliest memory. Just as a young boy, you were trying to get that secure attachment in the wrong places.
SPEAKER_07:As a young boy, I got it in uh affirmation. Tyler's dad really helped me process that, listening to his story and then talking about it was a big aha to me listening to Tyler's dad talk about Tyler's story. He said he's just little kid. I forget the exact wording. He's just a young kid, and everyone loved him, and then he's looking for affirmation from everywhere else. And I'm I'm driving down the road going, Whoa, that's amazing. Because that was me.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_07:And and all of a sudden, you know, young kid, happy go lucky, everybody loves me, and then I go to school, and I uh this was not a good place for me.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_07:Um I started being very suspicious of people in authority. Um we had our recess time at lunch was from for the younger kids from 11 30 to 12 30. And you'd you know, you'd be dismissed to lunch by grade, and uh, yeah, so the youngest kids got the longest recess time. Well, uh, and I think in second grade they were gonna do they were gonna remodel um our grade school, and so they had to do some moving around of classes, and we were in other areas of the of the high school for the grade school, it was moved down to the high school part, and there was a lot of consolidation. So the teachers said we are going to shorten lunch recess to 1215, but once the construction's over, we'll go back to the the regular time. So that happens, construction finishes. I don't remember if it was a year, 18 months, something like that. But I remember I was in fourth grade, and we were back in our new school, new classroom, and I raised my hand and I said, Hey, uh, remember when are we going to go back to the longer lunch recess time? And the teacher looks at me and goes, What are you talking about? I said, I said, Well, you guys told us before the construction happened that you know you were moving recess time, making it shorter, but we would eventually go back afterwards. No, we didn't. We never said that to you. And and and I know this for a fact, Richard. I and I'm sitting there looking at it. Exactly. You, you, you, this was the same teacher, because I had the same teacher from first through fourth grade. And I'm going, you said it. What what what are you doing?
SPEAKER_04:You know, that this was this was my recess time. I'm I'm counting every minute.
SPEAKER_07:Exactly. And so uh also this teacher, uh, I forget what grade, but she's goes to the board and she's doing math problems because we're doing math, and I look in my book and I realize, oh, she's doing the math problems from our workbook. And so I start doing them as she's doing them on the board.
SPEAKER_05:Nice.
SPEAKER_07:Just makes sense to me. And uh she gets done, she does every single problem in our workbook, and then she says, All right, now uh please do your math homework and turn it in when you're completed. So I said, Okay, ripped my sheet of paper out of my little notebook and walked up. She said, What are you doing? I'm turning in my math. Well, how did you do it? I said, I was doing it as you were doing it. I I got in trouble for being proactive and actually paying attention to realize what was happening. So needless to say, Richard, I you know, starting very young, I I've not had uh real good um authority personnel issues, if that makes sense. I've been Ben or Tad suspicious from a young age.
SPEAKER_05:I heard somebody today say that that's the only way to live in the kind of world that we're living in right now. If you're suspicious of authority, then you're living in like La La Land. You're like actually not paying attention. And I thought I thought maybe there's some truth to that, but it probably makes life like the cynical, the cynical view probably makes life harder.
SPEAKER_07:Well, I I work for I'm a government contractor, and I started doing that 26 years ago. I was never a conspiracy theorist until I started working for the government. And then they was like, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_04:Like, I know these guys, there ain't no way we landed on the moon.
SPEAKER_07:No, it's not that, it's just other stuff. If someone's talking and you know, spreading a good game, I'm like, uh-huh. Yeah, right, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I got you.
SPEAKER_07:Anyway, um, did a lot of music when I was a kid. My mom was teaching me piano lessons, and and I love the piano. I hated performing. So it turned into a love-hate relationship of loving to learn, and I I learned by ear. I I didn't understand what those notes meant. Okay. But if I could hear the music, then the the little black dots made sense. And so somewhere third or fourth grade, I got a new piano teacher who said who told my mom, stop playing music for him. He needs to learn to read notes. And then then music just became drudgery. It was not fun. It was angering and annoying. Um school, the the situation at school made me feel not wanted and not fitting in and not knowing what to do about that. It was a it was a really weird situation for me. Um, there was one particular kid who was about my sister's age. We're gonna call him Billy. Not his real name. Uh, someone uh because it's a small community, if someone from there overhears this, you know, I don't I don't want to throw him under the bus, but he he was particularly cruel to me. And he he jumped on the bandwagon of uh I I get in trouble by my sister, and she called me by my first and middle name, Tracy Dean, what are you doing? And so that turned into a thing at school. Everyone would call me Tracy Dean all the time. Just weird, weird thing. But but this one particular kid was was really, really good at being mean and you know, name calling and everything else. So once they moved to the junior high, I didn't have to deal with them for a few years. But uh I was the worst athlete. All the trauma from school, um, I gained a bunch of weight. I it it was weird. You see pictures of me five, six, seven years old. I'm you know, skinny, enjoying life, and then from like eight to ten, really overweight, not happy at all. You could see it in my face, even my wife will tell you, looking at pictures, so then she could actually see in my face I was miserable. But uh, so around uh my my friends at at school said, because you're the worst athlete, you need to be on the best athletes team all the time, kind of even things out. He's the best, and I'm the worst. And he he was great ahead of me. Um he did not like that, but you know, the rest of the kids had spoken, so that's what was gonna happen. Um so a recess time, no matter what we were playing, kickball, softball, whatever. Um, but an interesting happens, Richard. The more you associate with someone, the more you become like them. And as time, as time went on, I started to become a better athlete and a better athlete. And by sixth, seventh grade, I was a really good athlete. And it was amazing. I was a completely different kid, so I started gaining a lot of confidence. Um I wanted to be on the school basketball team, but my parents would absolutely not allow it because they were terrified that if I was on the basketball team, then I'd want to play on Friday nights. And I I had an uncle, my dad's brother, who had been on the basketball team in public school and then he had left the church. You know, kind of a weird dynamic, and so they were absolutely certain no, you're not gonna be on the basketball team at all. So I, you know what the cementing of rules represent. Religion was certainly coming along, you know, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_07:Um in junior high, the the junior high and the high school grades were kind of in the same part of the school, and they had a tradition there where the first day of school, the seventh graders had to play the seniors and tackle football. And and then I don't know if this was a continual tradition, but they told us when we came along. So the first day was just seniors, and then they said, okay, until you beat a high school a high school team at lunchtime, okay. This is you're just out after lunch running around uh on the yard, until you beat uh a high school team, you cannot integrate and be part of any of the rest of our team. So seventh graders against whoever else for about a week and a half. And and some some guys didn't like it. I loved it because what where else can you get away with hitting someone as hard as you can, and they look at you and go, Oh, good hit, good block. That's good off. So finally, after about a week and a half, I think we we were able to you know eke out a win, and then we you know just regular played sports with everybody at lunchtime. So um, but but Billy was back in the picture again because I'm in seventh grade, he's now in high school, and uh in my seventh grade year, there were a lot of senior guys who were fairly large, and uh he'd he'd walk by, shove me in the locker as he's going by, kick me in, you know, shove my head in the locker, constant name calling, you know. Well, during this time, something else was happening at home. Um, my father, uh six foot two German farmer, um Richard. I have never seen another man take a pitchfork, put it in a bale of hay, pick it up, and then balance it on the palm of his hand and walk. And somewhere there's a picture of it. I thought I had it, but my wife seen the picture, so one of my siblings has a picture of my dad just standing there balancing a bale of hay on the top of a pitchfork. So that's that tells you how strong just in the in the south, we call that kind of guy a hoss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I I had a real fairly close relationship with my dad when I was younger, and I had to be reminded of that because of the things that started happening now. Um, when I was about 12, we were uh trying to bring a new heifer into the barn who was with calf, and she needed to be in the barn so she could calf. And my dad was getting angrier and angrier and more upset, and I'm trying to help with this process, and so in the process of this, he gets so mad he starts going after her with a two by four, and I stepped in between him and the cow. Oh wow and and and he just lost it. He came after me with a two by four.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no.
SPEAKER_07:So um corporal corporal punishment at its best, you know. Um and and it turned into I I started fighting back because I was terrified. Um I'm I'm 12. He's you know, like I said, 6'2, about 240. Um that started turning into I started realizing I'm gonna be in trouble anyway, and I'm gonna get beaten. So if you're gonna beat me, you're gonna earn it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_07:I I developed this attitude at about 12. Um, and processing, you know, talking to you about my story, it's very interesting because my dad, my dad taught me how to drive at 12. Um, turn me loose on the road with a pickup full of hay, just okay, go take this home. It was it's very interesting processing my dad from that side of it, because on one side of it, he he lets you go with a big piece of equipment trying to teach you responsibility. But if my mouth would get me in trouble, which it did a lot, then we're rolling on the ground, literally throwing punches. So yeah. Um, my first time driving on the road, we had a 65 Dodge power wagon, um, shortbed truck, and we piled it with hay, and dad's like, uh now keep in mind I've been driving around the fields, you know, hauling hay in the fields and stuff, but never out on the road. And I was 12 years old, and dad said, Okay, take this home. I'm gonna come home with the grain truck. And I'm just in complete shock. And all right, yeah, okay. Oh no. Well, I had no idea how to shift down for corners, Richard. No clue whatsoever. So every corner, I I lost some more hay bales. By the time I got home, I had maybe half the load.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, my dad comes along maybe 30 minutes later and he's chuckling and laughing. And and this is the part that is a conundrum for me with my dad. He would get so angry, we would be fist fighting. But in in an instance like this, where I I lost half the you know, hayload, he's like, Man, what what what what was wrong? Every quarter I found more hay bales. What was all that about? I said, Well, I I didn't know how to shift down, Dad. Well, okay, we'll take care of that, you know.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, maybe his value system wasn't like he didn't think fighting with his son was a problem. He thought like this was like how you learn.
SPEAKER_07:So my brother that's 10 years older than me, later in life, we're talking and sharing stories, okay? Um, he went through the same experience with my dad, fist fighting with my dad as well. I didn't know anything about it, you know, never saw it. Um so yeah, that's uh I I don't know. It's not normal to me, you know what I mean? I I I certainly don't want to hit my 12-year-old son, but you know.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, you can't imagine fighting your son now.
SPEAKER_07:No, no. So um the dynamic with Billy, the kid from school, um, eighth grade comes around, and all of a sudden I'm realizing I'm growing, I'm a pretty good athlete, I'm about the same size as this guy who wants to pick on me and shove me around. And and I started pushing back in school, and I started getting very arrogant. I'm an eighth grader, he's a senior, and he would, you know, do his thing, and I'd look at him and say, Why? What are you gonna do about it? I'm right here. Come on. And that went on most of the school year, and then on class night, um at our little school, they would do a like an awards thing, and uh the seniors would do whatever, you know, skits or whatever they were doing. Uh, he and I got in a fist fight out behind the gym on his senior class night. Kind of kind of all boiled over, came to a head.
SPEAKER_05:Um he had a coming, man. He had it coming.
SPEAKER_07:Well, yeah, yeah. Today I'll tell you that. However, further down the line, we're gonna bring up Billy again, and it's uh it's a completely different story.
SPEAKER_05:Oh man, it's a tease. I'm getting I'm excited.
SPEAKER_07:So uh my my dad with his anger, all I understood was my dad's anger. Um, do you know what a surf single strap is?
SPEAKER_05:Uh no idea.
SPEAKER_07:It's uh it's about two inches wide, braided cord covered in um oh kind of a poly rubber that's used to throw over the back of a cow, and then you hang the milker underneath her on this strap. There's a big hook that goes under the belly of a cow.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_07:So when I was 13 or 14, my dad beat me with one of those.
SPEAKER_05:What's it called? A Sir S I R? How do you spell it?
SPEAKER_07:I think it's C I R. It may be S-I R. Uh Sir Single Strap.
SPEAKER_05:Sur signal strap?
SPEAKER_07:Single. Sur single.
SPEAKER_05:I want to see what this looks like. Strap.
SPEAKER_07:It's it's kind of rubber braided. The cord the interior is braided cord covered in rubber, and every six inches or so there's a brass ring so that the hook could fit into the ring.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:No, no one's a vital piece of horse training equipment used for groundwork lunge lunging and long lining to attach reins and guide the horse. Or but this is probably more for for this is melt cow stuff, yeah. Yeah. Sur single, it's I think it's spelled C or S-U-R-C-I-N-G-L-E. And he beat me.
SPEAKER_07:Oh okay. Yeah. I I have never felt pain like that. That was like wow. He uh he had asked me to do something, I had forgotten to do it, and he just lost it and came after me with that strap. And that was that was a significant, significant point in our relationship because I refused to talk to him from then on. Um, I I wouldn't say a word to my dad. He would say, Hey, do you do whatever? I'd nod my head or I'd shake my head. I I would not talk to him. And uh this went on for a couple weeks, and then finally he's like, Well, how about if I pay you? You know, but you gotta have a good attitude. I'll pay you to work, you know, you do your regular chores and everything. And it was just a fascinating experience, and and I was getting pleasure out of knowing I was hurting him by not talking to him. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_05:Sure, it does.
SPEAKER_07:It was a weird dynamic.
SPEAKER_05:So you start talking to him after he started paying.
SPEAKER_07:Well, yeah, that was part of the good attitude part, okay.
SPEAKER_05:I had to communicate with beating you with the strap.
SPEAKER_07:Ah not for that particular thing. I I can't remember and say yes he did, but I can't say no he didn't either. You know what I mean? It was uh a very interesting dynamic growing up in like that. So I'm sure um then uh I went away to uh Dakota Adventist Academy in North Dakota.
SPEAKER_05:Been there many times.
SPEAKER_07:Have you?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, was it the the the compound that everything was indoors when you went?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_07:Um I went there in my first three years. Um I got in a lot of trouble at Dakota Adventist Academy because I learned how to drink and smoke and sneak over to the girl's storm and and chew tobacco and smoke weed.
SPEAKER_05:And I would say uh to anyone listening, um, that's like you can send your kids to a boarding school, but DAA is closed down, so you don't even have the option in uh North Dakota to send your kid to DAA. Mercy.
SPEAKER_07:It was it was a wild place, Richard, and not not even understanding um until you know many years later. It was a very much us versus them um culture. Um at least that was certainly the impression I came away with. And you know, looking back, there were there were some staff members who were trying, they were trying to be sharing the love of Jesus, but that was certainly not really experienced when I was there. It was uh an attitude of, well, we're gonna catch you, and it was like, oh yeah, good luck.
SPEAKER_05:And what is it about that environment? I I dated a girl who went to a boarding school similar to DA, not DA, but had the farm, had that kind of life. And what she would tell me about that school, it it was just like you're describing. People learned how to get away with stuff and they experienced all of this crazy stuff. And maybe, maybe I was the naive one in my day school that I didn't think that stuff was going on, maybe it was just going on not at school because it's a day school, but like what she was telling me, I was like, wow, you guys got into some crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_07:I I can't speak for other parts of the country. Um looking back now, us us boys that came out of North Dakota really messed up as far as responsibility-wise, and you know, we knew how to work, but none of us were I can't say none of us, that's too general of a statement. I can't speak for other people, but certainly a lot of the people in my age group, we did not understand the love of our Heavenly Father or even really the love of Jesus. Um, it we didn't experience it, we didn't see it. School was a big, huge party, literally, and you have a bunch of teenage boys, and you pile them all together with imaginations, and now you're gonna start doing stuff, figuring out how to steal the school van and go to town to go to Taco Bell in the middle of the night, and you know, just crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_05:Did you have a cool dean, strict dean, mean dean? Like the I'm asking because I was a boys' dean at a boarding academy.
SPEAKER_07:Our our first two years we had a guy who was trying, okay. He he was trying to looking back, I can tell you, he he was trying to roll with things, and he he gets you in trouble, but he'd give you a break, okay. Um at the end of my sophomore year, we get we were getting a new principal, and our music teacher, who was an amazing music teacher, I I was somewhere I shouldn't have been, and I overheard him interviewing with the brand new principal to be the next guy's dean. And the and the things it was down in the music department, it was you know, the new principal was visiting. It was a weird situation, and I I happened to stumble into uh you know a big huge building, there's all sorts of recesses here and there, and as kids you explore them all. And I I I happened to be messing around, and oh uh I stumbled into overhearing the music teacher interviewing with the new principal to be the next guy's dean, and and the things he was gonna put in. He was gonna take care of the problems, and uh and and it was like uh okay, I see how this is gonna go. But uh, so my my junior year, it really sadly became in us versus them. Um, the principal called me into the office one day and he said, I know you're going to the girls' dorm to visit a certain girl. We are going to catch you. And I said, Hmm, okay. Good luck.
unknown:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_07:I I didn't have a great attitude in in Academy, Richard.
SPEAKER_05:That's what was the strategy? How did you did they catch you?
SPEAKER_07:Uh no. There's too many different routes, you know, inside or outside, or you know.
SPEAKER_05:I I remember uh I was interviewing to be the dean, and I gotten the job, and this is while I was still working at Union College, and I knew some kids that had gone to that school that I was about to go to. And these guys were, I think, kind of like you. And so it when when they were at college, like we were cool, I wasn't in any kind of authority position. And so I was like asking them, like, yo, like, what do I need to look out for? Because these guys were the pros. And they were just like, You're not gonna be able to do anything about it. And I was like, sobering. I was like, oh man, I'm going to this place, and they're gonna be trying to sneak around and get away with stuff. And the truth is they're probably gonna be able to do it. And uh, yeah, that was hard to be like, what am I gonna do? Like, how am I gonna protect these guys? Because in my mind, I wanted to protect them, I didn't want to just get them in trouble.
SPEAKER_07:Well, and and kudos to you for having that attitude, okay. You know, it and I I can only speak from my own experience. It certainly felt like it was you know us against them, and uh, and we did all sorts of crazy stuff, Richard. I this is where the porn thing really started for me, and then sneaking over to the girls' dorm all the time, and my attitude towards women was incredibly horrible because it was all about what could I get from someone? Yeah, no concept of any type of respectful relationship, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_05:Sure.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, no, none whatsoever. And uh, I remember I'd snuck over to the girls' dorm one night to meet a girl, and then she had uh she had quote rejected me. So so a friend of hers was laughing at me the next day, and she's like, ha ha ha ha. And I said, What what she goes, well, you know, she she rejected you last night, and I said, Well, she did, but there's a whole bunch of others who won't. No big deal to me, and that's a horrible attitude to have, okay. But that's that's what I was raised in, that's where I came from. And um, we had a uh prominent Adventist speaker come to talk to us about rock music my sophomore year.
SPEAKER_05:The devil S Dr.
SPEAKER_07:Yes, and back masking roll, yeah, back masking and and So of course we What's back masking? Uh where you play the music backwards and then hear things like decide to smoke marijuana or if you play uh the white album backwards, John's it's gonna tell you that the Jesus isn't real or something like that. Right. And um stairway to heaven has some stuff on it. So of course you get a bunch of teenage kids, some some of them are gonna be really, really smart. So a couple guys figured out how to wire uh a cassette player backwards so we'd be listening to all the rock music backwards to see if we could come up with you know you think about it, and you mentioned Stairway to Heaven.
SPEAKER_05:Like you don't have to listen to Led Zeppelin backwards, listen to what they're singing about. Like they're saying, like, whole lot of love is all about sex. Like their songs, you don't have to listen to them backwards to hear, and then this isn't life to music. No, like the main singers were like um Jimmy Page was obsessed with Alistair Crowley, which is like a like that's a demonic, like all that stuff is demonic. You don't I don't think you have to go very far. Maybe the trick was to get you to play it backwards so you don't understand that what they're actually saying is is something that's probably not beneficial to you.
SPEAKER_07:Well, it was it was funny because we're we're sitting there in chapel and he's going on and on about rock music is bad, and someone raised their hand and said, Well, yeah, but what about you know Christian music today?
SPEAKER_05:And this was when Carmen I knew you were gonna say Carmen.
SPEAKER_07:I knew you were gonna say Carmen, Amy Grant, uh Michael W. Smith, I think was early years, Stephen Curtis Chapman, I think. Yeah, uh early to mid 80s. Maybe I got some of these guys wrong, but I know Carmen should die as the devil. Yep. Well, yeah, that's what they're saying, and I'm and you know, he he sits there and goes, Well, I don't think that's very good. You you should only listen to him. That's the only thing you should ever really and and that's where he completely lost me. Okay. We Richard, we would get stoned, my roommate and I, and have deep philosophical religious discussions.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_07:Seriously. It's fascinating to me because I'm sitting there going, okay, you you say the Holy Spirit is alive today, but now you're telling me that but God doesn't speak because the only thing I should listen to is a hundred-year-old hymn.
SPEAKER_05:Who's the songwriter or who's the guy that said, Why should the devil have all the good music?
SPEAKER_07:Oh I yeah, I know what you're talking about. I can't.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I think it was during the late 70s, early 80s. I think that the at that time, in maybe in Seventh-day Adventism, that's that was a big push against any kind of contemporary Christian music.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, definitely. I I remember girls who went to a Carmen concert and they got in trouble for going. I I I know it it so anyway. Um my parents, my dad decided he was getting sick and tired of fighting North Dakota winners on a farm. So they started looking for jobs elsewhere, and they they found a janitorial position in Bakersville, California, my my junior year. So they leased yeah, yeah. So North Dakota to Bakersville, California.
SPEAKER_04:Oh man.
SPEAKER_07:They they leased leased out the farm, moved to Bakersville, California. So they they let me finish up my junior year, and and I fully expected I was coming back for my senior year. And so I I leave. Um no, it was 38 years before he and I ever saw each other. But uh that that summer, three of us received a letter from the school, and it was worded in in such a way, I'm not gonna get it completely correct, but it was unique in how it was worded. Because it said, uh, we would strongly encourage Tracy to continue his education elsewhere. Um, if he were to attempt to return to DAA, uh, he will first have to meet with the faculty group and explain why we should allow him to come back. And if we do decide to allow him to come back, um he will be on every probation imaginable.
SPEAKER_05:You know, at the end of the year, we have these meetings when you work at a boarding academy. And it's it's I don't know what to think about it now, but we all the whole staff sits around this table and they bring up students' names, and you're trying to decide, can we let them back? And I had like the first year I was there, I'd never experienced anything like this.
SPEAKER_07:It's a weird thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's weird as and it's kind of heartbreaking, and I always felt like I was an advocate for the boys. Uh so I was trying to be like, no, like I felt like I I wanted to work with anybody if they were just willing to give a little bit, I would want to work with them. And uh yeah, it was sad, man, because some of those kids, yeah, never I haven't seen them since like that that we weren't able to let them come back. It was it was really sad.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Uh needless to say, though those letters, three of us received them, and uh because I was in Southern California, I guess that just became well. I guess I'm not going back there for my senior year. And another kid who had kind of come and gone bounced back and forth between public school and the academy, he just picked public school. But the third member, he he and I were really good friends. And so he loads up all his stuff to come back for his senior year, and they tell him, Nope, don't unload, come eat with the faculty. So he has to sit there and answer all these questions from everybody. And I I didn't find out any of this until just a couple years ago when he and I saw each other for the first time since then. And he said, You want to talk about a weird feeling? He goes, uh he lived two, three hours away from school, and so they made him sit out in the center area while they discussed, and then came out and said, Yeah, no, go home. You you can't come to school this year. Yeah, and and for him, I to this day that is a huge resentment in his life because Academy was family for him. And they said, sorry, go home, go away. We don't want you. And some of those staff members, it took me a long time for me to process. Um, one of those guys, our senior year when we weren't there during chapel, put up a picture of him and I sitting together in that little circle area in the middle of the um ab building. And he goes, The reason these two guys aren't here this year is because they didn't follow the rules. So that that was a huge resentment for me when I found out about that. It was it took me a long time to get beyond hating that man. You know, I looking back, I I can kind of understand because did I follow the rules? Nope. Um, I was gonna do anything and everything I could to have fun, get away with stuff, um, get high, get drunk. Um yeah, and my learning how to treat women during this time frame was a complete disaster because that started to shake my life. So anyway, um moved to Bakersfield, California. I I left North Dakota, no understanding of who my heavenly father was at all, not even sure of a of the Jesus thing. Okay, not not even understanding that Jesus is in my corner and loves me deeply. Um no concept whatsoever.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_07:So uh went to the academy they had in Bakersfield for my senior year, and I was complete, utter culture shock going to a school. In North Dakota, you have a bunch of white farm kids. You probably ran into some Hispanics, your first Hispanic person you met in uh uh yeah, it was it was almost equally split, 25% between Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, and Asian. It was it was and and so learning culturally, and a lot of these guys became I became really good friends with, but it was just weird to learn and process as a as a white farm kid moving to Southern California, okay.
SPEAKER_05:My my friend went to she's much older than me, she went to Maplewood, or she lived, she lived in northern Minnesota, and the first time she saw a black person was she was she was in high school because she was so far north, she never saw a black person until high school, and she was like, Who is that? What is this? What's happening?
SPEAKER_07:Well, I I I remember seeing that, but in North Dakota, we had the Air Force base there, so you in the mall you'd run into some black folk as a little kid just staring at my brother hitting me. Stop staring, what's wrong with you? But anyway, um, but but I left DAA carrying a lot of resentment towards faculty. Um moved to California, um, and I met a young lady there, and man, Richard, for some reason I fell hard, head over heels, hard for this young lady. But uh looking back, my affirmations, I was getting my affirmations from flirting with women from fantasy and from whatever sexual activity I could gain from somebody. Um, and and this young lady, after time went on for a little bit, she dumped me for a college guy, and that just completely wrecked me. Um at that time, okay, and not saying she didn't have good reason to do that. I'm just saying from my perspective, I had no idea what to do with myself because I I had hung my hat on a woman where you know I should be hanging my hat on Jesus, and so but like I said, no concept of that. Um I ended up going to PUC for a while. Um have you ever been to PUC? Are you familiar with it at all?
SPEAKER_05:That's the only one I haven't been to. I know it's on the top of a hill and it's kind of dangerous to get up there, but that's the only one I haven't been to.
SPEAKER_07:Oh wow. I I was back a couple years ago, I think, visiting, and I completely took for granted what a beautiful place that was, you know, when you're 18, 19 years old, have no clue what you have at the moment, you know. But um I I enjoyed my time at college, but with my resentment towards authority issues, uh didn't really it's gonna be tough. I was there to have fun and to work, not to and why in the world at that time, why in the world am I paying 10 grand a year to go to school? And then my second year there, I ran into someone who had graduated the year before, and they with a business degree and they were working at Walmart. Oh no, and I'm like, what excuse me? You spent all that money for four years here, and you're working at Walmart. What? So I I kind of checked out. I but but I developed some really close friends that I still have today from that time. Um you were there for a year? I was there for two years. I uh well, I kind of I got uh encouraged to leave my freshman year because we we had pulled a prank and I had used some official keys to pull this prank. Um so during we call it Hell Week, everyone studying, taking tests right before the finals. Right. Um, and then once you take your finals, kids would start acting crazy, you know. So the the dorm, the men's dorm beside us, Granger Hall, came and stormed our dorm with water balloons and you know, drenching everybody. So myself and a few others um decided we were gonna teach them a lesson. So I worked in the heating plant, and some others were involved who shall remain nameless, but um so I knew I had access to the tunnels. We we we went down underneath their dorm, turned their water off, and then hung up hung a big huge banner in the cafeteria that said, Hey Granger, how were your showers? Dribble dribble Newton, because Newton Hall was where we lived. Um the next day, one of the guys that was involved in this said, Well, you should talk to Tracy about that. So where I was raised and where I came from, you didn't rat anybody out, okay? So when they came talking to me about what had happened and how did this water get turned off, I I took full responsibility. Yep, it was all me. I did it. Well, who else was involved? Nope, it was just me. Well, how did you do it? I I know where the keys are, I use the keys. Well, you you need to leave school for the rest of this year, so oh man.
SPEAKER_05:What what year was this when you were at PUC?
SPEAKER_07:Uh that would have been 86, spring of 87, fall of 86, spring of 87.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I'm wondering because early 80s is when all this stuff with Desmond Ford is going on, and he was the Bible or religion teacher there. And so, but you were not there.
SPEAKER_07:I I was not there when he was there. No.
SPEAKER_05:Probably died down.
SPEAKER_07:Well, there were other battles they were fighting, which I probably won't get into because it's just someone else's story, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:But uh my my roommate and I I I get there and start talking to this guy from Montana, and he he hears my last name and he goes, Hey, uh are you related to so-and-so names a few other written boxes? And I said, Yeah, well, it turns out he and I were like third cousins. And so then we then we started roaming together. Well, they they had this big huge speed bump out in front of the dorms made of asphalt, and he and I both worked night shifts down at the heating plant. So we decided this speed bump's kind of hard on our cars. So at nighttime we would go pour diesel on it, and then when we'd come back early in the morning, beat on it with a sledgehammer, and after a while it just disintegrated. It works it worked, it works. So I I I come back my second year, they allow me to come back. Okay, you can come back, you can we'll even hire you at the heating plant again, just stay out of trouble.
SPEAKER_05:That's their fault.
SPEAKER_07:Well, I so we're riding in this car, and there's my roommate and another friend with a new girl who was just there, and she's like, Oh man, it's so funny. These guys from Granger took out this speed bump last year. Oh, that's just hysterical. And we just kind of look at each other like, oh, really? Tell us more, please. So finally, the the other friend of ours looked at her and goes, So here's the deal the two guys that took out that speed bump are in this car, and I am not one of them. I don't know what story you're hearing, but it is not true. I know. Anyway, so I ended up leaving school, moving back home with mom and dad, kind of doing um odd jobs. Um, ended up working as a cashier at a convenience store, which is not good for someone who lives in fantasy. Because the ability to flirt with women, and I enjoyed flirting with women, and so I I spent two years doing that, and and it was looking back, my my concept of women, Richard. I I've already said that it was not good, it wasn't a positive thing at all. It was what could I get? Um, so I had some friends that worked at Campion Academy, and they needed they were losing people in their maintenance department, and they asked if I would be willing to come work and do like a task force position in the maintenance department at Campion. So I agreed to it. I wanted out of Southern California anyway. Um, I did not really care for Southern California just because um so I ended up moving to Colorado um working on staff at Campion Academy, and and unfortunately, I brought that us versus them mentality, but now I'm a staff member. So now I'm trying to catch kids doing stuff. Make sense? Yeah, not not healthy, no, and so if anyone who was at Campion Academy is listening to this, I am so sorry for my attitude and how I looked at my position because I was not helpful at all. It was not okay for me to act like that.
SPEAKER_05:So were you there with my friend Troy Beans?
SPEAKER_07:Yes, I was.
SPEAKER_05:Oh that guy.
SPEAKER_07:I I I had to laugh when you when I heard Mike's story because when I got there, Mike was two, maybe younger, year and a half.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, so it's that whole age thing. But but it's good that yeah. My my wife just said we old.
SPEAKER_05:I said, Yeah, I know, but no, they're some of my favorite some of my favorite people.
SPEAKER_07:Troy Troy's a really awesome guy. He really is. Obviously, I I don't have much of a relationship with Michael because he was yeah, so very very very young dude when I was there, but but Troy was amazing.
SPEAKER_05:So how long were you a camping?
SPEAKER_07:I was there for four years. The the first year was awesome. Enrollment, I think they had like 20 over budget, so everybody's in a good mood, you know. Um, you know, the the the history of getting in trouble, Richard, though, still continues. Um I'm I'm the one of the youngest staff members there, and we started developing a tradition of on Saturday nights after whatever the program was, I would take kids to Taco Bell and load up the van and go to Taco Bell. Sometimes the bus um take the yellow bus to town if there were more. Well, one night the bus, none of the buses were available, and I show up at the van and there's 30 kids there in a 15-passenger van. And and I shrugged my shoulders, loaded them all up, and went to Taco Bell.
SPEAKER_05:30 kids in a 15-passenger van.
SPEAKER_07:So there was there were well with me, there was 30 total. We had to count as people were exiting to find out how many. It's like a clown car at a certain right, exactly. And and I had enough room to see my mirror on my left and directly in front of me, and that was really about it, because they were jammed in there like sardines.
SPEAKER_05:Send your kids to DAA and Campion Academy, listeners. Uh this is what we're about.
SPEAKER_07:I'm I'm sure it's not like that today, but uh so I I got away with it with 30. Well, one night I showed up and there's 22 kids there. So we got away with it with 30. So, all right, just you know, pile on top of each other, let's go. Well, I got pulled over that night, and uh so the police ripped me up one one side and down the other, and then piled the kids in the back of the paddy wagon and delivered them delivered them to school with full lights going on, and so when when faculty start seeing red and blue lights entering campus, everyone's pouring out of their homes trying to figure out what's going on, and well, it it's Tracy doing something he shouldn't be doing. I I got in so much trouble, Richard. Oh my goodness, I got a butt chewing, like yeah, well deserved. Okay, looking back, yes, absolutely well deserved. I should not have done that.
SPEAKER_05:Was the principal there uh long time, long time principal?
SPEAKER_07:Was he there for uh the guy that was there right when I got there was leaving, Hal Hampton, and then David Gillam was there, I think three years, and then he left, and then we got someone named Cassidy, and I I left that first year when Cassidy uh was it Cassidy? It seems like that's it. So I I left then. Um the first year was you know money wasn't an issue because they had more students than than what they had budgeted for the second year, they ended up being like 20 kids under budget, and and it just got hellish.
SPEAKER_05:Did they make the budget off of the last year?
SPEAKER_07:And then well, no, of course not. They uh they actually caught up stuff, you know. Yeah, they didn't really have a a surplus. Um so in the process of that, they they got rid of um, well, he was essentially my boss, the treasurer, and shipped him to the conference office. And he and I were pretty tight, actually. And that that was really hard on him watching how he was treated, and then watching how some of the other staff were treated. This this was a wake-up call for me uh but regarding institutional adventism, I guess, or corporate adventism, how that works, you know.
SPEAKER_05:Fear, man.
SPEAKER_07:It was it was rough.
SPEAKER_05:I know what it feels like.
SPEAKER_07:I'm in the yeah, yes, you do.
SPEAKER_05:And uh man, you're making me think of all of these things. Uh my first year, I was working, and the lady who was the cafeteria director had been her husband had been the principal before, but now was no longer. And she was talking to me about the day they decide whether you're gonna come back to work as a staff member. And I was like, what? She's like, Yeah, they have this meeting, the conference, and they decide if you're gonna come back. And I was like, like, this is just like the whole culture felt like very scary. It felt like you're you could there was no yeah, there was no safety. It was like you could be gone at any moment. It just didn't feel good.
SPEAKER_07:So I I experienced that my first year, and they were doing something, um it was a weird thing. They they were kind of hemming and hawing over my position, and then one day the treasurer calls me up, he said, Tracy, come over, we need to talk. And so I went over to his house, sat down, he goes, First of all, this has nothing to do with you, but there is someone that they are trying to get rid of, and so therefore they're lumping all of these positions together to try to get this person to quit.
SPEAKER_05:I'm like, what can just be like, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Well, whatever happened to just having a conversation, like, listen, this isn't working out. We, you know, we need you to go away, or you know, whatever. Anyway, so so that was kind of the beginning of what in the world's going on, and then the following year they got rid of him, and there were other staff members, and and of course, when there's a lack of money, there's a lot of blame. People are blaming this program, you know, people aren't coming because of this, and it was it was it got really unhealthy and not not good, it was not a great place. So, and I I kind of burned out being the young single guy. I always, you know, I take people's uh supervision duties and you know, or driving kids around or running to the airport to pick people up, and you don't think about it at the time because the first year was so much fun and it was a blast, but after a while it just wears on you, you know.
SPEAKER_05:So and you don't realize how much of an idiot you are right out of college because you think like you think, oh man, I've matured, and you look at the kids in high school and you're like, Yeah, they're young. And then when you get a few more years on you, you look back and you're like, I was an idiot.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah. Uh truer words, Richard. So I I I ended up leaving there. I drove fuel truck, I worked at a hospital for a little bit, then I drove fuel truck out of Boulder, Colorado for a while. And in that process, I met someone who had worked at the Rocky Flats nuclear plant that's south of Boulder, uh, between Boulder and Denver, essentially. And uh I'd met him, and then one day I ran into him. Uh, and he's like, hey, they're hiring out there. I think you'd be good out there. You should go apply. Yeah, I didn't know anything about it, you know, really, other than, okay, nuclear atomic bomb, okay, whatever. So I put in a resume and uh came home from work one day, and on my, this was you know, the beginning stages of caller ID. You had that little white box, you know, and it would have caller ID. I there was a phone number from Rocky Flats, but there was no message. I'm like, huh. So I wrote down that number, went to work the next day, called that number, and they said, Oh yeah, we're hiring people. Would you come in for an interview next week? So that was that was me stumbling into my career in the nuclear field. Um, so I went and I interviewed, and they were hiring tons of people because they were tearing apart Rocky Flats, doing very um hazardous work tearing apart um plutonium and americium glove boxes and hydrofluoric acid lines and nitric acid. And so I I got hired to be part of those crews tearing apart a nuclear weapons plant.
SPEAKER_02:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_07:And it was I started there in '99. Um, I was there for three years. And about a year and a half in, I I'm my authority issues, Richard, okay?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um if someone is telling you, if someone is telling me something to my face, but it they're not acting in the same way. So, you know, we preach safety, safety, safety, safety. But then when the actions are not followed up with safety, don't come to me and blame me regarding safety. So they transferred a bunch of us people out of what was at the time classified the nastiest building in North America, um, transferred us out of there where we were making tons of overtime. And when we when we left the building, we got together and started talking, and we realized all of us that have been transferred had brought up a whole bunch of safety issues. So we we got together with an attorney, and the group of us ended up suing the company we we worked for for retaliation for bringing up safety issues. Um, that was a very weird and interesting experience because if if you ever think that no one knows me at work, I work for a large company, no one knows my name, just go ahead and see the company you work for. Everyone will know who you are really, really quickly.
SPEAKER_05:I'm sure.
SPEAKER_07:Um, what one of the guys in our group had been an upper level manager, taken the buyout, left, and then came back as a regular worker, just like us. You know, suiting up, chopping up pipe and cutting apart glove boxes. And so there was another young guy my age um in this group. All all the rest of us that were in the lawsuit had been there 18, 20 years. And then there was this other guy and I named Joey. He and I had been there like a year and a half. So he pulls us out one day and he says, guys, listen, they are going to consider it a success if they can fire you. He goes, they're not going to mess with us because we've been around too long. But you need to be very careful in what you do because they are going to try to fire you and they will consider it a success, and I know because I know how they think. And it was it turned into a very stressful situation. Um there were multiple times our boss would try to write us up, and we'd have to fight it uh through uh the labor relations board, and as soon as we'd walk in and state our names, they were bored until we stated our names, and all of a sudden they realized, oh, these are two guys part of the lawsuit. It was comical, but yet very stressful all at the same time. And and there were people who some of the bosses would look would look at us and go, oh, no, no, no, I don't want any part of that. I don't want to mess with that. But there were others who would say, Oh, if I if I can get these guys fired, I've you know, the company will look at me like I did something good for them.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_07:So that turned into a very stressful time. Um, but this is the beginning of where God started to become real to me. Um, I'll never forget we're in the middle of this lawsuit. We had met uh with our attorney in downtown Denver, and uh our our boss had called us in, this other guy and I, and they had tried to write us up for not showing up to work, even though we were there. It was just a baffling, twisted mess. And uh I'm driving down I-25, bawling my eyes out because I'm like, it was just distress, galore. And Phillips, Craig, and Dean came on the radio. I just started listening to Christian, well, Caleb at the time. And uh I can't remember the name of the song, but that song just broke me. I I was like, wow. Um, so all the way through this lawsuit, uh, my my buddy that was my age, he's like, I'm agnostic. I'm you know, I don't really believe in God. But I'm like, well, buddy, I'm God's watching us, he's you know, he's taking care of us. And and the guy that had been a manager, he was a believer as well. And he's like, no, God's taking care of us, man. We will get through this. So that was just stressful. And then going and having to testify regarding your upper level management and vice presidents of the company, and yeah, it was a weird dynamic.
SPEAKER_05:Did you guys win? Uh they settled.
SPEAKER_07:Yes. Unable to speak about uh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:All right. I hope it was worth it. All right, I want to take a real quick break. It is December, and December is giving month. If you could find it in your heart to give towards love reality, we're making this thing happen. We are preaching this gospel and we don't care. Uh, we've thrown caution in the wind. We want to preach it, we want everybody to hear it, and uh, man, it would be a blessing if you could help out by going to lovereality.org slash give and and donating to this this gospel movement, this movement about telling people, anybody who can hear us, that they're free from and dead to sin in Christ. And so that is the purpose of our lives. We want freedom for everybody who can hear it. And so uh lovereality.org slash give partner with us. Uh we want to keep this thing moving forward uh into 2026. Um, so yeah, lovereality.org slash give. Let's get back into the episode.
SPEAKER_07:Uh so anyway, I my mother had been raised in Walla Walla, and my brother calls me up about this time uh after we had been to court, and he's like, hey, uh Uncle Daryl has passed away, and so my mom owned this property up here. He goes, What why don't you go get a job at Hanford and come take care of mom's property up here? I'm like, What? And so I started looking around and um looking for jobs up here at Hanford, and I put in my resume, and then that summer we we made an appointment to come up here, we were gonna clean out grandma's house because my uncle had been living in my grandma's house, and now that he had passed away, and they were gonna try to figure out are they gonna rent it, are they gonna sell it, is Tracy gonna move there, what's gonna happen? So when I worked at Rocky Flats, I had what is called a acu clearance, which is the civilian equivalent to a top secret clearance um because of the materials and stuff we were dealing with. And so we we had a special at that time, uh they change every few years. I had a kind of a royal blue badge that said I had a cue clearance. So I'm driving out here, and I I love listening to music when I drive, and you know, finally I'm like, you know, I really need to pray about this and figure out some direction about what's gonna happen here because the job I had applied for, I would have had to take about a$10 an hour pay cut, and I start thinking about it going, I I love my parents, but not that much. Okay, not ten bucks an hour. Um, also, I had been in kind of this weird relationship type thing with a married woman in Colorado for five, six years. And I was gonna be her hero because she told me she was leaving her husband about every other week, so I expected it to happen at any time. So, you know, that sick fantasy lust hero complex stuff that happens, that that's where I was living. That's well, that was my headspace. So as I'm driving up here, turn off all the music, and I had a great conversation with God. And I said, you know what, Lord, if this is where you want me, okay, I'm willing to move. I said, however, I don't want this job because I don't want a$10 an hour pay cut. So if you want me to move to Walla Walla and get a job at Hanford, you will have them in my interview tell me that they want to hire me for a completely different position. Then I will know without a doubt that you want me up here. Because that would also change how we approach dealing with grandma's house. You know, whether we had to completely clean it all out or whether we could just everyone take what they wanted and leave the rest for me to deal with once I moved here, right? So I come up and I go to my interview, and it was Richard. This is one of the best interviews I've ever had in my life because I don't want this job and I don't care. That's the key. And and I'm not moving to Hanford.
SPEAKER_05:Not wanting the job is the best way to go into an interview.
SPEAKER_07:And the and the whole time during the interview, he keeps glancing at my chest, looking at my badge. Okay. And I'm not really noticing, we're just we're talking about what it's like. To tear apart radioactive equipment, and we were ahead of the people here at Hanford at Rocky Flats because we were like really the first place that we were doing this kind of stuff. So had a really good philosophical discussion about what we were doing and how we were doing it. Finally, he's like, you know, Tracy, I need to get home. Um, I've really enjoyed talking to you, but I I feel like I would be insulting you if I offered you this position. And in my mind, I'm like, yep, I am out of here. He goes, however, we have a place called Z Plant that uh it it is required for you to have a Q clearance in order to work there, and we're discovering if we hire 10 people to work there, we can only clear less than 50 percent. So they'll hire 10 people, start the clearance process, and by the time they're done with the clearance process, now they got to find jobs for these other five to six people because only four of them could qualify, four to five could qualify to work there. He goes, but you already have a Q clearance. Yes. Well, would you like a job there? Like, no, you're kidding me. You've got to be kidding me. And uh, he goes, and on top of that, we will take whoever you can bring with a Q clearance with you. So I went home and told my parents, well, I guess I'm moving here. Well, did you get the job? No, but uh I I know it's gonna happen because God completely answered my prayer, and uh so I went back to Colorado and about 11 of us came up here um from Colorado to work in Hanford. But that that to me was a bit of a shock because that was like the first time, Richard, that I thought God was personally interested in just me. Does that make sense? It was it was it was a complete. Sorry, my wife's going, did you tell him blah blah blah? I said, Yes, I did.
SPEAKER_05:He's got he's got a room.
SPEAKER_07:So I I move up here and I didn't realize how how sick my mindset was uh regarding this relationship until I had been here and been removed from that situation, and then I'm like, what in the world was I think?
SPEAKER_00:Martha.
SPEAKER_07:Um so I came up here, uh I developed a back problem. I can't remember what I did, but I screwed up my back, and so I started getting on pain meds.
SPEAKER_05:Oh no.
SPEAKER_07:And I got into a bad place at work because I'd be on and off work all the time, my back would be screwed up. Um, and they try they they they cancel, not cancel, but they suspend your Q clearance when you're on high pain meds. And I I developed a dependency on pain medication, and and that turned into a really big mess for a while.
SPEAKER_05:Was this during the the heyday of oxycontin, oxycodone?
SPEAKER_07:That yeah, yeah, yeah. Lot of oxy, a lot of vikodin. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You read the books on this stuff now, and you're like, how did it's amazing that it's a miracle you got out of it, man? Like those things can get crazy.
SPEAKER_07:Well, here's what got me out of it. I woke up in the middle of the night. I swore I felt a breath on my face, and I woke up and I saw demons in the room.
SPEAKER_05:Mercy. Yeah, that'll um, that'll that'll do it.
SPEAKER_07:Standing over me.
SPEAKER_05:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_07:Um I I I swear to you, it and and that freaked me out. I never again uh I was done. Oh man, I was done.
SPEAKER_05:How how long were you taking them to kind of survive?
SPEAKER_07:It it wasn't a great deal of time, it was probably nine-ish months, nine months to a year in that in there. So, yeah. But it it it was really messing with me and and my job status. They were not happy with me at work. Um so in in in that process, in this mess, one of the union stewards said, you know, we need a we have a union steward opening. This might be helpful for you in your position with being in trouble. Um and because you're kind of off and on a medical leave anyway, you you you know, your clearance is kind of suspended. So I got put in as a steel worker union steward for approximately 180 operators at the Hanford site, and that was a very interesting mess, conundrum. But I could also see God's leading in that because it kept me out of trouble and gave me something to focus on. Um, it was a weird mess. But during this time of my life, major porn addiction, painkiller addiction, chewing tobacco, um, I was in and off again, on again relationship with the young lady, and this has been going on. This was up here in Walla Walla, and we had talked about going to counseling together, and then when it came right down to it, she's like, No, I know you're the one with all the problems, you go. I don't need counseling. And I I I was mad and upset, and I started thinking and processing all of my past failed relationships, but the only common denominator was me. You know, the women were all different in some way, shape, or form, but I'm the common denominator. So I prayed about it and opened up the phone book, and because I had a cue clearance, I started asking the question listen, uh, first of all, work would have allowed me to go to relationship counseling, but if I'm going there for any other reason, it would be suspicious, and they may put my job in jeopardy over my security clearance. So I went to this counseling place and I said, I want to pay you cash. You cannot keep a record of me. Is that okay and something you're willing to do? And they said, Well, I think we'll just get back to you. And there was a lady called me back. Richard, this was a complete God thing. I had no clue at the time. Her, I did not find out for about a year, but her husband was in sex addiction recovery, and she was a counselor. So all of my BS and smoke and mirrors that I was playing, she saw right through it. And as we start talking, she she starts saying, you know, have you considered that you're a sex addict? And I'm like, no, there's no way. No, no, no, I'm not that. Um, but she led me on a journey. I don't know if you ever heard of Ron and Nancy Rocky binding the wounds.
SPEAKER_05:I haven't.
SPEAKER_07:They it's a CD series that they did about healing, and uh they they have Adventist background as well. I I listened to this CD set, and Richard, I was so angry I did not sleep for a week because I started processing how I was raised without proper attachment. Um, and at that same time, I was processing how this woman I was dating, how she was raised, and then how she was raising her children, and it angered me so much because I I had to get through the anger to get to a place of healing because it was so incredibly frustrating. My parents, if if I cried when I was a baby, they did not pick me up. It's too bad. You know, yeah, I gotta figure it out. You know, and my family, a lot of my family believes in that type of thing. I can't speak for a lot of them today, but well, yeah, when I was raised, that's how it works. Yeah. Figure it out. Yeah, yeah. The kid needs to learn to self-soothe. Well, all that is is broken attachment. So that that learning process of counseling, it was incredibly healing, but it was incredibly hard. And uh she uh convinced me to start attending Celebrate Recovery, and I I was what you've got to be kidding me. This is this no, I I'm not that screwed up. Um my first night sitting in Celebrate Recovery.
SPEAKER_05:You said I'm not that screwed up, and I heard your wife laughing. What does that mean?
SPEAKER_07:That's a that's exactly the truth, brother. That's exactly the truth.
SPEAKER_05:That's cold.
SPEAKER_07:So I I go to my first celebrate recovery meeting, and I'm sitting there in the men's sharing group afterwards, and I'm looking around the room, and all of a sudden it dawns on me, and this was my single most terrifying moment of my whole entire life, Richard. Oh wow, because the BS has to stop here. Okay, I couldn't can't be can't be telling half truths, trying to spread stuff, you know, make things okay, and and I'm looking at these other guys, realizing these men can tell me about my secret thoughts, and that terrified me. So, but there was the beginning of a wonderful journey. And uh I started attending Celebrate Recovery. I I went for here's the funny thing, started doing some recovery work, and in about three three, four months, I knew everything. I you know, I I knew everything, and you needed to tell everyone else how they needed to do it. That that's that's that's called codependency, you know. Uh finally worked through that, and I the young lady I was dating, uh, we were growing in completely different directions. Um, this recovery thing was not something she was interested in, and so we kind of went our separate ways. I I joined a dating site called adventistmatch.com. I don't know if that's still around or not.
SPEAKER_05:And met met some young ladies and was do your favorite uh veggie meet and match up if like you said big Franks and someone else said big Franks, we might have something here because the Vegilance people, you that wouldn't work.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, exactly. But I I've met a couple of young ladies, and uh I I was not I was not jiving with with the people I was meeting, you know. And I I was just waiting for my um subscription to run out, and there was a young lady that lived below me, would come up and ask if she could use my computer. She was also a member on there, and one day she starts yelling, Tracy, come here, come here, come here. You need to, you need to. This is your wife. This is the one you're gonna marry. I'm like, what are you talking about? Come here, take a look at this girl. So it was a picture of Ruth sitting there with her mom, and my my wife has a beautiful smile. She loves people, she loves being around people, and so my my neighbor Brenda was the one saying, You need to reach out to her. And I'm like, No, I'm sick of these chicks on this site. Uh no, I'm good. So, but I saved her profile and I would go on and look at it every once in a while. Um, so finally about a month later, see what happened, they would feature two members, a male and a female, each week. And she was forced to sign up by a friend of hers, kicking and screaming, and she signed up, and then they, because of her beautiful smile, made her a featured member. So as soon as you log into the site, there was her face. Um, so because of that, she was getting tons of people reaching out to her. I I didn't know any of this, I wasn't gonna reach out to her. But after about a month one night, I was wide awake in the middle of the night, and I got up and I wrote her a letter. I just said, This is who I am. I've been going through counseling the last, I don't know, nine months or so, go working my way, working through your sexual addiction stuff. Um, these are some of the books I've read. I just told her who I was and said, you know, if you'd like to reach out, so be it. And uh the next week she called, and that that began a journey of getting to know each other. Um, she lived in Chicago, I lived here. Um, but that was a blessing, Richard, because it gave us she has her story of trauma and and and coping mechanisms in her life, and I had mine. This this gave us the opportunity to come from a healthy space of getting to know each other without being physical with each other at all, and talk about belief systems and what we did or did not believe in. And I was starting to wrap my mind around who my heavenly father was that you know, so in this journey, she was she called me up complaining about something one night, and I said, get off your ass and go to celebrate recovery. And for me, that was a test because I wanted to do relationships differently than what I had done them. I was not interested in playing games anymore, which is what I had done my whole entire life. Um, and I wanted somebody that was real, and I was shocked because she went to celebrate recovery and she began her own journey of healing in that process. Um, so counseling, my my counselor started me in this process of writing forgiveness letters, not amends letters. So this began the healing process with my father. And my counselor would repeatedly say, Well, okay, I know you said your dad, but what about your mom? And she made me dig really deep, and it was shocking to find out that my mom had a lot of toxic stuff going on herself. You know, my dad's was more visible, but my mom's was a lot more hidden because it was more behind the scenes manipulation, and so learning to forgive them and move through that, and then still treating them and loving them, you know, without holding resentment over them. That that one music teacher I told you about, um the guy that put our picture up on the in the chapel. I I every time I'd see his name, I'd cringe and be angry and upset. And so finally one day I I wrote a forgiveness letter to him, knowing I needed to do it, and I was amazed at the weight that was lifted. You know, I I inter I interact with him all the time on Facebook. I'm no longer in that space, but my buddy, who 38 years ago, well now it's 40 years ago, was also told you can't come to school here. He he still lives in this place of just anger and resentment. And my heart aches for him because trying to tell him he can't live there and he needs to heal from that, he will not even hear.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, he's poisoning himself. And that's the thing is that when we don't like something, we stuff it down deep. Then we don't realize it comes around, and then it comes around, and instead of dealing with it and releasing it like you did and writing that letter, we stuff it down deep even more, so it can keep hurting us forever. And at some point, you can release it and just say, Yeah, this has nothing to say about me going forward. It hurt when it happened, and but I'm not gonna let it hurt just because it hurt 30 years ago. Does it have to hurt today? No, no, I I release them, I forgive them, and that way you stopped drinking the poison.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, totally. Um that was it that was such an amazing healing process for me with my parents. Um, Ruth and I eventually got married, um, and she moved out here. And the first Christmas that year, she uh we would we would get together with my parents every three years, and my parents had actually moved up here, and so all my siblings were gonna be at my parents' house. We go to my parents' house that first Christmas of her and I being married, and we come home and she's like, Tracy, you treat your parents completely differently than your siblings do. What do you mean? She goes, You just treat them like you love them, there's no underlying resentment or or trying to be mean, trying to get a little jab in with them. And that was uh it was eye-opening and very revealing to me. Um, that was that was kind of the place I grew up in, was always getting in a little jab if you can, um, and learning not to live in that space. And I'm still at times, Richard, learning not to live in that space. I will say things to my wife, and as I'm saying them, realizing this is these are not words of life. This is uh, honey. I am sorry I said this. This is not okay. Um I'm we need to move along here, huh?
SPEAKER_05:I'm looking at these photos of you in uh in academy.
SPEAKER_07:No.
SPEAKER_05:You put it on Facebook, you messed up, man. I'm looking at it.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, there's some pictures of me in academy there. Absolutely. I had hair, Richard. You're looking good.
SPEAKER_05:Man, looking real good. So, man, you were doing a lot of healing.
SPEAKER_07:I'm doing a lot of healing. Ruth and I get married. Now the the confluence of trauma comes together. Her trauma, my trauma, and learning how we are triggering each other.
SPEAKER_05:That's how it works.
SPEAKER_07:Oh boy. Oh, yeah. You're married, yeah. So we we start going to marriage counseling, and through marriage counseling, we end up at a place called Good Samaritan Ministries, which is a uh, I don't know if you know anything about it. It is a free counseling service. Well, it's not free, it's by donation counseling service by lay persons overseen by the actual um licensed practitioners. Um, we we had uh joined um Celebrate Recovery's leadership team where we had been in the program together here, and we started at uh Good Samaritan Ministries counseling there, and then they asked if we'd be willing to join their counseling training program. Um, this is where I began my healing from Adventism, for lack of a better term.
SPEAKER_05:Healing from Adventism, mercy. Let's go. Let me hear about it.
SPEAKER_07:So we these count uh the counselor training classes, they were it was three years long um during the winter at at three different levels first, second, and third level. And they start off the first level with you get to be a piece of the pie in people discovering Jesus, and it's not your problem what piece it is. You don't have to worry about it. That's the Holy Spirit's job. You just get to be a piece of the puzzle. So so stop being concerned about you, yeah, you know, the the guilt of there's only someone, their only route to Jesus may be you. Stop worrying about that. That's that's God's business, not yours.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_07:Um, and we we would do things we took Jesus' miracles and we would act them out. And it gives you a really different perspective, you know, when you're when you're sitting there being the blind man you can't see, and you know, Jesus comes along and he or or the we we did the parable of the good Samaritan. Um I got I got to be a robber, we'd mug somebody, you know, quote, tear their clothes and beat them up, and then yeah. But it was very much okay, stop thinking living in the 2000s, put yourself in this time frame, in this space, and learn what's happening around you. Um, and then we had to write a three-page report on each of Jesus' miracles, and some of them are like two verses, and it's a three-page questionnaire. You have to pick apart um what was happening, what was going on with the audience, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, all these questions, and it was it was an amazing experience. Um, and I I I really started discovering this was where learning my heavenly father truly loves Tracy Rittenbach, period. He created me separately and distinctly. Um, and and Jesus isn't quote standing in between me and the father to protect me from the father. Um, yes. Um, then we uh Ruth and I start trying to have children, and we had Ruth got pregnant with her oldest, and she lost him at 23 weeks. She went into preterm label, late label, labor, and that this whole thing was a comedy of errors. Um she gets to the hospital. Um, I meet her at the hospital, they uh take her out to the ambulance, and the ambulance won't start. They can't get the ambulance started to take her to the the airport, and I don't know any of this. I'm because I'm going home because I'm expecting to meet her in Spokane because they're gonna fly her to Spokane. And we had two foster girls at the time, and so we we're in the middle of an of the night arranging their care so that my wife's flying from Walwall to Spokane, I think. Well, in the middle of this, all of a sudden the phone rings, and it's the nurse from uh Flight for Life saying, Um, your wife's having this baby here, not on the aircraft. We're going back to the hospital, she wants you there. Uh I I what? As far as I was concerned, I thought she was almost in Spokane, not this.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_07:So um I call my mom. My mom came over in the middle of the night. So I couldn't just leave the foster girls. They were sleeping, had no clue about any of this happening. And uh I get to the hospital and I walk into uh maternity hearing my wife screaming, where's my husband? I want my husband. My heart is broken, and it was Richard, it was rough, man. It was rough. Um so we we got through that, we came home. The healing process from grief, this was where we learned um from hospice. We ended up going through geek grief counseling at hospice. The average divorce rate is roughly 50-ish percent, some years a little higher, some years a little lower. Doesn't matter, Christian or not. When a husband and wife experience the loss of a child, does not matter whether it's um forgive me, I lost the term. Doesn't matter whether it's an adult or you lose them in the womb. The divorce rate jumps to close to 95%.
SPEAKER_02:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_07:And because grieving is so personal, you know, I could be having a decent day, but my wife is not, and I don't understand why she's having a rough day, and she doesn't understand why I'm having a pretty decent day, or vice versa. And you're arguing over everything and blaming, it just turns into ugly, nasty yuck. And then uh we worked through that a bit, and then we got pregnant with Josiah. All all of this was done um through the hospital because we we old, we couldn't get pregnant naturally. Um and Josiah came when Jos I forget at the well the doctor sent Ruth to the hospital for bed rest for the last month of her pregnancy, but then um Josiah came six weeks early. So he was born at four pounds, so she's in the hospital, and and I'm working and trying to run a celebrate recovery ministry and um all this stuff. They sent so Josiah's in the NICU, and my wife was there every single day, and there was another believer that was there every single day, and this was the perfect example of watching attachment in action because the two tiniest babies with their moms there every single day marched right out the door of the hospital while all the other babies were still there, and it was a beautiful thing to watch, Richard, yet so incredibly sad at the same time. So um a year and a half after that, we decided we we were trying to get a sibling for Josiah, so we ended up going through the in vitro process. Um, and we got pregnant with twins. I don't know about we Ruth got pregnant with twins. You were there to and then and then we we lost them at about three months, and that just completely broke my wife. I I'm thinking, okay, we've been through this before, this isn't going to be that big a deal. But but my wife was angry at God. Why doesn't God give me what I want? And and that was the next three-ish years, maybe even longer than that, of hanging on for dear life. I can literally say I've been divorced a thousand times. Um, moments of complete and utter hate at each other, um despair, not happy, arguing, um, and and and me sitting in this place. Okay, I I signed on till death do us part. I I don't know how to deal with this. I don't know how to deal with this. I don't I I don't get it. Um, Ruth announced to me at marriage counseling that she was going to divorce me and take the dogs and Josiah and move to Florida. And and I'm I'm just like, she's sitting here laughing now over the couch. Well, exactly. Praise the Lord. She's here chuckling about it now. But Richard, that was rough, man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And and and I'm going to counseling, and and my counselor is looking at me and he goes, Does does any of this change who you are in your father's eyes?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:What? What? What are you talking about? So if Ruth leaves you and divorces you and takes off, does any of that change who you are in your heavenly father's eyes? And that Richard, I love this man so much. He's been my counselor now for since before Josiah was born. Um there's some days I don't like him very much, but I love this man dearly because he he is hammered into me. Identity, identity. Your identity is in your heavenly father.
SPEAKER_05:Let's go.
SPEAKER_07:Not in what your wife thinks of you, not in your stupid mistakes you've made.
SPEAKER_05:Let's go. You need someone like that when you can't see it, man.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, totally, totally. And there have been days, there have been days I've walked into his office completely broken and walk out of there completely shining. So I'm saying, praise God, thank you so much for this man. Um, breathing life into not a wonderful situation.
SPEAKER_02:Let's go.
SPEAKER_07:Um, so remember that truck I told you about that I uh so when Ruth and I got married, I I'd jokingly tell her, she's like, What do you want for your anniversary? Or what do you want for your birthday? I'd say, I want you to find this truck for me, man. I I want to buy this truck. And she'd laugh at me and say, No, no, no. That's stupid. What do you want that stupid truck for? So I started praying with my wife about finding this truck, and this went on for several years. Um, put some feelers out, kind of tracked it, but then lost it, couldn't find out who owned it. So finally I I called my wife. I'm like, honey, can I put an ad out in the local paper back there? I said, This will be my last hurrah. Okay, I just looking for this truck. And she goes, Yeah, go ahead. If this is it, go ahead. So I took an ad in the local North Dakota paper saying, uh, looking for a truck that was sold in Turtle Lake, North Dakota, approximately mid-90s. Um, said what it was. Uh, if any information, please call or email. And then I got a phone call saying, hey, come back for your 25th um DAA reunion. So I'm I'm thinking this is perfect. I'm gonna go back there, pick up my truck. God's got this all work out. I know it. So I go back to my reunion and I'm looking everywhere. I'm expecting my phone to ring anytime. Just you know, it's got it's got to. I'm here, right? God's got this worked out. So uh, nothing. And then work called and said, if you come to work Tuesday, we will pay you double time because you're the only person that can cover. Well, shoot, double time pays for the whole trip. So as I leave the state of North Dakota, I say, you know what, Lord, I don't need this truck. Thank you for loving me. Thank you in my growing relationship with you. Thank you that you trust, you know, my wife and I with these foster kids that we have at this time. I I'm good. I don't need this truck. I go home, a week later, my phone rings. The guy's like, Yeah, I saw an ad in the paper. You're looking for this truck, I've got it. What do you want with it? And my my wife could not believe that God answered a stupid prayer over an old 65 Dodge power wagon, and she's just like, What what is happening here? I said, That's because God loves me. You know that.
SPEAKER_05:Um, you just you flew back and drove it to wall wall?
SPEAKER_07:No, no, I I pulled it back, man. That that was not drivable condition, Richard.
SPEAKER_05:I'm like, how's it gonna make it?
SPEAKER_07:It is today, but it is, you know, at that time, no. Um, so we'd lost lost the twins. I'm I'm watching my wife just come apart emotionally. She is not in a good space, so I decided to take some time off of work to for family leave. And during the time I was home, we discovered my mom has is dying of pancreatic cancer. And it was you could see her fading really, really quickly. And we tried to, she wanted to die at home, and my wife said, Well, I can move in or take care of you. But I had some siblings who did not think that would be a good thing, and then in order to make sure that that happened, they told my father some things about us to convince him that that would not be a good thing, that it was not in their best interest for us to take care of them. Um, I know what uh my wife called me at work. She said, Um, your dad just went for a ride with your brother and he came back and he's scared of me. I don't know what was said. I'm like, what? Um, and then when I got home from work that night, I went over there. Um I know what it's like for my father to look at me and be afraid of me. It was a weird sensation. Um my dad told me later on what was said, and that was he was told that we were trying to take advantage of them financially and take things for ourselves. It was a weird, ugly setup. Um, and in the midst of that, with my wife already grieving, that that just pushed it a lot worse um and turned into an ugly mess. Um, we went through I I'd say three to four years of us just barely holding it together, Richard. Barely. And I learned how to pray differently during that time. There were times I would drive down the road, clear off my passenger seat, and then talk to God like He was sitting next to me to make it more real, not just feeling like I'm talking to thin air at times, you know. Um, and and asking him to help me change my heart towards my wife to do a better job of being understanding and compassionate in her sorrow. Um was not a good thing. But uh then we had someone reach out to us, and it was it was the mother of some of our foster kids we had had earlier, and she said, Listen, I am pregnant, I'm going through a divorce. It this is the product of an affair. Would you guys be willing to adopt this child? And we talked about it, and we said, Yeah, absolutely. So we started making plans. They lived back in Ohio, we lived here, so then we had to get attorneys in Ohio as well as attorneys here and make all this planning arrangement. And then when Ruth left to go back for the birth, um, I took family leave off of work again to be home with Josiah, who was in school. And this process turned into a major healing moment, but when it happened, I had no idea how bad it got for a moment. Um, the mother decided after giving birth to the baby that she was taking the baby home.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_07:And she she just left. And and my wife is falling apart 1,500 miles away, and I'm like, oh my goodness, how are we gonna deal with this? Because I I'm terrified knowing what she's just been through the last few years losing the twins. Um, but that's her story of the healing, and she's glaring at me right now. But God used that moment. You can come on the podcast later, Ruth. Exactly. God used that whole scenario for major healing. Healing in his daughter's heart. And it turned into a beautiful thing. Um after that COVID hit, um, there there was a the whole Adventism thing I said.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I had a cousin who left the church in the 70s. Okay. Um, during the COVID time, we did a trip back to North Dakota and we spent some time with them. And my son, who was Josiah, was six or seven at the time. We were having a meal, and he looks at my cousin, he goes, I want you to pray. So my cousin's like, Well, okay. I'd never heard him pray before. And Richard, this was mind-blowing to me sitting there listening to my cousin. I I walked away with my wife afterwards, listening to him pray. I said, That is a man who knows his heavenly father and knows his savior.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_07:I don't care whether he's quote left the church or not, that man has an intimate relationship with his heavenly father.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_07:And that would that to me was not shocking, but it was just a wow moment. It was really beautiful to see and experience. Um, after after that, we came back and you guys, I was introduced to you guys, I think, in 2021. When when did you start doing the podcast? You started in 21, didn't you, or was it in 2020?
SPEAKER_05:2021.
SPEAKER_07:Maybe it was 2020. No, it was 2022, was when I was introduced to you guys. And Ruth sent me Floor's story, and I listened to that one first, and then went back and listened to Tyler's. Started with the first one, and that blew me away. And then listening to him and Morgan's story and reconciliation, and then listening to yours and Natalie's story. But but the tagline, okay, being being being raised an old Adventist, free from sin. That that that that kind of freaked me out. I was like, what, what's the point? What what? Yes, you're exactly right. That's the point. You lead with the point. You don't lead up to the point. You lead with the point. That freaked me out. I was like, what what are you talking about? And then you and I had that conversation on the phone. Um was it in the summertime? I'm I think it was in it was in the summer of 22, I believe.
SPEAKER_05:I think I was driving, I'm remembering this. I was driving up to the Grant Grand Tetons. Um and I just have this memory. I was in Colorado Springs, and I think I was talking to you when I was in Colorado Springs. Um, and I I told my wife, man, there's this guy who really loved this and wanted to know all about it. But you tell me what what was the what was the conversation about?
SPEAKER_07:Well, it was uh I was really struggling, wrapping my mind around free from sin. But the information is there all along. How how how did this get missed? Where did I miss this? But if I'm coming from a place of God is angry with me, God is just trying to watch me screw up so he can beat me, of course I'm gonna miss it. But when I come from a place of healing, that I am son, I am cherished, I am loved, I am righteous through Jesus, it completely changes the narrative. You know, I in your in my conversation with you, the best line I've ever heard, Richard, goes to you, which is email Paul, not me.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, that's good.
SPEAKER_07:Email Paul it is it, yeah. Email Paul, not me. He said it. Shoot. So I I I sent some of your guys' stuff to a friend of mine, and she was just no, that's once saved, always saved. Um no, it's not. I I still have a choice, but I don't want to use that choice, you know. Um, the the journey since then has been my counselor's led me through a bunch of stuff. Uh I don't know. Have you ever heard of Jamie Winship?
SPEAKER_05:We love Jamie Winship.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, C C you know, yeah. Identity exchange.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:Um, the book The Cure, my counselor drug me through the cure. That's a beautiful picture.
SPEAKER_05:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_07:Um and I've been right before being introduced to you guys, I was listening to David Asherick's um Friend of God series. I listened to that thing at least 10 times. It just completely. Yes, that's the one he did at Oakwood.
SPEAKER_05:I remember that one.
SPEAKER_07:And and that that just kept blowing me away. I would always find another nugget that just was so beautiful and so wonderful. So I would say since 2021, 20, I was on a journey before you guys came along, and you guys have helped to bring me to a place of being treasured son.
SPEAKER_02:Let's go.
SPEAKER_07:Um, I God has freed me from, and and and people are gonna get upset at this one: corporate adventism or maybe corporate Christianity. Um, because I look around and see some of the things that have happened, and and and I don't need to live in that space. My job is to live in a place of love, not whatever is happening around me.
SPEAKER_05:I'd be upset about that if there wasn't one church, one body of Christ that you and I are both in.
SPEAKER_07:Yes, absolutely. But you and I understand that. That's why I said I was telling my wife yesterday when we I was telling her about I said, yeah, I'm gonna say a line that's gonna upset some people, but I mean it. I I don't live in that space anymore that being raised in well, we have the truth, we have all the truth, we need to let people know we're right, they're wrong, and we have all the truth.
unknown:There's none.
SPEAKER_07:I I I I don't live in that space anymore.
SPEAKER_05:Um you know that's been hard for me, Tracy. Uh 2024, I was coming to terms with all of this. And uh I think you and I are pretty much aligned on this. Um but my identity, a lot of my identity was in being an Adventist. And I I would still consider myself an Adventist, but probably not in the way I used to or a traditional Adventist would. Because there's a lot of stuff with that.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. And then yes, I I still consider myself an Adventist, I but I'm not concerned if I'm not, or if someone gets upset with the fact that I'm gonna talk about, you know, the verse, if I'm just if I don't have love, I'm just clanging cymbals.
SPEAKER_05:The gong.
SPEAKER_07:I could I can have every spiritual gift in the world, but if I'm not acting in love, I'm just being annoying. I mean, it's uh it's the truth. Yeah, I like the I'm just irritating to others. I'm not, you know, I'm not winning them to Jesus. I'm just telling them how right I am, you know.
SPEAKER_05:I'm gonna put that on Facebook. I'm gonna act like I I'm I came up with it.
SPEAKER_07:But brother, I love you and I'm okay with that, all right? So don't be irritating.
SPEAKER_05:Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't irritate me. No, man. So, yeah, understanding the gospel, seeing yourself as a son started breaking you free from just the religious practices that maybe weren't actually giving life, or what do you think?
SPEAKER_07:The the the judgmentalism, the looking down on others because they don't know what we know. Um, we had a my son was attending some Adventist schools here, and we were having some problems and with some bullying in different areas, and and God ended up leading us to an interdenominational local Christian school, not by our choice. We was not on our radar, but Richard, we are so blessed with our kid at this school. Yeah, uh I I can't even describe it. The the feeling is completely different. Um we kind of live in Adventist ghetto, which may be offensive to some. There's there are twice as many ex-Adventists as there are actual attending church around here.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, that's a that's a wild stat.
SPEAKER_07:It and I actually think it's more than that. Um, we have met quite a few through celebrate recovery, which is an interesting experience. People coming to an Adventist church to recover from their experience from Adventism. Go figure.
SPEAKER_05:Is it the judgmentalism that you see that is the culprit in some of these things?
SPEAKER_07:Uh that and the we're right, you're wrong. Um, there's a lot of uh arrogance looking down at others. It's a it's a weird dynamic, Richard. It really is to sit in the middle of it and tr and and learning to not live in that same space, even though I have come from that same space. I have sat with, well, we have the truth, we know the truth, you're all wrong, but not truly knowing knowing who Jesus is and not knowing who my heavenly father is at all.
SPEAKER_00:Mercy.
SPEAKER_05:You know, I asked somebody one time, I was like, when you and they had gone to to to Bible school, like an Abbas Bible school. I said, What did you think about Romans 6 when you learned about it in in Bible school? And they're like, We didn't read that, like we read Daniel and Revelation, and I was like, Oh, uh that makes that makes sense. That lines up, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um, yeah, since you guys, I've I've spent a lot more time in Galatians, Ephesians, and Romans and Corinthians, and and it it's come alive, Richard. My my twelve my 12-year-old son's favorite preacher is Jonathan Leonardo. It cracks me up. And and at 12, if you ask him, who are you? I am son of the living God, I am chosen, I am loved, I am precious in his sight. Which I did not get that understand it, have any concept of that until well into my late 40s and 50s.
SPEAKER_05:Man, you know, you talk about living from intent. Like you you do you do a lot with celebrate recovery, you talk about um this stuff, I'm sure, that the only thing that stops you from smoking is is not putting the cigarette in your mouth. Now, all the reasons that you would, you know, you got to deal with those reasons, but if you keep your intent, I won't put this cigarette in my mouth. And we were talking about intent. I was talking about with Jonathan the other day. And living from from a bedrock. And he was like, I just want to live every single day as a treasured son.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And learning to say, no, I don't live in fantasy anymore. That's not who I am. That's that's not my identity anymore. I don't I don't need to chew tobacco anymore. That's not who I am. Um, I I spent a lot of time being jealous of everyone for whatever crazy reason. They had a nicer car, they were better looking, had more money, what whatever. Um, prettier girlfriend, whatever. Um I'm free from being jealous of others because they have their walk with God, and I have my own, and my journey is not theirs, and vice versa.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um this has been I'm I'm also at the same time incredibly excited, Richard, because I see things happening in the world around me. People are learning the character of their Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:All around you guys are doing an amazing work. Um, Light Bearers is doing an amazing work. Jamie's doing, I mean, all around the world, you see signs of people learning and understanding how loved and chosen they are. Um, I don't know if you saw on Facebook, I I baptized my son a couple months ago in the Walla Walla River, and that that kind of turned into a thing because you know I'm I'm not an ordained minister. And no.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And uh I I I was kind of just kind of gonna go along with whatever. All right, we'll we'll have some. Well, you can do it if you have an elder there. And and my wife, you know, to her to her credit, she stood her ground. She goes, No, that's not what we're gonna do, and that's not what we talked about.
SPEAKER_05:You were baptizing your son in the Walla Walla River. What were you baptizing him into?
SPEAKER_07:Into the family of Jesus, okay, into his acceptance of Jesus and his heart at Lord of His life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I uh you know, it wasn't wasn't and and that that was the the thing that ruffled feathers because they said, Well, we need to then we'll vote for him to be church member and we said that's no, I wasn't baptizing him into the Adventist church, I was baptizing him into Christ. You're it's that's exactly it. And I say, quite frankly, that's a decision he can make, I don't know, eight, ten years down the road when he has all the information for himself. That's not my decision to make for him.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, baptism isn't a club initiation.
SPEAKER_07:Exactly.
SPEAKER_05:It's it's you're baptizing into Christ's death, burial, resurrection.
SPEAKER_07:That's the wording. There we go. Yes.
SPEAKER_05:And so if people want to shake your hand afterwards, that's cool, but it's not like a club membership. Now I'm a member of and that's they they make it that.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. But Josiah wanted just a couple very specific people at his baptism, and so that's what we did. And it kind of turned into a thing, and I was told, well, I'm not sure that the conference is gonna like that. And I said, not really concerned whether they do or don't. It's don't don't really care. We're moving forward.
SPEAKER_05:I think Tracy, that one of the main things I realized after doing, you know, doing the ministry here for a few years was that when I realized that I was dead to sin and alive to God back in 2019, I thought I had arrived somewhere.
SPEAKER_07:You're still in your dirty though, bro.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, but I had, I'll tell you where I had arrived. I had arrived somewhere, but it wasn't where I thought I had arrived at the beginning of spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I hear you.
SPEAKER_05:You can't grow in spiritual maturity until you know you're in him. And from there, we walk in a manner worthy of our calling. From there, we're learning and growing. And so, you know, we're still learning, man. But now we're growing in spiritual maturity from within, where before, oh, I didn't know. I I didn't know if I was in, I was trying to get in, maybe.
SPEAKER_07:And now it's uh living in the check box, uh, yeah, you know, have I have I checked all the right boxes today? No, that ain't it it it's a completely different space to to live in. I am loved and chosen and I am son, and as opposed to, well, if I'd done enough right today. Because it obviously knowing what we know now, we can never do enough right. That doesn't that doesn't if if that's where we're coming from, we're coming from the wrong space.
SPEAKER_05:So let me ask you this, and this is how we wrap these things up, and I'm trying to decide where we're gonna go back to. Like if we're gonna go back, let's say we're gonna go back to Bakersfield and you get this letter and you don't know how to feel about it, and you're feeling I don't know, you're feeling hurt, man. Or or the time when you know you hear that they they they put that video or that picture of you up at the school. What what would you tell to old Tracy if you got to put your arm around him and and minister to him?
SPEAKER_07:Other people's actions do not define you. Your identity and your heavenly father defines you. Your your savior loves you deeply, and you don't need to live in the space of other people's hurt, hurtful actions. Does that make sense? I I think I I would rather say what would I say to the 12, 13-year-old kid who's fighting with his dad?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Who is no who my example of a father is trying to beat me senseless at times, please don't get the wrong picture, my dad. That that that's just a small piece of who he was. My wife will tell you he was a beautiful man, but she doesn't know him as having been raised by him. So um being able to tell 12, 13-year-old Tracy this is not the picture of your heavenly father. Yeah, your dad's got hurt inside that he's trying to figure out, and it has nothing to do with you. You know, yeah. But being a father of a 12 year old Richard, but I I have a lot more empathy for my dad today, a lot more sympathy for that man, because man, the Of a 12-year-old boy is like, what what what you said, what what are you talking about? What what's wrong with you?
SPEAKER_05:What a privilege you have to love him, man.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, absolutely. What a privilege you have.
SPEAKER_05:And uh because God has loved you, you can love him, and that's the beautiful thing, man. And you know what? We see you guys from afar. You know, I I met Ruth back, you know, three or four years ago, and uh, I've seen what you guys do on Facebook and everything. And I I watched Ruth's testimony, you know, one of the celebrate recovery things. And no, we've just been blessed by you guys, and and we see your good works, and we glorify our Father in heaven. And after hearing this story, Tracy, man, it's you know, I just want to praise God for what he's done. And um, yeah, that's that's why you're where you're at, loving people, ministering life to people, and we praise the Lord for that.
SPEAKER_07:When we when we were so blessed, we never thought an Adventist church would have a celebrate recovery, and that is a completely different story and a very long journey, but we've approached it as this is God's ministry and not ours, and we have watched God sustain this over and over and over again, and and seen so many hearts heal and come to a uh listen. I'm I'm not trying to tell people you gotta quit because and remain in accountability because I'm trying to tell people you are son, God wants to sit in the middle of your pain with you and walk you through it and out of it. You are loved and chosen. Um, you are not this pain that you're experiencing, you are not this addiction that you're struggling with. You know, approaching it from a different angle as opposed to okay, how many days do you have? Have you got you know, those things can be important, but in the that's not gonna change your heart.
SPEAKER_02:No. No.
SPEAKER_05:Well, love it, man. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. It's it's a blessing to us. So thank you.
SPEAKER_07:Thank you, Richard. Thanks for asking, and blessings to you and what you do. Seriously.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you, man.
SPEAKER_07:All right.