Called to Serve - Guests are Deacon Doug and Sheila Cook - Pt. 2

Deacon Russ Millspaugh was ordained a permanent deacon for the Diocese of Orange in 2017.  He is assigned to San Antonio Parish in Anaheim Hills.  He married wife Jody in 1985; they have four children.  Deacon Russ has been involved in Boy Scouts, Fiesta, Youth Ministry, Cursillo and TMIY Men’s Group.  He and Jody are now leading Marriage Formation for engaged couples and Marriage Enrichment for married couples.  In this episode, they continue their interview Deacon Doug and Shelia Cook; Deacon Cook was ordained to the diaconate 43 years ago and has launched many successful ministries in his parish.

Called To Serve airs live weekdays at 3pm and Mondays at 5pm at spiritfilledevents.com website or download our Spirit Filled Radio App for Android or Apple Devices.

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Transcript

announcement: 0:40

Welcome to call to serve on the spirit filled radio network. As baptized believers and followers of Our Lord, each of us has been called to love and serve one another. This program will offer practical ways of serving and sharing our faith. Here's your host to get us started.

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Hello, we are Deacon rushing Jody mills by coming to you for spare filled radio with our program called to serve. In First Peter chapter four, verse 10. As each of us has received a gift, employ it for one another as good stewards of God's very grace. With us today we have Deacon Doug and Sheila Cook, who show us being a good steward of God's grace continues to grow in their life. Deacon Doug and Sheila, welcome to spirit filled radio and be in our program today called to serve, helping to be here. Thank you for having us. Now, Deacon Doug and Sheila are the spearhead the founders of so many different ministries at our parish, that are thriving today. And so we thought it'd be a great to have them here to talk about the ministries that they've started at our parish, and how they got called to that. Let us begin with the prayer in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Fill in the fire, said, beer and we use our new faces here. Let us pray. Oh, God. Every choice our Lord, amen. You're listening to spirit filled radio, our program called to serve where Deacon rest and Jody mills by here's talking to Deacon Doug and Sheila Cook, regarding ministries that they have started and have helped prosper, maybe gave up a ministry that wasn't working. And over 43 years or close to 43 years have been ordained a deacon and married 56 years. Correct. I'm sure they have a lot of ministries and a lot of help for us as we discern ministries, so maybe you guys can share with us. What maybe was the first ministry that God called you guys to? Well, Sheila was the first. She's the one who got me involved. She was teaching our kids and so I'll let her begin. Because she actually signed me up after she had been doing religion said for a while. Well, as I had previously spoken about when they asked for teachers at St. Norbert, this was before San Antonio was begun. I went out to the table, I said, I'd like to sign up as a teacher. But before I do, I want to make sure I'm trained. And I want to take a catechist training program, which they were really surprised that I wanted to do that and and in order to be able to teach so I took a course and I started teaching first ethnic grade level my kids were in which were at that time was preschool. So I did preschool at St. Norbert. And then when they moved on to First Communion age, I then went on and did First Communion at St. Norbert. This was all before San Antonio started. Wow. Now, when you you started out saying you felt like you wanted to do something? What was going on in your life at that time that kind of drew you to that? Well, because I was a convert. And I just really wanted to make sure I would do things, right, or at least as the church wanted me to do. And when I converted it was the Baltimore Catechism. I had meetings with the priests once a week and you went through memorizing the questions and memorizing the answers. And I just really felt that I wanted something more than that. Beautiful. That is beautiful. So were you guys doing the ministry together the school to get teaching the kids together? Or how was that how that started out? No, it just was me working in the Sunday school program and everything. It wasn't until we got it San Antonio that we started doing things together. She did sign me up to teach confirmation they needed confirmation teachers and so she actually signed me up to do it because they had a need. So she was working with the littler kids and then I was working with junior high And then high school. But we did do the high school retreats together. Yeah, that's and junior high retreats together. We did those together. And then we homeschooled our kids for First Communion. And she did most of the work. But I was also kind of a part of that maybe a little bitty part of it. She did all the real schooling. But we our ministries were pretty much separate. And then we started when we started at San Antonio. She was the DRE began the program. And I wasn't too involved because I was studying to be a deacon. And that was all time consuming. We had both been involved in kharsia. We weren't co CEOs, and we would drive every Friday to San Diego because Orange was not a diocese yet. And so we did that together. But when we began ministry, it was it was Sheila that began the ministry she did that all of the ministry and I was kind of on the sidelines Sanatana The only thing I remembered and I had forgotten about this is that with our friend Tony de Paula Dougan, he wrote a retreat for high school kids and so on. And we used to do this retreat all together, we'd go off with the teens to Big Bear with a teenager with the kids or crave a weekend retreat. So we did do that. We did write our own retreat. Yeah. Yeah. And it was kind of modeled after Krizia. Yeah. Wow. So you had the religious education that you're doing crucio the DIAC unit formation. What else have you got? Well, then then when I was ordained, Chris parish is brand new, right. And the office for religious said was in our our home, the church phone rang in our home. The only only facilities the parish had was our home and father Seamus garage. That's where the offices were. So the phone rang in our house. And then when he built the first buildings, she moved her office from our home, and all the equipment, the Gazette. And all that stuff, moved from our home to her office, which was in the first classroom building that we built. And about that time, we started a program called renew. And the parish center was the time of discernment. And a bunch of us met other shamans put together a little group to meet to discern what the Holy Spirit might be calling their parish to do. And we came up with this idea of ministry to the homeless. And that office then became, in the office, Sheila vacated for religious Ed, then the homeless office went in there and the homeless phone rang in their eye, but we started this, this program to not be a band aid, but to try to help people get off the street helped change their situation. So they did didn't need ongoing aid, they didn't need to go to to get food every week, they didn't need ongoing services that we might permanently change their lives, you know, and, and we would mentor them and our goal was five families. And so we've exceeded that we're coming close to 4000. So 30, we're at 3950, or something like that of families that you've helped raise this garden, this ministry, and we're still going, our only funding is from the parish, there's a special envelope in the monthly packet. And any money in the special envelope, which is green envelope goes to our ministry. And so we in terms of just aid, primarily rental, and utilities, but primarily rental aid. We're at about 4.4 million that we've given out just from that parish envelope, and it's been amazing that people continue to give and we continue to serve the needy in our diocese, so I had never planned to working with the homeless in my life. It just happened. And as a result, I'm very busy with helping the homeless. I was part of the poverty task force for the City of Anaheim. I was on the board of directors of a homeless shelter for eight years, called Grandma's House of Hope. I was the chairman of the board for almost two years. So I very involved with the homeless, something that evolved over time. Our CIA, we love our CIA Sheila mentioned that. That's one of the things we do together. And I love teaching together. I helped started at San Antonio under father Tim rainmakers when he was that well sister Jan first. I worked with her. And at first I was only in charge of sponsors. They met in homes for our CIA. And the first class was only four people. Oh, wow. So I just worked with getting sponsors and talking to them. And then later, she asked me to start teaching. And then when she left, I worked under father Tim. And he and I kind of developed the whole program then of regular organized lessons and valuable things like that. That was more kind of not off the cuff so much anymore. Right. So our structure, yeah, more structure. And then later on, she got me involved in our CIA. So after she'd been doing it a while, I jumped in and started working with her. And I've been helping with her about 25 years. Yeah, it's great. I like it, because it's, it's a ministry we do together. And we teach together. That's fun. Yeah. One thing I was gonna say when he was talking about the homeless ministry, back then also, we used to provide furniture. And we had men at our parish, who we would collect furniture from people, you know, that wanted to get rid of pallets here and there and so on. And then we had a truck at church from that was from a man who had a business of trucks. And we would deliver furniture to these apartments, when once we got the people settled, so that we did for a while till it just got to be more harder on the band and make you no longer and, and they would say, it would never fail that the heaviest couch went up the most upstairs. The heaviest furniture was always on the top floor. You're listening to spirit filled radio, and our program called to serve we're Deacon rest and Jody mills by here talking to Deacon Doug and she looked cook. So one thing that jumps out at this thing is God calls you in sometimes a different direction than what you thought, you know, especially when I was ordained. I never knew I that. Jodie. And I will be involved in a lot of the marriage and engaged ministries. It sounds like some of the stuff that you guys have done together wasn't what you originally thought you're being called for. Absolutely true. I don't know, other than teaching religious Ed, which we were doing prior to being a document a couple, I would say almost everything we do, that was unplanned. It just happened. You know, one of the things I remember going through formation in Los Angeles that they said was your job is not to run ministries. Your job is to discern a need in the parish, and then get an organization to do it. I've done a lot of that Sheila's done a lot of that we've started so many ministries in the parish, that manage you cancer support group, things that we felt was a need. And a cancer support group. We visited a lady who had cancer and a young gal, we went to see her in Kaiser, and she wanted me to pray over her. Before her surgery, she's very bad shape. And I prayed over her and the surgery was successful. And thanks be to God. She's cancer free today. But after her surgery after she got out of the hospital, she said, You know, there's really no support group for people that have gone through what I went through. What do you think about starting a group and so we started the cancer support group. And that's how needs happen, you know, people discern a need and you begin that that man is you my son was getting a doughnut and he lives in woodlands and near to Houston, Texas. He went in to get a donut. He saw a guy in there from the parish that he knew. And he had a shirt on it said TMI why? So it's not what is TMI? Why stand for and the guy said that man is you it's Men's Fellowship. Why don't you come we meet early in the morning, we meet at six in the morning. Why don't you come to our meeting, he said, I can do that. He's an airline captain. And you know, when he was in town, and he could go, and so he started going to the meetings, and he called me up one day said that this is a fabulous program that manage you. I'm going to send you all the links. I'm going to send you the contact information at Paradise CEUs today, and something you should look into. And so I looked into it, he sent me I wrote a wait for paradises day and I got videotapes on the program and showed it to the pastor and it was like wow, that is so cool. And that's how that started. So you never know how things are going to start you know it might be visiting someone in the hospital or my son's and hey, I got to look into so that's how things evolve. Yeah, isn't it amazing how God, you don't have to go find something God just presented to you. As long as you're aware and you're open, things just show up and many different ways. And it's just being aware and being open to that. So and you guys, I've shown that over and over again, with so many different ministries seen what the need is, and just being open and saying yes, to that. And I know besides religious Ed, she loved there's other stuff that you have that at the church. Yeah, I started the San Antonio, a women's group, you know, that need for women to get together socially and so on. So, you know, that's really been a fun thing. We have spiritual days, which we're going to have next Monday for the parish, but we have fun things to like tease things like that. I'll never forget the first tee I organized out of my home. And I had all the rooms down and with tea cups and things like that. Tea and I made ham salad sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches and little little finger sandwiches for everybody that day. Oh, wow. Job was cutting the crust off. Yeah, you know, a lot of ministry started out of people's bedrooms or houses or something, you know, and you guys are true example of a domestic church starting out in your house. Yeah, I think in 43 years as the deacon, I looked one day at the bulletin. And I think there's every ministry in the parish bulletin I've been involved in, maybe didn't start it, but helped get going. And so yeah, 43 years, you know, there's an awful lot of stuff. Yeah, you know, and being ordained for just four years and even a little bit before that. I've noticed and you brought it up, either as a deacon or leader of a ministry, that we need more people's help in the ministry, we need a, you know, a team together to grow. And I've noticed that that's what you guys have been great at doing is starting establishing a ministry but also knowing when to hand the ministry off to others to let it continue to grow. Did you ever and I think this is one of the biggest leaders, probably my big, big one is called pride is did you ever worry about who was taken on the baton for the groups now nominally, you know, you just trust them God and, and you know, you just hope that God gives you the right person. We have another deacon in our parish Deacon Kevin Durkin, and I knew he needed to be more involved. And, and so we went out, we took him out to dinner, we went to Macaroni Grill, and to this day, he says, If Deacon invite you out to dinner, don't, yes, we found that out. He's gonna give you something to do. And so yeah, that's I got him involved in homeless, got him involved other things. And then one day, we I said, I'd like to go out to dinner, we had dinner I said, I think you ought to become a deacon. You know? What? So yeah, I've never I've never looked back. It's been good. Yeah, I had, I had one opposite experience is I will say, when I did Director of Religious ed for I think, 678 years, I think it was, and my one friend asked if I was going to do it another year. And I said, Oh, I don't know. And he said, Oh, you'll be there till the cows come home. And then I thought, You know what, maybe it is time to pass it on, and bring in new blood and new ideas. And so that's because of that comment. I decided to look for someone else. And so the next year and lady from the parish, took it over for one year, but she didn't want to really do it. And she took all the things I had, you know, binders made, like I said, with all the lessons all printed out and crafts and everything. So then father, Seamus hired a nun to come and do the next year. And she would call me and say, who did this for you? And I'd say, Well, I really did that. You know, and so on. And I guess the pressure of it just got too much to her. And she didn't, she felt I was, I don't know. But anyway, she took and destroyed everything. She shredded everything, tore apart all my visual aids and everything, had a nervous breakdown. But everything was had to be started all over. And that was kind of a sad thing. That on the other side of the coin can happen sometimes you just don't know. For whatever reason, God decided maybe that that was needed. I don't know to this day. I don't know why Yeah. Oh, wow. And I wish I had made a copy of everything. Yes. And back when you started it I don't think we had copy. Yeah, that but not the electronics that we have today. You are listening to spirit filled radio our program called to serve. We are Deacon rest and Jody mills. Bob here talking to Deacon Doug and Sheila cook. I know one of the most exciting and fruitful ministries that God caused you to be a spiritual director of years ago was crucio. Yeah, maybe you could share with us maybe how God spoke to you with that, and how that has helped you to grow. Well, SEO changed my life. When I went to conceal, it totally changed my life. It was like God hit me over the head with the two before i i had 180 degree turnaround on my weekend. And I was on fire after my career seal. And Sheila and I, we were very involved with crucio in San Diego, Orange was in the diocese yet. And then when I got accepted into dx unit, I could no longer do crowd sale because just too much of a commitment to to the actual training. So I left her so I was away for about 20 some years, the spiritual director at that time, who was the second spiritual director of the crucio in orange, and we started to sail in right away and 77 was a father race can Disney and I knew Father Ray and once in a while he would come and have me do something for an hour or something. But very solemn maybe in 20 years. He called me three times. And then I heard his two deacons. One Deacon was a classmate of mine had terminal cancer, and was only given six months to live. Another Deacon was transferring to New Mexico. And people were selling father raise losing his help is to deacons are not going to be with him. And I thought Shoot, maybe I should just call him at that time. I had retired in oh one and I was working at the diocese is the Associate Director for deacons working with Deacon Frank Chavez. And so I said, Well, you know, I've got some time. I don't have to drive to El Segundo every day. Yeah. So one day I just called Father and I said, Father, Ray, and I hear you losing your two deacons. Can you use some help? And he's a boy, could I ever use some help? And waiver crucio coming up, could you do this talk and this man is bass. Father, yeah, I can do that. So I just went and did the talks came and went, and I helped them for like that for a couple of years. And one day, we're sitting on a bench at Marywood. And we're waiting, we're gonna go in the chapel to pray. We're waiting for a group to come out of the chapel. We're sitting on a bench by the Baptist basketball courts and father Ray leaned over and he said, nobody knows this yet, but I'm retiring. I say, oh, my gosh, you're retiring from Kersey Oh, he said, from everything I'm retiring. Wow. Is that how long have you been spiritual director, the current CEO and he said 23 years. So God bless you, Father, Ray, you deserve to retire for all that you've done. That, you know, we're gonna miss you. But I'm so happy for you, who's taking your place? And he said you are. Now you don't have to. You don't have to please me, as a bishop will never put a deacon in this job. It's always been a brace. So now I'm not worried about it. He's well, you don't have to worry about it. But I'd be praying about it if I were you. Because I think you're gonna be at, well, about three weeks later, I got a call. Bishop Todd Brown said, Doug, this is Bishop Brown. I'd like you to consider being a spiritual director. They say, Are you sure you got the right Doug cookie? And he said, Yeah. And so I chillin, I talked about it, and I did it. And that's been 16 and a half years ago. So how did it happen? It just kind of happened by accident. It was certainly not what I plan to do. I really only plan to help a little bit because Father Ray losing his two deacons, and yeah, so you never know. Plans and God laughs Yeah, yeah. It says I need to over here. Now, one of the things that I think we need to share with the audience, the story that you tell about the differences between social justice and serving the poor, and it's such when I heard that for the first time, and I use, I copy that to be all truthful about that. But it's such a direct, clear message of what the difference is between social justice and serving the poor, which we need to do both correct, but I think a lot of people I know for myself, I didn't know the difference between the two until I heard that that story. Would you mind sharing that story? Sure, I'd be happy to. It's a story about a man and a woman. They're retired and they've got this beautiful home is back in Indiana where Sheila and I grew up and there was a big hill in the backyard and down at the bottom of the hill. There was a Crikey. You call it a creek out here. In Indiana, it's a creek. And this critic went through their backyard, and they love their garden. Oh, they spent all their time in their garden. So one day the husband is gonna go out he's going to work in the garden. He looks down at this beautiful creek and the beautiful backyard. He's got it because oh my god, there's a body in my Creek and he yells his wife, hurry, hurry, does someone in the Greek way gotta go help them and they ran down the hill and they take this person up and they take him to their house and, and they bring him back to health and, and home. I couldn't believe it. And he's so thankful. But they don't want any help. They don't want any renumeration. They're just they remember the story of the Good Samaritan, and they just want to help him. So the husband says, Hi, boy, I'm sure glad we got that episode path and says go out in the garden another day. And he looks like there's another body in the creek. He's canceled there. There's a second body in the creek. And they both run down there and they bring this guy back up. And the same thing, they nursed him back to help. Well, he's afraid to go out in the yard. Because every time he goes up there, there's a body and his Creek. So he's gone out in the yard, but he backs into the yard, he doesn't even want to look. And he's worried he refuses to look at the creek. He's working. He works for a half a morning in the yard. And he's not going to look, he's not going to look. Finally he can't stand it anymore. He just kind of takes a peek over his shoulder. Oh my god, there's a body in the Greek. There's another body in the Greek and a rundown. And they nurse this person back to health. Well, that's charity. What they did to help those people is charity. The thing they need to realize, too, is there's something bigger, they really need to go upstream and find out why are these people washing down the creek? What's causing these bodies to be in the creek? And to do something to keep that from happening? And that is social justice. Thank you for sharing that. Because when I heard that, it's like that how obvious right? But it's not. And that with all the ministries that you're doing the homeless, the religious Ed, that is social justice. Yeah. And making that difference so that it doesn't go downstream. It doesn't go downstream. So thank you for sharing. Yeah, thank you. And as we close it up, maybe you guys can talk to our audience about their discernment for ministries, what God's calling them, maybe you have some pointers for them, maybe what to listen for, maybe you can share with us that, well, people have different gifts and talents. And not everybody has my gifts. I think God calls us to use the gifts that we have for His glory and honor to build up the kingdom. And first of all, you need to understand what is your gift? And then you need to use them as God has calling you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you both for what you've done. Very community. Oh, absolutely. He all the time God is good. As we wrap up this week's program with Deacon Duggan, Sheila Cook, we are reminded that all of us are being called to serve our community, as God has called us. Let us close with the prayer and name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Your Lord, we want to thank you for the messages that we've heard today. We want to thank you and praise you for your work through Deacon Doug and Sheila cook. And we ask you prayers for them and for their family as they continue to do your work and be with them and also for all of our community out there listening to this program that they hear Your word and serve you as you called them. In your name we pray, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. We are Deacon rest and Jody Mills spa with spirit filled radio Paul desert program, wishing you a blessed day and pray you hear God's calling to serve others. Amen. Amen.

announcement: 29:48

And that's a wrap for this edition of call to serve on spirit filled radio. I hope and trust this program has been a blessing to you. For more information, please come visit us at Spirit filled media.org That's spirit filled media.org. Until next time, have a blessed day as you serve the Lord and your neighbor

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