A Story of Hope: The We Go On Foundation | Marcelo & Mary Liz Escanuela | FTN Ep. 45

Can you imagine turning your personal struggles into a force for good? That's exactly what our guests, Marcelo and Mary Liz Escanuela, founders of the We Go On foundation, have done. Throughout this episode, they bravely share their journey - from the highs and lows of their marriage to their personal struggles with mental health. It's a poignant reminder that seeking help is not a sign of weakness, but a testament to our resilience and our ability to bounce back.

One of the episode highlights is a touching discussion about the transformative power of therapy and how it led to the creation of their foundation. Inspired by their favorite Disney memory, We Go On seeks to help people navigate the often-turbulent waters of mental health. They provide a safe environment to discuss and explore the complex issues of mental health, and ensure that resources are accessible to all. Marcelo and Mary Liz open up about their journey, reminding us all that it's okay not to be okay, and that seeking help can lead to a path of healing.

As we round off this episode, we tackle a range of topics - from communication and self-discovery to generational differences and mental health awareness. The Escanuelas emphasize the importance of being present, of disconnecting from devices and truly connecting with the people around us. Their story is one of hope and transformation, a testament to their tireless advocacy for mental health and their commitment to helping others. It's not just about going through life's battles, it's about thriving despite them. So join us on this journey and find out how the Escanuelas are making a difference, one step at a time.

For more information on the We Go On Foundation, visit their website here.

You can follow them on Instagram for inspirational and mental health tips here.

Links Below! 

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forthenationpod/
Website: https://forthenationpod.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What's up everyone. It's Michael for the Nation Podcast. Today's episode is with two friends of mine, marcelo and Mary Liz Escanuela. These guys just started an incredible foundation called WeGoOn, which seeks to provide hope, support and encouragement for those dealing with mental health issues. This episode serves as the testimony for their organization and the hope that it could provide. That said, before we get to the episode, I want to say a quick thank you to my friends at Kings Creek Apparel for this amazing ensemble Wood's and Water Hat with the Flyby Tee. It's clutch. Go check them out at kingscreekapparelcom. That said, let's get to the episode, all right. Well, today I am joined by two friends of mine, marcelo and Mary Liz Escanuela. Thank you so much for joining me, thanks for having us.

Speaker 2: 0:47

For sure we appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Yeah, I've been looking forward to this for a while. I've been working with Marcelo for about a year and some change now doing some real estate on the side, and he's been a great mentor to me and really appreciate it. So we'll have to get you back on to talk about real estate, but for now it's a new venture WeGoOn Incorporated. Before we get to that, just kind of take the floor. Both of you guys introduce yourselves.

Speaker 2: 1:11

For sure.

Speaker 3: 1:11

Yeah, I'm Mary Liz and I am wife to Marcelo and mom to Penelope and Leo. And yeah, we've been living in Augusta since the end of 2014. And it has just been a crazy ride of just from the beginning of our relationship to where we are now, and so I'm really excited to be here Thanks for having us on and just excited to share our story with everyone.

Speaker 2: 1:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:44

How about you?

Speaker 2: 1:44

Yeah, so, marcelo, I'm just a piggyback. We've been married almost just 10 years this month actually and we have two sweet little kids, penelope and Leo, that they are everything to us, and I think a couple of years ago my answer would be different. I'd give you my entire backstory of a career. It's a lot more and it's just it's life and it's who we are as a couple, as parents and as believers.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Awesome. I love that Real quick. How did you guys come to the name Penelope and Leo? I mean, they're pretty like untraditional, but they're also traditional in the same sense. I love them.

Speaker 2: 2:20

Well, my last name. No secret, it does not flow super well.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Trust me, I've got one of those names too.

Speaker 2: 2:29

We just started spitball names that we thought would go well and we actually started thinking a lot of Latin names. Yeah and right in the hell Penelope kind of came about was Penelope Cruz, like we were just thinking of female, male actress names that we could think of Latin.

Speaker 3: 2:45

It was also a classic. We were just like we don't want, like I feel like a lot of names nowadays are just very, very out there.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:53

But I kind of wanted to stick to traditional, but also something that we haven't heard in a long time, and so when I thought about Penelope Cruz and he was like oh yeah, love that name, love her Love that name, yeah, and then when we were trying to name Leo, we, we wanted to go with Lionel after Lionel Messi.

Speaker 1: 3:16

But back in the US now or not back, but he's in the US now.

Speaker 3: 3:19

So we did realize that, living in the South, it would probably cause some confusion and we didn't necessarily want people calling him Lionel. So we thought of like Leonardo, and the basis of it was we were always going to call him Leo. And so we were just like why not just stick with that?

Speaker 2: 3:41

Yeah, why do the long name? Why not just cut to the chase of what you're going to actually call them and just put that on the birth certificate? So yeah, that's how we landed on Leo.

Speaker 1: 3:49

It causes confuses. I'm glad y'all did that Cause for me it causes confusion. I introduced myself as Michael, but I like Mike way better.

Speaker 2: 3:55

And I just say, michael, because of it, you know, and I don't really realize it's, it's whatever you know, I'll answer it or anything.

Speaker 1: 4:00

I always say Michael, though, cause it sounds more professional.

Speaker 3: 4:02

It's like I'm Michael but it's really, it's just.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Mike's. But one interesting thing is y'all are from kind of like different parts of the United States. You guys want to touch on like how you ended up first finding each other and then here in Augusta.

Speaker 2: 4:17

Yeah, so I originally grew up in New York, long Island I'll just put it out there at the Hamptons.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:23

That's just what it is. That's how people know it Didn't grow up rich, nothing of that super middle class, but it was a pretty sweet place to grow up and we I ended up moving down to Orlando, florida, to go work at Disney World and that's ultimately how we met there, within like the first week of living there, and so that was pretty cool. So that's kind of how we tied and met completely different backgrounds. Had no idea I mean, I grew up Catholic Boyd, new York way different upbringing than what I learned Mary Liz to have, and so that's kind of my side of it.

Speaker 3: 4:57

Yeah, I was born in Dallas, texas. I'm actually adopted. My parents could not have kids and so my brother and I are both adopted. But we ended up moving from Texas to Florida and I kind of split my time growing up in Florida and Texas. So I don't when I get excited I get an accent, but for the most part I really don't have. I very much have a neutral accent, I feel like. So when I tell people I'm from Texas they're like oh, okay.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Do you, do you claim Texas? Like everyone that I met from Texas is like I could tell you the Texas state anthem or whatever, the or, the pledge, or, you know, and I'm like, oh, it's another state I love. Texas, so much I would move back there in a heartbeat, but I do.

Speaker 3: 5:53

I will sing. The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas all the time that's like my go to like if I'm just bored and there's no sound happening and I'm just like deep in the heart of Texas.

Speaker 1: 6:05

Yeah, that's so funny. Yeah, what's your favorite part of Texas?

Speaker 3: 6:10

Probably the Dallas area. I mean I do enjoy San Antonio, it's very just. I feel like culturally it is very more Mexican, I would say.

Speaker 1: 6:24

In San Antonio yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:26

That's my background, so I'm half Mexican, half Spanish, so I really like the just the aesthetic of San Antonio. It's just like a really cool place to visit. I wouldn't want to live there. But I love Dallas because you do have the city like big city aspect of it, but then you kind of have your smaller cities around it where you know it's kind of like smaller.

Speaker 3: 6:51

you kind of get suburbs but also more rural as you get further out there A little bit further out, but it's just really cool because there's all this open land and just I don't know everything's so carefree out there.

Speaker 1: 7:04

It's taken off to. I have family just outside of Dallas in the Frisco area.

Speaker 3: 7:09

Yeah, that's where I lived, yeah, and it's.

Speaker 1: 7:11

I mean it's called the colony.

Speaker 3: 7:12

I don't know if you oh yeah, I do know the colony and it like from when my aunt bought a place to now.

Speaker 1: 7:19

It's like a whole new city.

Speaker 2: 7:21

I mean it's oh yeah, that's what she said when we went back there in. December. She was just showing me around because we never really gone together and she's like this wasn't here, this wasn't here and this wasn't here. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:30

There's a lot to do out there.

Speaker 1: 7:31

It's cool, yeah, interesting, all right, so I want to talk about Disney for a second. What brought you guys to Disney, like what attracted you to Disney?

Speaker 2: 7:41

So for me we went as kids like seldomly, but my brother worked there, he, so he went down kind of before me and did they have like a college program and that's what we ended up doing and I had a free semester in college. Nothing else panned out of what I wanted to do like internship wise and that was a failsafe. And so we went, which is really funny. I declared as hospitality major and changed two weeks before school to sports management and my first job out of college is in hospitality. It's kind of funny and it was fun, like it was a cool experience to get to work there and live there and have the Disney parks as our backyard.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Yeah, that is crazy. How about you? What drew you to Disney?

Speaker 3: 8:22

So I I actually wanted to work at Disney. Since I was a little kid I mean, same as Marcelo I went all the time but we lived about 45 minutes away in Merritt Island so we went often and, you know, had our annual passes and just we went with other families that we were, you know, friends with, growing up with, and it was just one of those places that it was just like you just feel immersed in a whole different world and you know it's like that escape from reality. But that's when I wanted to. I knew that, like when I was in college, I was like I really want to work at Disney one day and I don't know if it's like in costuming or what, but I went to school, to college, and I studied fashion, merchandise and design.

Speaker 3: 9:12

So I was in textile classes and made my own clothes and I like that was like the dream. The ultimate dream was just to work at Disney and being costuming. And so I heard about the college program, because we had friends that actually worked there as well, and so I reached out to them, we talked a little bit and they were like you should try the college program and it's really fun because, like, since you're about to graduate, you can still go and just have this experience under your belt. And so I ended up being able to work in merchandise when I first started working there and yeah, so, like we ended up meeting and you know, plans changed, things changed. When you know you meet the person that you're supposed to be for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Yeah, there's a line from a Thomas Rhett song I love and it's like you make your plans and you hear God laugh, like you think you know where it's going, and then, yeah, life changes.

Speaker 3: 10:12

That's the name of the song actually.

Speaker 1: 10:15

But all righty, so I want to talk about. We go on now. What is it? What does the nonprofit do?

Speaker 3: 10:21

All right, so I've just right off the rip. I just you know we've talked about this and you know how we want to present this. Going forward, and just a little bit of a backstory of how we came to start this foundation was back in 2019, actually, our little Leo had an accident. He had a. He spilled a cup of tea on himself and which was my tea and he. We had to take him to the hospital and found out that he had second degree burns. He had to, you know, get his get all that dead skin scrubbed off. We had to have a procedure. So it was just all this like major shock all at once and it kind of turned into this like tailspin for me. I started struggling terribly with anxiety and, just like you know, all the what ifs like well.

Speaker 3: 11:23

I should have done this, I shouldn't have even made the tea. You know, all those things that just pop into your mind of just like am I a terrible mother? Like, why, like, why would I do this? And I just started having panic attacks since then and just really really struggled with, just internally, all these issues that I thought, like what is wrong with me? And so I ended up starting to see someone, a counselor, and trying to understand how I could better manage these emotions, like, how, like what I was feeling, and I really just felt like this was the a good direction, a good start of like how to fix myself.

Speaker 3: 12:08

And then COVID hit and a lot of that changed. I wasn't able to go see her. You know, it was all more so online and I was like I'm not doing that, I'm not like I have to be like face to face with a person, or else like I don't feel like I'm going to get anything from it, and that really just kind of put a setback in the, the progress that I thought I was making. It really was just like a stepping stone, just that start, but I had it just got worse and worse for me, like I, that anxiety like just skyrocketed after COVID hit and I was just in this state of every time. I would just get more anxious, and anxious, and anxious and I would just like sit in that anxiety and then all of a sudden I would just crash into depression.

Speaker 3: 13:00

And so finally I was able to talk to her and we worked with my doctor and I ended up getting on some anti-depressants to see if that would help anything at all, and it kind of did. But also it was just I wasn't managing myself well, and you know, further and further on it was just like I. I was just trying to explain to Marcel like this is how I'm feeling. I don't know how to fix myself. Like what do I do?

Speaker 3: 13:25

and all this stuff and you know we just weren't necessarily seeing eye-to-eye on on where that was because, like, our views on things were so vastly different of how we saw mental health issues and so his definition of that was definitely different than than what I had and what I was going through.

Speaker 2: 13:50

Yeah, and so, for you know, my side of that is just, you know, to piggyback what you're saying, I mental health, was not, not even on my radar yeah anxiety was.

Speaker 2: 14:01

I was on the mindset of it's what you make of it. You know, when that burn happened obviously super scary and it was an awful day, but he was okay, right but I didn't necessarily think how did that affect her. All I could think of he's okay, not the treatment, let's, let's move forward. So much my life has been that way from childhood, just like all right, it's done. We can't dwell on the past and not necessarily realizing how does that affect you. So I didn't understand it. I couldn't be a support.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Covid hit work in real estate absolutely went bonanzo's yeah so I am just going non-stop working and, you know, not a hundred percent neglecting home life, because I've always been involved, parent, but certainly one of those people answer the phone every single time it rings felt that need to. I've got to provide, I've got to make sure we're doing all these things, living up to this expectation. But in reality I wasn't putting my focus on Mary Liz, I wasn't putting the focus on our marriage, I wasn't putting the focus on God, you know, as I needed to be. I was so focused on providing and felt like that is what I just have to do, and so I just couldn't grasp it.

Speaker 2: 15:13

It's hard to empathize with someone when you don't understand the other, the other side of it yeah and so that that's kind of you know my flip side, and it led to just a season of our marriage that was dark and just a lot of disconnection yeah, I would say like that disconnect just really hit hard for us, I think, as the as the years went on.

Speaker 3: 15:41

It was just we were two completely different people living in the same house, co-existing, and it was just really hard for us to, you know, be on the same page, just not just with each other, but like parenting like you know that's that's a huge piece of your life puzzle, that you have to be on the same page is as your partner, like you are in a partnership together.

Speaker 3: 16:05

But I think that's what caused a lot of division for us. Was that like that disconnected, like it really like it was just like something coming unplugged and we just did not see eye-to-eye. And for me it was just. It just caused something inside of me that was just like I have to keep all these feelings in, like I can't go to him because he's not he'll listen but he's not gonna understand what I'm saying. And you know it.

Speaker 3: 16:37

Just life presented the opportunity, unfortunately, that I ended up talking with another man and you know someone who I thought saw me when my husband didn't and I, you know it was easy to be able to share our experiences and just our struggles with anxiety and depression when and you just feel like you can connect with this person because they're actually listening to you and they're feeling the same way you are. And you know your, your spouses aren't fulfilling you in that way and it just. You know I entered into a season where I was having an affair for for a while and you know, it was just a really, really dark season of my life. Like a lot of people were able to see this turn in me, that was just like I was, just not that I was getting like physically darker and darker, but they could just tell that like my spirit was yeah and it was, and I wasn't told that at the time.

Speaker 3: 17:51

But, you know, after everything came out last year in July, you know, I finally had those people telling me, like you could tell that there was just something terribly wrong, like that was just it wasn't who you used to be, and and it all made sense. And so, you know, I, just I we are both really thankful that last year happened, that this was all uncovered, that my sin was uncovered, because it was able to get us to where we are now. But also it's just we are able to have this story that is so impactful to the both of us that we didn't even think that we'd be where we are today without it. And you know, I think, for for Marcelo, like there is just you can tell that there's also been a shift for him too, and you know he's just got an incredible story to tell on his own.

Speaker 3: 18:55

But I'm just grateful that we we get to tell it together.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Yeah and so you know not to forget your initial question of how it started and we're not getting there. So it's just a big backstory of where it all came about. So right last July hit terrible rough time in life, spiraling completely. But now I understand anxiety, yeah, understand PTSD, I understand triggers. Not necessarily would be months later that I could empathize with her fully of where she was previous years, because the anger just clouded everything yeah but I understood it.

Speaker 2: 19:31

It was like, okay, this stuff is real. So I didn't doubt it anymore and that was a big, big piece. So there was a season where we're trying to figure out what what we're doing. We're going to counseling heavily. We both said we wanted to make it work but just just wasn't happening as we wanted it to be super, super hard and we just realized necessarily couldn't do it on our own. So a lot of resources, a lot of help.

Speaker 2: 19:58

One in particular is this book called I do again by Jeff and Cheryl Scruggs out of Dallas, texas, and I was blessed enough to get to speak with Jeff Scruggs, shortening of their story. They were married for a long time, divorced for seven years. Get back together. There wasn't a fair in there. So getting to speak with him something he said that changed my mindset big time was reconciliation will never happen until you can recognize what did you contribute to the environment.

Speaker 2: 20:27

That led to that and that like sunk with me because for the first, however many weeks, I was just focused on you did this, you did that and not really looking at myself, and so I started to reflect a lot, not fully everything, but I realized, man, I did work a bunch and justified every thing regarding that. I could lash out, you know, not in verbally abusive anger, but just, you know, get upset, get worked up and be like this is what I got to do, and just could be pretty passive, aggressive, you know and so I quickly started to focus on what did I do? Where are my improvements? Take the focus off of her, and we've learned this is past year. You only can control yourself, and so that's what I tried to start doing, and at the center of all of it, I knew I was not in a place spiritually where I needed to be, and so I think we were going to God, but we never fully surrendered to God last summer, and that's a big difference.

Speaker 2: 21:23

You know you can know him and give your life to him, but it is a daily choice to continually surrender to him and that I think, once we finally got to that place, is when we started to see you know a different shift and you know hundred percent.

Speaker 3: 21:40

And so then kind of leading into on-site yeah, I had friends that have stuck by my side not just my side, but our side throughout this whole entire year, and one of my dear friends suggested on-site, just like hey, just look into it, see if you think it's a place that you might want to go.

Speaker 3: 22:06

So I did, I looked into it and I was like I don't understand what I'm reading right now, but I'll go like if in in my mind said I was just like, if it can fix me, I will do it, like I want to just be fixed. And just I wanted that change so badly because I just I wanted to fix the mistakes that I had made. And so I did. I made the drive up there all by myself, and which it's all the way in Cumberland, furnace, tennessee, just outside of Nashville, and that was. It was a long drive. I was excited. The closer that I got, I got more and more excited. I was just like, okay, this place is gonna be so awesome. And then, probably about 45 minutes out, I was like what if it doesn't work? What if they don't believe me? What if, like all these questions that just came into my mind of like worry and doubt. And you know, at at the time I didn't realize like it was just Satan creeping back into my mind just like what if they don't accept you? Or you know all this and the other.

Speaker 3: 23:17

And I pulled on to the grounds there and surrendered pretty much everything. They took my suitcase to my room for me, they took, took my car, they took all of my electronics. So I had zero phone for an entire week. And let me just tell you there is just something incredibly magical about this place and it's so hard. We've tried, we we have agreed. It is just so hard to explain this place without experiencing it for yourself. It is just incredible the amount of hard work that you do at onsite. And I thought I was going for this whole other reason of just like I'm gonna deal with what I have done. I'm going to deal with the mistake that I made and it completely turned into all the things that actually led up to my behavior.

Speaker 3: 24:17

It was more so. I got to backtrack all the way to my childhood and a lot of just serious trauma that has happened that I never really actually dealt with. I, for my entire life, have been a sweeper. I just swept everything under the rug and I just let the rug deal with it, and it wasn't until all this came out that, like literally everything that I've done, it just started creeping out on the other side of that rug to where it was just like you can only sweep so much under until it starts pouring out, and so that's when I was able to start actually dealing with and talking about a lot of the things that have just happened to me, things that I just never dealt with, even like as my family, like I love my family dearly.

Speaker 3: 25:09

But we, just, growing up, never talked about things. We never talked about our feelings. So when my grandma died when I was 12, I just sat in my room. I didn't talk to my parents about it. I think I got asked maybe once or twice if I was okay, but that was pretty much it. So we didn't talk about feelings.

Speaker 3: 25:27

My dad's a pastor, so he deals a lot with death all the time, and my mom was a trauma nurse before my brother and I came along, so she saw so much just being a nurse. So I think like it was hard for them to just have more of like a personal attachment to that grief that I had that I've never experienced before in my life. So that was just like kind of the start of everything. And then I was able to just keep working through my life about all these things that have happened that led up to this one moment of just complete shambles that my life was in. And so I and I mean it's just incredible, the people that are there, like the people that work with you, the people that are in your group because we did do a group therapy session I still, to this day, have a group message that in every single Tuesday we it's Tribe Tuesday, and that's when we're all kind of catching up on the week, seeing how everybody is and there are some hard things that people are dealing with and there are some really good things that people are dealing with, but it's just one of those things where it's amazing to see how these people that you had no idea existed before you got on those grounds are some of the most impactful people that are in your life now and care about you and love you for who you are, not what you've done and what you've gone through.

Speaker 3: 27:06

They love you despite that, and it's just a really, really cool experience. But you do a lot of serious hard work while you're there and they tell you the most important thing is that, hey, you're about to go back to reality. Make sure that you're still doing the work after you leave here, because this is you discover a lot about yourself. There's magic that happens here, but don't forget that once you get back into reality and your routines and everything that you don't let that slip away, because you still have work to do despite being in this place for six, seven days, and I think there's just this shift that happens when you're there. That is just so incredible and life-changing that, at least for me, I had momentum to want to fix those things.

Speaker 2: 28:01

Yeah, and so she had the momentum and I'm over here. She's gone for six days, like what are we doing?

Speaker 2: 28:09

I still don't know where we stood and those six days were really important for me to be alone. And I'll never forget the night she got her phone back. It was a Tuesday night. She's supposed to get your phone back Wednesday. I didn't know if she was gonna call me, I didn't know where we stood really, and she called me that Tuesday night in just the most happiest of tears and I got that call and I mean, it was like a loss for words.

Speaker 2: 28:34

I still am like when I think on that moment I heard a different person, not even the Mary Liz I met 11 years ago. It was like a more like enhanced, clean version of hers. It was like this is who I met, but like almost on steroids. It was like so it was so unbelievable. I'm still in so much pain and hurting, right, and.

Speaker 2: 28:54

But she just kept telling me about this place and so what it is. It's an intensive group therapy or individual therapy. They have so many different aspects and it truly is magical. So every day she wrote me a letter. I didn't know about this till we got home. She gave them to me and I'm reading them and at the end of each one it says like you just got to experience this place for yourself. Words cannot do it justice. And so she got home Wednesday, a little bit of Friday, I signed up and I was going next Thursday and nervous, anxious, all the above Cause I can talk to people, but like that again, I'm new to anxiety and therapy and all of this and I'm just like this is a little outside the zone here.

Speaker 2: 29:35

And so. But I went and obviously went from my trauma, from this situation and it helped give me that kickstart. It helped us give that momentum that we needed. You know, we were trying to do it ourselves, we needed this, but really we needed God at the center of it and this also helped to realign. That, you know, for us is just like we can't do any of this without God at the center of our marriage and putting him first and then each other. But we give so much thanks to this place on site because it truly is magical. It truly helped we're not going to say it 100% save our marriage, because God first and foremost, and then the amount of hard work we put in in the year since. But it was definitely a catalyst and so that is what really kind of started. What we go on, you know, ultimately is to kind of tie it all in together.

Speaker 2: 30:29

We were just blown away with this place and when we were coming back, lo and behold, we both had this idea that we wanted to help people, we wanted to share this place with people. And on my drive back I call one of my best friends who was with me in all of this and he goes. Can I benefit from this place? It's kind of I was like dude. Anybody can Like this place is not just for someone who has trauma If you're just needing to go get your head clear for a couple of days, but if you do have anxiety, you do have a lot of issues Like it can certainly help.

Speaker 2: 30:56

So that kind of planted a seed in my head of like man, I would love to be able to share this place to other people. And I spoke to Mary Elizabeth about it and she kind of had the same idea too. We didn't know we were on the same wavelength about it and that's what kind of just bred us starting to think about it. And I'll let you talk like how we just landed, we ended up laying and we wanted to help people, right, and now we're trying to figure out what do we call it?

Speaker 3: 31:22

So we, we were just sitting on the couch one night, just like talking and, you know, brainstorming about, like, how do we help people, how do we get people here? Because, I mean it, it is not an inexpensive place to go, and if you experience this place, you will understand why it it. It costs a lot of money, but it is worth every single penny. And you know, we, we were just like, you know, getting back to that point where we were, just like we need to put the Lord at the focus of our relationship and recognize a lot of the things in our lives that we have just been blessed with. And, you know, we have been blessed to be able to go, we have been blessed with our family, we just have all these blessings in our life to where it's just like, how on earth are we going to be able to share that blessing with other people? And that's why we, you know, had this idea of, just well, maybe we just need to start a foundation in order to, you know, try and raise money to, you know, help people to get here. You know we can contribute. But also, you know, I'm sure that there's people out there who are feeling the same way, like whether it be the people that we have gone to on-site with or just people in our lives that are advocates for mental health, and so you know, we're just sitting and we're spitballing names and ultimately we ended up with, we go on and it actually goes back to our Disney days. So we actually have this common bond.

Speaker 3: 33:12

Our favorite park that we love is just Epcot, and they used to have a. They call it a. What is it? A spectacular, a fireworks?

Speaker 2: 33:21

spectacular Called Illuminations.

Speaker 3: 33:23

Called Illuminations and really it's about all the nations just coming together, unity. But the words of this song were just so impactful the days after and I didn't realize that you know I've been, you know, playing this song for years, even after the show has ended, and you know we just listening to them after everything has just had more of an impact on us and on me. But it's just talking about how we move forward and you know, coming back together has just been such a huge blessing, a big deal. But like it, just it just speaks to everything that we want to do, like we want to move forward in this, not that the past we're trying to erase it.

Speaker 3: 34:16

We're not trying to do that at all. We are past and what has happened to us has made us, has contributed to, to who we are. Not it's not that it's made us who we are, right, but it's a huge piece of our story. But how do we move forward from that and that? That is, all in all, what we want to get across to to, to people and to really just in order to help people, is that we want you to move forward from, from whatever you're facing in life, whether it be something that's our story, like that's similar to our story, or if it's something that's completely different, like it doesn't matter what you're going through, it's. We want to be able to get the word out there that there is hope and that there is healing. And you know this. It's hard work, it's a journey, but you know that's another thing that we've learned is to just trust the process.

Speaker 2: 35:16

Yeah, that's their, that's one of their settings there is just trust the process, which is really funny, because the guy who helped me through all of this that's what he said to me the whole time, and when I show up to this place, they have trust the process, like above one of the doorways, and I was just like, I was just like almost like a sign from God, was like, okay, you know, let's, let's go and figure this out. And so, yeah, we just want to be able to be advocates for mental health, be supporting, you know of people and whether that's just getting them in the right direction of hey, who can you talk to?

Speaker 2: 35:46

You know, do you need a church to plug into? Do you need to just go to counseling? Do you need a more intensive type therapy like an onsite? So it's not just all inclusive. I think onsite helped us figure out what we want to do with the mission and we've kind of expanded on it to just we want to be the resource, because so many people don't know where to start and so many people are afraid.

Speaker 2: 36:08

And we've also believed that, you know, god's put us through this because he is sovereign to allow us to share our story and be vulnerable. And even that seed if someone doesn't approach us they say, hey, we experienced this week's maybe that little bit of a seed will give them the vulnerability to go talk to someone and get the help that they need, even if it's not us, you know. But we just want to be able to point people, you know, in the right direction.

Speaker 1: 36:32

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. But first and foremost, thank you for sharing that. I know that's like you said, it's a vulnerable, vulnerable aspect of your relationship and you know to share that's it's a big thing and I think it shows how far you all come. I wrote down some things. Just I kind of took from the story and the testimony you guys just shared. And the first thing that I resonated with was with Marcelo.

Speaker 1: 36:57

I was kind of that person where it's like anxiety and all this stuff is not really made up but it's what you make of it type thing. And I didn't learn until on my first deployment, like I was kind of like what's this suicide? Why are people so depressed? And about halfway through the deployment I was like, oh, I get it now. Like you're stuck in a country you don't want to be in, doing things you don't really care to do and there's no getting out of it. And I was like, oh, shoot, I get it now. So I definitely see that.

Speaker 1: 37:25

And then, through this podcast, just the different people that I've talked to and some of the stories that I've heard, it's like, you know, life isn't black and white. It's definitely there's there's gray areas and you know you got to learn to navigate through those and you know that's where I think faith comes, comes into play and, like you said, mary Liz, like once that the baggage or the sin gets exposed, there's so it sucks, but there's so much of a weight lifted off your shoulders You're kind of like you know, thank you, like finally you get a breath. I guess one of the big questions I have is I feel like and this is as a young married person, you guys are a young married couple.

Speaker 3: 38:07

Thank you, of course, of course.

Speaker 1: 38:12

But one thing I can't help but notice is like divorce rates are increasing year after year after year and there seems like marriage is just a failing institution. Is it, in your eyes, a failing institution Like? What would you do to change that?

Speaker 3: 38:30

I don't want to see it as a failing institution. I think it is just a cause. Not a cause but an effect of sin. We're a fallen world. People don't value marriage and relationships as they should, but it's just, it is like it. You know, at the beginning of time, like the very first couple was Adam and Eve, and you know they I mean they're the reason why we're here right now. And you know, you see it all throughout scriptures that you know, humanity, we're just fallen, we are sinful people and I don't, I don't love the fact that you know it is failing, and you know, I think that we are not an anomaly, but we are a we hope to be, you know, an impact or you?

Speaker 2: 39:33

know a story of hope right Like that's what we're trying Cause right there there was those easy thoughts of just like well, you know what I mean, like biblically you have grounds for it and sometimes that's the easy way out. But in my mind at least, growing up a child of divorce, like it was not an option for me and that was always kind of known from the beginning of us getting together at something I never wanted. But you, you are exposed to it and you know I do think a lot of it comes down to your faith and your beliefs. You know of having Christ at the center of your marriage and that we've witnessed that firsthand. You know, because we watched, when he was not at the center of our marriage, what happened.

Speaker 3: 40:12

Yeah, and I think that that is the biggest difference between, like you said, like how can we, you know, how can we fix something like that? Or like how can we change that? Having Christ at the center of your marriage is is the difference, because I mean, I've recognized, even recently, I mean I feel like the the past several months have just been probably the biggest difference we've seen in each other, not just in our relationship but just spiritually. And you know, we have it's just. It's.

Speaker 3: 40:52

It's funny to me because I've never been asked this question by him, to where I was like are you going to do your devotional today, or do you have time to do it today?

Speaker 3: 41:01

Or you know we're asking each other these questions that we've never asked each other before, and so it is it's really cool to see that we have come this far to where it's just like oh, maybe I should do a devotional, let's do one together.

Speaker 3: 41:14

And then, you know, being able to join Bible studies together and be able to have these conversations that we've never had before, because, like growing up in a preacher's home, it was very different for me, like I learned scripture, not that I took it to heart, but I've learned so much over the past 33 years of my life and for him he grew up Catholic and you know, just, it grew up very different. But being able to study the Bible and have two completely different perspectives on it and have really good conversations about what we're learning has just really stretched us but has also just strengthened us spiritually. But also just together, you know, we are able to have just spiritual intimacy together. We are able to just have this relationship that we've never had before and it's just, it's incredible to see what the Lord has done in both of our lives.

Speaker 2: 42:23

So much accountability and just how we do things is so different, and it's been pretty cool to put all these tools. You know, we always say we have like a or tool belt. Now it's probably grown to like a tool chest of everything we've learned and what can we pull from it, you know. And then how can we just do it better? And we want to share that with people. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:41

I want to say I heard of Texas twang in there. You said preachers home.

Speaker 3: 42:44

You said like that and I was like oh, there it is, there it is.

Speaker 1: 42:47

But no, it's definitely like without Christ or just without Jesus as a foundation or anything as a foundation. It's so easy to tailspin, like you said, like there's nothing, there's nothing to hold you up, you know, and so it is easy to find yourself crashing like that. So what is something like what is the biggest takeaway that you guys took from onsite and brought to the marriage? Like what component? It seems like communication is kind of a big thing there, without a doubt, communication, we learned.

Speaker 2: 43:21

I'd say communication, but also I'm drawing a blank here. You gotta save more security and ourselves, and realizing that we, like I said before, we can only control ourselves, I would tiptoe around things because I was fearful of how she might react. You might react, anyone would react. We called each other people pleasers.

Speaker 2: 43:43

Oh, trust me, I'm right there with you Now we call each other, we're trying to be recovering people pleasers, like we want to help people, you know what I mean. But we also want to help ourselves. And I learned I abandoned myself like that and just so quick to jump to someone else, and they did an illustration and that kind of hit home for me. And I took it to the nth degree when we got home, cause like I, when I'm all in on something, I'm going to go the complete, all in on it. And so she had to call me out cause she was starting to get healed too. But like there was this like hula hoop diagram on the ground and I was in one and it's overlapped. And then you know, someone was role playing. Mary Liz was in the other one. And so they use an example where when Mary Liz gets like this, what do you do? And I just ran by her side cause I'm trying to, like fix it, I'm trying to, and then she goes, who's in your hula hoop?

Speaker 2: 44:30

And I look back and when you saw that illustration, you're like, oh, that was a big moment for me. I would abandon myself and just completely. And so I learned not to abandon myself and learn that I can only control myself. I can't control her, I can't control outcomes and I also don't need to be offended or take it personal. If what I say, my feelings, she gets defensive, she gets hurt by it. Those are her feelings and it's taken a year, you know, to work through that and it was not like the light switch. It was a lot of work to realize, to not take things personally and to work through. So that was kind of big, you know, for me it's just, it's all about you and what you can control.

Speaker 3: 45:14

I mean, I would say that the big thing for me was that I I defined myself by the things that have happened to me, and so I just let all of that build up over time and I learned not to be defined by them. They can help grow you instead and to, as he said, as a recovering people pleaser. I just did pretty much what anyone told me because I just didn't want to let anyone down. And you know, again, just being a pastor's kid is just so. It puts you in a difficult position because it's just like I never want to do anything that would bring shame to my dad's name.

Speaker 3: 46:01

And then you know, looking down, just like whoopsie, but just the fact that I would just completely do what anyone had asked me to do, to where it was just like hey, will you teach this workout class for me? Yes, absolutely, because who's gonna do it if I don't do it? What if they don't find anybody? That's how I saw everything. It was just if it wasn't gonna be me, then who? And so I just like piled everything on my plate. And even when I first started going to counseling and she started seeing all these things that I had on my plate, she was just like so you have all this stuff that's going on here and I was like, yeah, but like I love it, it keeps me going, keeps me busy. And she was just like just remember, that's not always necessarily good Like I'm happy for you that you're like choosing your physical health and you know all this stuff, but what are you doing for, like, your mental health other than you finally came to see a counselor?

Speaker 3: 47:03

And I'm just like, well, like you know, we go to church and stuff and like, oh you know, but it's much more than just saying like you're doing all these things. It is just, it can weigh you down so much. And I think a big thing that I learned was that, like it, once you release a lot of the things and you're able to say no to things that you actually don't want to do, your perspective changes so much and I mean I walked away from on site, just completely changed. But also like this weight was lifted off my shoulders. I still had weights on me, but just that initial just release felt so good and it felt so different and I was just like I can do this. Like it gave me that encouragement that I needed to be. Like you can do this.

Speaker 3: 47:58

Don't worry about all the what ifs, because if it's not in the Lord's will for that to happen, it's not gonna happen. But you just have to completely surrender and trust the process but also trust what the Lord's going to do. Whether our marriage makes it or not, the Lord's gonna use this story in a way that I'm I have no idea how he's going to do it, but he's gonna do it. And because what in you know, in his word it just says that the Lord will bring it to completion and he will do. What he says and I think that was a big part for both of us is just that we had to completely surrender our lives to the Lord, no matter how much we talked about it, no matter how many times we went to church, no matter who my dad was. It did not matter, unless it was just a personal decision for each of us to decide that. That is the position that we have taken and you know we are gonna be vocal about it.

Speaker 3: 48:58

We are going to tell people that, like, this is what happened, but look what the Lord's done.

Speaker 2: 49:04

And everything starts from within. I think that's one thing you've learned there and introspective and like I think I you know when I shared this with you previously like change really happens when the person themselves wants to initiate the change. Right, you send the alcoholic to rehab five times, but if he's dragged there by his family it might not hit home, but if he walks in those doors by himself, that's probably gonna be a bigger impact. And so that was a big thing for us was starting from within and recognizing this is the change we wanted. This is what we want and we've learned if you speak light to something, it doesn't have the same control over you.

Speaker 1: 49:42

Yeah, speaking about mental health, similar to like divorce and marriage as a quote unquote, failing institution, mental health seems to be. I don't know if it's necessarily getting more attention or it's more represented in today's climate. Like you know what I'm saying, like I think younger people deal with it a lot more than previous generations. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 2: 50:07

I've always thought it was more of a comfort level of talking about it. I think previous does just me personally, I think previous generations Like it's always been there to you. It's always been there, it's just like you know. I look at my dad's generation and yeah, not talking about feeling. It's just like you know what I mean. We're not talking about feeling sucking up.

Speaker 1: 50:23

You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 50:24

Like let's get it, and so I think that's part, I think that's part of it is the other generation just being willing to share more. That that's where I see it coming from.

Speaker 1: 50:35

Yeah, how about?

Speaker 2: 50:35

you.

Speaker 3: 50:37

I would definitely agree with that just because, coming from a house that didn't talk about feelings, my brother and I have been able to have really good conversations about, like, how we grew up and just how we're doing things differently now, now that we have our own families and I don't want to shy away from that with our kids, especially to where it's just like, if you have feelings, let's talk about it.

Speaker 3: 51:01

That's one thing that we definitely have been trying to make a shift on with our own kids is that you know when they're upset like if one sibling wrongs the other sibling and someone's crying how are you feeling about that? Like, tell me, what feelings do you have regarding that? And they're able to communicate how they're feeling about a situation and I think even making those small steps make a huge difference for them, because they actually feel heard. It's not that you're just correcting one child. You're actually able to listen to the hurting child and understand where they're coming from and you're able to allow that conversation for the two of them to hear their emotions regarding it, because it's not like we're taking that child away from the other one and you know and whatnot. It's just one sibling is able to hear the impact that the other sibling had on them, and we're not like we're wanting to do that too, to where we can express our emotions in front of our kids and just have difficult conversations regarding how we're feeling.

Speaker 2: 52:12

But yeah, I think the other thing too generationally, maybe talk to your kids about feelings and let them feel whatever they want, but we are very much on the same page of but if you did something wrong we're gonna correct you. There's going to be discipline. I think maybe that's a generational thing too.

Speaker 1: 52:30

It's kind of you know, we lost a little bit of that we.

Speaker 2: 52:33

You know it's like, hey, how do you feel? And then just let them have that feeling. But we know biblical principles and parental principles of just like, yeah, but if you did this wrong, we're gonna share why. We wanna know how you feel so you can feel heard. But what that does is allows for a deeper connection with our children. So when we share that discipline with them, they're gonna hopefully respect us and not rebel or push back. We want it to sink into them and I think there's a. I think there's a gap, you know. You see, there in the world. It's just like it's just the feelings, but then the parents will do good at one or the other Really good disciplinaries, or maybe do this.

Speaker 2: 53:11

But so it's trying. Let's try and merge the two. Hey, we wanna hear you, we wanna be here for you, but we're still gonna lay the law down if you did something wrong. And we're just gonna tell you why. So it's just taking a little different approach to it.

Speaker 3: 53:22

I think every story is just kind of proof that sin does have consequences, but every story can be redeemed, no matter how big or how small. There is redemption because the Lord never stops chasing after us. It's when we decide to chase after him and we can meet together, that's when beauty can happen. And that's what we've discovered from our stories that, like, yes, there's this huge generational gap, but we were able to come to the conclusion that this is just a beauty from Ash's situation and we want to be able to incorporate that into our kids' lives and we want to be able to pass that to other people as well, and I think that's why I mean I'm just that both of us really are huge advocates for mental health and really I think education can come from anywhere. You know, I think a lot of young people can learn from more seasoned people, but I would say that also those people who are seasoned human beings- Older is what you're referring to.

Speaker 3: 54:40

it's okay, we don't have to step on it, we don't have to say it nicely, but I think that they could learn from us too and just seeing the difference that we can make and I actually think my dad is kind of the perfect example of that like we have learned recently and just watched him grow and how he has just really taken on a more deeper understanding of mental health, one that I don't think he realized was there before. I know that I've had several conversations with him, and one that stuck out to me was I was in his office one day and he was just asking me what was going on with me and I was like dad, I'm depressed, I'm on medication, and I finally told him like I'm in counseling, I'm just, I'm really struggling, I really don't know what's going on with me, and he's like but you're such a happy person and I'm like here's the thing I can portray myself to be a happy person, but that is a mask that I'm putting on for the world. Internally and in my own home, I'm a completely different person than I am in front of my friends. I mean, my closest friends knew what was going on and I could just break down to them in a heartbeat. But I think generationally there was this disconnect, to where he didn't understand where I was coming from. I could explain it to him all day long and it was just there was no understanding on both sides. Because I was just like why isn't he understanding me? But I'm sure he was doing the same thing to where it was just like I don't understand, but why isn't she understanding me? Why it's? And we have to place our trust in the Lord.

Speaker 3: 56:26

But also, that is where you step out in, to where it's your own decision, like you have the ability to choose if you're going to fully surrender to the Lord or not, and how that changes you, like you get to watch that and you change one way or another, whether you decide to fully surrender or not. And I think that that is just a big thing for me, that I've learned that. It's just like I fully believe that he is learning something from us, and I mean we're definitely learning from him. I mean we learn every single week. But I think that there is a platform that we have to where we can share our story, to where we can reach multiple generations and I think, at least for millennials.

Speaker 3: 57:17

I think that that's very different we are very outspoken about, like you know we need help. We're like in a really tough place and we're like we're doing it. We're going to therapy, we're going to counseling, all these things, and then it's just kind of a For the older generation. It's just like you don't talk about that, like you don't talk about going to therapy or anything like that. You deal with that in private. But if we don't talk about it, how do people know?

Speaker 3: 57:44

I think that's where we're kind of just like we don't want people to be afraid to talk about mental health and taking care of yourself, because that is so important. It's just, it's an important piece to the puzzle, to where it's just like you can still be physically Okay. You can, you know, take care of yourself physically. You can take care of yourself spiritually, but also mentally, like Psychologically. You've just got to take care of all three aspects of of yourself. To, you know, make sure that you are just this fine-tuned machine. I mean, we're all broken, we're not gonna work just right all the time.

Speaker 3: 58:18

Yeah but I do think that that is a very important aspect for us.

Speaker 2: 58:21

We felt called like to just share this story and I think God's given us the gifts to be able to share with it and deal, because I think, like you said, a lot of people can't talk about it. You know, we've met a lot of people and all this, that just kind of stuff, feelings inside and that's how they are, and so our prayer and hope is that, by us, sharing will give people hope, whether, again, that's not through us or not, but just at least like hey, you're not alone.

Speaker 2: 58:46

Yeah and it can. It doesn't have to just be our story, it's just mental health as a whole is just. If you're vulnerable, I think that breeds other vulnerability, and so just allowing that to happen and then empathy is massive, like what she just said, like even putting herself to think, like, what is her dad thinking? I mean, two years ago we wouldn't have done that, you know, we wouldn't have we. You take everything personal, defensive, and I think that's what so many people do, and it's Taking a second to sit back and think okay, what is the other person thinking here?

Speaker 2: 59:12

Yeah, and that can help you. You might, we've learned you don't have to agree with them, but at least helps tie the story together and, I think, prevents the the miscommunication from happening because you're just one-sided thinking, you're away the whole entire time. How does any sort of resolution occur?

Speaker 1: 59:29

Yeah, but it reminds me of yesterday at church, one of the songs that they sang in worship. There was a line that says we all had a song. We all have a song inside of us and when I heard that it was like a beautiful like oh my gosh, I understand that completely. Like we all want to be heard and be seen and Sometimes, like you said and I do it too, I know I do it Sometimes it's easier to not sing our song and just sing what's on the radio. You know Something that everybody knows and it.

Speaker 1: 59:58

That's the cover-up and it's like well that you're not being who you are not being genuine yeah and that's where I think, like y'all, story is beautiful because it shows the redeeming quality of Relationships and Christianity and, you know, being able to work through these tough situations. One aspect I think that's weird with with mental health or contributing to it, is Phones like do you think an at onsite? If they didn't take your phone away, do you think it would have been as effective?

Speaker 2: 1:00:27

now, absolutely not. I mean just the fact that you had to be there and be fully present and no distractions even at the end of the night. To that, for me, was part that. So, you know, before bed, look on the phone. In the morning I look on my phone, and not having that for those two periods alone Allowed me to reflect on the night. You know, the day that I just had and then the night, and so it was pretty cool. I stopped wearing an Apple watch after we came back from here. I just recently started wearing again for, like, exercise purposes, but like I love not being as connected as I once was yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:01:02

There's such a distraction.

Speaker 1: 1:01:04

Oh, it's hard. I just from like the real estate thing getting plugged in there. It's so hard to not answer a call at 8 pm Because you're like I'm gonna lose this, without a doubt, and I guess it's a risk that you got you got to take if you want to Prioritize what's important. Yeah, and it's funny because, like, when you ask yourself what's important, you know what's important to you, sure, and you know what needs to be done, but so often you're like but it's right here, let me just five minutes.

Speaker 3: 1:01:27

Oh yeah, I mean I can't tell you the amount of times I've lost my phone since coming back from on-site and like I've left it in places and I'm just like do you know where my phone is? I can't find my phone, and so I started wearing my Apple watch again to be, and so. But then, you know, we started really focusing on our physical health this summer, and so We've both been wearing our Apple watches, but I still am losing my phone because I just put it down and my phone.

Speaker 3: 1:01:56

I've noticed this. It's just my Screen time has just gone down Significantly and it just keeps going down, which is encouraging, but also just like wow, it's just like a reality check. Yeah like I. I used to spend all, all day on my phone and Now I'm just like wow, it's gone down again this week. That's amazing, but also it's just like it's probably because I just keep losing my phone.

Speaker 2: 1:02:19

It's also motivating it allows you to be present. Yeah, you are, and what you're doing in the time and not so fixated right, like I mean, there's some work aspects you just got to do and yeah, it is what it is, but other than that, it's being more present of where you are in that moment. Yeah all right.

Speaker 1: 1:02:34

So I kind of want to wrap things up, so I want to go back to we go on. I phoned a friend on this question. Okay, mr Jesse Strickland.

Speaker 2: 1:02:41

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:02:43

If we go on, is a complete success. What does that look like?

Speaker 3: 1:02:48

I mean Honestly, it's just to help people, and I think if we can just help one person, it would be successful, because that just means that we are Doing something that we love and we are being able to help someone who has Reached out for help and has been willing to admit I do need help. How, how can y'all help me? And that's the biggest thing for me is that, like it could just be one person that we help. But in that I see all the success in it, because it means someone's willing to admit that they need help, but also that they want us to help them.

Speaker 2: 1:03:34

I think it's giving a voice to people and making them feel safe and just impacting other lives through our story, but just giving them the opportunity to say, hey, I need the help, and letting them speak up for themselves, because I think that's where a lot of the mental health and anxiety stems from is I don't know what to do, I don't know what to say, and so if we can give someone their voice, I think that is a major, major impact, as beautiful Jesse also said something about being considered Gandhi, but we won't go into that one.

Speaker 3: 1:04:02

That's the typical. That's about.

Speaker 1: 1:04:03

Jesse? Yeah, that sounds like Jesse. All right, so to kind of conclude this, I want you guys to plug. We go on, but with that, start by answering how can we help. We go on like how can the average person help?

Speaker 2: 1:04:15

Yeah. So I mean, I think just put it out there what we're trying to do. Obviously, the big thing with the foundation is raising money, you know, and so that's what we want to do, but then also sharing to friends and family who might be struggling with mental health issues of you know. Hey, I know these people that we go on, they can talk to you, get you going in the right direction. Most people who have not experienced counseling therapy any of that nature might not know where to point their friend. So we want to be that you know that initial point of contact, that resource. If they don't know someone to point them to, you know, and then people who feel so led to give you know to the foundation so we can help send people. It's not just sending them to onsite, but it's also maybe help paying for three counseling sessions. And so that's where we you know those are two areas of impact is Helping people with mental health but then also helping the financial side of it so we can give to those people awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:05:06

Yeah, I see you got a website pulled up.

Speaker 3: 1:05:08

I do. This is our website, so our mission statement is to be advocates for mental health and a source of hope by providing resources, support, encouragement and guidance for those seeking to begin or continue their journey of healing. And you know, a lot of times people just need that encouragement and support to Take that leap of faith. You know, sometimes people don't need the, the financial aspect of it, but For for the most part like that's why we set up this foundation for the people who do need the, the financial support, because that is something that I feel like a lot of people are afraid to ask for. I don't want people to be afraid to ask for financial help and things because just the way that the world is right now, it's hard. It's it is really hard financially. People are just struggling. I know people are trying to just make ends meet and you know doing the side hustles and things like that, and it's still just, you know, coming up short and that's that's really hard.

Speaker 3: 1:06:09

And I think you know that has just been one of the biggest blessings that we have been able to experience is that you know we are able to contribute not a lot, but you know as much as we possibly can, and you know, in learning that the this world is not, it's not ours, our, our children we have.

Speaker 3: 1:06:28

We have dedicated them to the Lord. They are the Lord's and we have realized that. You know, financially, even like, everything that we have is a blessing from the Lord. It is not ours, it is his, and how we use it is Going to be a testimony. And so that's one thing that we have just really come to hold fast to is we want to help people get there financially. You know just, no matter where they are in life, no matter what they may be dealing with, we do Want to be those advocates of financial support for them, because we do think that this can make such a huge impact again, just even helping them find a counselor, like Marcelo said, or, you know, getting them to onsite. You know there's so many different Intenses that they have, whether it be individual group counseling.

Speaker 3: 1:07:26

They have a place called milestones and you know they just have so many locations Around the country and just different things, but you know, that is just a big thing For us, is that we just we want to be advocates and we want, we want to be there for people you know, just to be, to be listening and just supportive.

Speaker 2: 1:07:53

And so you can follow us on Instagram. We go on right, we go on, we go on ink we well it's.

Speaker 1: 1:07:59

I'll share it so you guys can screw it up.

Speaker 2: 1:08:01

It doesn't fit Perfect on our website too, and so you can get some more information.

Speaker 3: 1:08:06

Yeah, I know it's individually as well, but yeah cool, alrighty.

Speaker 1: 1:08:12

Well, thank you guys, so much for coming sharing your story and I can't wait to see what happens with this. With this nonprofit, we go on.

Speaker 2: 1:08:19

I really appreciate it, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:08:20

Cool you.