SpeakLifeAZ
The testimony of Jesus in, with, and through everyday people like us. A father and son who were addicts for over 20 yrs. You name it, WE DID IT, TOGETHER!!!! we used to use drugs together now we share about what God Has done for us to encourage the body of Christ and anyone else who may listen to this that is feeling hopeless and empty. LISTEN TO OUR STORY...and the testimony of others who feel led to share with you.... GOD BLESS YOU....TODAY WE CHOOSE TO SPEAK LIFE AZ!!!!!!!!!!
SpeakLifeAZ
Sarah H. Testimony
What if the challenges and chaos of your past could become the stepping stones to a brighter future? Join us on the SpeakLifeAZ Podcast as we sit down with Sarah H., the director of the Teen Challenge womens center in Casa Grande called The Home of Hope, to uncover the transformative power of faith and community in navigating the complexities of life. From stories of overcoming addiction and family dysfunction to finding purpose and belonging, we explore how aligning daily life with the Holy Spirit can bring peace and resilience to even the busiest of schedules.
Throughout the episode, we share emotional and raw narratives of a tumultuous upbringing but found grace and gratitude through the chaos, and others who navigated dysfunctional family dynamics and addiction. These compelling stories highlight the power of love, resilience, and supportive communities like Teen Challenge in fostering healing and spiritual growth. Each chapter delves into personal experiences of youthful rebellion, addiction, and the healing journey of recovery, revealing how faith and community can guide us through life's darkest moments and lead to a deeper understanding of purpose and eternity.
Our conversation with Sarah H. offers a candid glimpse into her personal journey from facing felony charges to embracing her role at Teen Challenge, where grace-based training and spiritual growth provide hope and transformation. We reflect on the profound connections made during these challenging times, the power of supportive communities, and the lessons learned about embracing blessings through brokenness. Listen in as we discuss the journey of motherhood, loss, and finding peace, along with insights into the future aspirations inspired by these experiences.
TODAY WE CHOOSE TO SPEAK LIFE AZ GOD BLESS YOU
all right, everybody. Welcome back to the speak live az podcast testimony of jesus and everyday people. I'm your host, eddie, and always with me is my son Rowdy.
Speaker 2:Jesus.
Speaker 1:What's up? Dude, man, dude, how was your?
Speaker 2:day.
Speaker 1:It was really good man.
Speaker 2:Busy.
Speaker 1:I tell you what, waking up this, I'm going to tell you I've been doing this thing.
Speaker 2:I know, and Holy Spirit bud, it's been awesome, dude, it's changing you great, bro. It's amazing. It's amazing what happens, bro, when you concentrate and you focus your day on holy spirit and really doing it with him.
Speaker 1:The beauty is, it's just happening. Naturally, I'm not even like waking up and making myself do it. I'm just waking up and saying good morning, holy spirit that's the best part bro yeah so I don't know it's just been making good days man praise god man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, plus we've been busy as all get up, it keeps you, uh, keeps you going, man them slow days are rough.
Speaker 4:I know how you are damn buddy about you, man oh it was great.
Speaker 2:I was uh working on some cr schedules, man, with uh teachings and testimonies for 2025. I worked on a couple of bookings for the podcast in february. We're up in the fe of next year already, man. Your gift is networking, but it's people. I see you out there. I'm coming for you, man. This is going to be great dude.
Speaker 1:It is bro, this is going to be really good. I only know this person through you, so I'm going to be it's going to be cool to hear her story.
Speaker 2:Man, yeah some pieces, um, just from our time, my time in teen challenge. Um, and she her relationship with one of my friends, david um, but I'm just, I'm really stoked, man, this is gonna be good. Well, who'd you bring with you, man? Do we got the? Is it director? Is that the official title? Yes, the director of a teen challenge women's center in casa gran, my friend, sarah hi sarah. How you doing, sarah?
Speaker 1:hi guys thanks for coming on, man thank you for having me.
Speaker 4:I'm so grateful. Come on now.
Speaker 1:God made it very clear to us to honor his children when they come on. So we thank you. We know it's not a short drive from Casa Grande, so we appreciate your time and we pray that God just blesses you in this. Maybe you find some healing and just a blessing in it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:So thank you.
Speaker 2:Amen Thank you guys, Sarah, for me personally, just kind of being involved with Teen Challenge and knowing how that program changed my life. I really don't know much about you other than just things here and there, but I'm really excited. Have you listened to one of these before?
Speaker 4:I have I have because you are very good at promoting and posting and stuff like that Getting it out there, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:People and networking. Okay, so you know then. Basically, when God gave this to us, it was 2020, and he just told us Speak Life AZ, the testimony of Jesus in everyday people. We kind of made it our own for a couple of years man and it was the testimony of Eddie and Rowdy and preaching videos and stuff through social. It was just not at all what God told us.
Speaker 1:Ain't that what we do, with what God tells us, though we try to make it our thing? Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:Once we were like hold on, dude, what did he tell us to do? And we sat down and just started doing this. It's just sitting down with everyday people. It doesn't matter if you're a director at a women's center, if you're like my dad man and over in the muffler shop cutting on cars and welding and doing that, or myself here facilities maintenance, getting ready for Sunday. I'm kind of flipping the wheels here, man, we're all everyday people, we've all got a story, we've all got a testimony and you like myself, man. Teen Challenge really allows us the space and the time and the ability to really connect with Jesus in a way that this guy when I was in the program, he's like man. I wish I could go to Teen Challenge for a year and just get away from all this.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah, I'm blessed you got to go home and feel mom and work, and so it just I know how it changed my life, so I'm really excited to hear how it changed your life. And now, with you doing what you're doing, you're actually in a place where you're giving back for other women that are coming in where you were at one point. So that's really what we do in recovery, man at CR. I taught that lesson last night. Come on, bro. So there's just a couple different parts to your testimony that we want, but let me just pray real quick and then we'll just kind of get into it. Amen, jesus, man, holy Spirit, thank you, lord, thank you, god, for what you're getting ready to do. Thank you for my friend, lord. Thank you for her story. Just her being in this room, god, and sitting at this table, is a literal miracle, thank you, lord. So I thank you, god, that you've kept Sarah in your hands, in that victorious right hand, all these years. God, thank you Lord. Like Dad said, man, we are going to war right now. We are taking the power back in our lives, god, through our testimony, because we've all got a story, we've all come from somewhere, and you literally walk us through things, god, even when we don't even know that it's you. So I just pray for her specifically. Holy Spirit, just come, holy Spirit, use her words, share what needs to be shared. God, I thank you that there's people's faith that's going to be stirred today. There's women that are going to hear this testimony and they are going to start running after you like never before Jesus. Um, there's freedom coming into the listeners, uh, lives. Um, we just declare that in Jesus name Amen, amen, amen, um. But so basically, sarah, we just want to know where you were born, um, we want to know how you grew up, man, what life like as a kid, um, school, sports, uh, brothers and sisters, the, the family. What was the home like? Was god in the home? Um, me and dad, man, working, working in recovery, um, a lot of the hurts, the, the habits, the hang-ups, the stuff that messed with us later in life, a lot of those traumas and things happen earlier in our life Childhood traumas, childhood traumas and stuff, man. So if you want to get into any of this stuff that kind of veers you off track, just let God lead you into that.
Speaker 2:But I think the coolest part of this that we really want to get today is your encounter with Jesus. Yeah, absolutely, because, man. Everyone's encounter is so unique and it's so personal to that person because God knows just what we need to, how he draws us to him. And so we really want to get your encounter in the day your life changed and God became real to you. But then afterwards, after we encounter Jesus man, our lives change, things change, we start to make different choices. He gives us a different heart, a different mind and, like Dad always says, transformation is literally the evidence of life change or an encounter with Jesus. So how your life changed after your encounter. And then, at the very end, we would like to get what you're hoping for in the future.
Speaker 2:You're still young, friend, you got a lot of life ahead of you. What are you believing God for? Dad always tells people, when we get to that part, go big, because we got a big God man. And we know a pastor one time that had a huge plot of land and he just built this little church. And we know, we know a pastor one time that had a huge plot of land and he just built this little church and he's like I wish I would have believed God for more. Um, so when we get there, make sure to go big man Cause God. God's got a plan for you, sis.
Speaker 1:So it was like growing up, Sarah man.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I love what you guys are saying, like what we're going to kind of go through on this podcast, because I really believe that my coming to Christ moment is when my life began, and so it's kind of like when I think of my past and even my childhood and my time not serving the Lord or being a Christian, it's like. It's not even like I'm thinking of myself, but I was born in Scottsdale, arizona. So, yeah, shout out Scottsdale.
Speaker 2:Wow, you're an OG Arizona. So yeah, shout out.
Speaker 4:Scottsdale. Wow, you're an OG.
Speaker 2:I'm OG natives Scottsdale.
Speaker 4:Osborne, lived in Scottsdale my entire life, never even in my addiction, um, but I was born to, uh, my mom and dad, obviously, and they were not in a relationship by the time. Like I was kind of like a baby.
Speaker 4:they separated and um, my mom was young and my dad was a drug addict and so I kind of had this very polarizing life. My dad, even though he was a drug addict it's kind of like we have this picture of addiction back alley, homeless you know. But he was not that type of addict, he had a really good job in property management. We lived in scottsdale, totally functioning but like also dysfunctional.
Speaker 4:yeah, um, when everybody was around and the eyes were on me yeah, yeah, in public, and things like that, like on paper um, and then my mom was just young, and so I have a lot of how old was your mom when she had you so? She was like in her very early 20s.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:And so. But she, you know, wasn't, she wasn't like educated, she didn't have a career and things like that and so, and she came from a family that was very successful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:And a big family, so I always had very supportive grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and things like that. So I had this kind of life. That was so different. Whether you know, I had a certain type of life when I was with my grandparents. I had a very different life when I was with my dad, a more kind of chaotic life when I was with my mom because she was trying to grow up herself and I think that you know I don't carry this anymore, but I had a lot of resentment toward my mom because she wasn't the mom that I felt I needed.
Speaker 2:And were you? Were you her first?
Speaker 4:I'm her first and her only.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so she um you know, she learned with you, she did yeah, exactly, and she had gone through like had abortion and things like that.
Speaker 1:And so I don't know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she had been through a lot. She had already been through like two and probably more than two very difficult, serious, abusive, um and again not really having a career or any stability you guys living on your own, or were you living with family?
Speaker 1:we?
Speaker 4:were living, it would be between apartments, friends, family so we moved a lot she didn't really have any like so long-term stability yeah almost like a home of hope.
Speaker 1:Candidate and so um, you know, like just to be real, but I loved my mom.
Speaker 4:My mom was so kind and she is. She is so kind and um. Today she is like the most amazing mom. She's much better like adult mom. She I don't think that there's little girls who, like, all they want to do is become a mom. I don't think she had those type of like natural nurturing aspirations. Like she wasn't like I just dream of being a mom, it just kind of happened and then she was just surviving.
Speaker 4:So I have a lot of grace for her and a lot of gratitude because, hey, you did it Like you did your best and she always was kind to me, but she was not. But she also I felt like abandoned by her a lot because she was dating a lot and trying to find a husband and I was with my grandparents or my, her brothers and sisters all the time and then at my dad's house it was just a botchery, and so you know he had two different girlfriends all the time, most of which were strippers.
Speaker 4:He was like in property management know he had two different girlfriends all the time, most of which were strippers. He was like in property management. So he had this big like I'm gonna get all these strippers their real estate license, and so our house was just a big party all the time, and so I was in scottsdale in scottsdale.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, and he was like a kind of a big deal in a sense in his mind and in our little, what scottsdale was 30 years ago, you know, and so a lot of in a sense in his mind and in our little what Scottsdale was 30 years ago, you know and so a lot of parties, a lot of partying, and I just exposed to a lot of things that a young child should not be exposed to and. I was a very mature child, so you grew up quick.
Speaker 4:I grew up super quick, loved being around adults, loved adult things, loved um, and my dad treated me like a little adult and then he was had very not like not stable mental health, so he had super high highs and super down downs and I think just also trying to navigate as a child, like my dad's super cool friday and saturday and then he's like a monster other times, but not really understanding. Oh, like he's coming up and down up and down, up and down and so what was this drug of choice?
Speaker 4:so he was a cocaine, yeah. So cocaine and alcohol, yeah scottsdale bro in the 90s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly, rich, white, exactly. I think I may have sold coke to him totally, totally, but seriously exactly exactly.
Speaker 4:And so you know so just people in and out of the house and you know super late, late, late nights, and he was not a Christian and so you know it was like Playboy magazines on the coffee table and cocaine on the counter and alcohol and marijuana and all of these things that.
Speaker 4:I was just exposed to that lifestyle I mean girlfriends of him that would literally OD in our house and things like that and so it was in some ways like almost like glamorous to me. Almost felt like oh, these are the kind of women that I aspire to be, because this is what equals value. If you're beautiful, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:If you're smart, whatever you know so.
Speaker 4:I was really and then my mom was that way. My mom was very beautiful, is very beautiful, but, um, you know, like I, just my value system, I think, just growing up, where I grew up, was you need to be beautiful, you need to be rich and that's all that matters. And God wasn't really a thing, like, of course, I knew of God.
Speaker 2:Like with the grandparents. Did your grandparents go, my?
Speaker 4:grandparents. So what's interesting is, my mom is one of six and so I had an uncle, her brother, her older brother, who struggled with addiction, like legit addiction, like meth addiction, homelessness things like that and he got saved at a church called Scottsdale Fellowship. At this point I'm like older, like I'm kind of like my pre-teens, and so that really affected our family. Like my mom's side of the family it kind of spilled into them where my grandparents were always believing in his you know in his redemption and him getting his life together because all their other five children were very successful.
Speaker 1:I mean my mom so he was not so much, he was the black sheep, he was the black, he was like the one that you were scared of when he came at christmas, and like that was that there was, yeah, there was always like totally, yeah, exactly. It's like oh my gosh uncle paul's here like is he gonna, like it's gonna get high, get high outside?
Speaker 4:yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, and so but he was like the cool uncle too, because I stayed with my grandparents quite a bit.
Speaker 4:Most of my childhood I lived with them, and so he would live there too, off and on, and you know he'd be the uncle you could get like cigarettes from or whatever, and so like I did like uncle Paul, but there was like a side to him that I'm like kind of scared of you, um, but yeah, so like when he got saved, then that kind of like permeated our family, um, but at the was he like going to church and like evangelizing that.
Speaker 2:It was like, oh God, uncle Paul's coming to talk about Jesus.
Speaker 4:He was like that, that guy that like went to church like wasted and would like cry and would like cry and then he would evangelize, and so he was kind of like you're kind of almost like typical teen challenge guy, um without being in teen challenge so I was kind of like okay, um, but you know, he, uh, so yeah, so I was exposed to christianity that way, but I was older and I just wasn't interested.
Speaker 4:And even with my mom, who, at this point in my life, who, who she really did like kind of like start going to church with him. I think the family just wanted to support something he was doing.
Speaker 3:That was positive.
Speaker 4:So, they started like, hey, we're going to see what this church is all about. And then they got super involved in Dave Friend's church when it was like on, like Frank Lloyd Wright, it was before it went like, which was he's like a product of, um, uh, tommy barnett's church, you know? So he had like the scottsdale campus, and so then my whole family started getting super involved in his church and I just like had such a, how old are you?
Speaker 2:like a teenager.
Speaker 4:I was like, yeah, like 13 but I'm already kind of like dabbling and things and I just was like it was just a little weird.
Speaker 2:You've been exposed to all this craziness for so long, and now now you are actually getting to an age where I'm going to start.
Speaker 4:You start dabbling and like oh, this is this is fun. Totally.
Speaker 2:Totally. They're all trying to be good.
Speaker 4:Okay, right, but then they're really not, you know. So it was like this very, this very confusing thing like you're going to this church you're with, like all these people who I'm judging as like judgmental boring church, people church people and then we're really not a church family and so it's just very confusing. And then for my mom, who I had so much anger toward at this stage because I felt really abandoned by her, by my whole life and I really, I think, just so rejected by her because I loved her so much.
Speaker 4:She was like my idol.
Speaker 2:I wanted to be just like you wanted nothing more than okay, and I want you to love me, but I feel so rejected by you.
Speaker 4:So then it's like I'm just like, you're just fake, you know. And then I'm just like and then she got so wild saved that it was like no, harry Potter, no you know breaking my Eminem CDs.
Speaker 4:I had a father like that man you can't have a Britney Spears poster on the wall, totally Come on, man, I'm like two weeks ago this was totally cool, like now you're like embarrassing, you know, and so I was just like you know now my friends can't come over because you're like not going to let us watch like the real life on. Mtv you know, Like whatever.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 4:I was just like. Church in the 90s was different though it was, I mean like it was way different, like literally like my dad's mom, my grandma on my dad's side like me, like harry potter books and she like burned them, you know, like yeah and I'm like who are you? You know, so it just like was really difficult because again I like lived so many different lives where mass right like.
Speaker 1:So mass that's what we talk about. How did that affect your schooling?
Speaker 4:I was like such a smart kid, like, and I was so academically, like I was so good in school, and then probably like middle school, like seventh grade I was just like over it and I didn't even finish school.
Speaker 1:So and we can kind of like get into that.
Speaker 4:But yeah, like I don't know what happened, probably home life trauma. I had like sexual abuse in my childhood because I lived at my grandparents' house and my uncle Paul, his older son, lived with us because he had three children who he was unable to take care of, and so they were in foster homes.
Speaker 4:And then my grandparents took his oldest because they felt like they couldn't take all of them. But they took his oldest, and so we. It was just, you know, like there was just trauma, and then I just started getting. What brought me any sort of like feel, comfort, was just all the wrong things. So I was like school, whatever, boys, drugs, alcohol.
Speaker 2:What can give me acceptance in this world that?
Speaker 4:I found acceptance in.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you this, because we just did the one and you and my stepmom, you guys were talking about how, like how, you guys never. What did you guys say? You guys identified I was like I just wanted to fit in Totally. Is that how you were, I think?
Speaker 4:I just felt, we just wanted to be isolated?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they just wanted to be like by themselves. Oh, not me. You were a lot like myself.
Speaker 4:I was by myself. So much because when I would be at my grandparents' house, I'm with my grandparents.
Speaker 1:You know, so I feel lonely.
Speaker 4:And then I'm like trying to avoid my cousin like all the time because he's psychotic. And then when I'm at my mom's house she's gone and she's likely either living with a guy or whatever, and then at my dad's house would like literally party all night, sleep all day, and he has uh, he had a son who's my older brother, but we're like nine years apart, but so we have different moms same dad okay and he lived at my dad's a hundred percent of the time because his mom, like, took off when he was a little baby and so wow, he like yeah, so your family dynamic is very it's so complicated but like I, mean it makes sense to me, but like yeah, okay, super complicated.
Speaker 2:So looking back on it, do you? Would you say that you had a good childhood?
Speaker 4:so like, okay, this is the thing. So like technically, no, but I also feel like, technically, yes, like I never wanted for anything. I wasn't like, my parents didn't beat me. I think it's all relative, like I really look through a lens of gratitude. I hear so many stories of people who had it way worse than me Homeless beaten trafficked.
Speaker 4:whatever, I don't think I had a great childhood in comparison to the friends that I grew up with, of course, like okay if I don't like to compare because it's like such a thief of joy but you're preaching but so it's like yes, technically, no, I did not have in your eyes, from your perspective, but I also, like I loved, like I like my older brother who lived at my dad's house, like my hero, like I love him to this day. We have the best relationship. He saved me, like he was that brother who, like, knew dad's crazy. Tonight, like you're gonna come with me to my friends like we're gonna like dad disappeared for two weeks.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna get you to school, I'll be making you dinner and he was like he really was my dad.
Speaker 4:And he was always like happy, always nice, always like cared for me.
Speaker 2:I mean, he probably took me to a lot of high school parties that I had no business being at at like seven years old and eight years old but like I loved it, but you were going with him.
Speaker 4:He wasn't leaving you at home alone. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I can't tell you he's protecting you. I can tell you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Because he was very like social and so and he didn't like deal with like drug addiction or anything like that, but he partied a lot.
Speaker 2:you know, like like normal high school guys, do you think that him watching your father and go through what he did? He's like dude, I don't want.
Speaker 4:I wasn't old enough, but my dad definitely like they did coke together and things like that and. I, my brother, has told me stories like where he would like, like like him and his friend would come over and my dad would like offer them cocaine or whatever and they would like flush like it down the toilet because they knew he would do it all that night and it'd be like balls and balls of it you know.
Speaker 4:And so he would just um, I don't know but I can't tell you like how many times like he'd be like on his way to a party then he wouldn't like want to take me and I would just like beg him to stay home because I don't want to be alone with my dad, and he would, you know like that's like just who he was or take me with him. And so he gave up a lot of his kind of like you know, fun years to really take care of me. And so, um, I and you know he got cancer when he was 17, like a suit and I was like eight or I was like nine or whatever.
Speaker 4:And so he, um, yeah, like, like. So that was really scary and like by the grace of God he was healed but he had like no chance of living. It was like a rare cancer no one had had in 20 years. They'd like it was supposed to be like a two-hour surgery. That ended up being an all-day surgery because it spread through his whole body like crazy.
Speaker 4:So he is like a miracle and he's just like the best person ever, like genuinely, like I really. And he um, he's like not a believer, but like you know what I'm believing that you will be you know, and so I I love him and he's still.
Speaker 4:But you know what sometimes like? Even though he may not profess to be a believer, like he still shines, jesus and I tell him, like you still have like. Jesus in you, because you shine it, and there's a lot of people who do profess to be believers, who are not like I don't see Jesus in them.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm not trying to be judgmental, but I'm just saying like I still just have so much hope for him like.
Speaker 4:I have to know something is in him because it's just, it just radiates through him.
Speaker 1:So he definitely was like my. I think the thing about growing up in dysfunction as a kid you don't realize that you're in dysfunction.
Speaker 4:Totally, that was just normal.
Speaker 2:You only know what you know. I grew up with alcoholic parents. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Always had parties. You know things like that.
Speaker 2:I grew up with him.
Speaker 1:I can remember, when I got older, one of my dad's friends was like dude. I've seen your dad like just co-cock, you, you know, what I mean.
Speaker 1:He's like I was looking for like the TV cameras, like I thought I was on the Alan Funk show. You know what I mean Totally, and I'm like really, bro, to me it wasn't, it was just discipline. I mean I probably told my dad off and he cocked me. You know, talk to me like that boy. And so I didn't see it as abuse. I never really did, I still don't today.
Speaker 1:I just saw it as I probably deserve that, you know what I mean totally, but to an outsider was like holy crap your dad just beat you I've never, seen a dad fall off a fist and and you know what I mean, thousand percent.
Speaker 4:That's how I really struggled to have like friends over, because one it was either my mom living in like some apartment, um, my grandparents with like all the chaos of like my uncle paul and then his kids and whatever, and then my dad who I could actually like. I liked having friends over to my dad's house because we had a super fun house and like could do whatever we wanted the pool but, my dad was so unpredictable with his moods and like so I was very aware that it wasn't normal, but I was also like I was it's comfortable.
Speaker 4:Like you get comfortable in the dysfunction and I've had to learn that later in life I've created a lot of unnecessary dysfunction in my healthy relationships because it is it's comfortable.
Speaker 3:You don't know anything else. So you're like, if we're not on eggshells and we're not, screaming at each other and breaking things and whatever like this is not.
Speaker 4:I can't like, I feel weird and so.
Speaker 2:All the peace and the normalcy. It's like what is this?
Speaker 3:This is boring Somebody yell and scream for me.
Speaker 4:You're a firecracker dude. I'm like come on, don't you want to fight Like people?
Speaker 3:are like no, I'm like come on, don't you want to fight Like? People are like no, I'm like okay, this is weird.
Speaker 2:So all right, so yeah so now.
Speaker 4:This is so fast forward. Now I'm 16. And my dad? So my dad. So your grades in school A's so up until like, I would say like A's and B.
Speaker 2:No, really like A like.
Speaker 3:A's until, like middle school. You got a brain on you. Yeah, like until middle school.
Speaker 4:Then it was like D's F's and like just forget it.
Speaker 1:You quit trying, I just quit trying yeah.
Speaker 4:My dad had moved to, my brother got cured of cancer and that was a miracle. And then my dad moved to LA so he had lost his really good job here in Scottsdale because of drug use.
Speaker 4:Okay, really good job here in Scottsdale because of drug use. His girlfriend, who I adored, like absolutely adored with my whole life, like wanted her to be my mom obsessed with her. I loved her so much because she was so beautiful, just like, just like, literally like could be a celebrity, like someone like Pamela Anderson type, like I'm not even joking, like I just looked up to her so much and my dad was so happy when she was around.
Speaker 4:So I like, if Kelly's around, dad's good. Well then she had had like a really serious overdose on like New Year's Eve we were at Blockbuster. She ended up living. But that like destroyed their relationship. Her parents got involved because she was a lot younger than my dad and they wanted to get her help, wanted her to get away from my dad. So their their relationship to get away from my dad, so their relationship dissolved and then my dad lost his job. So he got a really good job in LA, so he moved to LA and then I started going to LA like every other weekend because like that was our custody agreement.
Speaker 4:So I was literally on a plane to LA on a Friday to Sunday twice a month.
Speaker 2:Wow and so yeah, so like I just kind, of like as on a Friday to Sunday twice a month.
Speaker 4:Wow and so yeah, so like I just kind of like as a teenager.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I was like 13,. Yeah, wow, okay, and so who were you staying with here?
Speaker 4:So then I would be with my mom or my grandparents or my aunts and my uncles or my friends. It was kind of like at a different place all the time.
Speaker 1:So when I was- here in Arizona.
Speaker 4:I would just be with, like family, my mom my mom at this point is now remarried and to someone who I didn't like I I respect and appreciate now but at that time did not it?
Speaker 1:was hard for you.
Speaker 4:It was super oh he was a lot older than my mom, like a lot older okay like a lot mom no, no, mom, oh, like, is that your grandpa?
Speaker 2:you know okay and he was very successful, so he bought he was able to provide and take care.
Speaker 4:He bought the big house in greyhawk and we started moving more north of scottsdale and I got into the really good private school and did not do well there, but he just had no interest in me. His kids were were like my mom's age. Oh, wow, and so he was done with kids you know he was not like oh, he had no interest in me, he had very much interest in my mom and mama, yeah, and. I was very much a guest in his house.
Speaker 4:And he was kind of more like and I'm so like fun and like crazy and he's like make your bed, put your shoes away totally serious like he never wanted me to like go on vacation with them. We didn't have like dinner together, so I was just more like kind of like renting a room. So I hated being at my mom's house and I already like at this stage like hate my mom just in all honesty, like I'm so.
Speaker 1:I think all that bouncing around messed with you at all.
Speaker 4:I do think so, because I moved schools a lot and then I I didn't go go to school. My mom was like, not, if I was like I don't want to go to school today, I was like okay.
Speaker 4:And so, um, and then being at my grandparents a lot, being at my and then my mom's siblings, who I would stay with a lot. They did have stable families mom, dad, kids, normal and so I think I really craved that and then I always like I feel like any of us who have dysfunctional lives, like as children, we find that friend.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 4:Who then like their family, almost like adopts you yeah. So I was very much like the friend to like two of my like really close girlfriends that were their family. It didn't matter if it was like a Wednesday night, like I could stay at their house. And would stay there a lot. So Okay to LA all the time to be with my dad, and his life is just getting way more crazy and dysfunctional, like still doing drugs.
Speaker 1:Oh, totally even worse. Yeah, to go to.
Speaker 2:LA. Now it's on now it's on now.
Speaker 1:Kelly has like left him.
Speaker 4:He's so depressed. Now he's got like this new stripper girlfriend and she's just like taking him for all he's worth and she's, you know, so he's just like up and down. Life is just like it's like you know, he's just like not thriving and so it's. That's really weird when I go to LA, like, and my brother would always go with me.
Speaker 4:Um, so yeah, like we would go together and then my brother ended up moving there as well, so then I at least had him for like some stability, but there were times that he didn't go or I'd be alone and it was just bad. Like it was just bad and it was always some crazy thing and I was it was really torn because it was like you can't tell anyone. So like you have this wild weekend of like him disappearing, him freaking out, him owing someone money, like whatever, and then you can't tell anyone you can't talk about, otherwise you're not going back there.
Speaker 2:You're not going back there you're gonna get him in trouble like and I, so I feel like you know like the whole thing.
Speaker 4:We learned this in cr. Like the codependency thing. I was very much like if anything bad happens, it's my fault and like I'm responsible for all of these people who I'm not responsible for. So I was really just like learned like keep your mouth shut like you just don't talk about it. I made the mistake of like telling a friend I think my dad's a drug addict and she was like this good, like sweet Scottsdale girl, and she was like we have to tell someone and I like, like, went like unreasonably reacted and so it was just like that very fear, like okay, and then you can't trust
Speaker 4:anyone never, never, never because, and maybe had I been more like well, I obviously I was ill-equipped to deal with it, but I feel like maybe, had I just been like, yeah, maybe we should, you know, maybe things would have been different. So fast forward to now. I'm 16. Now I'm like full-bl party person. I'm like not even doing school. I've been expelled from school. I'm at like, the school called ALC on like 40th and Shea.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, dad Shut up. That's where I graduated from.
Speaker 4:Oh, you graduated from ALC.
Speaker 1:That same one.
Speaker 4:You know what they call it? Well, we won't say it, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Accelerated Learning. That yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 4:So I'm like barely going there.
Speaker 1:When did you go there? How old are you? So I'm 34.
Speaker 4:So.
Speaker 1:I was there in like 2004 to like 2006.
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Did you graduate in 2004?
Speaker 2:I graduated in 2004. Oh really, yeah, that's like when I started. Yeah, like, yeah. Mr Kaebler was my teacher, dr.
Speaker 4:Kennedy.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly, and then there was another guy with an H.
Speaker 4:He was like the assistant principal I can't remember his name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy, haddad or something I don't know, but yeah, so so you went to the bad kid school.
Speaker 4:I went to the but I loved it. Yeah, it was great. You went for like four hours a day.
Speaker 3:I know on the curb and smoke weed Dr Kennedy's like if you're going to smoke, you smoke out there.
Speaker 4:I'm like no problem yeah like literally like vodka in your Gatorade. No one cared, you know totally. So it was just like we've come a long way.
Speaker 2:We have come a long way.
Speaker 4:And so my mom is like. I'm like my mom's driving me crazy. My dad's living in LA. I'm going to alc barely getting by are you working?
Speaker 2:no, any money okay no, I like.
Speaker 4:I know I will say no one ever really like was like you need to go get a job, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I will say, like that's a bit for your party, were you selling? Were you selling drugs?
Speaker 4:I always had money, like my dad gave me money my grandparents gave me money, my mom's now well, like you said, they this rich guy.
Speaker 2:Well, like you said, they were successful. Yeah, yeah, so I never really struggled.
Speaker 1:If you needed anything, they gave it to you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I definitely was. Very, I will say I was very spoiled, almost to the point where it was like just not a benefit to my character.
Speaker 2:They were enabling you almost, oh, a thousand percent you know, I just had, there was no checks and balances.
Speaker 4:It was like um, but so now, okay, so now do you have kids?
Speaker 3:I do you do yeah so we'll get like, but it's kind of like a wild story.
Speaker 4:It's like wild like this, isn't even like started, like well hold on, dude, we're in the yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I know I'm like, don't worry, we did one. We did one that was like five hours man we're two and a half hours in.
Speaker 3:I'm like bro no, you haven't even gone to your Jesus encounter yet, yeah, I promise, no, you're good girl, it'll go quick this is fun, man, this is good, but yeah, so I'm like, so I have this like.
Speaker 2:I'm enthralled.
Speaker 4:I have a major fight with my mom, like psycho, like you're getting kicked out F-I-E Okay, living in LA. And I'm like, yeah, you know mom, da, da, da, da. And so he was like he flew to Phoenix to like he got a hotel and he was just like, hey, we're going to like figure this out. And I was really grateful, like when I look back, I was like so grateful he like came to my rescue in a sense, and my, my parents hated each other, so I I didn't grow up with like two separated parents that like spoke good about each other.
Speaker 2:It wasn't civil. Okay, oh my gosh, when you were with dad, he was talking crap about mom. Bad Like the worst. He was talking about crap about dad.
Speaker 4:Oh, yes, I will say I feel like my mom was more mature, Like my dad was just like, like, yeah, like ruthless.
Speaker 1:That's one thing about him, man is when I went to live like hey, hey, we are not doing that, which is like good it really is.
Speaker 2:It puts you in such an awkward spot as a kid. We're like, yeah, what is the real, what's really?
Speaker 1:going yeah, they were gonna come a time that they were gonna be able to make a decision on who was right and who was wrong yeah and I didn't. I didn't want them to look bad at her oh, that's so sweet because it was.
Speaker 4:It was a situation you know I mean, like you said, man, when they leave, man tell me about how big of a piece of crap it is.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Like you said, man, when they leave, man tell me about how big of a piece of crap it is.
Speaker 4:You know what I mean, but it's hard it puts the kid in a really tough spot my parents were just so immature like they would do this thing like if they were in the same like you know, like who do you want to go with? And they're both like looking at me like just.
Speaker 4:And then my dad, just like ruthlessly just talked terrible about my mom and wait, I mean it's not even like appropriate to like say the things he would say, but like bad, vulgar, crazy things, I can imagine my mom didn't like my dad, and that was very obvious, but she wasn't quite as vocal, she was not like me and my mom didn't have that type of relationship like let's talk um so, but I but I well, you weren't really, you weren't really, I wasn't really with her that much, yeah, and she wasn't super open to like let's have these like deep talks.
Speaker 4:My dad would talk about anything and whatever. So so I was grateful my dad came to Phoenix. He was like hey, we're gonna figure this out. Like I was thinking I'll just move to LA. Like I can't do this with my mom and her husband anymore. I'm at like this stupid school anyway, I'm not getting anywhere. Like maybe I just need to like a fresh start a new place okay and so.
Speaker 4:But I also didn't really want to like live with my dad full time because I'm like my dad just got in like a few hour doses and so you know.
Speaker 1:But I was also like, hey, my brother's living there, like maybe it'll be fine, maybe it'll be fun.
Speaker 4:I'm 16 now, so like I'll be on my own soon. So he comes out, he picks me up for my mom's house. We have like this you know, we go to the hotel in Scottsdale and he's like acting so crazy, like not his normal, like mean crazy, like manic crazy, but just like weird. And so then he straight on had an overdose and so I like didn't know what to do. I remember his girlfriend having this overdose, but like she ended up being okay. And then I remember like it kind of raked, like wreaked havoc in our life. So I'm thinking, do I call the police? Do I just like is he gonna like wake up?
Speaker 4:and so I hesitated jesus yeah, like it's crazy and man I ended up like calling the police, obviously, like after I realized, okay, he's like not waking up oh my god and he ended up dying and I felt like a lot of guilt, like did I has? Did I wait too long to call the police? It's not like I waited like an hour, I'm just like probably 10, but like 10 minutes probably yeah and um like he died
Speaker 4:like so they ended up. The paramedics came, the fire department, all the people came, the police came. Then they're like questioning me about like my drug use and I'm like I'm not doing, like I wasn't like doing coke with my dad that day. I didn't even know he was doing coke that day, um, but they obviously found it. And then so they're like kind of like questioning me like I'm like a suspect or something and so um, but no, yeah so he, I think that, like he was like, they were able to like revive him like on the scene and like take
Speaker 4:him to the hospital. But then my brother was living in LA. So I'm like trying to get a hold of him and like I was even in the gift shop earlier that day and I was like talking on the phone with my brother, like yeah, dad's being weird. Whatever he's like, let me talk to him. I'm like I'm not going to go up to the room for you to talk to him, like he'll call. And then when I went up to the room while this happened, so I'm like trying to call my brother like over and over, I finally get a hold of him.
Speaker 4:He gets on a flight like right away to come to Arizona and he is a lot older than me because I'm 16. So he's like 25 now. And so he's like next of kin and like he's got to make all these decisions and the doctors are telling them like hey, we keep bringing him back, but he keeps going and we bring him back and he keeps going, and so like now he's got like so much brain damage that even if we get him stable, like, he will be like a vegetable and we just like knew our dad and like this was so long ago.
Speaker 4:At this point you know we're talking about almost like 20 years ago, so like I don't think itl funny like could have like just hilarious.
Speaker 1:So I just knew he would be so mad at us if you kept him like, kept him as if, like he'd be like you know what?
Speaker 4:I can even repeat what he would say yeah but um, so he, my brother, made the really difficult decision, like just stop you know, and, but it was the right decision like that I know, like I have to trust that the doctors if they could have saved him that they would have.
Speaker 1:How old was he? So he was like 50 he might have been like 48 actually, yeah he was like in his 40s, yeah, so I was probably hard for 20 something years. Well it.
Speaker 4:Just that's what kind of started.
Speaker 3:So I think, like when I think of what happened, that's when I became an addict like at that point, yeah, at that point I had been definitely a party, I was a party girl, you're just dabbling, like you said.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm just like at parties, I'm fitting in, I'm like, you know, like, because you had said, like the difference between you guys. Like I was so isolated. So when I could be social, I'll just anyone who wants to hang out and whatever you're doing, even if I don't want to do it, I'll do it to be cool for you to think, even if we're smoking so much, right, or yeah?
Speaker 4:like like people would smoke so much weed and I wouldn't even want to, but I would just want to keep up with them, or I wouldn't want it to end, so I would just push myself to limits. I didn't even want to go to, just be like to hang out as long as I could and so and, and that's sad, but so with my dad.
Speaker 2:So it's real, that's real man.
Speaker 4:But the reason he came out is because me and my mom weren't at such odds, so that hadn't changed, wow. But now my dad's passed away, but I'm 16.
Speaker 1:And so Did that affect you at all?
Speaker 4:Oh my, I think so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this think so, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, you go into addiction. I think it was like this, really weird, because you're already partying, so your mind's not really all.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm not anyway, yeah, I mean I think it did like I definitely kind of like attribute that to like that starting point of like really destructive behavior. I think that there was this. I think I really struggled with a lot of guilt, because there was like a relief, because even though I loved my dad, and to this day, like I still have moments where I cry or I miss him, or I wonder what life would have been like had he not died yeah there was also this like weird like, because my dad also really scared me you know, and his, his moods were so up and down and when he was bad it was like you didn't know what you were.
Speaker 2:Three like. You know what I mean. It was scary like. It was like.
Speaker 4:World War III. Like you know what I mean, it was scary, Like it was like hide for your life?
Speaker 1:Was he bipolar or anything like that? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 4:Like schizophrenic.
Speaker 3:Like psychotic. Now, looking back, it's mental health Right and so like it was not.
Speaker 4:Like oh, dad's just in a bad mood.
Speaker 1:And it was not like oh, dad's in a bad mood, find you, can we take?
Speaker 4:someone who's bipolar and he had drugs to it. Yeah, oh man. And then who already? Just has like a weird temper and like, and then like and it's always the really funny people too, because he was like god it was like. The way I like can best describe him is he was like the life of the party, like literally life of the party. Everyone loved him, generous, funny, best night of your life, but if he was in a bad mood, like suck the life out of the party.
Speaker 4:Like no one better breathe, make a sound like like just your whole body is tense, you know just being like just him, just being in the room walking on eggshells totally like to the extreme, yeah and so um so yeah. So I mean I ended up just obviously staying at this point.
Speaker 1:My mom has her husband and Her mom okay.
Speaker 4:And like she has a good home and I'm not staying at my grandparents' as much, what?
Speaker 2:school. Are you going to? Well, you're not going to school, so I'm at ALC still.
Speaker 3:Are you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and they were super sweet to me, like even the principal like came to me, but I probably so. I met a guy like I went to a party with my friend and I know it's like everyone's story, but I met a guy who was like five years older than me, so he's like 21 and he can buy cigarettes and alcohol and whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, you said earlier, yeah, you liked hanging out with older?
Speaker 4:yeah, I did, so he was cool and you know he was homeless and like I think that's cool he was homeless yeah. I'm like just being so real, he's really going places.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like I'm just being so real with how I was, but he was like I kind of like look back now and I'm like you were like 21, like hanging out with high school kids and like you had nowhere to live, and it's just like not. You know, it was like I see how like not normal it was but at the time time I'm like, oh my gosh, he's so cute, I'm so attracted to him and he's so cool and he's impressing me with this like non, not impressive stuff.
Speaker 4:But it impressed me like stuff that it's like red flag, like a dozen red flags. And so, but I'm taking them like they're roses you know, and I just think I'm just I'm like I get obsessed with him, obsessed and so.
Speaker 2:Do you think it was spiritual?
Speaker 4:I definitely think there was like a demonic thing.
Speaker 2:I definitely think Were you guys were, you guys with each other, oh yeah, oh yeah, like from night one. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4:So yeah, cause I had no respect for myself, so it was just any, anything to be accepted, anything to get attention, anything to feel loved, to feel beautiful, to feel whatever I would take, and so yeah, so like I and I was also a lot skinnier back then God bless you. I love you Sarah.
Speaker 2:And you are beautiful sister.
Speaker 4:Thank you but you know I don't like. I also looked a lot different back then. I'm going to have to go back over my no, I don't have a yearbook.
Speaker 3:ALC wasn't one of those schools.
Speaker 2:They weren't investing in that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we didn't get yearbooks and things like that. Yeah, we didn't have prom.
Speaker 2:No, you were lucky to graduate. Yeah, that's right. They set up the risers and gave us a cool white hat, totally, totally it's so funny.
Speaker 4:So I totally, totally, it's so funny so um.
Speaker 4:So I started like sneaking this boy, this man into my mom's house and because he has nowhere to live and I like being around him every second. And so my mom like she like never like came out and was like I know what you're doing, but one day, one like day, she came into my room and she was like so your uncle has a condo on like 64th street and shea. And she was like so you have two choices. She was like you can move into that condo or you can live here and follow my rules I'm moving to the condo.
Speaker 4:I'm like I'm like, oh cool, this boyfriend who, like, has nowhere to live, who I'm like sneaking in here I can go like, have my own condo and like I mean like a no-brainer I was like I saw, I tell her today and like I know she feels so like just bad, you know, like she just feels stupid and foolish and I don't want to make her feel that way because we're like so good now but it was a stupid thing to do to a 16 year old.
Speaker 1:Like you know, to someone who's turned. Don't want to make her feel that way because we're like so good now, but it was a stupid thing to do to a 16-year-old, Like you know, to someone who's turning 17.
Speaker 2:Don't give her that opportunity.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right we need parenting.
Speaker 2:Who's?
Speaker 4:going to choose, like yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll live by your rules. I'll live under your rules, mom.
Speaker 1:And your husband, who I hate.
Speaker 3:Or have my own place, yeah, like freedom like a nice condo too like on
Speaker 2:64th and jay, you know.
Speaker 4:So I was like yeah and living the dream at 16, totally and like so I was like 17 now but yeah, but yes but like she uh, yeah, her husband hated me and I hated him, like it was very obviously we had no respect for one another. It wasn't just me toward him, though.
Speaker 2:It was literally both ways from what you were sharing earlier. It was almost like he wanted her and you were getting in the way, totally, totally, and so it just. You got him a trophy wife.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's all he wanted. That's what, no, but it's true, a little hottie with a body, baby.
Speaker 1:Well, she said he was like his grandpa, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Yeah, some young hot thing, and like I just have to deal with your kid and especially at this point I'm just like giving them hell. So he was like I think they were both just like just get out of here, so I left. Now I'm 17, I go in, you know, to this house and I make it. It's like the party house, and so I ended up getting expelled from alc because that's pretty hard to do yeah, I don't know they were really crazy, so it so my cousin was going there.
Speaker 2:They really work with you there.
Speaker 4:That's what I feel like. I feel like it was okay a couple things.
Speaker 1:You were a wild one, I was like harboring runaways, so I feel like they weren't like crazy about that.
Speaker 4:Like kids were like, oh, sarah's got a condo we're going to like, so they weren't like crazy about that.
Speaker 4:and then it just kind of all came like I was never going, so there was like truancy stuff. And then my cousin was going there with me and he got in a fight with some kid and I was like my cousin's gonna kill you, like so dumb. And then they were like we're zero threat school and I was like okay, like two days ago I told you like some guy was like threatening to bring a gun here and you did nothing, so and now I'm like I'm like just talking like kids, talk like my cousin's gonna kill you, not literally and they were like we're zero threats, you're expelled so it was fine, I mean okay, that was around the time of colobine and all that I got
Speaker 2:arrested for that. I threatened it shadow mountain, I'm gonna effing kill you.
Speaker 4:But you know, but you know how like but you like, they take it serious and I get it. I totally get it. At the time, though, I was like there's other people threatening people and you're not doing anything.
Speaker 1:And like I, was.
Speaker 4:I was so close to graduating, but it's fine. It's honestly like fine, um, but I so now, like I'm just like I'm all mad right now.
Speaker 3:I'm fine man, I'm fine.
Speaker 1:We have a class. We have a class for that on Monday night.
Speaker 3:We've got a group for that Celebrate recovery.
Speaker 2:Come get some healing girl, I'm like I'm over it.
Speaker 4:But, it's like, honestly, had I finished, would it even have mattered?
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 4:So yeah, I mean, in some ways I was kind of like happy. Like okay, I don't have to go to school.
Speaker 4:Um, I'm, my mom was getting social security checks because I was had survivor benefits for my dad and she was signing them over to me every month and so I had money. I was waiting to be 18, where I was getting my dad's life insurance and I had my boyfriend, who I was obsessed with. We had this condo we're drinking, partying, whatever and I had a friend come over one night and she was smoking meth and I was like I don't know, even though I was like all about partying, it was like that was a line that I was like I'm never going to.
Speaker 1:So up until this point, you're just doing what Cocaine and alcohol and weed.
Speaker 2:Oxycontin you know, like Oxycontin, you know like uh yeah, the oxy 80s were really that was a big thing. Crushing them up digging your blunt, you know whatever like that kind of stuff, drinking my you know all the stuff you saw me doing, man yeah.
Speaker 1:My, I was hiding myself.
Speaker 2:I wasn't paying attention bud, yeah.
Speaker 1:My boyfriend. We've come a long way, bud. Just share what you're bringing home, buddy.
Speaker 2:I, buddy, I literally would come home and throw him balls and cook here.
Speaker 4:Man can't do anymore, bro. I was just doing like coke. I was doing pills. My, my boyfriend's mom had like had lupus, so she had like methadone the pills and so he would like steal the and she had them, like tons of them like. This was back in the time where people were prescribing stuff so easy.
Speaker 1:So I was before the opioid, yeah, but before all of this stuff.
Speaker 4:That like went down, so I mean we, it was no thing to like get oc80s, it was no thing to get methadone, like, whatever so, and I, I wouldn't say that any of that was crazy yo it was crazy, it was fun, but I thought mesa was nuts.
Speaker 4:Good lord, they got money over there, we didn't work and we had like this endless supply to anything. And so my friend, who was like this beautiful girl, like would never guess that she would like do meth. She like pulls out a meth pipe and I'm like, oh my gosh, I won't even. Oh well, her name is jean. I'm like jean, oh my gosh, you do meth. You know, it's like that's like gross. You know, to me I'm like that's like hood dope.
Speaker 1:What are you?
Speaker 4:doing that's for poor people. I know that's just like that's ghetto we're in scottsdale, we do coke.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like we do coke and we like roll blunts with ocs you know what I'm saying, so I'm like no, thank you, I just felt like I was on laguna hills yeah so, but you know what?
Speaker 4:like anything, my boyfriend had struggled with meth in the past. Yeah, and so because he grew up in this probably why he's homeless right. He grew up in the square, he was like that's where I grew up yeah and so he was into meth bad and so he, um, but he like wasn't doing it at that time when I was with him, and so I I think like he was really triggered by her pulling that out and then so he smoked with her. So I'm like oh, my boyfriend's not going to smoke with this girl.
Speaker 1:You know, and.
Speaker 4:I literally I'm not proud of it. But again, like that whole thing, like my insecurity fitting in, he's not going to smoke with this girl, and now I feel like I better smoke too. And now I feel, like I better smoke too, and I'm telling you like I had done a lot of drugs up to this point. Nothing captured me.
Speaker 2:Grabbed you man Nothing.
Speaker 4:It was one and like honestly I almost hate talking about it because it gives you this really gross feeling of every feeling. But it's like it took one hit and I like sold my soul to the devil.
Speaker 1:We had a guy on who was talking about his meth addiction and I literally I don't know about you, but when I would do meth before I would get it, I'd have to poop.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, seriously, and this dude's talking.
Speaker 1:this dude's sharing his story and I'm over here and I'm like I got to poop dude.
Speaker 4:No, but seriously. I mean, it's like that goosebumps from your head to your toes, and so and so I we're not laughing because meth is fun no, we're not glorifying what we did.
Speaker 4:I want to be really clear about that yeah, I don't feel like. This is like don't even try it if you never have there's obviously points in my addiction life where I feel like the life of no responsibility was fun, but the way that it destroyed my life and the way I in no way glamorize it. I have a funny personality, so I like to just be real and tell it like it is but in no way do I think that I mean, if I could do anything over, it would be that moment.
Speaker 4:I mean be so many moments, but it was.
Speaker 4:Our listeners know we're not making fun of this our listeners know that we've been, because we tell people all the time that we're not making light of this yeah, we're laughing because we got out of it and we can look back and be like damn, I can't believe we did that well, and we're, we're coming to like the good part you know the good part, and so I um yeah, so you know, you just go into that life of addiction it. It took me immediately. I knew that from that moment I needed to feel that way every single day and I did every single day.
Speaker 1:I've done every drug you could imagine and nothing got me like meth did.
Speaker 4:It's so true.
Speaker 1:I love the idea of staying up for days oh me too, my first time doing it.
Speaker 4:I was up for six nights. And then obviously eventually you are able to eat sleep whatever. But in the beginning, oh my gosh, I mean my life is so dysfunctional.
Speaker 1:I feel like day three. People used to tell me go to bed, bro. I'm like, I'm not even there yet, bro.
Speaker 4:Oh, and I would hate when someone told me to go to bed.
Speaker 1:Because I'd be like, but I wouldn't even start having fun till like day five or six, he's up for a weird drink some water.
Speaker 2:I don't need water. I was like, oh my god, you're the devil incarnate.
Speaker 4:But it's crazy, but it really does change you and I lived for nothing else but to get high, and so that that's just Were you just smoking it. Yeah, I was just smoking it. I was scared of needles. Just to be real To me, I became superhuman.
Speaker 3:Yeah me too, I could do anything, I could beat up anybody.
Speaker 1:I could take your life if I wanted to, and not even care.
Speaker 4:Right, exactly, exactly. I could rob you steal from like nordstrom and then take it to buffalo exchange or you go buy a bunch of stuff at target and then go return it like go like take the receipt and get it back off the shelf and then return it.
Speaker 1:I had, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:And then my boyfriend like he robbed houses like legit home invasions him and his friends like he. I started like realizing, because when I first got to know him, it was just him and I and our relationship moved so quickly, so fast, like you didn't really get to know him I didn't know him, I didn't know his family, I didn't know his friends. I didn't know anything about him except this physical connection that we had. And so then I started realizing like, oh, he's got like bad friends, like friends that like tie people up.
Speaker 1:Like they do, home invasions they steal cars every day.
Speaker 4:They're in and out of prison.
Speaker 3:But there was this thing that was very exciting. Not like my friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because even though my family was, dysfunctional it wasn't like that.
Speaker 4:Like that's the stuff you see on tv? Yeah, because I grew up in a dysfunctional family and with a dad who was a drug addict and a dad who lost his life to addiction, but they weren't out they weren't evil hurting people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they weren't, like addiction once. Once the addiction flips and it becomes evil, right, and you become wicked yeah that's when it changes Totally.
Speaker 1:But you know what's crazy is like? Alcohol can affect you in one way, we can affect you in one way. Cocaine can affect you in one way.
Speaker 2:That meth, man Of all the drugs.
Speaker 1:I've done. I was a coke head before. I was ever a meth head yeah. And I never robbed and stole and all this other stuff when I did cocaine Right, because I also knew that you could buy a couple of eight balls at the end of the night. It's done, you're going to sleep and wake up the next day and everything's going to be good. Yeah, meth. On the other hand, there ain't no sleeping You're? I mean, it's a different monster.
Speaker 4:It really is, and even though it's not the same as is, like heroin, where, like, if you don't have it, like you're going to be so sick, like you're going to be so sick in the head and so like you're just like I'm going to do anything, and so all morals go out the window, everything that was instilled in me, all the good things my dad instilled in me all the good things my grandparents instilled in me, even my mom, it just like it didn't matter and I was just angry and I was alone.
Speaker 4:I was trying to be cool and this life, these people accepted me as family and um it takes every moral and conscience you have and throws it right out the window. Oh, and then they use you too because here's this rich girl from Scottsdale and how can we use her? And I was totally used, and so you know what it I would love to come across someone like you in my addiction.
Speaker 1:Oh my God yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like, and that's how it was.
Speaker 1:You live where you got homes, or what Right and so it kind of just went into.
Speaker 4:You know, like this wild lifestyle, Our money would, like my money would run out very quickly because it's a very expensive habit, and then I also had.
Speaker 2:You didn't go into any like stripping or working or anything.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then I also had you didn't go into any like stripping or working or yeah so when I, the day I turned 18, I went to, uh, the city and got my exotic dancers license. That's like, but that's what I grew up with with my dad again like going back to that value system.
Speaker 1:That's what I wanted to be beautiful girls and these men love them and people love them and they can make a lot of money.
Speaker 4:Now, unfortunately, I did get a job as a stripper and in order to get like a friday, saturday and like prime evening, you had to work like not the best shifts to like get those you kind of had to earn those and even in my addiction, I just couldn't be. I mean even even to something as not serious, as like as easy as it is to work at a place like that, like they don't require a lot. You just got to show up.
Speaker 2:You don't even have to show up sober you just got, they'll do your makeup they'll put you in your outfit.
Speaker 1:Take some clothes off, baby. But I couldn't even be like committed to that, so they would.
Speaker 4:I would be like, talked to all the time, like you just got to show up. You got to show up on time. And then I had the psycho boyfriend who was like oh no jealous and then I had a car, but he didn't have a car, so then he would want to have my car while I was working.
Speaker 2:Pick you up. I don't know what he's doing while I'm gone and then.
Speaker 4:So I'm like we're fighting all the time and so we just it was really difficult for either of us to have any type of job because we were so psychotically jealous, we were so insecure, we didn't trust each other and then he was using me. So I'm like you're not gonna like take my car to go like sleep with other girls and or I don't know what you're doing and then he's like well, you're not gonna have your car there and I don't know what you're doing, and like just all of this weird stuff and so just meth relationship of just loving
Speaker 4:hard fighting, harder domestic violence after domestic violence arrest after arrest people calling the cops freaking out in targets.
Speaker 2:Are you getting arrested and like going to jail? He is yeah.
Speaker 4:So he is.
Speaker 2:Well, you're the good girl.
Speaker 4:I'm and I'm like, and I'm not even the ones like calling the police, like neighbors calling the police, yeah, and so Well.
Speaker 2:calling the police? Yeah, and so well they hear you. Yeah, so I'm telling me you were a loud one. Oh, I'm psycho.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like I I'd get, like I love her you're the best you are the best.
Speaker 2:It's like. This is me. Yeah, I can relieve it.
Speaker 4:I like had a little note on my car that was like you scare our children and then I had like me, like now, I would never. But at the time I'm like, oh my gosh, forget these people. Like, mad at them. You know, like, can you believe these people put this note on my car and like now.
Speaker 4:It's like it breaks my heart that I like put people through that, but I'm like they're the problem you know, of course, like can you believe how rude they are to put this note on my car that I scare their kids like grow up you know, and so, um and so anyways, like, as you guys know, because we don't have to spend a lot of time on this, because we all were addicts and so we know, you know how dysfunctional it is.
Speaker 1:You know what a day in the life of an addict is. You know what you have to do to get high.
Speaker 4:And I did everything that you guys have done, and more being a woman.
Speaker 1:You know, what's funny is we have the same mentality in our recovery that we had in our addiction. That's right, yeah, whatever it takes, whatever it takes Exactly, just get it done.
Speaker 4:So exactly. So now like fast forward. We've been at this for a couple years and now everything like has dissipated no more money.
Speaker 1:Mid-20s. I'm like 19 now yeah.
Speaker 4:No money, no God no money.
Speaker 2:No god, you're just a baby, I'm just a baby.
Speaker 4:No, like you know, my car is like. I mean I have a car and it's a nice car, but it's just like just been put through the ringer I've like put a title loan on it a million times.
Speaker 4:You know it's never registered I've had girls like put, like keyed and like put like sugar in my gas like you know just like just like that kind of life, like so dumb we have no apartment because I was going to move out of my uncle's condo because now I was 18. So I got my own apartment because I was done with him like just showing up all the time and being annoying, calling the police on me, stuff like that. Um, so I was like I'm not living here anymore and as soon as I can get my own apartment which I did, I did so I was evicted would like go get another apartment before the eviction would show, and then finally it caught up to me and you know, it's like like straight constable coming, like physically taking you out of your apartment and I was like 98 pounds, so they would like physically
Speaker 3:pick me up and like because I thought I could fight anyone you know, and.
Speaker 4:I physically fought my boyfriend all the time. I mean, I remember being arrested one time at Fry's and I just was like gonna fight this girl cop and she took me to the ground so fast and so hard and I was like man, it just like humbles you because you just think you can like do whatever.
Speaker 4:Um. So at this point now, um, we're like doing things like because you figure out these ways to survive, I can't work at the club anymore. I burned my bridges there. He's not going to let me work there anyway. I don't really want to and I'm pregnant now.
Speaker 2:Oh geez.
Speaker 4:And so we kind of got into this like thing where you could like take $5 bills and turn them into hundreds because like the five and the hundred in this time like not the new ones, but like they're very, very similar. They line up perfectly. If you put a money marker on it, it is money. If someone holds it up to the light, obviously it's a different president, but they see that it's something's there so it's like super easy.
Speaker 4:So I learn how to do this and I'm so good at it and then you just take the hundred and you go buy stuff and you get change you like. Try to buy something for like seven dollars, you know whatever, and then you get the hundred and you go buy stuff and you get change you like try to buy something for like $7, you know whatever.
Speaker 1:And then you get the change, and so it's a thing. He's robbing houses.
Speaker 4:I'm doing like green dot fraud on the green dot cards. I got hooked up with someone who, like you, can like file like, claim kids on social security, get the social security check.
Speaker 1:I'm like in it you know we're robbing houses. Addiction takes you in. Yeah, we got trash totally, oh my god all of that and then, like the russian, the russian mob people like we're getting pulled for them, you know, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:So it's like, you know, pretty serious and like, but we're like, we're living, we don't have a place because, like, no place will rent to us.
Speaker 2:But we're like kind of couch surfing, you find your friends they let you stay there, for you know as long as you're bringing dope, you bring some money.
Speaker 4:You got a car, you can stay here, just don't cause problems, um, and then you know whatever. Motel six red roof whatever, you're not really sleeping anyway so I'm like have no relationship with my mom and I get a call from her that she like met this new guy and that she was divorcing her husband and she like remarried him, like, like or not remarried, but got married to this guy.
Speaker 4:She was with one guy and now she's with another guy and she's remarried, he lives in New York and like all this stuff and like she's gonna, like she wants to be like me, to be in their life and me I've gone through this with her so many times and I'm in my world, I'm pregnant, I'm addicted to drugs, I'm obsessed with my boyfriend, who's in and out of jail and whatever. Like I'm not interested, but I met him and he's a pastor and he's this great guy and I'm just like not interested in him though, and so I just like had wanted nothing.
Speaker 4:I was really cruel to him like just really cruel to him and just was like just give me money. I just all I want from you is what you can give me. I have no interest in being in a relationship with you. And he was really kind to me and patient and really took this like interest in knowing me um, he really pastor yeah yeah, and he's a businessman too.
Speaker 4:So like he kind of has this like double life, where he has created this super successful business but he also had a really successful church in the 80s in Missouri and then so he kind of like retired from that and then went into full-time business.
Speaker 4:So he's more like a retired pastor but, so he's like created this really beautiful life and he really wants me to be a part of it. And he's telling me that, like he was on this park bench with my mom at kirland shopping center and god, like she told him about this her daughter, who had all these troubles and like he was like the lord, just like put you into my heart and you became my daughter. In that moment, he like bought me the park bench. He like went to Kearland and was like I want to buy this park bench.
Speaker 1:And they sold it to him.
Speaker 4:So he's just like this kind of guy and I'm just like cannot receive it. I cannot receive it because one I'm not going to know you in a year. And two, I don't even. I hate my mom, Like she's abandoned me.
Speaker 1:Are they still married?
Speaker 4:They are yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So some really bad things happen in the course of like me meeting him and I'm still in my addiction. I'm pregnant and I end up going to jail and it's like so dumb because, oh my gosh, I'm like seriously still so mad about it, because they're like building a case on me, so like there was a detective Weaver, if you're listening, who I love and he arrested me.
Speaker 2:Careful for statute of limitations. Careful, what you say, man?
Speaker 4:No, he is like actually like someone who I deeply respect and admire and we've stayed good friends. But at the time he was like arresting me like nine times in like nine months, you know, and just like stupid stuff and like so they got me oh yeah, they were watching. Oh yeah, they were like building a case, and just on me, I mean all the time. I can't tell you how many times I was stopped and not arrested.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how many that was like my uncle. Yeah, they would stop him and the other cars would show up and they just watch him. Totally, totally. They'd kick my door down.
Speaker 4:They'd like kick hotel room doors down. I'd be in the shower and they'd be like you need to come out. I'd be like, oh my gosh, like, leave me alone.
Speaker 2:I'm like what is your problem? You've been in the bathroom for an hour. Get out of there. I'm like you're obsessed with me.
Speaker 4:I'm like get a life, but like you know, but like so they anyway so. But he always was like kind to me. I have to say that even though he had to really do tough things and was really on me and I was doing terrible things, that like make them on you. And my boyfriend was doing even way worse. So they were like and we're in Scottsdale and he would be like just move to Tucson.
Speaker 3:He's like you don't want to get out of my city, Just get out of my, you guys are like wreaking havoc in the city that has no havoc.
Speaker 4:And so I do think Scottsdale ain't no fun.
Speaker 2:Man, Sarah, we would have gotten in trouble.
Speaker 1:They were the only jail, that would not squash my fines You're going to pay them their money. Scottsdale sucks. You steal a dress from Target.
Speaker 4:It will haunt you for life.
Speaker 1:Mesa, phoenix. Everybody else will squash on my stuff.
Speaker 2:You're paying the last dime. They are haunt you for life. Yeah, oh my gosh, mesa, phoenix, everybody else was squashed on myself like they are crazy about it and so um so.
Speaker 4:Anyways, he would always just want to offer me help, like he was. Like I just think you're with a bad guy detective weaver he's like I think you're with a bad guy. I think you're a good girl. I know you come from a good home like you know, like I think that you should like.
Speaker 4:This is like ruining your life, and I believe in you, but I don't want to hear it and so, um, he like I'm really mad at him and he knows I'm mad about this because my uh boyfriend would steal mail, you know and, like you, open it. Sometimes there's cash looking for credit cards this guy had this credit card that had a giraffe on it and it was the cutest credit card I've ever seen and I kept it.
Speaker 3:I never even used it.
Speaker 4:I know like a dummy, but I shut up dad.
Speaker 2:That's why I went to prison.
Speaker 4:I never even used it, never did anything illegal with it other than having it in my possession. And they charged me with it and then that was the one that got me, and so now my mom has this new guy, so he bails me out like a three grand bail. I'm out on bail and what do I do? Like an idiot, do a like, get another felony, while on felony release so they arrest me and now I'm charged with felony while on felony release now you can't be no release, it doesn't matter my, my stepdad, could have been like.
Speaker 4:I'll give you 10 million dollars, it does not, and I'm like five months pregnant, wow and so I'm like, and then so the, the public defender comes in and you know she's like meeting with me and I'm so arrogant and and just dumb and I'm just like I'll be out of here in a week.
Speaker 4:My mom's got this new man and like he's gonna get me out because he had just got me out like a week prior so like I'm just like I think I'm untouchable, especially because I'd gone through the ringer with detective weaver and they were always releasing me and I couldn't really understand. It's not like I was giving them information, but it was like they were just building a case and so I just was really um ignorant to the fact that naive super naive. And so she comes and she's like, okay, so there, uh, we want you to sign for seven and seven and a half years, and I was, you know, at 19 you're like I'm thinking, if I get, anything he did, yeah, and I think your life's over, you do, and I was just I kind of just accepted it.
Speaker 4:But I also was just like this can't be real, like it was really surreal, like you're like, okay, this is what it is and it's a gut punch man right, it's shocking because, you think you're untouchable? Yeah, you really do. You really do because I was untouched for so long I did so much bad stuff that.
Speaker 2:I got away with and then so this is the first time I'm in trouble. Dude, you guys want to lock me away from this.
Speaker 4:And I'm like, I'm like a good person, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like you think this, I'm like.
Speaker 4:I'm not like everyone else in here. Okay, and so, and so you know, I'm at Estrella and I'm pregnant. I end up giving birth while in Estrella. Oh, wow, this was 2009, wow, yeah. So give birth to my baby boy when did mom go in there 2008 okay yeah, l dorm.
Speaker 2:She was on the uh she was on the chain link crew. Oh yeah, see, I couldn't be outside, okay, I couldn't.
Speaker 4:I think that was d dorm. I couldn't because I was pregnant. I was really lucky.
Speaker 2:It's called favor.
Speaker 4:Yeah, favor, I couldn't you know bottom bunk Peanut butter, couldn't eat the meat.
Speaker 2:I get the special stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm like I you know You've been in jail.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I made my little business in jail.
Speaker 4:I was like you know, honestly, I was telling the girls I'm like it's like everything's pink in here, Like this is fun. Girls camp, like telling the girls I'm like it's like everything's pink in here, like this is fun. I was like it's like a slumber party every night and so, um, so I honestly, like, honestly, when I had to leave, I was like so sad, um, but my at while this is happening, my son's dad is because my boyfriend, who I've referred to a lot, he is going to prison for a long time. So he went for 13 and a half years.
Speaker 2:Home invasions. They don't like that.
Speaker 4:He was like, and he was sloppy in the end, you know, but he was like doing home, Like it was like you always get sloppy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just don't care. I think he was tired. I almost think he wanted to like get caught.
Speaker 4:Like he's like a full-blown IV heroin user. Oh yeah, so like, because our addiction kind of progressed so he's like now, full-blown heroin IV user. I was always scared of needles and my friends would always be like you're wasting it by smoking it.
Speaker 4:I'm like I am scared of needles and, like you guys, look gross like doing that, so I'm very grateful to God that I never felt like I like that's good if someone had a line that was mine but like whatever, but um, but he was full-blown, like at this point, like so I think he was just tired, sloppy and like like they were building a case and he just it was bad so and plus he had priors and things like that and he's older now at this point, so he, so that was just devastating to me. Now I have no one in my family who's like willing to take my, my baby, because I'm going to prison, and my mom's just met this.
Speaker 2:Oh, you signed for seven and a half.
Speaker 4:Well, I hadn't signed yet because I was trying to get them to plea me to 2.5.
Speaker 3:But that was what I was going to God. Her story stands.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm like I will do 2.5. But you think you have all this bargaining power.
Speaker 2:Cap it at the presumptive and I'll sign.
Speaker 4:I'm like yeah, if you, I'll okay. Fine, you want seven, I'll do two and a half you know, but I'm like I don't know, Like, at this point I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 2:And, as you guys know, when you of there Cause it sucks so bad.
Speaker 4:And my case was pretty serious and it was pretty severe and you know, they get you for so it ended up like being charged with a burglary, the money laundering thing, which, and then the like something computer for an object, credit card fraud. So I don't know what this computer for an object is. I object credit card fraud, so I don't know what this computer for an object is.
Speaker 2:I've never like been able to figure that out. You were making stuff, dude.
Speaker 1:You were making money for an object, though wire transfers.
Speaker 4:Wire transfers we're doing like green dot wire transfer social security stuff.
Speaker 1:That's what that is, yeah, so whatever, yeah I'm sorry, my buddy got 10 years for that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's real stuff, well and, honestly, like I started getting really like because the story while I was in jail, like then, my stepdad started visiting me and he started bringing me like oh the new one, the new one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the pastor like yeah, I didn't see my other, my mom's ex-husband.
Speaker 4:Like what like really at all um, and he never visited me or anything, um, but I did end up placing my son with a really loving family. Okay, because, no, I had no one to take him, and so it was either him go into the foster care system or go into a nice family. And I had no idea teen challenge was on my horizon. I had no clue of what was to come, it was just I'm going to Perryville and I can't bring a kid with me.
Speaker 4:So what am I going to? And my mom's not willing. She just got like this new guy. She's not offering to take him. I also, to be honest, was like I really don't my mom's not good with kids. I don't really want him to go with her, and so it was like a lot of stuff.
Speaker 4:But, my stepdad started visiting me in jail and he started you know like you can get books and he would like, um, he like, sent me a little, but like books that were a little out of my like scope, like mere christianity, cs lewis he's all sending you the old time theologian.
Speaker 2:Like what am I reading?
Speaker 4:here I'm like, I want like like one for the money you know what I mean.
Speaker 4:I want, like you know, radical, legally blonde like I want like I'm not, but you know what. But then when, that's all you've got that's all you've got. You'll read it, cause that's all I had and so um. I'm really grateful for the seeds that he sowed. Seeds were being sown, and then he ended up deciding to get me an attorney, and so that attorney really was amazing. Steve Duncan shout out and he helped me and it kind of was hard because people were like kind of mad. You know, when you're in that like because there was people who did in jail?
Speaker 3:in jail, who did way less than I?
Speaker 2:did and they got way longer and so it was favoring fair. Yeah, and then so.
Speaker 4:I was kind of like targeted a bit and you know what, but I also it was kind of scary yeah it was kind of like scary because people were mad and then there were even like even like people that worked there would get like, mad like, because they're like, they just get mad you know, what I mean, like this is you again, yeah injustice because they would have their favorites who they felt were getting like the penalty. And then now you're this little scottsdale rich girl who just is getting away with it.
Speaker 1:They want to see, to see you get yours. Oh, they wanted to see me get the chair. And then I'm pregnant and you're just a loser. You're in jail, pregnant and so. But they knew you were from Scottsdale, it was all over. Oh, yeah, totally, and I can't hide it, I'm a rich kid.
Speaker 4:Yeah, totally, oh yeah, totally, I'm getting money on my books.
Speaker 1:You know all the things and so it was. You know it was tough, but I it was also, like they were trying to do torture or anything yeah, yeah, I would do it, otherwise we're gonna hurt you. Yeah, exactly because they'd be like your face isn't pregnant you know, and I'd be like okay, like here's honey bun um, that's vicious girls are mean.
Speaker 4:I will give you four, four boxes of thin mints every week, you know my wife did a little over a year in county yeah, county sucks and, but she also did work furlough, so she got.
Speaker 1:She was bringing tobacco in oh, that's yeah.
Speaker 4:They all loved her man, they were like yeah, totally I will feel like I will say, like over time, like anywhere is same with teen challenge. It's really weird in the beginning and then you make your relationships and then it's not so bad and then people get to know you and, honestly, the dorm I was in was mostly ice, you know, was mostly, so they were just sweet mamas, but there was some um but there were some scary people and people just want to capitalize on a weak person.
Speaker 4:I was 19, so I was like the youngest in my dorm. I'm very naive, even though I've like been exposed all this street life all smoked out, so you're 80 pounds soaking wet totally and then people are like mad because you're 90 pounds and you're six months pregnant so you're. You're a child abuser and you know all this stuff, so it was definitely hard, but I had my friends, and then I had the people who had been in the game for, you know, 40 years, 20 years.
Speaker 4:And like they just look at you like you're just dumb.
Speaker 1:And I was.
Speaker 3:I don't even blame them, because I was so um.
Speaker 4:So I really attribute my stepdad, just pouring all this into me, and he is from Brooklyn, new York, so he was very tied in with Teen Challenge. And uh, so he knew about this place. Teen Challenge. I'm like oh my gosh, that's a cult.
Speaker 3:I'm like you know.
Speaker 4:I'm just hearing it and then I'm, you know, like I don't know whatever. I was like so stupid.
Speaker 2:Were you 19?.
Speaker 4:I was 19. Wow, and so I was like I want to go to like Malibu Passages.
Speaker 2:I told you Laguna people. Yeah, I was like if I'm going to treatment, she's the best man, I am not going to.
Speaker 4:I've never even heard of Casagrand Never in my life even heard of it and just hearing about Teen Challenge and they showed me stuff and my attorney showed me pictures.
Speaker 2:You're in jail. I'm in jail, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I'm like first like showed me pictures.
Speaker 2:You're in jail. I'm in jail, yeah, and I'm like you know. First of all, this is me facing two and a half to seven years, but I'm like, I don't think I can do that. I don't know. It doesn't look nice and I know I'm like you're in jail. I'm like in jail, like wearing stripes yeah totally
Speaker 3:like eating slaw. I can do better than that. I'm like what are my other options? You know?
Speaker 4:but anyways, long story short, the prosecutor, in a really rare turn of events, probably because my the prosecutor's friends with the attorney I don't know how it all works, I just watch tv shows, but you can imagine advocated for me. The prosecutor prosecuting me advocated for me and was like told the judge that, hey, she's just a young girl, she got caught up in the wrong crowd and if she needs another chance, and so I took the deal that you go to teen challenge. Wow, do not stop, go, you, you get yeah, you finish that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, otherwise you're coming back and we're locking you up. Yeah, otherwise you do the full seven yeah, did you really get dropped off in handcuffs?
Speaker 4:I did not get dropped off in handcuffs, but I could not go anywhere, but like I had to go straight there straight there yeah, and so I had nothing. You know, at this point I've lost everything. And I had a lot like I didn't even have a toothbrush, like had not one thing, it's okay, they provide everything they do, and so that's what's so great but like it was hard because I had so much. My dad had died, he had left me life insurance. I lived the scottsdale life.
Speaker 4:I had this, a beautiful condo with all the furniture from the gallery and nice clothes and I just lived this life like, and so it was really humbling it was so humbling and so would you say that at this point god is just kind of breaking you so I will say at this point because I was at australia, I would take every opportunity when they would would have church services to get out of my pod, to get out of the dorm.
Speaker 1:And so I definitely was influenced by a lot of women in there. It's jail Jesus man. It's jail Jesus and it's like Teen.
Speaker 4:Challenge and the women there depend on the Lord and they pray and I was watching them and I wanted that. Whether I thought it was genuine or it wasn't. I loved that they had this beautiful faith. I loved how that was something that, in all the drama of the day, united us in the evening.
Speaker 2:I liked our little prayer circles. Prayer circles yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:We would do prayer circles, we would, and we had each other's back like the more, and I think I also whether whether I was doing it genuinely or if I was doing it for survival, I don't know but it made you part of this group that you kind of felt protected and like fitting in and learning more.
Speaker 4:And, yeah, totally reading this Bible that they give you and so, anyways, it was really cool. So when I went to Home of Hope, I was obviously again like it's scary, you're in this new place, I just lost my baby and now I'm going to a place with moms, so there was a lot of like weirdness with that, but I was going to a place with moms.
Speaker 4:So there was a lot of like weirdness with that, but I was excited to go. You know, I was excited to not be going to prison and I knew I had no choice but to just do it.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 4:And when did you go? So 2009.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I was. Grace was coming into Arizona at that point.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it was different before 2004. I want to say, yeah, they started grace. Yeah, yes, exactly, it was very moto, yeah, yeah, very disciplined, oh it was yeah, right up some discipline.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was like word fast.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, now, at this point, jeff Richards, who I appreciate so much because of you, jeff love you Jeff. So, shout out Jeff, um. But yeah, he kind of introduced this whole philosophy and this whole concept of grace-based training and self-evaluation. So I was kind of at the beginning of when that was. So I kind of had staff who were products of the old system and then like so they were and, honestly, like anything that you try new, it takes some time to iron out and get people to get it.
Speaker 4:So I don't think that I got to really be a product of, like our true grace-based program how it is now. I was I got to be like a test, a tester.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And that's fine. I kind of like appreciate both you know in different ways. Yeah, so you know what?
Speaker 2:Because I really needed the discipline, because you needed the structure, you needed those rules. I didn't make beds.
Speaker 4:I didn't do dishes, I didn't mop floors, but I needed to. I needed to do all of those things.
Speaker 2:No, but I mean, you had to, you had to, Right.
Speaker 4:So that's what I'm saying, Like I had no structure in my life. I woke up when I wanted whatever.
Speaker 3:And now you're part of a house where you are getting up at, you're in community, you are in community, oh, and they don't let you get by like you're not gonna, and then you don't want to be the girl that's like not like holding it up, you don't want to be that guy, and so and I think, like we can all agree, like any of us who have gone through programs or have this encounter with God, like you just realize all these abilities that you have, that you had no clue.
Speaker 4:I had no vision for a future, I had no aspirations, I had no no hope, no idea that like, oh, you could do this. And like even in my addiction, it takes a lot to be an addict.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of skill to do all of the things that I did, but you don't realize that, and if that could just be honed in for something better.
Speaker 4:All of that effort, all of that planning, all of that conniving, all of that deceit, all of that stuff that took a lot of brain power to do.
Speaker 4:I was able to realize like, oh, I can use those same skills and like be successful here. And I think the key for all of us is just relationships. So you find your people. You find these really unlikely relationships that outside of Teen Challenge we probably would have never been friends, yet they become your best friend. We encourage each other, we love each other. We cry together, like the Bible says, we weep together but we celebrate together.
Speaker 4:So good and those friends that truly do that. They truly mourn when you're sad and they truly are happy for you when you win and that's so rare, that is so in the world that I would they want you to fail yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1:They don't if you're winning yeah if you're winning, they want to rob it like rob you and if you're failing, they're happy, and so it was so competitive with us, exactly, exactly, and if you're up, I'm gonna take you down because then I'm gonna I'm gonna benefit from it and so, um, I really just uh, I just thrived.
Speaker 4:You know it took time, obviously, but I ended up like the director really believed in me. Our dean of women like became one of my best friends. I started to get like I got really um big responsibilities quickly and so I could see potential, yeah like I like, worked in our front office and then I became the dean of women's assistant and then I became our public relations representative.
Speaker 2:This is your first time in the program. You're not even like in staff or no? No, I'm not like in restoration program, I'm in the program yeah so, but so that's not
Speaker 3:like unusual.
Speaker 4:I don't want to like make it like. So, like all of our students not all of them. But the front office is a student position at the home of hope. All right, but I got, but out of the 30 women that lived there.
Speaker 4:I was selected to do it, and so it was a big deal to me and I took it really serious and I loved it and I was like, oh, I'm administrative and all this stuff, and then I did that, and then our dean of women was like they do this thing at the home of they have these little jobs, and then you can apply for the jobs and you interview and you make a resume and you do all the things that are like as close to real life as possible.
Speaker 4:So I applied and I interviewed, then I became her assistant. She ended up probably being the most influential person to me at that time in my life and just really poured into me. I really looked up to her.
Speaker 2:She was a former stripper as well, and so we had this like you know, she was just beautiful and I was just like, oh my gosh, I love you, you're so cool.
Speaker 4:And now you're a Christian and like you're like I would call her like Jesus drugs. I know that's bad, but like she's just like she was just cool. Jesus Juggs, that's great. I'm just like she was just cool. You know, like she was this picture of like you can do it, so can I, and I think that's what's so great about Teen Challenge. That's so much. So many of our staff are graduates. Because it's this picture of like I can have success.
Speaker 4:I can have freedom, success I can have freedom, I can have joy. Come on, man, you know, and I think that's something I was so fearful of is how can I be happy serving God? Because the the picture of those who served God in my past were judgmental, they were boring, they just didn't seem happy. In my opinion, that was my perception which was skewed but at that time that's what I thought.
Speaker 4:So it was like this isn't really I want to have, like I want to have fun, and I never laughed harder. I never had better moments than these moments with my sisters in christ, and so um yeah, I just like progressed through the program. Um, I was at. Uh, I don't know, have you guys heard of teen challenge banquets?
Speaker 2:they're coming up here. Yeah, we're in them, we're in the banquet season it is in the banquet season, so we have them in the fall and the spring Up to this point, still no Jesus encounter.
Speaker 4:No, definitely Jesus encounter, definitely Jesus encounter.
Speaker 1:But like the moment encounter, so I feel like here's the thing.
Speaker 2:She was one of the ones that grew, I, grew, I want to say that I had like that zapped.
Speaker 4:I was in the chapel and I felt his I, but I didn't have that. I just like I think it was just gentle. I think that I think God is such a God that knows exactly what we need.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I don't know that I would have been open to a zap.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:I think that, with all of my fears and all of my hurts in my past, I like he was a gentleman.
Speaker 1:You needed yeah. He knew you needed to be yes and so almost courted I was almost exactly like.
Speaker 4:You can trust me I really I do. I call him a gentleman because he was because he did like he was gentle and like he revealed himself in ways not everybody has a burning bush moment.
Speaker 1:Man right, and sometimes I'm like kind of like envious of that because I want that august 26 2014
Speaker 4:I was in the chapel and this, yeah, baptized in water, baptized in the holy, totally the whole day I did not have that, but I also know what I had was so special, and god revealed his character god revealed that he could be trusted, come on, but it took time for me to believe it it really did, and I struggled and I wrestled and I was and it was confusing and I love it when we wrestle with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he does.
Speaker 2:I learned that he loves it and he proves himself over and over pressing into me.
Speaker 4:Yes, and it was it's so beautiful and so it really like, when it came to the end of my program, I was able to leave. I was able to leave.
Speaker 1:Is it 13 months? Like the men are, yeah it's 12 to 15. It took me about 13. Every program is different.
Speaker 4:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 4:I like got a little lazy with my homework.
Speaker 3:Hers was a little longer, Mine was a little longer, but I was like very busy doing Dean of Women things, didn't you hear?
Speaker 2:I was in the administration.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, I was busy. I was busy, hello, and so but yeah, like so.
Speaker 4:but yeah, it was really, it was cool, like so I wanted to decide is this for real?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Am I doing this because I had to, or am I doing this? Because my heart changed, and so I had an opportunity to do an internship, like most people have, and I decided, like you know what, like I was totally able to go home and like I had, uh, satisfied the court, I was still on probation. Um. So yeah, I mean that was annoying, because I was on probation three years, then they extended it to five years and then they capped it at eight years because I had like restitution to pay back and stuff, but I but like, hey, I could successfully be on probation in Scottsdale yeah.
Speaker 4:And I had opportunities with jobs, with my family, I could stay at my grandparents, like a lot of things. But I was like you know what it was really? I just loved the people and I loved the work and it was like the first time where I was like I could do this, no dreams of anything else. So I was like I'm going to, I'm going to stick around and I want to see I want to see if this changes for real.
Speaker 4:I want to see if I'm here because I had to be here, and was I just being a compliant client? Was I faking?
Speaker 1:it just to finish, or did God really transform me?
Speaker 4:And and what can I do to help others? Because I know the the pain and the desperation that a person faces when they come into those doors. Oh, and that's the whole thing. They become your best friend. So, you're like why do I want to leave my?
Speaker 1:family.
Speaker 4:And this is the first family unit that I had that was safe that I felt loved, that was healthy, that accepted me. You know and we you know, like we don't dwell on the past, but we had this like even in all of our differences it's just commonality in so many ways, and so I, um I stayed and then I became our pr rep and then, um, I met you would have been good in p.
Speaker 2:I was like I loved it. You're a people person, I just loved it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, which is honestly weird because I'm also like an introvert, so it's weird I'm weird.
Speaker 2:You were an introvert, probably an addiction, I don't know. Were you quiet? Were you that one that just was in your head, I feel like.
Speaker 4:Sometimes I feel like in addiction. I was a little more Out there Because I think Like all you kind of lose, like any.
Speaker 2:Like you said the morals?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like all of that, and I'm just like whatever.
Speaker 3:I've only known you For an hour and a half and introvert I don't know, she is when she gets high.
Speaker 4:I don't know, I really don't know this whole like introvert, extrovert thing I haven't figured out, but I know that certain I think, if I feel insecure then I'm very quiet, if I feel out of place, then I am like I'm the same way. If I'm comfortable, I'll totally there, you know, I mean yeah, if I'm not comfortable in the situation or the atmosphere that I'm in. Totally.
Speaker 1:I'll fall to the back and just be an observer.
Speaker 4:Same, same.
Speaker 2:Man, you're really blessing me right now. You're making me feel like we made you feel comfortable. Oh, totally, that's what I think it is. That's so awesome.
Speaker 4:I think it's if you guys were like really good job, like I feel like I've known you forever and so, and god is just so good, but that it's all over you and so, and I think as we get older too, we just get more secure in who we are.
Speaker 1:We just don't care anymore. Yeah, I'm 52 and I'm like I don't care. Yeah, it's honestly true, you go through enough freedom things. Yeah, it's freedom.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 4:And so I mean that. I mean Jesus has blessed me so much. He, like our misery, becomes our ministry.
Speaker 1:Like our pain becomes our purpose, and that's what's happened. Just taught that last night. It's crazy. We keep talking about all the things that you're like we talked about that last night.
Speaker 4:It's so funny.
Speaker 1:It's recovery, man, but it's so true, man, but it's true, it is true and it is. God never wastes a pain. God never wastes a hurt man He'll always take. I told people last night, whatever you came through, what he's calling you to and you find God. Yeah, because he gave you the road map out totally and how can you? Why would you not go back and tell somebody, hey, here's the road to get out of where you're at. You know it's a beautiful thing, it is?
Speaker 4:and rowdy, came into chapel at the home of hope. What like a month?
Speaker 1:two months ago I don't know what time flies.
Speaker 4:It does fly, I'm like if you would have told me it was two weeks ago, I'd be like uh huh, um, but yeah like, and then you're like, it's like three months ago whatever, I don't know, he was there and it's. But he spoke on all of that and it was so powerful and it was just it's so beautiful, and so that's why we talk about these things so often because they are true and it I feel like I'm only in this like first year.
Speaker 4:Honestly, I've been in this teen challenge world for almost 15 years, wow, and I'm like almost now just really starting to believe everything that has been poured into me and I have obviously believed it. But and I know that sounds weird but it's like I'm in this season where it is like there's no question. And I think it's because I went through a hard thing recently Um I met my husband in teen challenge when did you guys meet?
Speaker 2:we met in 2011 okay, so I went in in 2013 yeah, yeah, I was no. I got out of prison in 2013, 14, 14.
Speaker 4:I went in and he was at the tucson center. He was at the tucson center and he had come from the ranch.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah I met him during a spiritual emphasis.
Speaker 4:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:He kind of just prayed over me and spoke some life into me when, at the time where I didn't have any yeah, aw, yeah.
Speaker 4:That's so sweet. Rowdy is also the cutest because he is very emotional and I really love it.
Speaker 3:That drives me nuts, does it? It drives me nuts. He's like quit crying boy I'm not much of a crier.
Speaker 4:So then I feel like everyone thinks.
Speaker 3:I don't care but, I care so much.
Speaker 4:It just doesn't come out of me.
Speaker 1:I'm literally like really again. Yeah, but it's so sweet, I admire it so much. I admire it so much because it's so beautiful, your sensitivity and compassion Part of me does, because I'm not that person I'm like man.
Speaker 4:I wish I had that kind of emotion Me too, because it's so beautiful, like again, like that whole. I weep with people who weep and I'm more you know, like I mourn with you and like you are so compassionate and that's such a beautiful, beautiful gift. And I am too, but nobody knows cause my tears don't come.
Speaker 1:I love that, that's me. I'm like I feel you, man, I'm just not going to see me cry, right?
Speaker 4:I feel my heart is breaking right now. I promise, but I can't get it out.
Speaker 1:I love you, sarah. That's why I'm like so glad when my allergies are acting up.
Speaker 4:I'm like oh, at least people think I cry.
Speaker 1:That's so good. I'm glad you said that Now I can tell people that yeah. You're not going to see it, but believe me, trust me, I'm mourning with you, totally, totally. Him, you don't have to guess. No, this is great.
Speaker 4:But it's beautiful, and so my husband. So we met in 2011. We got married in 2014.
Speaker 2:How did you guys meet? So you just stayed in there. You just stayed I stayed. Oh yeah, I didn't know that, but when I was like probably like 2021, like I'm, came in at 19. I was a couple of years in. I was going to, I'm going to be the director.
Speaker 4:I was like, oh yeah, I'll make yeah, um, but then I met david and he was at the. He was at the ranch when we met and he was killing it there and he was doing so well, and I was so attracted to that and so I was like, well, it was clear that we were on a path to get married.
Speaker 2:Oh, so you guys, you guys had like staff and leaders for the women and the men were like oh, these two are yeah and they totally signed off on it. So I really want to be clear, like Like it is like. That's special.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can get kicked out. Yeah, it's not a thing. Yeah.
Speaker 4:But we had the blessing of Diane Swanson and Rick Castro, and so Love you, rick.
Speaker 2:He was on here, was he? Yeah, I didn't see that one.
Speaker 4:You have to go listen to him a couple of hours, everybody that sits down is a couple of hours, man.
Speaker 2:Once they start talking, it's like wow, the shortest one is an hour and a half.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, um but yeah, I love Rick very much.
Speaker 2:Like he's like a big brother yeah.
Speaker 4:I would love to. I would love to listen to that. So, um, but yeah, like they really gave us our been in Teen Challenge since like 2007 and he had done a lot of really good work and always worked in R&D and was he was one of those personalities. That was just fun, you know, he's super fun, super capable, very smart. Love the lord good leader um just natural just natural and so um he, uh anyway, so yeah.
Speaker 4:So I was like super happy that he was at the ranch because ranch has like family housing, otherwise like my whole family's in Scottsdale. So I'm like, hey, you do the ranch thing, I can get a job anywhere with my family, we could live like whatever.
Speaker 2:So I was like super focused on that goal and on marrying David and then you, he would stay in TC, but you're gonna do, yeah, I'll do whatever. I'll do whatever I have options. I have options and here's the thing.
Speaker 4:Maybe rick has a job for me like you just it's not unheard of like I bookkeeper or public relations, or whatever and so I was like I'll just trust god when that time comes, that if I'm meant to stay in teen challenge, I will work at the ranch, and if I'm not, like I can I have options yeah so, um, the crazy thing is our tucson center was not doing well and so david got a call like hey, will you come to the tucson center?
Speaker 4:they were without a director, they had like no students. They were gonna like sell the chapel. They had like a lot of debt just come drive door to door, because this was like when door to door was like booming, okay, um since covet and everything.
Speaker 4:It's not really like a thing. This was like when door to door was like a boom in um since COVID and everything. It's not really like a thing anymore, but like at that time it was like door to door was like our thing, oh yeah, and he was like yeah, and he was like the door to door king, oh like he was the door to door king.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the same way. I got thousand dollar checks. It was great.
Speaker 4:Totally, totally, totally. You're going back out to get weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yes, he was just really so he would always drive door to door and like he knew how to like organize it and how to pump people up and whatever.
Speaker 4:So it's definitely an art yeah, he was just going to go to the tucson center just to help them get their door-to-door department up and running and he never went back to the ranch, you know, and that's how it goes. And so he went, and then he became the center supervisor, and then he became the director, and so my whole yeah, that plan changed. I was like tweezers live in tucson you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:I was just a big prison down there.
Speaker 1:He had plans like, but you know what?
Speaker 4:But God knew, but God knew I would not Honestly like I look back I would not have been ready to go home. You think that you are and it's just. I just wasn't. It's not like I try to like be so dramatic, like I was so far from home, but to live there is very different.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And so, as God would have it like, we were getting married.
Speaker 3:And when did you guys? So we got married.
Speaker 4:We met in 2011. We got married in 2014.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's what I remember Exactly, I remember that and so, yeah, it was a whole big teen challenge thing.
Speaker 4:Oh, it was a teen challenge, wedding yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was right around where I forgot there was another couple that kind of got around that same thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there was so many Gabe.
Speaker 2:Gabe and Gabe Largo. Oh and Amicia, amicia, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4:So yeah, there was, and then Lawrence, and I don't know if you remember Lawrence, but he had a.
Speaker 2:Lawrence Rubank. Yeah, yeah and his.
Speaker 4:Shanna.
Speaker 3:Shanna, yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm like Shanna, shanna, whatever, whatever. But yeah, so nice. Like I like, yeah, like teen challenge love, like was people were getting married, not necessarily to teen challenge people, but like that was the thing. So, um, as luck had it for me, or as god, I should say, really as god carved it. The director at the time at the Tucson Center, his name was John. Uh, he was like hey, our bookkeeper like just put her notice in and so I was like, oh, hey, like I will be your bookkeeper. And I became the bookkeeper.
Speaker 2:And then me, and David, so David's the director. He was the supervisor at this time. Where does it go? It goes director, supervisor. Dean of men.
Speaker 4:It goes like dean of men. Supervisor director.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's kind of confusing because, like you, think supervisor is like whatever but it's technically second.
Speaker 4:But whatever gotta be ordered yeah so, yeah, dean of men, supervisor director, and so he was doing supervisor. I became the bookkeeper. We got a cute little place and life. We got married. And then I there was a job opening at our corporate office for our state public relations director yeah, that's where, yeah, and so I was like 24 and so so I'm like I'm going to apply because I like doing the events and I didn't really think I was going to get it because I was 24.
Speaker 4:They never really had a graduate in that position.
Speaker 2:It was always someone like with a marketing degree Like an official person, like an official that knows what they're doing. You went to school for it? Yeah, like, exactly Okay.
Speaker 4:But I was like I'm just going to apply, Like whatever you know. And so, and I did, and I got it. And then, at the same time I got it, David became the director because John had to move to Phoenix to be with his family, and so we both became directors at like the exact same time. I was doing the events, he was doing the running the center, and God just like blessed us, like unbelievably blessed us, and we bought a home and like to me, I was like at the pinnacle of this is like everything that I've wanted my whole life. We're stable. I mean, I'm still a little crazy. I'm doing this job.
Speaker 2:We all are man. I'm still like me, and he's still him.
Speaker 4:But we're living. You know we have this, this beautiful home, like I'm so proud of the work he's doing at the tucson center.
Speaker 2:The tucson center just did a yeah, it started growing and it just it grew, it blew up, it was it became like the like model center he's starting to do like.
Speaker 4:These stay sharp presentations. Our national office is like flying him out to like put them on in other states like he's just he's becoming like, he's getting more serious with like being pastoral and he's speaking all over and he's like this, like just gifted communicator, and I'm just like proud of him. I'm like dang like this is amazing. They're raising tons of money, their people are being set free, their center is just booming you know, they have great retention rate.
Speaker 4:All these graduates. I'm like I'm doing events and that's going really well, so I'm like hosting all of these events for every center in the state. Working, working like this was, uh, reverend snow peabody who became like a dad to me, and like I learned everything from him and so like to me yeah, like life is hard, you know, like like living life for anyone, you know you have to wake up and have all these responsibilities, but like I'm so happy you know I'm so happy, but I honestly feel like I'm still just coasting with my relationship with god, because I and I'm very open about this I don't, I don't know that there was like this like need, like this dependency, like you have to have him to breathe I love
Speaker 4:the lord. I'm grateful for god. I believe in him. I can share about him, but in my, is there like I can't breathe without him. Is there like this pride I like? Even it may not been overt, but it was like I just was living you know what I mean? I was just living and, um, it was super hard because we weren't like super plugged into a church, because it becomes your church it shouldn't be, but it was just like I was doing events all the time.
Speaker 4:Those are often on the weekends. He's preaching at other churches on sundays because that's what they do. Yeah, so we weren't like super integrated into like a body of christ a community other than teen challenge, which is still beautiful, but it's just I'm like realizing, realizing where that was a week.
Speaker 2:It's so different, it's so different, it's different.
Speaker 4:And it's also like you kind of want to have community outside of Teen.
Speaker 3:Challenge too, you know, because it becomes so like it just.
Speaker 4:You need kind of that outside perspective and places to be open, because sometimes you have to be closed because you're in this leadership position.
Speaker 2:You're in leadership of influence. You can't share everything that you you want to, and even if it's not even that bad right, right, here's for you.
Speaker 1:Right, everybody's under right and so it's just really so.
Speaker 2:I realized where that was, something that we should have invested in better yeah, but you don't recognize that it's hard until you really, until you go back, you can look and see I didn't feel like, oh, there's something missing. I was just living.
Speaker 4:And so one day, david was like I like can't do this anymore, and so I was like why? You know this is before COVID, this is like this is like like covid is a thing, but we're not like on lockdown yet okay it's like we covid's like here, like it's like february okay but like I think we locked down in march 16th, yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 4:It's like rudy gobert touching everything and david had a dad who was like older, who we cared for. His dad had him when he was like 15 so his, and we had like one of those lonar homes where there was like an apartment attached and so his dad lived with us and he was, yeah, next gen, yeah oh my gosh, you guys know like all these things.
Speaker 2:I like we're gonna have one one day. Wait a sec, no honestly you will love it.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to get away from you still waiting for her she's having like a reality show. She's going to have to love me and his mom because we're a staple in his life. We're a lot man, but I love David's dad. I'm starting to come with copes that I'm going to have to live with this guy.
Speaker 4:But it's not so fun, it's so fun. For the most part, I love you bro, and when God gives him his girl, I just want to be able to watch a basketball game in quiet. Oh, never, I can't imagine. Or a football game and just be, able to listen to the internet.
Speaker 3:Do you love sports?
Speaker 4:I do not love sports, but David was like psychotic sports like scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm the same way. Yeah, like I'd be like it is not that scary. Is this healthy? You need to go to a yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like, because I was like yelling at TV and I'm like you know they can't hear you.
Speaker 4:Right, you know they can't hear.
Speaker 1:I'm not encouraging them on.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I'm making a difference, right.
Speaker 4:That's the whole thing. I'd be like in the other room and I think something like terrible happened.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I mean, the day would be over.
Speaker 2:He lost the game and it's just a horrible mood.
Speaker 1:It's just over it's amazing how many times during the week the world comes to an end.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm like this is not healthy.
Speaker 1:I'm like, bro, it's basketball, it doesn't make a difference in the kingdom of God.
Speaker 4:Right, I'm like this middle of an intervention.
Speaker 2:We're in your testimony.
Speaker 4:We're going to talk later.
Speaker 1:You got about 10 years before that becomes reality. Yeah, oh man Jesus 10 years ago, I was the same way yeah.
Speaker 2:I finally got to a point where I'm like really, this is just football.
Speaker 1:It's just basketball.
Speaker 4:It has no relevancy to life whatsoever. Yeah, totally, that's how I feel. I mean, I honestly don't even understand it.
Speaker 1:The greatest thing that ever happened to me outside of Jesus was the realization that sports has no relevancy in life whatsoever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I just, I like tried to get into it for David, but I just like can't.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful that you would at least try. I would have fun going to like.
Speaker 4:Diamondbacks games or like. Cardinal Stadium and things like that, like for, like the fun of it, but I'm like I have no clue what's going on. It's just two becoming one, yeah, and he would try to get into things that I liked for me and like, so we had a great relationship.
Speaker 1:Like amazing. If Devin Booker was to play basketball with his shirt off, my wife would watch everything.
Speaker 2:I was telling Mom Devin Booker's on.
Speaker 1:There you go, Okay so.
Speaker 4:Well, I would do like fantasy sports with him and I would pick my team totally based on how the players look.
Speaker 2:And I would win. It's just because you're a beginner. Yeah, exactly, you didn't know what you were going to say.
Speaker 4:Yeah, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while Every now and then yeah.
Speaker 1:I could do fantasy football, because now I'm rooting for teams that I hate.
Speaker 4:Oh the fantasy it, it's like you become like.
Speaker 1:this is my job.
Speaker 4:It's a lot I'm like I manage a football team for real.
Speaker 1:It ruined watching sports for me. Oh, it's horrible. Yeah, I don't know how people do it.
Speaker 4:And David would do baseball, which is every day, okay.
Speaker 2:So I have to ask you this yes, because 2009,? You go into Teen Challenge? Yes, you give God your yes and you're like dude, god's really using you and opening up doors for you. You're coming into leadership. You are kind of finding your lane or your place in life there, and at Teen Challenge, you know that it's moms with kids. Yeah, and you said that when you went in, there was a struggle for you because the moms had their kids. You were a mom that didn't have your kid.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I heard you say that he was able to go to a good family.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So while you were in Teen Challenge like, was he fostered? Was he adopted to the family?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so here's the thing that was hard is so I had a roommate her name is sarah and we're still very, very good friends to this day but she had a son the same age as my son. So we were roommates and I was in this like with this like little baby, you know, like eight month old baby, so and that was really hard for a little boy, cause you're thinking this, what could have been, what should have been? And when I was a little girl, I always wanted to be a mom, like that was.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, like you were one of those girls that I just want to be, not like my mom, like.
Speaker 1:I want to be a mom.
Speaker 4:I have all, all the barbies I have all the baby dolls, I'm like when we play house. I'm the mom. I was like a mom to all my cousins. I was like the mom of the group.
Speaker 4:Even in addiction I very much took like a mom role of all my girlfriends but like kids okay oh yeah, like we're we might be like being stupid, but if you've got kids, I'm playing with them, we're doing make-believe, we're I'm making sure that they're dressed and they're fed and like you might be passed out, but like I, I've got your kids. Like I was always that way, so like I love kids, like I don't know.
Speaker 4:Sometimes now that I'm older I'm like, ah, but like it can be exhausting, but I always was very maternal and so that was a dream of mine. And I have some fertility issues. I have like a condition called PCOS, and so it makes it. So I knew from like 13, like you probably will never get pregnant and if you do, it's a miracle. And so when I got pregnant, I was like in my delusion of like being a drug addict with no money and like living day to day, whatever, still thought somehow me and my boyfriend are going to figure this out and like we're going to have this normal life and like. But I was very excited. I wasn't like, oh my gosh, I'm pregnant, what am I going to do? I wasn't like, oh, I need to go get an abortion. I was, and there's no judgment for anyone who is faced with that for me, though, I was happy.
Speaker 4:I was like this is a miracle. I wasn't supposed to get pregnant. This is all I've wanted since, like the day I was like understood what being a mother was everything that I didn't get from my mom I wanted to give to somebody, and so I looked at it like this is a miracle and this is amazing and I can't wait.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I was just you were in a bad spot and like couldn't do.
Speaker 4:I couldn't even take care of a dog, you know so you couldn't take care.
Speaker 2:I couldn't take care of myself.
Speaker 4:I was like, I couldn't like function, and so it was you find the family?
Speaker 4:so, um, it was through my mom she had this like really. So it was kind of like a friend of a friend. So she had a friend who she was probably I mean, this is me just imagining and through some of our relations conversations she was telling her friend about, like the situation I was in. What was I going to do?
Speaker 4:And then they knew this couple who had had twin girls who they like lost at full term. So they like were like born, passed away and they could never get pregnant again and they had tried for like 13 years and then they were going on the adoption route and so they really like, just like advocated for them and they were like, if Sarah's open to adoption, like these people are amazing. And then they came and visited me while I was in jail and I felt like really like it's nothing personal toward them, because they literally are like the most amazing people ever. But I just was like not open to it, like I was, did not want to do it. And then when I got to the place where, like I kind of had no choice, I like had all these like, but I want to be in his life, like I want him to know that I'm his mom I want to have visits with him.
Speaker 4:I don't want him to come find me when I'm a closed adoption. This isn't an open, yeah, and I don't even want an open adoption in the court's eyes, of an open adoption I want like I was very clear like this is what I want, I want to also be his mom, oh you know, okay, and they were cool with that and so, um, and they've, and he's like 15 and they have totally they know they've honored you know.
Speaker 2:He knows that they're his adoptive.
Speaker 4:That you're a mom and he comes and visits me by himself.
Speaker 2:I think I've seen pictures of you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, totally I go out there and visit him. We talk on the phone, like he wants to move here, like we're very, very close, like very close, and so it's as Okay. But it was the home of hope, because you, your mind, does that what could have been should I could have, would have, but I'm like over that, like I really don't operate in that place anymore amen because it literally keeps you bound. Yeah, it's like you have to just let it go like what should have been it's a prison cell.
Speaker 4:It is, it is and I can no longer because I've stayed there so long like if I never met matt, then this wouldn't have happened. If I didn't do this, if my dad didn't die, if my son wasn't taken, yeah, there's a lot there. You just keep. You are so stuck.
Speaker 1:You said it earlier it steals joy.
Speaker 4:It does. It does it like literally robs you of joy. And I'm just on this path of like. Of course you have moments where you are, you know, suffer with sadness.
Speaker 3:Some days are harder than others.
Speaker 4:But, you also. Just like it's so freeing to just be like what's meant to be, like only God knows, Only God is the perfect orchestrator and in our human frailty we do not have the capability of piecing all the pieces together. And when I look back like I'm so grateful, like I really am, and like to just stay in this state of gratitude, and it's not like just saying it, to say it.
Speaker 1:And even if you have to just say it and fake it until you feel it like do what you have to do.
Speaker 4:But, like I see these women and they're so burdened with bitterness and they're so bound up and they want to make all the vengeance and make these wrongs rights and it's and they. It's just poison and they can only see the negative, they can't even see the good, and I'm just like let the coin over man totally, you just have to, you just have to let it go I mean, I have a lot to be upset about well, you were there.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, totally they were. So now you're able to just minister to absolutely, and we do it daily.
Speaker 4:Like I'm not even exaggerating, like even like minutes before, I literally went from the center straight here and where you, there's just stuff every single day.
Speaker 4:And it's such an opportunity to just be kind and to just speak truth, to remain like as much as we can, in the spirit and not in our flesh, and like. Even we go over the basics almost every day with the girls of the fruits of the spirit. Because I want us to be in our spirit as much as possible, because our flesh just takes over, because I want us to be in our spirit as much as possible, because our flesh just takes over.
Speaker 4:And so, you know, there's so much that we just go over, even just in quick interactions, because it's so easy to be offended, it's so easy to be mad, it's so easy and it can be fun.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean and you can feel like righteous and that, and it's just like let it go.
Speaker 4:Let it go and so we have so much fun and I feel like I can really relate to them and we have a lot of fun and we laugh and, like I really try to play up all their abilities and do you live there?
Speaker 1:do you live?
Speaker 4:I live off site so I did live there until I married david so I lived at the home of hope for about four years, almost five years, so yeah, amen but yeah, so I I did that and I would do it again. Nothing against it but, I'm just yeah, I didn't need to, and I, I like to have the I. Honestly, sometimes, though, like if I'm being really real, I'm like I should just live here, because I'm here all the time um, but I'm oh you don't, you don't live there, right?
Speaker 2:no, okay, so you got your own place, I got my own place.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, but I missed the end of that, that's good no so we kind of like jumped back, yeah, but yeah well, I didn't, unless I was gonna let you. You know, yeah, totally like it's a lot man it is a lot and I'm okay because it like I you've healed, you've come along. Yeah, I'm healing, okay, because it is um, you know, I like I honestly don't even know, like we kind of went on like a squirrel and I don't even know. And we just kind of were like I don't even we were jumping.
Speaker 2:So we were at 2000. When I got up, you were talking about. He said he was tired. I'm done, oh yeah exactly.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and then we started talking about how difficult it was to be in the home of hope, a women's center, without my child. But yes, difficult it was to be in the home of hope, a women's center, without my child. But, yes, okay, and yeah, my son he's amazing he is in my life, god is so good amen, but in 2020. David was like. I mean, we are like at the pinnacle you're doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and as far as two, for two addicts to come into teen challenge and to be literally raised up through the teen challenge program. A woman is over in corporate and a man is in the tucson center. It was like very unheard of, yeah, yeah, it was very unheard of, and so that's where I was.
Speaker 4:Like we have like we've been blessed beyond like yeah because this is like what the bible talks about like, like, poured over, like you know, so I'm like this is so, but I also understood like my husband did not feel that way and he felt burdened and he felt pressure and he was burned out and he was bitter since 2007.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he was starting and he wanted to explore other opportunities and he felt like he wasn't being utilized to his highest potential and the center as successful as it was, it took a lot for it to be that successful and he just felt, um, I feel like he just felt stuck and then he felt very fearful of COVID a lot for it to be that successful and he just felt, um, I feel like he just felt stuck and then he felt very fearful of COVID. I'm just gonna be really real, like it was kind of like unreasonable, like because he was worried about his dad, his dad was older and lived in our home and so he was like real freaked out about COVID and me.
Speaker 4:I'm like, yeah, whatever happens happens. You know, like I just wasn't scared of it, like obviously a little bit, but like it just I were gonna figure it out. It wasn't like I just wasn't scared of it, like obviously a little bit, but like it just I we're going to figure it out. Yeah, like I was just like I took it serious and I understood that I'm not going to be foolish and affect someone else, but I wasn't scared and I I'm just always like when it's your time, it's your time.
Speaker 3:And so.
Speaker 4:I'm just really believe that. And so, um, he was just kind of super paranoid about COVID, which was very difficult, and then he just a lot of people were yeah, and so and that was hard, you know that was hard and I and I wanted to respect that and understand that. And then, um, it was super scary to run a center in that time because you're you're responsible for 50 men, yeah, and if they get sick?
Speaker 2:if they get sick, if they die if, like, how do we sustain um?
Speaker 3:it's like this, like there was a lot.
Speaker 4:He was just over it like he, that's all I can say is like he loved it. He loved it so much. That's why I think it was so painful, but he was in a really dark place mentally, yeah, and so for him to let go to, for, yeah, I think it was just really hard and then, and then it all happened really quick. And so then for me you know I was in this tough spot because, okay, do I stay, I don't really we're only really in Tucson because you were the director and, yeah, I got this great job.
Speaker 4:But we're really only living in Tucson because you were the director of the center, I wouldn't be working here and I wouldn't be living in Tucson. Be working here and I wouldn't be living in Tucson, so maybe it's time for us to go home and to my home because he's from Chicago, yeah, and so we ended up going home. That's what we made the decision like let's just, let's get Phoenix or try okay and so uh were you nervous at all?
Speaker 1:you know, I think that going back to where you were. No, I should have been, yeah, I should have been, but I was not not at all you were
Speaker 4:ready I was like yeah, this is now at this point, it's been 11 years at that point, and so I'm like, yeah, let's do this got your husband got my husband. We bought a home.
Speaker 2:We made really good money on the home, like oh, down there in tucson, yeah, so you're able to sell. Come up here.
Speaker 4:Totally bought a nice another new home and then, um, his dad moved with us and he got a job at a place called Central Christian Church.
Speaker 2:He was the CARES pastor, yeah that's where I went over for the CR. Well, it wasn't a CR, it was like a alumni thing. Oh oh yeah. Teen Challenge hosted at the like. We hosted them, Rick and some of the guys.
Speaker 4:It was a big thing, man, and they're like a multi-campus church and a great church and we know um pastor cal super well and he kind of gave us this opportunity and it was amazing, like it was literally amazing, and david was really thriving there. He was doing awesome. He was like bringing kind of like this like addiction background to the church.
Speaker 1:That that that's not yeah that's not central yeah, that had that, but there was this need to serve in this?
Speaker 4:capacity, and so he was working in cares, which is like, if you're going through a divorce if you're, you know, need a like, a grief services, yeah, like addiction recovery, yeah all of these things trauma, abuse, um you know pretty much like hit, all these things.
Speaker 4:Like he was the pastor and he had a team of people who kind of would do triage and I was assisting him just as like an administrative assistant. And then I got a job at a place called pathfinders, which is more like secular recovery, so I was doing business development, got a really good job, um, making really good money and learning a lot about like the whole rehab world and the secular world.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's wild. I mean, I don't think we have enough time to go into all the conspiracy of that.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of money, oh it is.
Speaker 2:It's crazy and my job was to business develop and fill the beds and it's, it's just wild, so one day, we we have a, we have speak life yeah is a 501c3 non-profit. Yeah, and I, after teen challenge, was over in california for like three years in men's homes. Yeah, and we're gonna open homes for men oh, that's amazing at one point there there will be women, but it's crazy because we just had my stepmom on and their hope is, in the future, having homes for kids. While we were praying, I literally saw this family coming in and they were able to take the kids.
Speaker 4:We had a place for the women and the men and it comes back and they all come back together.
Speaker 2:I was like wow, God, Please, Lord, let that be from you.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. God showed us that us being a three-part, being just like God is three.
Speaker 2:We're physical, we're body.
Speaker 4:We're soul, we're spirit.
Speaker 1:In order to really really sustain a person, you've got to heal all three areas.
Speaker 2:It can't just be one, no it's so true.
Speaker 4:It's so true. In Teen Challenge I got my spirit yeah.
Speaker 2:But my, I gained so much weight eating seconds and I love you stop, let's not talk about it. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:You look great no.
Speaker 2:I am like a chubby chalupa. It's real. It is real. I got so fat, I got so big, I got so physically unhealthy. Our hope is to have these men to where they not only get close to Jesus and learn who they are and their identity so they're getting connected in the spirit but they are transforming physically. There's physical exercise. There's. There's physical exercise, there's a cardio. There's healthier eating. It's a whole, it's a lifestyle.
Speaker 4:Holistic. It really needs to be holistic because you really need all parts. And I think that for me, I have been such an addict my whole life, even as a child, like you kind of look back and you're like, okay, I have like very addictive behavior, yep and so, and I'm a comfort finder, I need to be comforted. So if that wasn't drugs, it was sex.
Speaker 1:If it wasn't sex, it was like when I got into teen challenge it's food.
Speaker 4:What feels good, it's candy it's soda, it's whatever, and I, I blew up to a point like I didn't even know that I could be this size, because I never have been. I was always tiny, yeah, and so, but you, just you can.
Speaker 2:I had a health coach one time. He told me rowdy, you can't outrun the fork. And it's like, dude, you can't, no, you can't.
Speaker 4:And then you just, and then I just sedentary, like like sedentary lifestyle office, and then traveling so much because I was doing events, so it's like eating out. And then, like you just like it becomes this was doing events, so it's like eating out, and then, like you just like it becomes this addiction and I feel like it's hard because I don't really want, like if I say like I'm a food addict, it like paints this picture Like I'm in the closet, like a little Debbie's.
Speaker 2:You're waking up and you got Cheeto. What happened last night?
Speaker 1:It's not like that it just becomes a comfort it just becomes. So it's ice cream, it's mcdonald's, it's whatever sweet tarts in my drawer totally, especially someone that works probably as much as you do. It's stopping and getting unhealthy food oh, absolutely.
Speaker 4:It's like quick dinners and then it's like weekends, like that's all you do, and then it just becomes like I, you know, you're like, oh, I just want to feel good, I want to taste good, I'm giving into cravings. It becomes like these new cravings and so um.
Speaker 4:So it's been hard to like find a balance, but I love that vision because it really does require all your, your spirit, your mind, your physical, and when you have all three like in accord, you really are like in your best driving and then you can really pour out yeah and I think that's like my struggle is like being able to really pour out like as much as you are needing to, because we know that we work in this like very spiritual vampire like thing, and so you have to like really pour out all the time and like you want to be on your best, and so I've been. The Lord has really convicted me in like the last few months that this is an area in my life that I need to. You know that I need to fight for.
Speaker 2:Pay attention to.
Speaker 4:And that I need to overcome and especially because I see it in our girls and it's not to shame anyone, but I see their like what I went through. They're going through. And I need to lead that of like we can be healthy, we don't. And then because it's so, it's so discouraging to them.
Speaker 2:Well, girls are really hard on themselves. I know what I went through where I'm like okay, I'm not even me anymore.
Speaker 4:And then where people make jokes like oh my gosh, your before picture looks better than your after picture, when they do your before and after when I was in addiction?
Speaker 4:Yeah, they're like oh my gosh, your before picture looks better than your after and you're like, okay, you're not wrong and so like you know, but it's like it hurts and like then it almost is like this hoarded room where it just happens little by little and then it's too overwhelming and so I don't want the girls to go through that. It's like we can. We can focus on this now and you can like feel amazing now, and so we um so that kind of convicted me on that that I I agree with you guys.
Speaker 4:I really want the girls to get all that they can from their, their spirit, their mental and their physical um, and then just be the best versions of themselves, to feel beautiful. It's important for women to feel beautiful, um, and even in their recovery, to have that confidence and um, especially, so many women have been with the wrong type of man and all of them desire a healthy partner and so, um, I just you know we want to attract healthy and I I'm a firm believer as we attract as healthy as we are.
Speaker 4:And so I want them to be their best in all aspects, and I know that they can. I believe in every single one of them. We have such an incredible house right now our girls. It's just like amazing. It really is. The spirit in the house is so beautiful.
Speaker 2:It has like this aroma of just it all starts at the top friend, so you're doing something right I don't know just keep following jesus, no but that's, that's jesus it really is jesus and it's
Speaker 4:really just going back to the basics and really just understanding his character and understanding like that his miracles are for us today and that he loves us and that we are so precious to him and he's a father and he's this perfect father and just. We're a part of this family and this community and we have every gift available to us. And so it's a really cool thing. I love every like I and so it's a really cool thing.
Speaker 2:I love every like I mean it's hard, it's really hard caring for a center caring for people caring for a building it's good that you actually have your own place, because you're able to. I need the separation yeah, I lived in a mental home for three years and I couldn't get there.
Speaker 4:Was that's how it was when I was like yeah, that's how it was when I lived there, knocking on your door because I'm like not not the best with boundaries.
Speaker 3:And so like I'm like yeah.
Speaker 4:So, it's good for me, but I'm still there all the time.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but it gives you a chance to disconnect. Yeah, totally, you have to. You got to have you time.
Speaker 4:Totally and I'm just like I'm such a decompressor. You come up to the central exactly and we're living and again, and so I mean I'm not gonna like there's not like this, like big, drawn out, dramatic story. Other than david started dabbling in things that, in full transparency, I was worried about, but also like okay, like it helps him.
Speaker 4:So he was like smoking marijuana, yeah, and because he had some health things that were like legitimate health things and I in some ways, like I feel like we can also justify and that's something God's walked me through Because I was like well, it's not pain meds and it helps him and it helps his mood and it's not affecting him in his job, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:He's not having all these symptoms, it does have medical benefits. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4:No, there's certain people who benefit and so I was in that mindset of he is one of those people and so, and he doesn't have the symptoms that I would not be okay with if he was like choosing that path. Um, but like, and it's so interesting because it's like for so long david would preach like the gateway drug, and his own testimony was I started with marijuana and then I became a heroin addict and I, so you see the foolishness in thinking that it was okay, but, um, but it was also not like habitual, it wasn't like all the time, it was just like if he had flare-ups or whatever, and so, um, you know, and I like I'm not, I really don't want to disparage his character because, like David was amazing and he is amazing and I love him so much and like he has a legacy, like an incredible legacy, not just at Teen Challenge but at Central.
Speaker 1:I mean his like.
Speaker 4:I mean okay. So spoiler alert, david passed away. So I'm like, um, his funeral was just full and it was incredible. I mean it was amazing because you see all the lives that he touched the friend, that he was the brother, that he was, his humor, his just leadership qualities, he's just like that magnetic kind of personality like just fun and smart and capable and just makes you feel really comfortable.
Speaker 4:He had this really unique gift to make you feel like you knew him forever and like and like kind of like rowdy, like, cry with you, celebrate you be there for you. Shirt off his back. He'd like pull the car over because some guy wouldn't have shoes.
Speaker 1:He'd take his shoes off, like just that kind of guy super fun, yeah, just super.
Speaker 4:And also very fun invite anyone into our home. Um, so david like, uh, he did pass away of a fentanyl overdose and it wasn't like he away of a fentanyl overdose and it wasn't like he was struggling with fentanyl, and this is like why I want to like be so clear.
Speaker 3:He did fentanyl three times, Damn man From June 17th to.
Speaker 4:June 25th in 2023. Dang he did fentanyl three times. On the third time, it killed him At four in the morning. Wow and so I had no idea that he was doing fentanyl. I did have like he was being weird that week, um, but we're all weird sometimes it wasn't quick enough to be like you're, and I would never be like you're, doing fentanyl, like that would be like not the first thing that I would think of we were from the drug addict days of like meth and heroin.
Speaker 4:Like I honestly didn't even know that much about fentanyl. I would hear like things about blues and working at pathfinders. I was learning more about it, but that was not like in my path like it was. Fentanyl was not a thing yeah and so, um, and it would be interesting because, as I was learning about fentanyl david and I would talk about it like can you believe these?
Speaker 4:like there's these like blue pills and they're super cheap and people are smoking like 50 of them a day, and we would think like, oh my gosh, that's crazy you know, and we would pray for people who were struggling with that, because I was kind of like open to this new world, at pathfinders of these things that I hadn't been exposed to. And so, um I, when, um, the the detective was like telling me that he died of a fentanyl overdose, it was like not computing because I didn't understand, like he wasn't a fentanyl addict. He never did fentanyl. Like you have to be wrong, like it was. Like he was saying two plus two equals a hundred.
Speaker 4:You know, it was just like Just didn't add up.
Speaker 1:It wasn't adding up, like it could not be right and so.
Speaker 4:But it was right, and that's what happened yeah, I lost friends.
Speaker 2:I was in addiction just the one time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and david had a best friend who died the exact same way. Um, who was, uh, he grew up with in chicago, who came to arizona to get help and and did get help for a long time, but went back to that life and died, and that's the thing with david too, it's like it's.
Speaker 4:You know that's strong and you get one that's not, at least with I don't. I don't know. I don't know how it all works, but I just know that it took his life, and so that's been like a year and a half now, so he died in june of 2023 and you guys were living in your own place.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, beautiful home. Yeah, are you still there?
Speaker 4:no, yeah, I sold it and then, um, like I wasn't really sure what I was gonna do, but I like stopped, like oh my gosh, I'm sorry, bath finders, but I was like he died in june and so I like called my boss. My boss was so understanding and I was like, yeah, like I'll be back after fourth of july. He was like okay, and then like obviously that was not enough time, but I didn't know, and then, um.
Speaker 4:So then he was like I was like I need like another two weeks and he's like you're probably gonna need more than that and I was like, no, I'll be okay. And then I was like we had like made this deal, like okay, I'll come back like in september, and I just like couldn't like I just couldn't like.
Speaker 4:September came and I was just not ready to do anything and then I was full-on responsible for David's dad, because he was in his 80s and he lived with us and he had nobody and he wanted, he wanted to stay with me and so, um, I started taking care of David's dad full and then he was like in bad health. But he was already in bad health while David was still alive, like he like required his 80s yeah, he's in his 80s and he didn't take good care of himself.
Speaker 4:He was a marine, he was overweight, he had already had like heart attacks when he was younger, so he already was like operating with heart failure. He had to have like a nurse give him showers, like.
Speaker 4:So we were already like in the stage of his life that it was kind of not going good for him yeah but david was still alive and we did it together, so then I became his full-time all of his doctor's appointments, working with the nurses, laundry meals, whatever, and that was really difficult um in my own grief in that very first like beginning stage, and so I just really couldn't do anything other than what I had to do yeah and so. But you know what it really bonded me and his dad? Me and his dad were already like this, like he, because I'm such like a look for a dad and everybody it's just like a bad trait I have like will you be my dad?
Speaker 4:you know and like anyone who, like, kind of, is paternal. I'm like, okay, I'll take it you know, so um yeah exactly are you my dad?
Speaker 4:um so like I so he was already very special to me and he really like embraced me as a daughter and we had this like little funny goofy, the three of us living under one roof relationship so you know you when you do that for a decade you get pretty close to people and so I was very close to him, very comfortable with him, and it was honestly an honor to care for him and, like the last days of his life, he ended up.
Speaker 4:David passed away in june and then he ended up passing away the following january.
Speaker 2:So about a year ago. Yeah, it's almost. It's almost like you got this time with his dad, like you didn't get with your father.
Speaker 4:Exactly, there was so much about that.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of healing I can see and stuff. It was very therapeutic. Yeah, wow it was really beautiful.
Speaker 4:Like it was very difficult. I know that he would have died the day David died because David was his only son, his like obsession. He was so proud of him. He watched him come out of heroin. He believed for his life. He cried for him every day. He was like devote Christian man and he was so proud Like my. My son became this director of Teen Challenge and then this pastor. And like he was so proud of him. And I mean like when David when I say David was like his whole life, I mean like outside of the Lord, like he loved David so I know that he like would have died.
Speaker 4:The day David died, like I feel like his heart would have stopped beating. So I really believe that God knew I needed him for those first six months because I just like cried with him every single day like scream, cried like broke stuff, cried, you know, punched walls. Cried like crazy stuff.
Speaker 4:That comes out of you when you're so angry and so confused and so sad, like so sad like suffocating grief, like and I think there was so much that I hadn't really dealt with from my past with my own dad, with what happened with my son's dad, with what happened with my son, with, like grieving this life that I thought I was going to have just growing up, like with every opportunity afforded to me that I just wasted.
Speaker 4:And so there was just so much that came up through all of that, things that had happened to me in my addiction uh where I was violated and abused and assaulted and just all this stuff that, like when you go to teen challenge, it becomes sometimes like roses and this is awesome and we're here for Jesus and I don't really go to those dark places because all things have been made new.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly yeah like, all things are new, like trauma right now.
Speaker 4:Well, and it's, and it's all true it is all true, but I was like you know, I was so about like I'm pressing on to what's ahead, forgetting what's behind. But sometimes you have to, you have to sit with what's behind so that you can like make peace with it so you can press on, and I didn't do that, I just like brushed it over. I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna find my acceptance and working hard, I'm not gonna deal with this thing. It's in the past, god, like I'm created. I'm a new creation.
Speaker 4:That's not even me, that person's dead, but there's still those parts of you that exist that come out.
Speaker 4:And so this experience with david, I just feel like not only was I like dealing with the loss of my best friend, my husband, now I'm taking care of his dad. Now all these things from my past are like creeping up and like bleeding out of me and you know, it was also like the like grief of, like loss of all of our dreams, like we were going to be, like we were on this fertility journey forever we were. He died in june. We had IVF scheduled for September like having to cancel that appointment.
Speaker 4:We had done so much work to even get to that September date, and so there was just all this stuff you know, that was just like I'm grieving my husband, but I'm also grieving what was supposed to be. That isn't.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 4:I no longer say like what's supposed to be, because who am I to say what was supposed to be, that isn't. And I no longer say like what's supposed to be, because who am I to say what was supposed to? Be Like God is very capable, and this was his plan for David's life and for my life, and so I kind of um, I'm not at peace with it.
Speaker 4:I will never like I'm not going to lie, Like I have not made peace in this moment but I'm okay, and so I had a choice of do I let this kill me also, or do I believe that God still has good for me? And so I chose to believe that God still had good for me Amen.
Speaker 4:I had incredible support through Teen Challenge. I say this all the time when I was in the worst spot in my life, at 19, teen Challenge was there for me, and when David died, teen Challenge was there for me. And when David died, teen Challenge was there for me and they really did.
Speaker 4:You know, snow came to David's funeral, jeff and Tiffany and all these people, rick and Clayton, the director of the Tucson Center now, who was David's center supervisor, who he recommended to become the director, all these, like family members in my teen challenge family, just came alongside me and then, at just that moment, they just happened to be without a director at the home of hope, and what was really cool is oh god when the director at the home of hope was no longer the director at the home of hope, david was still alive and I had kind of got the word through the grapevine.
Speaker 4:No one like officially told me, but you know teen challenge and so I'd gotten the word that she was no longer the director there anymore and I had called David and I was like, oh my gosh, because he knew that was like a, like a, like a since 19 dream of mine and even though God had provided this incredible job for me and he was working at Central.
Speaker 4:That is something that I always wanted to do even when I was director oh yeah, even when I was the pr director at tucson, even, uh, the corporate office, even when I was working at the tucson center. That is something I, anyone who knew me, you, just knew that's what I wanted to do, which is so weird because it's like not like some sought after job.
Speaker 4:It's not easy you don't get paid a lot like no, but it's just something that I want like kingdom it just was something I when I say that I love the home of hope and what it did for my life and how it helped build me to the person that I am and the relationships that I made there the home itself, the women, the children, the craziness. Like I, I love it and I never stopped loving it and so and I always wanted that opportunity but I never was selected to have it and so which was fine, but I wanted it, you know, and so it was hard because David was like you know.
Speaker 4:I know that he loved what God did in giving him the opportunity at Central and he was very grateful for that and he was really thriving there. So there was no like question for him of like I want to go back to teen challenge. There was sometimes like he would grapple with that and but I think that he had finally really got established at central and felt really called there and really happy there. Yeah, but he definitely missed teen challenge, the, the brotherhood it's the addiction ministry there's something super special that he really
Speaker 4:craved and he was finally kind of getting back involved, hosting events at central and doing more alumni things and speaking at services that they had, and so I feel like he was like I'm getting the like what I, what I need from teen challenge at like in this capacity, and I'm I'm so happy like he finally got like pretty balanced and so where I was like I miss it every single day, all day, and I don't know that I can be happy without it, and which was, you know, something I've had to walk through.
Speaker 4:But, that put a lot of pressure on him too. Like we had to walk through some really hard things because I was so angry with him for like-.
Speaker 2:Taking me out. Taking me out.
Speaker 4:And that was my calling and disrupting my life and you know all of this stuff, and so we, we really had to work through that with our pastor, um, but I also got to see, okay, this is what looking like being a part of a church life is like in a church community and joining a small group and leaning on each other and us having these lives that aren't all intertwined, but we can pray for each other, we can laugh together and support each other, and so that was really healthy for me to see what bingo you just said the word because I, because I wasn't getting that before and so it was kind of like this new layer that god was taking me through, of like, okay, this is what this looks like and this is how it can be such a benefit to your life and I really feel like it's such a key to our recovery.
Speaker 4:Yeah, is being integrated into the local church it's.
Speaker 2:It's what's missing from people that are in teen. I've literally working with a guy that's going back into teen challenge. He's like, but they don't offer anything afterwards. I'm like that's on you to get into the community, bro.
Speaker 4:And that's what I think of like, and I feel like that's what I'm doing at the Home of Hope specifically is like if you're not staying, and even if you are staying, you have to be integrated into a local church you have to have a pastor.
Speaker 2:You have to have. I want you in a small group.
Speaker 1:I want you to serve because it's for your integrity.
Speaker 4:Because you have just been served for a year. You need to serve, and I just don't mean at Teen Challenge, I mean outside of our bubble and so, like I really feel, like that's where your integrity is built, that's where you make these friends.
Speaker 4:that you can talk to and like you don't have to feel judged, you know all these things like outside. I want you to have healthy community outside. I want you to see god, god's favor in your life and his blessings pour out through, like the generosity of this new community and all of that and so you're exposing the ladies to different churches down there, right?
Speaker 2:oh, I want them to have all the options.
Speaker 4:I mean they are plugged into a local church there, but even if that's not their yeah, please find your place.
Speaker 2:Find your place, you know, and I will help you to make any connection you need to and so our pastors here they always tell I know we're a little different, we're a little louder, but if this ain't for you, you let us know and we'll help you find one. Absolutely, and that's why I'm like.
Speaker 4:I just want you to be in a community where you feel supported, where you feel loved, where you feel like you want to go seen, yeah, even for me like joining a small group like central really pushed that like for the, for us the staff like, and david was like we got to join a small group and I was like sounds awful, is that?
Speaker 2:your life group. We call them, okay, life groups. Yeah, life group.
Speaker 4:Okay, it changed my life, yeah, and so I did it reluctantly, but I knew that I had to do it and I'm telling you.
Speaker 2:Now you love them all. Oh, my gosh, my family, come on, obsessed, come on.
Speaker 4:Like love.
Speaker 1:Come on.
Speaker 4:Like I like and they were so for me with David, and like I can't imagine not having them, and it no longer became like I have to do this. It's like I want to do this and like we started like going to things outside of our like scheduled time like we pray like someone's moving, someone's graduating, it's a birthday it's.
Speaker 2:Let's listen, you're doing life. The Barbie movie's coming out.
Speaker 3:You know like so good, all of this stuff and so it was.
Speaker 2:So that has been super fun, and well, so you went back to the center and now you're director. Are you still going to?
Speaker 4:so I'm still super plugged in. Again. I'm not able to like attend at the rate that I was yeah, I was like on the serving team and all of that, like on the new here tent and all the stuff so I'm not able to do it in the capacity that I was, but they're very, very supportive of me.
Speaker 4:I go as often as I can. I stay plugged in. Obviously social media helps a lot. Yeah, something that I'm missing is like really getting plugged in to like a place maybe more local to me that I'm not like traveling to yeah it is hard because I travel a lot on Sundays, but it's no excuse.
Speaker 4:I'm not traveling every Sunday and there's a lot of things that I could be doing, um, but I recognize how critical that piece is. But, yeah, like I. But basically all that to say is David was alive when I had learned that this position was now open and he really encouraged me to go after it. He was like obviously there was a part of him that was like this is our life, now you know and how is this gonna work. But there was this other piece of him that's like we want to have a baby, they have the child care. This has been your life forever. We had IVF scheduled for September yeah, he was just like let's do it.
Speaker 4:He's like go after it. I mean, there was no promise, I was even gonna get it, but like let's try and like let's just trust God. And then he had passed away, maybe just like a few weeks after we had gotten that news and I no one like had really officially released like this job is open. So I didn't like I was waiting for that to apply. And then when he passed away, it was like not even on my radar, not even a thought. And then months and months had gone by and that position wasn't filled. And then people from there were reaching out to me like are you gonna apply? And I was like I don't know. I just like don't even know what I'm gonna do, like I just was like, literally, I have like so many paths right now and the one of like doing nothing looks the best.
Speaker 3:Like just being really honest.
Speaker 4:I'm just like so tired, yeah and um but luckily, because god brings us amazing people and it's such a gift. You know, I had too many people like hey, you were made for more and you should go after it. This was your dream and you should trust god, and I think I was just like hesitant to you because I was like scared, like what if I don't get it?
Speaker 3:and it's like so embarrassing um, I'm like, just like I love it, I put myself out there, snow is literally the big boss but, I,
Speaker 4:think God will make a way for you, yeah, and so I was just like oh my gosh it's like they were just holding it for you.
Speaker 1:Wait for you to apply.
Speaker 4:Are you gonna do this or not?
Speaker 2:and then.
Speaker 4:So I did, and so then I started november 1st of last year and then I moved. I was uh commuting from phoenix to there, and then I sold my house, bought a house in casagrand, moved in in march and so just like, yeah, I just had my one year as director this like just a couple weeks ago, and are you fulfilled?
Speaker 2:I?
Speaker 4:honestly, am like so happy I feel, like I have a lot of joy. I'm very still sad about david yeah, and I still very much have moments like it's really difficult, especially being a director, and I I felt like I was so critical of him when he was director because I just didn't understand.
Speaker 2:Now you're in the situation, yeah, there was so much that I just had no idea about like I'd be like oh, it's so sad.
Speaker 1:You like play darts with the guys all day you know, like you know, oh, you guys had to go bowling today.
Speaker 4:What a hard day yeah, but it's like you have.
Speaker 2:Now that you're in it, you're like, oh god the the way, like the the mental gymnastics come on man all day long the communication and the things and the planning and the questions and the things that you can't plan for because they come up.
Speaker 4:Personalities reports building child care all of the staff needing your attention. All the students needing your attention. Donors tours.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say the donors.
Speaker 4:The outside commitments, commitments the ministry partners, the businesses, the all the things, the events and the pressure of the, the funding, the fundraising and the meeting, the budget and payroll and um, I love you, sarah. It is a lot, it is so much, but you know what, like, I really feel peace, I really feel made for this, I really feel in this season of my life.
Speaker 4:The home of hope was so, and so it's such a like desperate need, uh like, for watering and I even though I don't have a ton to pour out, because sometimes I'm like I ain't pouring into you, but like I feel like I'm in a good place and I feel like right now I, I don't have a family, and this is a season of my life. Maybe god gives me that later. Is that something that you want? Right now, I don't have a family, and this is a season of my life. Maybe God gives me that later is that something that you want?
Speaker 4:I like, honestly, don't know. I'm so ambivalent, I'm like so confused. All the time I'm like, yes, today I do and tomorrow I'm like I'm fine. Um, so yeah, like I think I do, I think I desire having that, I think that that's a desire that God gave me, even as a little girl. That hasn't gone away, necessarily, but I'm also like, not on my timeline. I feel like right now, what needs me is the home of hope, and what I need is the home of hope, obviously, jesus we know, yeah and and he.
Speaker 4:But he's there and I have him and I'm so grateful, but I'm saying right now, at this season of my life, the home of hope is what needs my attention and right now what I need is the home of hope this guy always tells me what's working for you is working, so don't be changing stuff up. It's working, it's working, but it's not my end game no, god will grow, but it's what's working now.
Speaker 4:It's what's working now and it's what needs my attention, and it's what I committed to, what I gave my word to these women that I would be faithful and dependable for them. I gave my word to my leadership that I would be faithful in this season and I would show up and I would do my very best, and however long that season is only.
Speaker 4:God knows but that is, this is my focus right now, and I with as much um attention as the home of hope needed in the season of new um, there's really nothing outside of that, like sometimes there's just there's not a lot left over, and so as god changes that, then I think I'll be more open to what I can like give some of my more time to. But right now, like I really am, um, really like I really protect my time and really kind of like um I really just give that to the home of home, you know, and so I'm really glad to do that, and it's not like a burden, it's not like a poor me or like, oh my gosh, you're like Mother Teresa.
Speaker 1:It's not like that. You said earlier that sometimes we find peace in the chaos of life.
Speaker 4:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:Would you say that, even though it is challenging, even though there's a lot going on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I thrive. I have, like, adhd brain and it's my superpower. You are a high capacity leader.
Speaker 2:Oh, totally, you can handle quite a bit Texting driving.
Speaker 4:Just kidding, but whatever.
Speaker 1:Only have stoplights. Yes, it does.
Speaker 4:I can do many things at once.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 4:I am really like you know, it's just like.
Speaker 2:You're made for this. It's like you said.
Speaker 4:I feel like I don't know that it's like a long-term thing because you could burn out. Oh, yeah, or just get super comfortable and complacent. So I'm really guard against that. That's good Because I want to keep growing. I want to keep developing. I have this hunger for the word and, like what I was saying earlier in my time, was that I love the Lord. The Lord was so present in my life, but there wasn't that dependency. After David died, I was like God. I need you to a level that.
Speaker 1:I have never needed you.
Speaker 3:Come on.
Speaker 4:I cannot make it to tomorrow because I was suicidal.
Speaker 2:Come on, I was like give me a fentanyl pill. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I was like I do not want to live.
Speaker 2:Damn, that's real. It was real. So you were at the place where he's gone. I want to go too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like I don't want to do this.
Speaker 4:Like we made a promise to each other. Yeah, this was not going to be my life. Yeah, I don't want to do this. I don't want to see people. I'm embarrassed.
Speaker 2:I have all these people being like oh you knew or you must have been doing drugs with him. It was just really hard, people suck.
Speaker 1:They do.
Speaker 4:I don't want to let the sucky people overshadow how many?
Speaker 3:because there was way more good ones.
Speaker 4:But there was still that stuff and a lot of it was my own insecurity, and so I just needed the Lord. I needed the Lord to care for my father-in-law because that was really hard doing things that like with your father-in-law that you should not do when someone is that sick and at the end of their life and and the just. It was hard. It was like I was desperate for the Lord and he sustained me. He opened this door, he gave me this family because I was so lonely.
Speaker 2:I was so lonely without David kids and oh my gosh like too many people, I'm like gosh.
Speaker 3:I'm.
Speaker 4:God.
Speaker 2:I was.
Speaker 1:I know it's lonely but you know, but like but it's so beautiful.
Speaker 4:I'm so grateful and I think that's been really the key is just again and I've said it so many times like true gratitude and true like you know God, just like just this dependency, this need for him and like this hunger for his word and like. No longer just like these little sayings, but really discovering.
Speaker 1:God's word and him and his character, and his ability to sustain us.
Speaker 4:And then this thing, this gift that God gave me through David, is I fear death like my whole life, like I don't know why, like I'm like this weird.
Speaker 2:I put myself in, really like, Like afraid of dying in scary situations?
Speaker 4:Yeah, like just in general, like I feel like the fear of death, of what happens after, and then like the actual dying, and I put myself in like very risky situations. But I was always like, oh my gosh, like I'd be at like some crackhead house and I'd be like, oh my gosh, so we're gonna get shot tonight or whatever everywhere I was like I'm gonna get shot.
Speaker 4:Like I like was a hundred percent. Everywhere I was, I was gonna be shot and it's like controlled me even in like, like David used to get so annoyed with me because we'd be in a movie theater and I'd be like, oh my gosh, I think there's gonna be a shooting like. I just weird stuff, like we went to like a concert and I'd be like there's gonna be a shoot.
Speaker 4:I'd be like, oh my gosh, this is like I think there's gonna be a shooting tonight and he's there's this SNL skit like Debbie Downer and he'd always be like Debbie Downer yeah, totally like he'd be like. I'm just like trying to have fun and you like think there's gonna be like a bomb we're gonna die tonight. I'm like I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, like, just say some wild stuff like do you think?
Speaker 4:this like be like a terrorist attack place, like it would be somewhere and he'd be like no, like why do you even think that? So? But I say all that like not to be funny or to make light of any of that, because I'm not saying it funny like I'm saying, I truly was like, and so I do not fear death like at all, like I am so secure and where I'm going I'm so secure that when it happens, it'll happen and I'll be okay.
Speaker 4:And when I say like that's such a gift that, like that, god gave me through david was he like paved? The way for me, not that I want to die how David died but, I'm saying that, like I know where David is, I have complete confidence in where David is and that I will see him again, and I I don't like strive to get to heaven to see David, I strive to get to heaven to see Jesus but, I know that David is there.
Speaker 4:I know that he's like carved, like this path for me, and so when it's my time, it's my time and like to really have this like understanding of eternity that I didn't have before. It's just like you're so free. It's like this life does not even matter, Like it matters that we do like make the most of it. We help as many people as we can. That is our reward. When they talk about the jewels in our crown and all of that, our reward is the people that we touch while we're here, and so I am so motivated to do that, but I'm not worried. Like am I going to be successful? Am I going to be beautiful? Who's my husband going to be? I'm like I'm getting to heaven and that's forever, and so do I desire those things? Do I desire those things? Of course I'm a human. I have like. I'm like. You know, I'm not perfect. I have my flesh, but like, but like, but like I'm just so like eternity focused now.
Speaker 3:And I wasn't before.
Speaker 1:I was, so I'm so kingdom focused. Yeah, when we had a stepmom on. His stepmom was raised in church.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I just lived a wonderful life and she talked about her moment was when she was 23 and his dad broke her heart and she was broken. She said that's when I knew I needed the Lord. Yeah, it was in the brokenness growing up. She just was just. It was so natural and normal. It was just life for her. What they did, that it wasn't until that brokenness that she was like. That was my encounter with jesus, because I sat there for three days right and so, listening to your story, I think that moment with david yeah
Speaker 2:was your moment of breaking and I need you, god your brokenness.
Speaker 1:You realize, wait, I, I need you totally you know, because coming into teen challenge and the way things happen before you just seem like, like it just kind of flowed so effortlessly. That it wasn't until that brokenness of losing David that things got real.
Speaker 2:It was like whoa Well, I feel like I had such a high capacity for pain and trauma. Because, again, we talked about all the things.
Speaker 4:And there was so much, even in my addiction, of horrific attacks that we didn't even get into. But it's like I I just am like, but this is what broke me you know, those things didn't break me and I kind of have always like prided myself on like this high pain, tolerance you're strong. You know you're strong, but this is where it was like my mind broke, my I, physically I was like I just was done I think in our walk with jesus we have to get to this point of you got to break, you have to, you have to.
Speaker 1:Because it's in that brokenness that we, that we truly understand God. I need you.
Speaker 4:And that we heal. I really need you, you know what I mean. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Life was easy and I didn't really think I needed you but now I'm at this moment where I can can't live or breathe now without you, if you're not going to come and help me. You know what I mean. Yeah, and it's, and it's so true because, like, we have this theme. Every year teen challenge has a theme and I always really have fun being creative with them. Um, but last year was blessed and that was the year that I was the director and I really struggled with it, because obviously we are so blessed in christ and obviously teen challenge has been so blessed and been such a blessing, so I didn didn't, when I say struggle, I didn't struggle so much with the theme itself, but sometimes I struggle with what society looks at as blessed.
Speaker 2:Looks at as blessed.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they got the Mercedes, they got the four-car garage, they got all these cute kids and the dog and all these things and really blessed is the broken and that is who like, and so when I really think of like, I'm like God chose me to go through these hard things. I am blessed because I can utilize them to help others Like I think of all the opportunities I had where I could have been the home of hope director and was looked over or whatever, but it's a whole new level of ministry that I'm experiencing when I can really be there with the girls and like this whole new dependency in the Lord, this whole new hunger for the word that I can pour out into them.
Speaker 4:This I'm just a different person through this experience, and not that I don't think I would have done an okay job then or couldn't have done it, but it is like I am. This has changed me and so I am blessed Like I am blessed Like the word, just like pours, all these verses about the blessed, and it is in our pain and in our brokenness, and all of that.
Speaker 2:And like the sufferers, the poor in spirit, all of that, and like everybody wants to be blessed, but they don't want to suffer, and that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:You want to suffer, and that's what I'm saying you want to be blessed, but you don't want to be blessed the way the word says, that we are blessed like the poor in spirit and like the widow, the afflicted, the oppressed, you know, and so um, I feel very blessed, I feel very kept by god, I feel very close to the lord, I feel like um, the the near like lord is near to the brokenhearted, you know and I feel like my heart was so broken and god has never been more near. I have never seen jesus carry me through a situation more than I did.
Speaker 4:In this, he has become so much more real to me. The fear of death is not on my spirit anymore the way that it was, and so do I miss david. Every second is there I would get. There is nothing I would not give to change what happened. I know that I can't. I'm not naive like that but. I would. I beg God, you know like I'm like. Come on, lazarus. You know like.
Speaker 3:I.
Speaker 4:I, just you, I, I. I am desperate for David, but I am also so like at peace with like, hey, I will see him again. I miss him every single day. There's moments, especially being the director, I just want to talk to him about it.
Speaker 4:I want to laugh at all the crazy stuff that happens that only he would get and only have, like, the appropriate sense of humor for and like you know, like all the things, and so, and just his advice and all, and then just so many things I want to apologize to him for you know, and just this like love for him that I wish that I had while he was alive like this new layer.
Speaker 4:You know, like this regret of like you don't even realize you like take people for granted, and so I struggle with that. I struggle with that.
Speaker 2:It's so heavy he always tells me. He says how are you treating your blessing? Yeah, for everybody, your blessing is different. Yeah, his blessing right now is he's literally got a wife. Yeah, he's got kids he's got his job he's got. I don't have that stuff, I have my truck, I got my job. I got my recovery right, so our blessings look different to us, but it's like how are you treating those blessings that you have?
Speaker 4:well, you do, you just kind of like take them for granted, or like it becomes normal, or it's always going to be like this, or are you even acknowledging that there are blessings? Totally, you start seeing all the negative and this is annoying and it's like there's so much You're really pissing me off Right and there's so much that I'm like I wish that you could piss me off.
Speaker 1:I wish that we had this wedding to go to on Saturday. We talked about it 20 times.
Speaker 4:You know, like whatever I wish that I could hear you screaming at the TV from the other room watching football. And so it's so sad, like you just have this new level of appreciation and yeah and so but yeah like I am okay though.
Speaker 4:You know, I have days where I feel like, oh my gosh, look, life is amazing and I'm so grateful. I have days where I feel like, oh my gosh, look, life is amazing and I'm so grateful. I have moments that this is really painful and I need a minute I have, moment after moment in ministry, since I do it every day where I'm like okay, god, I get it. You know, I get why I've gone through this for this moment.
Speaker 4:And then I have, you know, weak moments, strong moments, days that my faith is so big, days where my fear is so big.
Speaker 2:And God's grateful through it all. Yeah, exactly Amen. Does your shirt, does your sweater say Jesus?
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that I was trying to read that. Yes, I saw that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought it was LSU, but then I seen the J.
Speaker 1:I'm like that's.
Speaker 2:Jesus.
Speaker 1:You're going to have to make me one of those, bro, I did you, don't wear it. Oh yeah, you did I wore it on the video yeah, you did. That's cool yeah, but yeah, so, uh, thanks, man, that's wow. So you're 34, you got god. You got a long life ahead, like six good years years like 60, I do not want 60 more, no, but
Speaker 1:yeah, whatever god has. Has god ever put anything on your heart for later on in life that you believe in him? For you know I have to ask you this yes specifically a book or writing.
Speaker 2:You have a way with words.
Speaker 4:It's funny because a lot of people tell me that that I should write a book, and like I am interested, so look, with technology nowadays, it's not even sitting and doing this. I know.
Speaker 2:Totally, you can just hit record and start talking.
Speaker 4:No, I do, I feel like.
Speaker 1:We can send you a transcript of this right here. Yeah.
Speaker 4:It's embarrassing.
Speaker 3:I'll literally die on the spot.
Speaker 4:I'll be like Sarah stop talking.
Speaker 1:Why did you say that idiot? No, but.
Speaker 4:No but no, I do have. Okay, if I was like being like big wild dream, like totally vulnerable, it would be to write a book and like that would be like my big scary being vulnerable, even if people think like you're stupid, stupid. Like I'm just gonna say that's my dream. Um, my like immediate thing right now is just to see the home of hope be super successful I want us to serve as many women. Our building needs to be totally renovated.
Speaker 2:That is like my you hear that you're a business owner. Out there, you can do something and help a non-profit women and children.
Speaker 4:There's a what about a bigger building so I feel like, if that's what god willed for us, if we had a builder, bigger building, or if we even kind of like grew, even if we had an opportunity where we could have a women's home and a women with children's home I don't know like yeah, because they're indifferent, they're in it's really, think about how you went in there.
Speaker 2:It's difficult.
Speaker 4:It's difficult to do both together but it's still really beautiful I'm so grateful for it. There's benefits to both, you know. So these ideas I kind of toy with, but nothing is off limits, you know. I'm just like open to whatever you're gonna do god my biggest thing is like right now I want to see the home of hope thrive, succeed, the women to have the best building that they can that they can live in comfortably, um and then from what I saw, it's pretty nice.
Speaker 2:It is nice, it's nice it's it's a lot nicer than when you showed up there, so sweet that is very sweet, it is very nice, it just needs renovating yeah, you know it's very nice.
Speaker 4:It's. It keeps I. We are grateful for our building.
Speaker 2:We pray over our building we thank god for our building we thank god for our donors who help us to do this so like.
Speaker 4:There's nothing in me that's like trashing what we have. It's just that there's some things that could be, that it needs. It was built in like the 70s.
Speaker 2:If somebody, if somebody's listening or they're watching and they want to help or be involved in helping, yeah, how would they go about doing that?
Speaker 4:email me. I will literally email you back in like five minutes.
Speaker 2:I'm psychotic checking my email like sitting here, I've been like I need to check my email. Is that something you can share, oh?
Speaker 4:totally so it's my name sarah s-a-r-a-h. Like the bible at tcazorg, so that is tcazorg teen challenge arizonaorg.
Speaker 3:Email me I will literally email you back, you can go on tcaZorg Teen Challenge Arizonaorg.
Speaker 4:Email me. I will literally email you back. You can go on TCAZorg and find information about the Home of Hope. Our contact is on there. Honestly, I don't even care if you need to contact me about a way to donate or do the building. If you need help, if you need prayer, if you need someone to talk to?
Speaker 2:What if there's women that would like to maybe come and minister to the women?
Speaker 4:please like like I'm telling you, like we are building from the ground up, so we need people to do chapels, we want life coaches that walk through life with the women.
Speaker 4:We need student sponsors that help um, help a woman through her program financially. Um, if you want to just like, if you have a thing where I like, want to come books to kids. I want to do crafts, I want to quilt, I want to show the women how to bake, whatever it is you like to do, prayer walks Literally the sky is the limit of things that you could give to the home of hope that would change our culture, elevate our spirit, show the girls that there are people in god's kingdom who care about them, who believe in them, and there's like no opportunity too big, too small, whether it's financial, whether it's your time. I tell the girls all the time it's so easy to focus on financial gifts, but when someone donates their time, so that is so valuable and for
Speaker 4:whatever it is. Whatever it is is, if it's just to come eat lunch with the girls, if it's just to come eat lunch with the girls, if it's just to share your story, do a chapel. Um, I would love to meet you, get to know you. Have you take a tour, get to know the girls. Like I promise you, there is not a person who can go to the home of hope and this is a promise like I stand firm on this. The same way, my life was changed going in there as a resident. Your life will be changed just visiting.
Speaker 2:Just visiting, I promise you Come on.
Speaker 4:It is unbelievable the spirit in the house watching the women, watching the kids, seeing just how it's modern day miracles. It's impossible to not get inspired. It's impossible to not leave different than how you entered that building. And so I invite you to kind of like test me on that promise, Come on. And so I'm so proud of who we are. So my big dream is get the home of hope to the best that it can be, and we're on our way. And then my other big scary dream being vulnerable, like not wanting to be, like oh my gosh is to write a book.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And other than that, I'm like just live and love and decorate my house.
Speaker 3:I could see that. Yeah, I love it. I love it and I want to decorate a bunch of other homes and be on Pinterest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love interior design. Bring on that big money, Lord.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so yeah, and like just be with my friends and love my family and love God and learn more of his word and like really intentionally learn his word, not just read it for all the good pieces in it, but like to really understand it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally. I tell Rowdy all the time Life is like like a big wave.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Jesus is a surfboard Totally.
Speaker 4:Just get on and ride, just get on and enjoy the ride Absolutely, and I am.
Speaker 1:And and the wave will take you Totally. If life is the wave and Jesus is born, it's going to take you where it's designed to go yeah. So if you just get on Jesus, let him drive and just go along with it, man, you'll end up somewhere. Beautiful man.
Speaker 4:Totally, and I already like I'm seeing that, like we can all testify to that.
Speaker 1:You're a riot man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're fun.
Speaker 4:You're yeah, you're fun, right, you're fun, dude, I'm glad I didn't know you back in the day. I know, I know, and it is hard because, like I have to be careful, because there is a part of me that's like that was fun but it was destructive and life is way more fun now, amen.
Speaker 3:Way more fun, but oh my gosh, the peace, listen, the chaos I mean.
Speaker 4:I will say that life definitely prepped me for the chaos of the world that I do Of ministry, yeah. Because it's chaotic and wild, but I don't worry what I'm going to eat.
Speaker 3:I don't worry.
Speaker 4:where I'm going to sleep, I don't worry, is someone going to hurt me?
Speaker 1:I don't worry.
Speaker 4:Are the cops going to kick my door down? I don't look behind my shoulder, driving the anxiety of that life. It just doesn't even compare, and so I'm so grateful. But do I have some crazy stories, like you guys?
Speaker 3:do Absolutely. Did I meet some wild?
Speaker 4:people.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing a few of them, man, if anybody tells you that living with Jesus is boring, they're not doing it. They're not doing it right. You're not in it.
Speaker 4:You're just going to church.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got just going to church yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got this one.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I would love to pray for her.
Speaker 1:Please do, Sarah Thank you, man.
Speaker 2:God, I thank you for my friend. Lord, I thank you for your daughter Sarah Yep. I thank you so much for where you have her now, God, but, Lord, I give you praise for where you're taking her. Thank you, Lord. Because you are day by day, step by step.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Lord, just continuing to heal, continuing to transform, like only you can. Thank you, god. I thank you, god. She is beautiful, just the way you made her, lord. Thank you, lord.
Speaker 2:I pray God just for this next, for 2025, just for her to really just get so close to you. Jesus, um, be her everything, be the thing that satisfies God, um, I thank you for her yes To teen challenge and the women that she's helping. Lord, god, um, I thank you for this testimony, just this alone, god. People are going to watch and their faith is going to be stirred. I pray, lord, for salvations. I pray God, just for you to return the time, like she said, she came in and gave three hours, god, of her time. So I just pray that you use this and give it back to her and redeem it, like only you can. Thank you, lord. Thank you for her, god, like she.
Speaker 2:I heard her say she felt kept, and that's that's something that you do, god. You keep us sometimes when we don't want to be um. So I just thank you for thank you for what you're doing in her life and in her heart, and thank you, god, for where you're taking her, because the best is yet to come In Jesus' name amen. Amen. Sarah, can you do us a favor and pray for speak life A-Z. Just pray for me and dad and wherever God's taking this thing.
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely, we're riding it like a surfboard yeah man.
Speaker 4:I would be so honored.
Speaker 4:So, yes, so, lord, we just come to you just so gratefully, so humbly, god, I just am grateful, god, to you that you have given them this vision, that you have given them this opportunity to have this platform, god, to speak truth, to give all the glory to you, god, and so I just pray as they navigate the future, lord, and all the dreams and vision that you've put in their heart, god, that you bring the right people alongside to support them, that you provide the right opportunities.
Speaker 4:God, lord, I am so grateful for their ability to speak truth, to have fun, to edify you, lord. It is so evident that they love you so much and that they have this heart to show the world, god, that you are king, that you love your people, god, that people can recover and they do recover, lord, and so I just pray, as they navigate, if it's opening homes, if it's growing this podcast, lord, that you just provide the opportunity for them to do that, lord, and I'm so grateful for this time to get to know them, to spend more time with them and just to have fun with them. Lord, that you just provide the opportunity for them to do that, lord, and I'm so grateful for this time to get to know them, to spend more time with them and just to have fun with them, lord, and that they, you know. I think that we can all agree they just shine, jesus, lord. So we love you so much, god. We cast all of our cares onto you because you care for us so much.
Speaker 4:God, we know that we can trust you with our hopes and our dreams because you have amazing plans for us. So we thank you in advance for that. We trust you with the journey and we know that only you can perfectly piece it all together. In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:Thanks, sis.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, I don't know where you're watching at or where you're listening to, but you can see, man, this all starts with the relationship with Jesus. It's just saying yes to him, inviting him into your life and then trusting him to do what only he can do. Because you just heard her testimony God has literally walked her through something that only he could. So it just starts with a simple invitation uh. Romans, chapter 10, verse nine and 10. It says that we believe in our heart and we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. And verse 10, it says it talks about uh, we believe unto, uh, unto righteousness, and we confess unto salvation.
Speaker 2:Um, so it's literally that easy to saying Jesus, I believed you walked this earth. I believe you walked this earth, I believe you died on that cross for me and all of my sins, everything I've done, everything I did today, everything I'm going to do in the future, I just I want your Holy Spirit to come into my life and into my heart and into my mind and just change me, transform me. Holy Spirit, if you just invited Jesus into your life, man, get ready, God's getting ready to do what only he can do. Um, I don't know where you're listening or where you're watching that, um, but if you could please subscribe to the channel, you'll get all the notifications of the future episodes. Uh, if you go on and comment, just type the word Jesus. Jesus, it helps with all the algorithms and stuff, man, but until the next time, we're just going to continue to speak. Life AZ. God bless you.