He Hid From the School Bus—His Redemption Story Will Stun You with Calvin Bagley

He was taught to hide when the school bus came. Literally. In this jaw-dropping conversation, Calvin Bagley shares how growing up isolated on a rural Utah farm shaped a life marked by fear, shame, and control...and how he fought his way into freedom. We talk religious trauma, rebuilding faith after spiritual abuse, therapy, healing childhood wounds, and learning the difference between fear-based religion and real love. Calvin also shares the unlikely road from being “no schooled” to earning his GED, attending college, and building a life of purpose. His memoir Hiding From The School Bus is proof that your beginning does not define your ending.

Calvin's contact info:

Website - hidingfromtheschoolbus.com

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Calvin's book:

Hiding from the School Bus

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Welcome to the Hope Unlocked Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Kurtz, and I'm also the founder of New Wings Coaching. I help and empower wild-hearted and adventurous women of faith feeling caged and stuck, unlock their true purpose and potential, break free from limitations, and thrive with confidence, courage, and hope. If you're curious to learn more about coaching with me, head to NewWinkscoaching.net and be sure to explore the show notes for ways to connect with me further. Get ready to dive in as we uncover empowering keys and insights in this episode. So tune in and let's unlock hope together. Welcome to the Hope Unlocked Podcast. I'm Kristen Kurtz, your host. I pray this episode is like a holy ivy of hope for your soul. Please help me welcome Calvin Bagley to the show. Very excited to have him on today. Um, new connection. And I just know that he's going to bring um a powerful testimony to reach the listeners. So, Calvin, before we get started with um what you're being led to share today, would you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

Defining Fundamentalist Mormon Upbringing

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah, I'd love to, Kristen. And thank you so much for having me here for this conversation. I've enjoyed getting to know you prior to the uh start of our recording here, and I'm looking forward to it. Um, my name is Calvin Bagley. I live in the in the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. You know, we're gonna be talking a lot about faith, I'm sure, today. And so people may not think oh that there's a lot of faith in Las Vegas, but uh I'll tell you that there's a there's a great Christian community actually here, and I feel like it's been a great place to raise my family. I have my my wife and my two children. My son is 13, my daughter is eight years old. And I am uh, you know, in business, I'm an entrepreneur. I have started uh several companies and and found success in in financial services and insurance, specifically helping people with Medicare insurance has been one of my main things, help people all over the country with their Medicare. And uh, you know, personally, though, I've I've overcome challenges that a lot of people would not know or suspect. Uh, I was raised in a uh kind of a fundamentalist uh Mormon uh family and where faith was was twisted in some awkward ways. I was uh shielded from the world and was unable to attend school. I was homeschooled all the way until I was, you know, 18 years old. And I say homeschooled, but I wasn't really taught anything, so I call it no schooled.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

No schooled.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

And yeah, and when I turned 50 this past summer, I felt like it was time to kind of bear my soul and share my my what I've overcome with the world. And I I wrote a memoir about my life, and it's called Hiding from the School Bus. And uh I think we'll talk a lot about that today.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yes. Well, thank you for sharing. Um, just part of what you've walked through in a very short snippet. I know that you're gonna share more. I would love to hear, you know, there might be somebody who's listening that maybe doesn't know what fundamentalist Mormon means. Um, maybe if you could just start there, they might be questioning. I'm always kind of listening for what might be somebody asking.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, that's good. Um, you know, fundamentalist Mormon, I think most people would would assume that that means polygamous. Um, my my parents were not polygamous, but they had I uh they shared a lot of fundamentalist beliefs with uh with people who practice polygamy. And by the way, I should say that polygamy is not practiced by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but it was, you know, 150 years ago, or 200, you know, whenever that was. And uh, and then there were some that didn't want to let the practice go. And so you'll find these these groups of people living in isolation, um, practicing uh odd things like like polygamy. And um, my parents were friends with a lot of those people. They they didn't themselves practice polygamy, and my parents actually attended uh regular, um regular Mormon, you know, church, which uh, you know, the the in the in the mainstream. But I'd say the hallmark of fundamentalism is that you don't think anyone else is doing it enough, or they're not doing it right, or they're not going far enough. And that's kind of where my parents would take things to the extreme. And so when I say fundamentalist, I mean that they were taking their their faith or religion into extreme to two extremes.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Okay. So would that be I I hear you know, people talk about works, kind of like this works mentality. Is that kind of uh parallel a little bit where you're there's never enough that you can do, like you have to keep working, do this, do that to be basically accepted.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah, it is it is in line with that and taking it you know more and more to the edge. And so in in the uh theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is, for example, something called the word of wisdom, which is that we should take care of our bodies, and and that includes uh some laws or requirements to you know for people who do who want to go to the temple, for example, in that in that uh religion, uh, which I which by the way I do I practice the mainstream religion today, but for people who want to go to the temple, for example, they have to obey the law of health, which is to not drink alcohol or or smoke or um or etc. So drink coffee is one of the things that uh people know a lot about about the church. And so my parents never didn't feel like that was enough, and so they would take it further. You know, we didn't we didn't eat meat, we didn't have um, we didn't eat chocolate, for example, because we believed it it was unhealthy. And there were all these additional lists of things that we didn't do. Um, another example is that my parents didn't allow us to wear shorts. They didn't feel like that was um that was they thought that that was you know exposing too much of your of your body. And even for uh us boys, and so you know, I I would I had to wear pants and jeans, and my sisters wore long, you know, like kind of what you'd expect from maybe a polygamous colony, you know, these long dresses that go all the way to the ground and things like that. And so those are not beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Mormons, but my parents were were it wasn't enough for them. They needed to take it further and further. And the ultimate capstone of this was that they didn't think that we could be educated properly by going to school because they were feared the influences uh that they deemed to be Satan or evil or whatever that would happen at school. And so they kept us from from going to school.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

Wow. Wow. And how many siblings did you have? Or do you have, I should say?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

I am the seventh of nine siblings.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Okay. Okay. So how many how many girls were in your family?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

There were five girls and four boys.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

Okay. So you're you're one of the younger ones. Um, how I guess, like have have most of your siblings kind of continued on this journey, or have they like changed their ways? You know? Um, I know I have a feeling you'll tell us more about, you know, your exit per se. Yes. But how how did that look for your siblings? Was it, you know, kind of like, let's let's move on for everybody, or just you? What did that look like?

Isolation And The Cost Of No School

SPEAKER_00 7:47

That's a great question because it's very telling. Um, and I think that people listening might predict this, but most of my siblings rebelled in very serious ways and found themselves in in um difficult and challenging situations. And many of them to this day struggle with with very serious, serious problems.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Okay. Okay. Well, tell us more about, you know, most of the time when like when our children turn 18, you know, they're they're kind of like in in the world system, they'd be like, you're, you know, you're legal to kind of go on your own. You know, what did that look like for you um once you got to that point? Not sure what it looked like when you're being unschooled or no schooled.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, no schooled.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Um, but what did that transition look like for you? Did you go off to college? Um, tell us more about that time.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, I'd love to. My when I when I turned nine, eighteen, uh, my brother, who had he had run away from home when he was just, I think he was still 16. I think he my brother, brother just older than me.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

And he was just about to turn 17. He ran away from home with his girlfriend and eventually ended up in Las Vegas, is which which I live in Las Vegas to this day.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

And I came, I I came to visit him when I turned 18. And he he said, Calvin, you know, you can you can do anything you want. You don't have to be trapped there.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

And when I I did decide to come to return to my parent, to my parents' home. I think when I came to visit him, actually, I would take that back. I think I was 17. Okay. And I returned home and I basically said to my parents, I'm gonna do things my way. And if you don't like it, I'll I'll run away to my brother's place in Las Vegas. And they had seen their kids, yeah, they'd seen their kids run away enough and had seen enough rebellion that they sort of had been weakened a bit to that point and allowed me to kind of do things my way and be my own self. But you know, before I before that that point came, there were I and I'm I'm gonna oversimplify some of the challenges of my youth, but my parents had this knack for inviting people into our home that were not good to be there. And uh and so we we would have people come in and out of our home. There ended up being, you know, abuse of of every kind that you can imagine that that occurred in our home, and we were just totally isolated from the world. And it was just a terrible environment where you know the the lack of schooling was was the least of the problems at the time, but became the mountain that I had to overcome later.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Yeah. Wow. So did you were you allowed to have friends? Were you able to like talk to anybody outside of your family, really? I mean, in church? What did that look like?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

The one the one thing we had was church. On Sundays, we would go to church and I would interact with a few um a few people my age. And this was at the time, you know, I I was born in 1975. And so, you know, Star Wars and all these things were happening in the late 70s and early 80s, and we were just outside observers of this of this popular culture that was happening. Music and everything was all prohibited in our home.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

All music?

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Uh well, my parents would allow classical music, and we were all my my parents both were musicians. My mother sang and played a little piano, and my father played the fiddle. And so we were trained in music. I was taught music mostly uh piano by my older sister, and by the way, uh up to this day, I play organ at my congregation, and so I I've accomplished in in uh playing piano and organ. And that started as a very young age, and it's something that I that I love. And music was a was a retreat and uh a mental retreat and escape for me all throughout my my youth. And um, so uh we we had that we had good music, we just we didn't have any popular music, um, which I also think is good music.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Yes, right. Um listen to music or you know be part of like the popular culture, quote unquote.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Um but we would be exposed to it by people at church for for you know those those few hours, right? Um, and then we would come back to our world. So I knew that there was I knew that there was a world outside, and my older siblings were were all going through their through different types of rebellions and things and breaking free and what have you. And so uh I write about in my book actually, one time we um were out on the side of the road. We we lived in the country, there were we didn't have neighbors, you know, our nearest we were on a farm, and so you know, we we'd have to go a mile or two to to find the nearest uh farm nearby, you know, and so we would go out and hike on the highway and collect aluminum cans, and then we would drive into, you know, we would we when we were young, we'd say go to town, you know, we would go to town and cash in on those aluminum cans and and come up with you know$15,$20 or something. And that was that that was how we would make money. And one time we were out collecting cans, and we we weren't we we weren't allowed to do this in the daytime, you know, or during school hours. Our parents always had made wanted us to stay indoors during school hours because they didn't want the school bus to come by. That's why we actually we literally hid from the school bus. When the school bus came by, we had to hide because if it saw us, our parents were feared that we would it would be reported that we were not uh going to school.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Okay. And what state was this?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

This was in the state of Utah, northern uh the border of Colorado and Wyoming.

The Footloose Tape And A Hunger

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Okay, so they could have technically been reported.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

They could have been reported, yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Oh, okay. So you're hiding from the school bus.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

And we we find on the side of the road this cassette tape that someone had uh it probably been eaten by their stereo in their car, and they they pulled it out and they threw it out their window, you know. And and you see this bush with all of the you remember the you remember cassette tape tape. There's the tape is like glittering on the bush and flying in the wind. And we mix it up.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Well, you might have to pause for a second. We might have to pause for a moment for those who are, you know, 20 years old listening to this podcast right now. Calvin, could you tell them what a cassette tape is?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Well, you know, cassette tapes predate discs, which predate iPods, which predate iPhones. Um, although I felt like they were in the wrong order. Don't you feel like cassette tapes were pretty advanced, actually? I thought they were pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 14:39

I mean I always wondered how stuff got on that tape, you know. Yeah, and you could record over them and stuff like they didn't skip like a like a like a disc. Yeah. CD. I mean, it was pretty cool. I thought it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Well, inside of them there was the tape, and it was all wound up inside, and your tape player would slowly wind, you know, through the tape to to play your music. And yeah, this tape is you know, this black and and brown tape is all over this bush, and we we meticulously collected it and brought it home in a in a ball. And we we laid it out like a treasure. Yes, as I'm telling you this, if you could see my hands, I'm like laying them out on the table, and I'm like like caressing this treasure we found, and we carefully put it back together, splice it in a couple spots where with with a cassette tape, you would have to use like scotch tape to put it together and tape it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

And did you use a pencil too?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

We used a pencil, yeah. We used the pencil and twisted the tape back in, and whenever it would go over the scotch tape, it would it would skip, not skip, but you know you'd not like have a like a loud sound. Yep. And then the music would keep playing. And we treasured that cassette tape because it had music, and you know what it was? You'll never believe this.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

It's like what year was it, roughly?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Uh this would be like 1983.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Hmm. Z Z Top?

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Oh, yeah, that would have been good. That would have been good. I've gone back and and listened to all the music that I missed as a kid, and yeah, uh, but no, it wasn't Z Top. It was it was more I I mean, think of a like God's hand in this in a way. And and my parents would like my dad would roll over in his grave right now, hearing me say that. My mom, you know, she's 86, but it was footloose.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

It was footloose. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

It was footloose.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

I was listening to from that album this morning.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

What were you listening to?

SPEAKER_03 16:45

It's that um uh what's that song? Um, I don't want to sing it. Yeah, you don't have to you guys don't want to hear me sing. But I go to a step class on Tuesdays and he plays this song all the time, and I cannot remember the name of it, and I don't want to sing it. So, anyways, you keep going with your story. But lose, and you have not at that point, you probably obviously hadn't seen the movie.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

No, uh no, absolutely not. Um, but I but my brothers who you know they had older my two brothers older than me, and they had older friends, and they they knew a little bit about what the movie was and and and could explain, you know, but they hadn't seen it. Yeah, but you know, it's this it's the story of this young man leaving moving to a town that's that's overtly religious, where they don't allow dancing and things like that, you know, and it's and he just wants to dance, he just wants to be free. And um, and I was like, as I've grown older and thought more about how unbelievable it is, it's like a little bit of God's touch, you know, in there. And uh you wouldn't expect God to to deliver a footloose uh or even anyone to say that God was delivering you a footloose cassette tape in your childhood, but uh what he did for me. And it for me it was like you know, there some some people are taking this too seriously. Some people are not taking it seriously enough, and some people are taking it too seriously, and God men are that they might have joy, yeah. And uh so yeah, that that's an early, early you know, blessing from God that eventually leads to me rebuilding my my faith around love instead of fear.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

Yes. Well, and if you I'm just even pulling up the songs from this uh, you know, some of like holding out for a hero.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Oh, I love that song.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Like you were literally, it's it's like like I I there's so where many places I could go with that, but just even that song, like how does that like relate to even just that part of your story? Like, were you were you wanting to escape at that point and just had no idea how?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

You just made me cry. I'm sorry. I I'm a little bit emotional.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

I do I needed a hero like you wouldn't believe exactly at that time in my life. Like a rescue, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

I needed a rescue.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

I'm gonna listen to that song after this because I love that song, but and even another song on there is I'm free. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

I mean it's so prophetic. Like what he delivered that day to you, and you said you were 17.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Oh no, I was like eight, nine. I was young. Oh, you were that young? Um maybe I was 10. I don't I can't. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

I was a young, I was very about to 83, that would make sense. You'd be about eight, eight. Wow, wow, yeah. And just you know, there's times in our life and you can look back at these moments, and you know, I've I've got my own story too, you know, listening to different music. I like I was on the other spectrum of being able to listen to whatever, watch whatever, and it was that's a whole other story. But you know, going back to hearing some of these songs from your childhood, it it literally can like break open and bring healing to those spots that you can, you know, remember at that time and viscerally for me, maybe what's happening for you right now, it like viscerally like affects you. And God's like, I want to touch that place in your heart today and right now.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Really, I it really did touch me and right now, and your right music and smells and some of these other things will take you right back there. But this is this is more than being taken back. It's this realization that even I hadn't really had before this moment of how how much God's hand was in something as simple as a cassette tape fluttering in the wind on a bush, you know. Like it really there was meaning in that in that music, and I I belted those songs at the top of my lungs when I was when when the parents weren't around.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

Right. Of course, of course. Wow. So and were your how many siblings were involved in the treasure just my brothers.

Keeping Faith After Religious Trauma

SPEAKER_00 21:44

So my it was four girls, and the four girls all were kind of leaving the home when I was very, very young. And then and then it was the the four boys and then one little girl at the end. And so most of my you know memories of that except my early, early young memories are with my with uh involved my sisters, but then all of my you know preteen and early teen years, it was my brothers until they until they moved out.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

But wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

But I I'm very grateful for my sisters because my my sister, my sister Kate, which was the fourth sister, she passed away um a year and a half ago on on Thanksgiving. And thank you. And she was a she was an angel. And she's one of the ones of my, you know, uh let me let me tell you a couple of things jumping uh ahead a little bit, but my The reason that I feel like my my story is so is impactful for for many people is that I went through some real challenges that include religious trauma, but I didn't throw out my faith.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

And there is another say that again.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Like that somebody needs to hear that again.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Okay. I experienced religious trauma as a child, but I didn't throw out my faith. To me, it means that my siblings, most of them, they pushed aside my parents, rightfully so. And with that, they pushed aside their faith in God. And most of their um and most of their religious beliefs and practices or anything. They just pushed it all. They threw the baby out with a bathwater. And it's very easy to do, and I don't fault people who do that. When you experience trauma, yeah, and you are running the other way. And I have run very long and very far.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

It's you want sometimes all of those things can be triggering. And even my wife to this day, you know, will gather together and she'll say, you know, let's let's have family prayer or let's read, let's read scripture, or something like that. And some of those, some of those words I will hear, I will hear an echo of my past, of my father or my mother. And it can be, it can be triggering to me. And but um I would have been able to separate my parents from God and my parents from faith. And hold to faith. And I don't fault my siblings for not doing that, but most of them couldn't do that. Most of them had to let let their faith go when they let their parents go.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

Wow. Did can I I'm just thinking, you know, I've I'm just thinking of a question here. Your parents, like, was this kind of a generational pattern in essence? Um not really.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

They were raised this way or not really? No, they weren't. No, both of them. My mom was like, she she went to you know, high school in Idaho, Falls, Idaho. She was the she was a beauty queen. She was a um, she was a she was saying, she played um the lead role in The King and I and in other and in uh uh My Fair Lady, she was so proud, she had a beautiful singing voice. She she was um Miss Idaho Falls. Uh she competed for Miss, she was runner-up to Miss Idaho when she was 19 years old. Beauty pad, you know, beauty queen. My dad, uh my grandparents were wonderful. They lived in Salt Lake City. My my grandparents actually, my grandfather on my dad's side, when my dad was going out to man to manage this ranch for the Ute uh Native American tribe in Utah, my my grandpa actually, it's documented that he begged him not to go and said it's not good for you to be away from family. And so I think my grandfather could see some of the the cracks, I would say, that existed in my father and tried to keep him from. He said it wouldn't be good for you to be that far away from from the family. And and I think he was right. And that's the point, actually, when my parents kind of retreated from the world, pulled their kids out of school. So my older my sisters, they all attended school until you know certain grade levels. And my oldest sister, she she was in school until she was, you know, like 12 or I think 12 years old. And so I relied on my older sister to teach me because my parents, we we we were at home, but we weren't being taught anything. We didn't have school books. We we did nothing very, very young. But but by the time I would have been in like third grade, let's say, there were actually there was there was there were no textbooks, there was nothing to study, it was just stay indoors.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

That's it.

Mission Call To Brazil And Learning

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yes. So my sister Kate, who I was telling you about, she was my fourth sister. She is she is my one sister who kept her faith in God. Um and she's the one I told you that has had passed away a year and a half ago. And she was she was an angel to me, and they all were angels to me when I was young, but yeah, um, she taught me to read when I was when I was about, I don't know, seven years old or something. Uh we had the alphabet in our living room because when if someone visited from church, you know, it looks like we're doing homeschool.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Okay. And so people at church like were under the assumption that you guys were doing homeschooling.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yes, they were.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

And there was a there was a there was a certain I I can't imagine that that that they didn't suspect that there were problems in our home because we were very strange, but um, and our our parents were very opinionated. But we we had an act that we played at church, you know.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

But my I want to tell you that my sister taught me to read and went, but I had I had inadvertently trying trying to learn on my own, memorized the alphabet backwards because it was across the top of the living room. And I would come downstairs and I'd see the Z. And so I was like Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Oh my goodness, like you just spit that right out. Whereas mostly I learned like uh Z Y, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Wow. And Kate Kate taught me to read. And she was she was a quite, you know, an avid reader. She would read any book she could get her hands on. And that was the that was basically the extent of of my my schooling. So that kind of gives you the a rounded picture of my childhood.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

That's unbelievable. I mean, it is, it's almost unbelievable. Do you look back and it's like unbelievable? I mean, here one of my favorite um my favorite people are underdogs. I just love underdogs. And in essence, you know, you you started out saying you've built successful companies, right? And you just said you did not go to school. So you gotta fill us in a little bit. You get to let's say, you know, that 18-year-old um Calvin. What what are you doing at that point?

SPEAKER_00 28:53

At that point, I had a really great relationship with the bishop of church. And um, I had decided, as is customary in in the LDS church, that I was going to serve a mission. I was going to be a missionary and go out and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, you know, around the world, wherever they sent me, when I was 19 years old. And my my parents, I knew that that made them happy because that's what they wanted. Um, but I was very bold to say to my parents that I was doing it for me and not for them, especially when they would be concerned, like my mom would say, you know, you know, you didn't get home last night until very late. Where were you? Were you, you know, were you sleeping with your girlfriend? And or whatever she would say, or were you, you know, whatever thing that she negative thing she thought I was doing. And I would say, Listen, I'm not, I don't, and this is when she was under threat that I would leave and go live with my brother. I would say, you know, I I I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna go on a mission. I've already told you that, but I'm I'm going for me and not for you. And so, you know, I was kind of in your face, uh, maybe not my proudest moment, but um but it's standing your ground. I was standing my ground. Exactly. So at 19, I I I submitted all of my paperwork, it went to Salt Lake City, Utah. Then you wait and wait, you get a letter back, and the and you open the letter and it tells you where you're going.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Oh, so you have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

You don't know, you don't choose actually. Oh so I opened the letter and I'm reading it, and it says that I that you've been called to serve in Caritiba, it's actually Curitiba, but I didn't know how to say it. Caritaba, yeah, Brazil. And I was so excited, and I would I remember that I said to my younger brother, I'm going to Africa.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

So yeah, I didn't even know where Brazil was, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Right. Well, you didn't learn geography.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

No.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

So to to I I you know, I can like this the story gets a little drawn out, so I'll I'll condense it a little. But I went to Provo, Utah, to the missionary training center, and that's where you learn Portuguese and also uh what you're supposed to do as a missionary and stuff like that. And and learning Portuguese is what taught me English. You know, I sit down in this class and they're talking about verbs and adverbs and you know, nouns, and all of and conjugating verbs and all of these and sentence structure and things that and they're explaining all of this, and I'm learning English and Portuguese at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

And so that was a great education for me. And I would say that that was really the first kind of school-like experience I had ever had.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Wow.

GED Setbacks And A Second Chance

SPEAKER_00 31:42

I go to Brazil, um, I I write in my book about some of the incredible experiences there where I just experienced how God loves everyone and how um he doesn't love you based on which church you're going to. Um, he loves you because you're his child. And I just, there were so many wonderful experiences like that. Um, and I began to realize that the question wasn't really whether God loved me, but whether I loved God. And so I get through my mission, get to the end, and all of my friends or my new friends, you know, from two years of br in Brazil, are going off to college or all have these plans. And I don't I don't know what I'm gonna do next. All I had ever planned to do in my life was to go on a mission. I didn't know what what to do after that.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

So I came home and I studied to get my GED because I my goal was I'm gonna go to college like all my friends. I think I I think I can do it.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

So at 20 uh almost 20 years old, I got my GED. My father was not impressed. He's he said, what do you need that piece of paper for? You do you need that so that someone can tell you you're smart?

SPEAKER_02 32:57

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

And so I I realized that I couldn't rely on them for that type of reassurance.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

And I I then took the ACT exam, which is what at the time was the more common versus the SAT common college entrance exam. And I just I studied and studied for like six months at night after working, I would sit and read and try to and try to learn. But I it it's very hard to catch up on 12 grades of of learning in a few months with with no tutor. So I bombed the test and I was not accepted into any university. I didn't have test scores, I didn't have a high school diploma, I didn't have anything. Okay. And my my brother in Las Vegas again shows up as a as a rescuer for me and says, why don't you come down here? His his wife was a registered nurse. He'd been he'd been remarried at this point, and she was educated and she was and she she took pity on me and wanted to really help me. And she's a wonderful person. And so I moved in with them in Las Vegas, and my parents were were devastated that I was moving to Sin City.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

And I mean, the the worst of the worst places, the worst. Yep, quote unquote.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

But quote unquote. And here I found an incredible community. Um, my and I had my sister-in-law help me. She took me to a a store called Learning Is Fun. It's a store for teachers. Yeah. And my my biggest struggle in the world was math. I just knew no math. I didn't knew nothing about math.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

And she she took me, and we we I remember we would open the grade books and she would open them and say, Hey, do you know how to do this? No. She would go down a grade. Do you know how to do this? No. We went all the way down to third grade.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

And we bought third through twelfth grade um books, and I would work on them, and she would come home after her 12-hour shift at the hospital and help me with the things that I had not figured out. And um, yeah, and then she helped me also to get an appointment with a a school counselor at the university in Las Vegas, UNLV.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

And she coached me on what to do and say. Um, and I I went and met with that admissions counselor, and I I told her everything in a condensed version. I grew up on a farm. I had no education. I was homeschooled, but I actually wasn't taught anything. I but I know I'm, I know I'm I know I can learn because I learned to speak Portuguese. I'm fluent in Portuguese now. Um and I've done all this and this and this, but I don't have the test scores. And she and she looked at me and she said, you know what? We what we're gonna do is I'll give you a chance. You can come as a non-admitted student, you'll be auditing classes. Your grades don't, you'll get grades, but they don't count towards graduation unless you get admitted. And if you can get passing grades for two semesters, we will admit you into the university.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

I wanted to hug her.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

And I I was I I began taking classes. I had to start, I they did give me an inter entrance exam for math because I had no test scores from high school, and I bombed that too, even though I did better than my ACT.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

And I I had to start at math 95. So I did 95A, then I did 96A, and then I was finally able to take 101.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

But I I I, after two semesters, had a perfect 4.0, worked very hard for that, and was admitted into the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

Oh my gosh. And and this was like this a straight-up miracle. Let's just texture that.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

And you look at you the thread, the threads of these women that were in your life. Kate, your your sister-in-law, this woman, uh counselor, you know, admissions counselor at the college, like everybody was seeing the gold in you.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

They really were.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

They all saw the gold in you, and they came to support you and lift you up.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Yes. They were there, they they saved me in their in each of their own ways.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

Do they know, do they fully know this? Because I know sometimes people, you know, just it's part of who they are to to be that to operate that way. Um, but sometimes, you know, it's like, do they actually know the fullness of their steps of obedience to help you along the way?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

I wish I knew who the admissions counselor was. It was you might want to find her.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

I don't know. I wonder if there's a way. That's a great thing.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

I bet you could. That would be so incredible.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

I'm just that's that's she has no idea what happened. That is my giving a homework assignment.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

Like to be able to give that testimonial, like on the back end, because a lot of times, you know, let's for example, for for you or for me, like you might say hi to somebody at the grocery store and talk to them for a little bit, and you never know like what it has what it does to shape you know their their next 20 years, you know, if somebody is super depressed that day and keeps them from committing suicide, and this is just an extreme case, right? But to be able to hear the flip side of what you did for somebody and yeah, I think that'd be incredible. Because it I'm sure it changed the complete trajectory of your life, right? Tell us how how this completely changed everything. Like, what did you decide to go to school for then?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I went for business and studied business administration.

SPEAKER_03 38:35

Okay.

UNLV Breakthrough And The Long Road

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Um, oh, I do want to close the loop on this. I want to tell you that I was with my sister um on her deathbed, and and she knows how grateful I am to her. And and I was, and I also have had the chance multiple times to express to my sister-in-law Julie, who is has was since been divorced from from my brother, um, because he continues to have have challenges. Uh, but I've expressed to her many times how grateful I am. But I appreciate you bringing out that counselor. I'm going to work for that.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

Yeah, I think it would just be absolutely incredible. You'll have to close a loop on that one with me too. I would love to hear. I just love hearing, you know, testimonials. So if if somebody were able to just know what became of Calvin, you know, her step of obedience. I'm sure, you know, maybe she went above and beyond what she was quote unquote supposed to do.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Supposed to do. She gave me an opportunity that was that was closed off to a path that was that was closed off to me. She opened that gave it.

SPEAKER_03 39:42

Like that door was locked, right? In essence. Yes. She gave you the keys.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

And so, you know, going to school, I I I went for those semesters. I got it admitted. And I went for one more semester, but it's hard to explain. Uh let me jump to the end so you know the more the the the whole picture. I do graduate eventually, but it it took me over 10 years to graduate because I was not, I was not accustomed to the structure of school. I had never written a term paper, I had never taken an exam. I had never sat through a lecture other than, you know, kind of sorta when I was learning Portuguese at the missionary training center, which doesn't really count, but it was kind of the experience of being in a classroom. I had never been in a classroom.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

You can imagine by the time you get to someone gets to college, they have been uh very accustomized and conditioned and understand how the system works. I it was foreign to me and it was difficult to sit in a room and to take lecture and to write term papers and to take tests and everything. I really struggled with the structure of it.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

And so I I ended up um quitting school, quitting college, even though I had perfect grades. And um I heard about this this uh this these jobs that were open for to be a flight attendant for airlines. And I was like, I want that sounds incredible. I want to travel all over the world.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

I uh so I ended up becoming a flight attendant for United Airlines.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

And I moved to Chicago, and I feel like in Chicago is like where I had my my like my my experience that most most people would be like their high school experience. For me, it was in my mid-20s, but it was kind of that growing up, you know, socializing, making friends from all different walks of life, and being a flight tenant in Chicago, flying all over the world and wow doing it's a really incredible experience. And then um, then 9-11, uh, the 2001, you know, the terrorist attack 9-11 occurred, and I was working that day, and uh, I I share the story of that in my book, but you know, we were I was on a plane that day. I knew some of the people who were who who died that day, didn't know them well, but you know, they were they were fellow, you know, uh flight attendants that worked for my company, and one of one, you know, two of them actually I'd I had flown with a few weeks prior. And so it was a very tragic day for everyone in the whole, the whole country, the whole world. But for me, it was a it was this also this wake up that that the the that the spirit had been working in me, telling me that I was supposed to go back to school, but I had been pushing it aside and pushing it aside and pushing it aside. And there's nothing like a tragedy like that to shake you and say, don't put off any longer. And so I returned to Las Vegas and then I really returned in in earnest with the goal of completing my degree, which um I then eventually did. And I graduated when I was 32 at that point. I had met the love of my life, my wife at at at uh at UNLV. We were married, she was a professor at UNLV. Really? So she was teaching, and I was a branch manager at that by the time I graduated, I was a branch manager for Bank of America. So I would have, you know, my tellers and I would close up the bank, and my tellers would go to school and I would go to school. And I actually had tellers that would go and take my wife's um communications class because it was required for business majors, but I made sure that I didn't take her class, I took someone else's little conflict of interest.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Yes, literally, right?

SPEAKER_03 43:23

Literally, oh my gosh, wow, oh my goodness. So not only did you get the keys to get into college, but you got the keys to meet your wife through college. Yes, incredible. I mean, God is so good, right? He can literally turn so many things around. And I mean, kind of just taking a moment, like thinking back to that eight-year-old. What what did you think? Did you have any thoughts of what your life would look like? Or even 18, you know, just kind of capturing that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Honestly, the the most that I I my parents, my grandparents lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. And the biggest dream I could have was to make it in a city like Salt Lake City, Utah, which is by the way, quite a small city. It's a it's a town, you know. Okay. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful city. If you haven't been to Salt Lake City, it's it's nestled in the mountains. It's a beautiful, beautiful city. But um, you know, small city, like the the biggest dream I had was to was to live three hours away from from where my parents were and to somehow have enough money to to live in. in in that city and to just just be normal, you know, that was my biggest dream I could I could have. And you know, the as I as I close out my my book, and there's so much more in there, of course, but as I close out my book, I um have been successful in business. And for my 50th birthday, I visit my seventh continent. I visited all 50 states. I visited all seven continents. We we travel all the way down to Antarctica. And I I write about hiking up to the top of this knoll in Antarctica surrounded by penguins, ice, mountains, icebergs, whales jumping out of the water. It's just this incredible experience. And I'm standing there and I'm just in awe of where my life has gone and and how far God has taken me.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Yeah.

Flight Attendant Years And 9-11 Wake-Up

SPEAKER_00 45:29

And that in my wildest imaginations, I never could have imagined something like that. And to be so far away from that boy hiding from the school bus in the dusty, you know, at the foot of the mountains in Utah to this place. And there's so much more there's my faith journey and everything in there as well. Yeah to like I said to realize that that that God is love and not anger and other things.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

But um yeah I would love if you would be willing just to share a little bit about you know that that faith journey as you got older, right? I know you said you didn't lose your faith but did your faith shift and what did that look like and then before you do that would you just tell us the name of your book in case somebody's listening and they're like I'm I can't listen anymore and for some reason they hop off. What's it what's the name of your book? Because I want to make sure that people get your book.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Yes it's hiding from the school bus.

SPEAKER_03 46:30

Okay. And is that available everywhere?

SPEAKER_00 46:33

It's available everywhere. It was um uh yes it's it's available on every anywhere you'd purchase a book either Audible or um or or published book and it's an Amazon bestseller. And if you Google hiding from the school bus you will you will find either the book on Amazon or wherever you purchase books or the the book website which also has additional content showing some of the pictures of my childhood and some other things.

SPEAKER_03 46:59

I love that well tell us a little bit about your faith journey beyond you know let's just say you're you're into your 30s now like what what did that look like for you or when did that the most important shift was this shift from fear to love.

Success Beyond Survival And Antarctica

SPEAKER_00 47:16

And you know people think that the opposite of love is hate but the opposite of love is fear. And and so I this I I grew up afraid I I grew up afraid of God afraid of my parents afraid of so many afraid of of of mistakes afraid that I wasn't good enough or doing enough and part of the the biggest shift was this experience that I had on my mission and I I I I think I don't think I could explain the shift without just telling you the story. And they wear a black name tag. And so I'm you know I'm in Brazil and I was serving in a a really poor area and we were walking down the streets and the street and when I in this area there were dirt streets and then on the sides of the road there are ditches that are that that are the open sewers and people's homes would you know they had if they had running water it was by gravity they would they would uh put the they would it would be a pump but it would pump the water up into the attic of their little home and then and then the water would flush down to the toilet or the or the shower if they were fortunate to have one and then it would run out into the street onto the edge of the street. Yeah and so you can imagine the in Brazil these are called favelas and people know a lot about favelas I think because you know the Christ the Redeemer statue is is surrounded by favela in Rio de Janeiro which is an example of these great favelas. So I'm in this favela and we're walking and this woman comes running up to us and she said and she's basically you know we're all of course speaking Portuguese and she's like you're are you priests and I had this young American companion he had been there he'd been in Brazil for like three or four weeks so he could not hardly speak any Portuguese yet and but my Portuguese was very good and I'm talking with this woman and she's crying and she's saying please you're priest come bless my son bless my child he's dying and he's so sick that I can't take him to the health post you know they down there they have the the the post office and the health post and everything these places that are run by the government and they're too far away from the favela she just she couldn't take him there. And so we rush in there she lives in this little tiny one room um building that's that's built of bricks and just has a little metal roof over the top um as small smaller than the room I'm sitting in now. And there's a little bed in the corner and her child is lying there. He's probably 10 or 11 years old just barely breathing you could feel this the weight of death nearby is how I describe it. And he's just struggling for breath he's he's he doesn't I mean his color is past white it's turning to like lack of oxygen kind of purplish and you just look at this boy thinking this this boy's gonna die. And she's begging us to bless him and so we placed our hands on his head and prayed. And I felt in that moment that I should say that he was going to be healed and that and I felt this rush of of energy I just I just felt that uh that I felt that I was being inspired by God to to to bless him to heal. And we spoke to the woman for a moment and she went to back to attending to him I remember her like wiping his face as he was sweating and things like that. It's cold sweat. And um we prayed and we left okay well the next morning we got up and we said we let's go check on this on this woman and her child you know yeah yeah and so we walk we're walking into the favela and there are some and as it always is in Brazil there are some kids in the street playing soccer and whatever having a good time that's that's that's that's that's their sport you know and we get to this to the house of this woman and she comes out and she's beaming and I and we say how is your son doing and she said why don't you ask him and she points out in the street and he's playing soccer with these kids in the street and I turn to this woman and I was and we're just like you know just just like tears come in our eyes and we just and she's crying and she's and she's happy and she's smiling and and I and I said to her I said this this is incredible and I invited her to come to church and she said no no no um that's okay I I I I have my religion and in Brazil they have this thing they always say they many people would say they would say I was I was born Catholic and I'm gonna die Catholic and she said that's that was that's what they always said you know I I was so catholico I'm born I'm Catholic I was born Catholic I'm gonna die Catholic and I was like okay and she said but when I prayed to God he sent you and I just had this this experience cemented something so deeply in me that I shared with you earlier that God loves his children. Yes and um and he loves all of us and I I'm not saying that there aren't you know things that we can do to please God and to return our love to God because I believe that there are things that we need that we that we can and should do to return our love to God and to show him that we love him back. But to question whether or not God loves us is is futile. He loves everyone and that was cemented in me and it kind of ripped apart some of this this you know God is based in fear and God is based in you know you're not doing it well enough or you're not going far enough or you know whatever whatever that was that my parents had had ingrained in me. That was one of the moments that that separated me from that.

Fear To Love And A Miraculous Healing

SPEAKER_03 53:01

So you not not only did you get to be you know kind of a conduit of healing but you were even healed at that moment as well. Like that kind of powerful love love came rushing in right that's what I'm hearing. Just that power right um it reminded me of you know the verse 1 John 418 it's there's no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear. Oh yes yeah it is it's so true. Um and especially you know if you grew up in a family that is that that's the the the the feeling in essence there's you're you're literally living in fear and that is a prison. And then to be set free and to having this love to be able to bring that to anybody and everybody um what a shift.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

And I I wish I could say that it was a 180 degree turn but it's it's there's been a lifetime of struggle for me and of of breaking uh down the uh negative belief systems about myself and other things and and I've had professional help as well I have a wonderful therapist that has helped me deal with a lot of the trauma of my childhood and understand why I do things that even sometimes I don't understand which I now can appreciate what a trigger is but that was one of the one of the key um moments that began to shift my my direction.

SPEAKER_03 54:38

Yes and thank you you know for for being open and vulnerable about that because um I think sometimes people maybe don't even know that they need help um and and a lot of times are just maybe even afraid there's fear in sharing what they've walked through in their own story. Kind of in fear of just kind of bringing up what happened in the past, right?

SPEAKER_00 55:04

Often you feel that you're that you aren't um enough or that you will be viewed differently and what I what I have found is that in in opening myself up and and exposing my my trials, my struggles and my heart to the world is that there has been a rush come in of love and of support and some of that love that that oftentimes throughout my life I lacked for myself has also found its way into my heart.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Isn't that beautiful my gosh well so you went from not being able to write term papers and you know knowing the alphabet you know backwards to frontward. And then you wrote a book.

Therapy Healing And Writing The Memoir

SPEAKER_00 55:57

So tell us about like that prompting did the Lord like lead you to do this at one point I know you said you really felt felt prompted um in your 50 you know birthday your Jubilee year of Jubilee yes um what what did that look like for you to step into that place um to bring you know the truth and and light into what you walk through that was also a long journey I I had thought about writing a book many times um as I had uh like when I graduated and I you know I hadn't really thought about this until you asked the question but I have uh I had a professor of English who um had we had a creative writing essay and I wrote that's where I wrote my first the first time I wrote a story about hiding from the school bus was for my was for a professor in college the second time when I was you know in college and um she she said at that time you have to write a book and so she planted that seed in me that someday I needed to write a book and and she and then she also by the way for the rest of the semester every time we had a we had a a creative we we had different writing assignments. We had a creative writing assignment that's when I wrote my first one about hiding from the school bus and it's the first time I came up with the title. So this is you know 20 years ago more than 20 years ago. Wow or well yeah more than 20 years ago and then I uh then we had the next one which was like business writing and then we had one that was persuasive writing and she said I don't want you to do any of that I want you to write me another story. I want you to write me another story. Oh my goodness wow and do you know do you remember her name um I don't off the top of my head but I still have the essay and so I have it I have it on there and you know what I haven't spoken to her either. I'm you have two homework assignments oh my gosh that's crazy. Wow and oh my for all the people that have asked me about how why I wrote a book you're the first person that I have that I have actually realized or remembered that college professor. So I yeah I have two I have two assignments. This is what happens yeah well it does I can tell that I can tell I just want to say that I can tell that you are you are led by the spirit like absolutely because there's a different feeling and conversation that we're having here that I'm really really enjoying and appreciating that that you are bringing uh something to me not not just me sharing stories for an audience.

SPEAKER_03 58:33

Absolutely this is you know it's one of my greatest joys and it was a journey to get here. So um I was just gonna say how cool would it be to wrap up one of your books and send that book to her I mean oh my gosh I'm I love there's a there's a movie that I'm being reminded of um gosh I cannot I'm not gonna I can't remember the name of it right at this very moment but there was a a young boy from Mexico maybe you've watched the movie before and um if I can remember it in a moment I'll I'll I'll tell you but young boy from Mexico um you know grew up his his dad I think he did like garlic farming I can't remember exactly but the odds were kind of against him and a teacher in uh I think he might have been a first grader but he had this dream of becoming an astronaut and she was the one who like fueled the dream and everybody thought he was crazy and he just kept trying to get into NASA and I don't want to give everything away but um there was this moment to go back to the one who helped fuel the dream and um I just love those moments. I just and I'm and I'm just being reminded of that movie right now um it was so good and I feel like you this this could even be a movie like I don't even know. So anyways I'm gonna I'm just gonna stop right there. But um gosh this has been so incredible. Is there anything else that you wanted to share about your journey with um those who are listening in today I would just share that um God is the ultimate lemons to lemonade guy.

Joy In Trials And Loving Yourself

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

And whatever lemons have you been given in your life he can turn them into something beautiful. I look at the culmination of all of my story and I reach the end as I shared with you standing on you know this this the top of this hill in Antarctica just pinching my you know pinching myself saying how on earth did I get here and I realized that I would not go back and change anything whether it was abuse neglect um the all of all of the all the things the negative quote unquote negative experiences that occurred in my childhood and throughout my life that have been that have been trials and struggles and have brought pain and and and and left me with scars. Yeah absolutely they make me who I am and I if if I were to go back and change anything which you know for my a lot of my life I I'd I'd wished for certain changes or wished I had been this or wished I had had parents like that or whatever it was um now it's just gratitude because I couldn't be here if if I didn't go through all of those those different things. And then there's more that that will happen in my life as as with all of us and understanding now that that um the great eternal struggle between good and evil and you know God and Satan or whatever you want to however you want to define it um whatever bad thing happens to you God can can turn it into something good and he can he and even if it doesn't you know not everyone is going to end up on a on a hilltop in in Antarctica. And so I I don't want to say that that's that's what success was. Because success for me is just reaching a point where I can embrace what brought me here and the trials and struggles and be happy and as I shared before you know men are that they might have joy and we we we spend a lot of time wishing for happiness in the future and saying things like you know I I want to I want to be happy in heaven but God never said that's when happiness is supposed to happen. We can be he can he can bring us happiness and fulfillment and joy today and I am grateful that that that is the great lesson of of my life that I've learned.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:45

That's so good. And when you said that I was reminded of um a passage that I was really leaning into last year when I had some just you know you get kind of slammed with trials all at once. The Lord was showing me to to sit on this verse and and really lean into it and learn from it. It was James 1 2 through 3 um actually it could could go two through four. It's counted all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing I mean count it all joy in the trials. That's that's probably one of the most challenging things in this walk would you say I agree because in the moment you know you don't you don't want to say thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

You know I'm recovering from ACL surgery. Right and I'm not saying thank you that my knee blew out right you know what I have found though that love heals and I I was sitting a few days after surgery and I was uh just kind of touching my knee and saying you know what I love you you've been through a lot it's okay it's gonna be okay and I feel like it it has responded and you know I I can be a little as some would say a little that might seem a little kooky to people but try it for yourself for the things that the things that's that you struggle with in your life whether it's a physical ailment or whatever um an expression of love can go a long way.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:19

That's so good. I have to say it's it was really interesting the other night um when I was growing up I hated my nose I was little and I wanted nose surgery because my nose didn't look like everybody else on TV. So I hated my nose. I would look in the mirror and just like hate on my nose. And I felt like the Lord was just like you need to apologize to your nose. So I was like praying over my nose the other night like I'm sorry for the way I talk to you and I'm 48 years old. So good for you. You know it's just it's kind of I like to call it flip the script you know we need to to flip the words that we use not only to speak over others but over ourselves too right they say love your neighbor as yourself well you gotta love yourself.

Where To Connect And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

That's right. That's that is the the great missed commandment is that you should also love yourself not in the not in the the vain way that that some people may take that no anyone who needs to hear that won't take it that way. You need to love yourself and and the key to to loving others sometimes is to love yourself. And when I when I lack in love for myself appreciation for myself then um I often often lack in my love of others.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:33

Yeah it's it's so interesting isn't it wow well Calvin this has been incredible thank you so much um before I um do one more thing I would love for you to just share the best way people can get in touch with you because I'm sure that there might be folks who want to reach out to you whether it's through your website or or what have you if you could just let us know about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

Yes absolutely you can go to hidingfromthschoolbus dot com um to read more about you know my stories and learn more about me. And then I do also have a personal website calvinbagley.com.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:10

Okay sounds good well you did you already lean into one of the things I was going to have you do is to to speak a word of encouragement and you definitely did that over the I always like to say I do this for the one. So um if you could just kind of get in mind the one who's listening in today would you just be open to praying over this one?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

Uh yes absolutely I'd love to do that. Our Father in heaven We are grateful for the conversation we just had. We feel so touched by the spirit on what's uh occurred here and that we have felt love and connection and we hope that the one who is listening right now that that one is being touched as well, the one that needs to be found, the one that has maybe strayed from the ninety-nine or maybe just felt separated from the ninety-nine, or the one that is feeling weak, or that is feeling alone, that's feeling abandoned, or hurt, or cast off, that one needs love and needs to know that everything can work out. But in the dark night of the soul, this the time when it's when you feel so alone, it's hard to see that. And so we pray that that one has felt inspiration today from the words that have been shared and from the journey of others to hold on for one one more day, one more moment, one more conversation, one more piece of inspiration to know that that there will be light, that love will come in.

unknown 1:07:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:56

Amen. This has been amazing, Calvin. Thank you so much. I am going to close with the Hope Unlocked anchoring verse. It's may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And that's Romans 15, 13. Um, so thank you for being a brave voice who's setting others free. And the movie I uh mentioned a million miles away. So go check it out, everybody. I will be back with another episode next week. Thanks, listeners.