Mindset and Moving Forward: Empowering Our Clients Beyond Our Programs with Business Partners Like John Anker

Partnerships with business owners are a huge part of the long term success ramp for the clients we serve at SafeHouse Ministries.  Business owners who partner with us not only provide jobs for our many clients upon their graduation from our programs, but they also provide continuing training to help them keep developing the character and skills they need to be able to succeed long term.  John Anker is one of those business owners who has partnered with SafeHouse Ministries for many years.  In this episode we get to know a little bit about John and his father, whose example of overcoming tremendous obstacles deeply influenced John.  John shares about how important the right mindset is to be able to survive and overcome the many immense obstacles that our clients often have to face.

Transcript

John 0:00

early in our relationship with Neil and Safe House Ministries. It was a workforce development program. It was a transitional program for people coming out of these, these, uh, programs that, that you're offering to help the individual and their heart and their soul, and, and trying to give them real hope.

Phil 0:17

Yeah.

John 0:17

And, and then trying to transition them into the real world so that they would have the strength to stand on her own. And Amanda was one of those people. She's got a tremendous testimony and she worked at Anker Pack for many years and she went back to work full time at Safe House Ministry. I think she worked full time for Anker Pack for four or five years. Wow. And, and she said, you know, John, I think I'm gonna go back and work for Neil. He needs me in these programs. And, and she was a tremendous access asset to everybody she came in contact with. But I wanna tell you about Amanda. Amanda was from a rural, southern town in Georgia somewhere, and she has lost 23 of her friends

Phil 1:00

Wow.

John 1:00

Deaths from overdosing of drugs. Wow. 23 of her friends and her and her husband were both addicted and they had a child. And her and her husband both came through the Safe House ministry program and are clean today and her son still works at Anker Pack. Wow. I think he's been with us about eight years.

Phil 1:21

That's awesome.

John 1:21

Yeah. So that's kind of our relationship with Neil and then, uh, with Safe House Ministries

Phil Shuler 1:27

HellO, and welcome to Renew, Restore, Rejoice, the Safe House Ministries podcast, where we share stories of the power of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. Safe House Ministries is based out of Columbus, Georgia, and we are a ministry that exists to love and serve people who have been affected by addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. I'm your host, Phil Shuler, the Director of Development for Safe House Ministries here in Columbus, Georgia. Safe House serves people each month as they transition back into our community. Safe House provides an abundance of services

1:59

Including 184.

Phil Shuler 2:00

beds for homeless individuals and families, case management for obtaining job skills and long term employment. Over 300 hot meals every day, free clothing, and so much more. One of the most incredible services that Safe House provides is our free 9 12 month intensive outpatient substance abuse program, which is state licensed, CARF accredited, and has no wait list. Almost 100 percent of individuals staying in our shelters who follow our three phase program become fully employed within a few months. And 68 percent of individuals who stay at least one night with us End up finding work and moving into their own home. Thank you for being with us today and listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoy this week's episode.

Phil 2:41

Good morning. I've got John Anker here with me today, and I'm super excited to be able to have a great discussion with him. Uh, I've known John for a little while, while, and he's done a lot in the community. He has been a, a partner to Safe House Ministries in many different ways, and he's been a great partner to the community of Columbus as well. So, John, thanks for being here.

John 3:03

Yeah, Philip, thanks for what you do for Safe House and for the people. Thanks.

Phil 3:07

Yeah.

John 3:07

I'm glad to be here.

Phil 3:08

so let's just start off, uh, let me ask you this real quick. if you had to pick one word that would best describe you, what would you say that word would be?

John 3:17

Probably driven.

Phil 3:18

Yeah.

John 3:19

I'm a driver.

Phil 3:20

All right. I think I know what you mean with that, but, but explain a little bit what that means to you.

John 3:25

I don't know. I like to pursue, I don't like to, uh, sit on the beach. I like to, to go out.

Phil 3:31

Yeah.

John 3:31

Whether I'm, I'm, I'm casting a rod or whether I'm on a boat, driving into the waves. I see you know, blue ocean over here and I like to drive towards the blue ocean. Not, not the, the, the mucky mess of the, uh, the whitewash and Yeah. And all this. And I think, uh, along that way there's a lot of adventures and, and challenges and I find myself pursuing it. And that's, that's in my blood. I don't know why. You know, I try to analyze, you know, how my parents raised me, who, how my personality was as a kid, how I've evolved as a, as a person, as a man of God, and, and, uh, what I pursue. And, and, uh, I'm, I'm full of faults. And you, you look backwards at the disciples and you say, gosh, how did, how did, how did he choose them? And, uh, I've, I sometimes I, you know, I don't, I don't put myself in that boat that I'm, I'm chosen, but I do put myself in the, the boat that those men were pursuing something bigger than them.

Phil 4:28

Yeah.

John 4:28

And I'm a driver. I wanna pursue something.

Phil 4:31

Awesome. Tell us a little bit about who you are and just kind of growing up and kind of how you got really started on the path you've taken.

John 4:41

Yeah. Well, I think first and foremost, I, I'm not from here. I'm not from Columbus, Georgia. I didn't, I wasn't raised here. My wife said, stop saying that you've been here 33 years now. And, uh, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I claim Albany as, as a lot of my growing up years, but the older I get, the less that's true. And, uh, because in Albany it's where I was in, uh, you know, seventh. My, my summer, my seventh grade year through eighth and through high school, two years of, of college at Darton College, which is now Albany State, before I went off and, and, uh, never went back to Albany. And my daddy was an automotive guy. We moved quite a bit. I was born in Anderson, Indiana. When I was five years old. I moved to Fitzgerald, Georgia. When, when I was in seventh grade, we moved to Albany, Georgia. These were all Delco Remy Plants, a former wholly owned by General Motors. Okay. And all of the plants my daddy ever worked in have been mowed over now. Wow. They've all moved south of the border.

Phil 5:39

Wow.

John 5:40

And, uh, and I, I think, you know, kind of, uh, having a good mom and dad who've instilled values in me who, who really, uh, expected and, and held me to strict standards uh, made me a, a rich man. And, uh, in, in other ways than money.

Phil 5:57

Yeah.

John 5:58

And that's what mattered most. And I think also just watching my dad and, and what, and the challenges he went through as a person, I would love to tell you about his, his challenges as a young man and, and being raised. But you know, general Motors changed underneath his feet and he was 54. Wow. Uh, when he was, um, when he retired actually. And they moved the plant to Mexico. And, uh, he was a very rich man at 54 in, in his heart too. But he also had 80% of his. Pay and a hundred percent of his benefits. And so I had to figure out a different way'cause General Motors wasn't gonna be there for John Anker.

Phil 6:32

Yeah. The culture and the way things are done is very different these days. Oh, it's a lot different. Like there's not the, the work for a company for 30, 40 years and they take care of you for the rest of your life kind of thing. Right.

John 6:43

Well I never set this to, uh, I don't think my father set out to retire at 54. In fact, he didn't. He said, I gotta see if I can get a job somewhere else. So he worked in a hardware store for five years. And, uh, he took a lot of pride in that too. Awesome. Because he was a working man.

Phil 6:56

Awesome. So, so you alluded to it, but he, uh, he didn't have the, as stable and maybe advantageous and upbringing as what you had with two

John 7:06

Well, I alluded that he had a lot of challenges in life. No, he had a mom and dad that loved him dearly. Okay. And he was the only child because when he was young, he had a lot of sickness. He, he lost, he had his arm amputated at age seven.

Phil 7:18

Wow.

John 7:19

Uh, up near his shoulder. He had, uh, lung cancer at an early age in his life and had one of his lobes amputated. Wow. He can't swim. With one arm and missing the air in your lungs. And he sinks like a rock. He had breast cancer when he was, uh, 52. What? Yeah. Uh, recently he's gone through some more cancer. I mean, now my dad's in his eighties and, uh, you know, he's just a miracle, uh, walking miracle.

Phil 7:44

That's incredible.

John 7:45

And he, wow. Yeah. So he's a, he was a strong,

Phil 7:47

he

John 7:47

was

Phil 7:47

able to still have a great life and, and awesome life, take care of his family. And that is a lot to overcome.

John 7:53

I, I wish I could show you video. I wish we had video cameras back when I was growing up. I was born in 70, but you know, when we were playing baseball, my dad could throw the baseball all day long. Me when he'd put the glove right here in his chin, pick the ball up and throw it and put the glove back on. Catch it.

Phil 8:08

Wow.

John 8:08

And, uh, he could tie his shoes with one hand. I'm talking about shoestrings. Yeah. This is before Velcros.

Phil 8:13

That's, uh, I'm sure that was so formative for you as a child to see, to see your dad over the years overcome those challenges and Oh, yeah. I think it speaks a lot to the fact that, um, a lot of times we get in bad situations, bad circumstances, and we feel defeated and we make excuses.

John 8:32

Right.

Phil 8:33

But somebody like that with one arm and one lung and facing all those kinds of challenges can still find a way to press forward and succeed. I mean, it, it's, it's a great example. Mm-hmm. And, uh, it speaks to the fact that, um, we really can do more than we think we can.

John 8:51

Well, I think he had, you know, I didn't know his father.'cause I was, I think I was, um, maybe five, four or five years old when his father had a massive heart attack, died. And he was a trained engineer. But, but his mom was named Eleanor, Eleanor Anker. And, uh, she, she's one of my favorites and I was one of her favorites. And, uh, she died at 101 in May of 2020 during COVID. And she didn't die of sickness, she died of loneliness.

Phil 9:19

Wow.

John 9:19

And, uh, but I think just watching my, my grand, I called her Grammy and her name was Eleanor, but watching Grammy and the way she treated her only son and my grandmother going, going through it, yeah, my dad had a mindset. That would not let him quit. And and he was strong. He was tough. And I, I like to tell people this story because, you know, we talked before, we went on air about mindset. I kind of wanna talk about that as we get into Safe House ministries. Yeah. He had a mindset that, that was positive. It was not looking backwards, it was looking forwards. It was doing the right thing. At the right time and, and continuing to, to push and, and being proud of being the man that God created him to be.

Phil 10:03

Yeah.

John 10:03

Um, you know, I like to tell this story about mindset because, um, when I was 13 years old, I was living in Fitzgerald, Georgia at the time. My daddy worked at General Motors, and one summer I, I, you know, he said, son, you're gonna go to work. And I said, well, dad, I don't want to go to work. He said, well, that's not the choice. And, uh, Mr. Freeman said he'd hire you to pull weeds in his greenhouse. And this is a nice big nursery on the corner of this small town. And everybody knew Mr. Freeman. So I go to work, he puts me in, in this summertime in South Georgia on my knees, under a this, this big bench pulling weeds. I did that for 40 hours that weekend. And on Friday I got my first check.

Phil 10:41

Wow.

John 10:42

At four o'clock in the afternoon. I got off work, my dad got left work and came by and picked me up. We're headed home. He said, son, how you feeling? I said, dad, I'm exhausted. That's so hard. He said, whatcha gonna do this weekend? I said, I probably just gonna sleep all weekend while I was sitting there. You know, I'm opening my, my paycheck outta the envelope. And, uh, it, I was getting paid$2 an hour and I was feeling pretty, pretty lonely and depressed and tired. I was exhausted. I didn't wanna play baseball on Saturday. I just wanted to sleep. And I opened that check and it was$80. And I, I reacted to my dad. I remember clear as day I was riding down the road and I said, and I said, oh my goodness,$80. And I was, Fran, I couldn't believe I was holding$80 and it had my name on it, John. I said, daddy, I feel like I'm stealing from Mr. Freeman. He said, son, if that's how you feel, you're not working hard enough. He had a mindset to do all that you can do. Yeah. Be all that you can be and, and be proud of, of Vern in every penny. And that's how my dad was raised. That's how he raised me. And I, that's why I say I am a rich man.'cause I was blessed with that kind of upbringing, that kind of discipline, that kind of, uh, son, this, this is Yeah. I named you and you're gonna live up to that name.

Phil 11:58

Yeah. That is a huge blessing. Mm-hmm. Um, and that the, my, that speaks to what really does matter, I think. Most, or at least it's near the top of the list, that, that mindset piece. And I see that as I interview people that have come through the Safe House Ministries program, and they, they have just great struggles. I mean, they, they don't start, they're real. Yeah. Most of the time. They don't start with two parents that love'em. They, they don't even start with one parent that loves them half the time. And they, there's just so much from childhood up that they have to overcome. Right. But the ones that are able to overcome and to find stability and, and success and break out of the bondage, they talk about the mindset piece and, and changing the lies that they were telling themselves and recognizing the truth, the awareness and just lies. It's a paradigm. Well,

John 12:52

the don't stop coming at'em either.

Phil 12:54

Yeah.

John 12:54

They just don't let it beat'em.

Phil 12:55

Yeah.

John 12:56

Somehow. It's almost miraculous and some, so, you know, maybe we'll get into talking about specific people and their stories, but, you know, we're constantly being barraged. E even even myself, you know, I've had the upbringing. I, I'm a strong man of faith, but we'll get tired. We'll get worn down. You get beat down and, and, you know, money can help some of those things, but money is not the answer and it's hard not to talk about money.

Phil 13:23

Yeah.

John 13:23

And when you, when we are really talking about the people at Safe House Ministries, we're talking about people, uh, who have nothing left almost, you know, but they're not hopeless. They just don't know where to find their hope yet.

Phil 13:35

Yeah.

John 13:35

And they're coming in desperate.

Phil 13:37

Yeah.

John 13:38

And so it, you know, sometimes that's the only thing that can help you change a mindset.

Phil 13:43

Hitting, hitting so far down to the rock bottom that there's no other option.

13:47

Mm-hmm.

Phil 13:47

You know, and I hear it. They say things all the time, such as my way never got me anywhere. And so I had to try a different way. I had to try a new way. And they made that mindset shift. And, uh, I

John 14:01

look at the people at Safe House sometimes and I'm, I've been friends with a lot of'em, and, and, uh, their problems are real.

Phil 14:08

Yeah.

John 14:09

And their problems are bad. I say their problems are real bad. And, uh, we, you know, my problems hadn't been their problems, but I listen and I try to, you know, but I know what being real bad is from a different aspect. And so when they're coming in, when they're coming in to Safe House, they don't know where else to turn.

Phil 14:30

Yeah.

John 14:30

And I think most of'em are honest, sincerely desperate for something. They just don't know what. Yeah. And they're, they're looking. They're right and they're, they're listening and y'all are hitting a, a really genuine spot to be able to touch people. And Neil Richardson really started something special.

Phil 14:47

Yeah, he did. So when did you first get connected to Neil and Safe House Ministries?

John 14:53

I think I always heard about Neil through friends of mine. One of my dear friends was Hal Evert, who's gone and, you know, and, and then Chuck Hasty. Yeah, and I don't, I don't really remember how I first met Neil, but I know that when I met him, I asked about where he was from. Tell me your story. And I heard his testimony and I felt like, I felt like after I, I heard his testimony. I knew who he was. I knew him in, in more intimately, just knowing honestly, where he came from and how he was one of those people who was desperate that hip bottom and was looking for something and didn't know what, but he knew that he couldn't continue the way he was going. And his story was real and it was bad. And it was real bad.

Phil 15:37

Yeah.

John 15:37

And he knew when, when he transformed and, and, and, uh, accepted God, he, he was gonna keep giving back and he never quit. So that's how I met Neil, and I don't remember where, but he's a very special man.

Phil 15:50

That's awesome. After that initial meeting with Neil, how did, obviously you guys stayed in touch mm-hmm. Um, with that relationship. When did you, when did you start becoming a partner in some ways with Safe House?

John 16:04

I tell you what happened, you know, I'm, I'm thinking back. I hadn't even thought about how to ans you know, didn't know what you were gonna ask me, but I, I, I can't remember the timing of different things. But I know one day, you know, we're, we're a growing small business and we're a labor intensive business. We're an entry level employer.

Phil 16:21

Yeah. You're talking about Anker pack.

John 16:23

Anker pack.

Phil 16:23

Okay. I didn't know if you had started at other businesses before Anker Pack, but you're talking about, okay.

John 16:28

No Anker pack. We started 23 years ago and we've gone through ebbs and flows of, of the, of people that we need at certain times. And then we don't, we, we lose a lot of business and we're slow, but we don't wanna lay people off, you know? So we hang on and we were in a growth mode at this certain time and I didn't know what to do and we weren't, we were going to all our traditional avenues and that wasn't working. So I called up Neil, and Neil said, no problem, John. I'll load up a van and I'll bring a, a truckload of people over to, to meet you. And I said, well, let's do an Anker pack van tour. I can't, we, we had a name for it back then. And so literally he brought two vans and there were some of your board members, and then there was a lot of people. And we toured, we have four plants now, and I think maybe back then we only had two facilities. And we toured both, both facilities. And these were people in the drug rehab that were at the end of their program. And the next stage of the program was to stay in the housing, but to go out during the day and work for money and start saving money so that they could kind of get their wings on'em a little bit. And you can get solid footing before they go out and get their own homes. And, and they were scared. They, they hadn't worked. They, they, they were intimidated. They didn't have resumes. They, you know, they, they were once broken and they felt like they had hope, but they didn't know how to get there. There was, there was walls in the way, you know, they felt. You could just tell they had their tails tucked under a little bit and they walked through the whole facility and they saw people, and the people welcomed them. I'm talking about other Anker pack employees.

Phil 18:00

Yeah.

John 18:00

And, and, and they were with Neil. So they felt like there's no harm in getting on this van and walking in this factory and seeing these people. And there was one particular person in that group who at the end of the two plant tour, we stopped and she said, Mr. Anker, she says, I wanna go to work today and, uh, what can I do? And her name was Amanda. And, uh. She started up really quick. Wow. That was the beginning. That's really where I, I started saying, Hey, we're, we're really onto something here. And, uh, so that, that, that was early in our relationship with Neil and Safe House Ministries. It was a workforce development program. It was a transitional program for people coming out of these, these, uh, programs that, that you're offering to help the individual and their heart and their soul, and, and trying to give them real hope.

Phil 18:50

Yeah.

John 18:50

And, and then trying to transition them into the real world so that they would have the strength to stand on her own. And Amanda was one of those people. She's got a tremendous testimony and she worked at Anker Pack for many years and she went back to work full time at Safe House Ministry. I think she worked full time for Anker Pack for four or five years. Wow. And, and she said, you know, John, I think I'm gonna go back and work for Neil. He needs me in these programs. And, and she was a tremendous access asset to everybody she came in contact with. But I wanna tell you about Amanda. Amanda was from a rural, southern town in Georgia somewhere, and she has lost 23 of her friends

Phil 19:33

Wow.

John 19:33

Deaths from overdosing of drugs. Wow. 23 of her friends and her and her husband were both addicted and they had a child. And her and her husband both came through the Safe House ministry program and are clean today and her son still works at Anker Pack. Wow. I think he's been with us about eight years.

Phil 19:53

That's awesome.

John 19:54

Yeah. So that's kind of our relationship with Neil and then, uh, with Safe House Ministries and then, uh, you know, I was, this really Anker pack is one of the places that I feel like I need to continue that part of the ministry and just everyday

Phil 20:11

Yeah.

John 20:11

Life. I like a ministry around teaching the art of work. Yeah, I'd, I'd love to talk about that.

Phil 20:18

Well, that's huge. I mean,'cause and you're right, like people that come from the backgrounds of drugs and in and outta jail, they don't have, they don't have a solid work history, nor do they have a solid understanding of a work philosophy.

John 20:33

Right.

Phil 20:34

So that's, I mean, that's fundamental. It is. You're right. It's,

John 20:36

well, we talked about mindset, but we need to talk about the, the art of work. But, but going back to Neil and the Safe House, just one more minute before we maybe, uh, go to this, some of those other things you wanna talk about. But I, I was just teaching people to work entry level jobs and watching them raise up and become supervisors. Raise up, make more money.

Phil 20:57

Yeah.

John 20:57

Raise up and leave Anker pack and go get even a, a high tech job. I can tell you those stories too. Wow, that's awesome. How, how we help'em go. We probably touched thousands of people. In Columbus, Georgia to be able to be more employable to go to Pratt and Whitney. One guy named, uh, Brandon Owens worked with us for about three years, and he's been out at Pratt and Whitney for about 15 years. And I'm talking about, as a young kid, he worked with us and we helped him get out there. And there's plenty of other stores I'll tell you about. Yeah.

Phil 21:25

Wow.

John 21:26

Yeah. The other way I got to know Safe House Ministries was when, uh, my good friend Chuck Hasty said he was on the board and he said, Hey, John, uh, safe House needs to do a, um, a fundraising event. We need to get within code, build some elevators. We've gotta buy some another van so we can do this workforce development thing. We're, we're doing this and that. We need a chair for our, our foundation to go raise money. I said, well, you know, that's, that's not what I, I, I'm, that's not what I'm real good at. But I did it and through that I made a lot of relationships with your board members at Safe House, with the people who give a lot. There's so many people behind the scenes who have believed, who do believe and are continuing to give to Safe House.

22:12

And that's the end of part one with John Anchor. Thanks for being with us this week. Next week, you're gonna love it. We're gonna dive deeper into what John calls the art of work and just how to really teach fundamental and foundational skills that are going to be needed to succeed. So come back next week. We look forward to being with you then. Thanks again for being here. God bless you.

06-21-23 SAFEHOUSE-CH2 22:33

We look forward to being with you again next week as we share another testimony about the power and the goodness of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. if you are someone listening to this podcast that loves to hear these stories of the great things that God is doing in changing people's lives for the better, and if you would like to be a part of that work, please reach out to us You can reach us at

22:56

7,200 Manor Road.

06-21-23 SAFEHOUSE-CH2 22:58

Columbus, Georgia, You can call us at seven oh six three two two. 3 7, 7 3, or you can email us at info@safehouse-ministries.com.

Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone)-2 23:09

Thank you so much for being with us this week for the renew restore and rejoice podcast of safe house ministries, we pray that God will bless you this week. And we look forward to having you back with us again next week for a new episode.