CEO Kingdom Seekers

Ep 19: Make Me Available: Surrendering Your Entrepreneurial Journey to God with Bill Nienhuis (Isaiah 6:8)

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This episode will stir your spirit and challenge your perspective on trust, surrender, and the incredible ways God works through our obedience.

Dr. Lee sits down with Bill Nienhuis, a man whose life journey is a testament to God's divine providence and unwavering faithfulness. Bill's story is a powerful reminder that when we say "yes" to God, even when we don't see the full picture, He opens doors we never imagined.

From a career in radio to being an integral part of the groundbreaking Logos Bible Software, and now leading Childcare Worldwide, Bill shares how each pivot in his life was orchestrated by a God who asks, "Do you trust me?" This conversation is packed with wisdom for every faith-led entrepreneur, solopreneur, and business leader.

In this episode, they dive deep into: 

  • Being truly available for God's work, without fences or qualifications (Including Bill's personal prayer that inspires him to offer his whole self to the Lord)
  • How giving our "first fruits" is not just a religious obligation, but a radical act of trust in God's promise to multiply. 
  • How Romans 12:6-8 reminds us that developing our spiritual gifts and stewarding our assets are all part of becoming more like Christ. 
  • What to do to prevent addressing our true hunger for God's Word with the false  distractions of our modern world.
  • How forgiveness is a powerful, continual opportunity to turn back to God. 

This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to align their business and life more closely with God's kingdom. Get ready to be inspired, challenged, and encouraged to trust God with every step of your journey.

Connect with Bill Nienhuis and Childcare Worldwide: Learn more about the incredible work of Childcare Worldwide and how you can support their mission at Childcare Worldwide.org.

Connect with Dr. Lee and the Regulated Roots Community:

Follow on TikTok: @leechelseacordell

Connect on LinkedIn: Dr. Lee Cordell

SPEAKER_03

Welcome back to CEO Kingdom Seekers. I am your host, Dr. Lee C. Cordell. And today's guest has one of those stories that I think is really going to challenge the way that we all think about calling obedience and what it actually looks like when God redirects you in a 25-year career. My guest today is Bill Neenhouse, president of Childcare Worldwide, a global nonprofit that partners with local evangelical churches in Africa, Asia, and South America to provide children with food, education, and most importantly, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Bill spent 25 years at the ground floor of Logos Bible Software, one of the most recognized Bible study tools in the world, before his boss gave him three pieces of advice that changed everything. And the one he was most resistant to was the one that God used to lead him right here to today for this conversation. What I love most about Bill's story in this episode is that he was not looking for this. He was not changing a new title or a bigger platform. He was actually the software guy. And God said, No, actually, you're not. You're the steward I've been preparing for something much bigger. In today's episode, we talk about what it looks like to lead an organization that you believe is fully owned by God, how to steward kingdom resources with integrity and accountability, and what every entrepreneur in our audience, whether you run a business, nonprofit, or both, can learn from the way Bill has navigated obedience, generosity, and mission-focused growth. We kick off this episode in prayer with Bill.

SPEAKER_00

Father in heaven, we're so grateful for this time together. And Lord, it's just so wonderful to meet brothers and sisters in the Lord and to be together and to talk about our shared experience, knowing that you have taken over every bit of what we do and how we think. God, guide this conversation with us today and help us to just think about you and your kingdom and what we're doing for it and how we're participating in it. And we're grateful for all that you give. Your grace is so good. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_03

Amen. Oh, that was wonderful. I might leave that in if you're open to it. Oh, beautiful. Okay. Welcome to the podcast. We're so glad to have you here. We were talking a little bit before we started about your, I think you said long-storied history before coming to your current role. And so I would love to just make start there and hear a little bit more about your journey to where you are today.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. It's great to be with you. And I just love being able to talk to people who are interested not only in entrepreneurial ship, but also just the kingdom and everything that's surrounding that. So such a pleasure to be with you today. When I first went to college, my my goal at the time was to be a music major of all things. Because I played drums since I was like in third grade. So the whole thing was, yeah, go to college and do the music thing because I had done that through junior high and high school and everything. And I thought that was the purpose. And when I got there, I realized there was two things I was going to be faced with. One either be in an orchestra my entire life, which that didn't sound good, and the other was to be a music teacher. And I thought, oh, I don't want to do that either. So halfway through that, I decided to be a broadcast communications major and got into radio and all those things and had a wonderful time doing that, and spent a good three or four, maybe five years after I got out of college in radio and was on AM stations and all this kind of stuff. And I thought, well, this is it. I love this. But then God came in and said, No, that's not quite what I want you to do. And it made it very clear because in the radio business and probably TV as well, you're getting hired and fired all the time. As owners come in and take up a radio station, they're clearing you out and you go to someplace else. And it's this constant flow of moving from one place to another. And we were my we were just married at my time, my my wife Melissa and I, and we were starting a family. And I thought, I don't want to move my family 1,500 times over the United States as I climb this radio ladder.

SPEAKER_01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00

So I thought maybe this isn't the right thing. And in God's providence, I actually got laid off from a radio station. My wife was eight and a half months pregnant. We were almost welcoming our first child, and it was like, okay, what now? And I remember so clearly my dad, who's a real estate agent and he's since retired, but he called me up and he knew I was finding, trying to find any job I could find. And he said, Hey, I met these people today. They're wanting to open up an office in the town where my dad lived. And he said, I don't know much about them, but they have something to do with the Bible, and they say that they're going to be like the next Christian Microsoft. And they're hiring as many people as they possibly can. So you better call them. And I thought, okay, why not? I was out for anything. I didn't want to go back into radio, but I was open for whatever might come. And I called the guy that was doing the scheduling for the interviews and things, and he said, Yeah, okay, come over. Come on over and we'll talk. I get ready for an interview. So I'm all dressed up, I'm ready to do the whole thing because I've been through interviews before. I walk in and he's putting together particle board shelving. And he's like, get over here. So I go with him. And for two hours we're building shelves and basically having my interview. Wow. It was really unstructured. It no interview had ever been through before. And that was on a Friday. And he said, Okay, come Monday and we'll start. And I thought, okay, what am I really getting into? That was the beginning of Logos Bible Software. And Logos Bible Software is a world-renowned, world-known product out there that pastors and scholars and book publishers, book authors, everybody uses this software. And I was there at the very beginning. So in 1993, I started that job, and there was probably six or seven of us. And by the time I left in 2018, 25 years later, there was 450 people. So the entire span of time was an amazing period of growth, opportunity, worldwide travel. I was in charge of all of our book publishing. So when it came to digital contract rights and working with Christian book publishers to convert their paper books to digital, I did all of that. There's 160,000 books in Lagos Bible software, and my DNA is probably over 155,000 of those. Because I was out everywhere. And that's what brought me to Europe and Asia and all over the world, traveling to content providers to talk to them about their content in the software. And through that time, we we saw amazing growth and a lot of change. When I first started, Microsoft Windows was brand new. That's how far back goes. There was no web, okay? There was barely internet email. It goes way back. And to see where we are today is stunning to think about how different things are today than they were back then. But I think the thing that changed the most for me was given constant opportunity by my boss. Opportunity to grow, opportunity to experiment, opportunity to fail, to try things and fail quick if you needed to, but you were criticized more for not trying than you were for being a little too conservative. And I so loved that freedom to be able to do that. I didn't know anything about contracts. I learned on the job. They could have gone out and tried to hire some lawyer or something, but they said, no, this is your area. You become an expert. And they gave me the runway to do that. And I just, I'll never stop being so appreciative for the growing and the work and everything that they did. But after 25 years, I finally went into my boss's office and I said, Okay, it's been 25. I want to continue to provide value to you. So what's next? What would you like to see out of me? And he said, That's a really good question. I love what you do and I want you to keep doing what you're doing. But he said, actually, I have three bits of advice for you. I said, perfect. Love that. And my boss was so honest with leadership and with good answers to questions, even if it was the answers you didn't want to hear. But he was really good about that. And he said, I have three bits of advice. The first thing is you need a mentor, and it can't be me. I've known you for 25 years. There's just no point. You need to go find somebody who doesn't know, doesn't know you, maybe in an alternate area of business. You just need to go find a mentor. I thought, that's great. I can do that. He said, the second thing is, I think you should probably find a nonprofit board to join. Because being on a board of directors has an entirely different focus than you do in a for-profit organization. And you'll learn a really completely different thing. And he said, I know lots of nonprofits in our area. Any one of them would want a vice president from our company on your board. So I'm happy to give you introductions. I thought, oh, that's great. I never thought of that as a volunteer opportunity. And then he said the third thing and he kept qualifying it. He kept saying, I don't want you to do this. I don't want you to do this. And this is exactly the kind of guy he was. I don't want you to do it. I went, Oh, that's so cool. What is it? And he said, if you really want to learn something new, you probably have to leave the organization. And I thought, wow. That's amazing advice. Because he said, at your age, you have an opportunity to pivot to something where you'll still have, Lord willing, enough time to learn that new thing and become an expert in it and become uh just have a new life of a different kind of opportunity. But you're not going to see that here because after 25 years, you know everything about this place. And we really don't know what's coming next, but how much additional growth can you really see? And it it was so true. He was so correct. And what I think surprised him is that I took him up on all three of those bits of advice. I found a mentor. That mentor introduced me to the board of directors for childcare worldwide.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, that's the link there. When I was at Childcare Worldwide as a board member, the founding CEO was already 87 years old.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

He started the nonprofit in 1981. And 87, his mind was sharp, but his body could not get on airplanes and go to India and go to Africa, as you can imagine. Right. He was finally ready to retire from being the CEO and the founder. So as a board member, I participated in interviewing candidates because that was our role. So candidates were coming through. We had a search committee, we had all those things. And all the candidates that were coming through at the time had lots of really great characteristics, but there was always just one thing that just wasn't right about it. And the other board members one time stopped and looked at me and said, What about you? And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm the software guy, right? That was my answer. I'm the software guy. Why are you asking me to lead this child evangelism ministry? I have no, I'm just started as a board member, right? And they kept saying it and kept saying it. And through my entire career at Logos Bible Software, there were opportunities for me to have other jobs at other places. As you can imagine, I knew a lot of people, but every time there was a very clear sense of no from God. No, not now. And those doors would shut. And it was very comfortable for me to investigate something knowing that God was going to shut that door because I was the software guy. That's where I was supposed to be. He never shut the door on this thing. As much as I was waiting for it to happen, it just wasn't happening. And my pastor was encouraging me, and other people, my family, were praying for me on it, and others that I knew were starting to say you should look into this. All these things were not going where I thought they were going to go. And finally, my wife and I agreed, okay, let's we can't deny what God wants. Let's see what's going on here. So I became a candidate. I stopped being a board member. I was a part of the process, just like everybody else. They didn't fast track me or anything like that. I had to be interviewed and all that kind of thing. But the long and short of it, it was on November 1st, I took the job. I got offered the job in October, and suddenly my life was going to change. And it was an amazing four weeks of offboarding at Lagos. You can imagine I spent almost all those days in a coffee shop talking to everybody that I was relating to at the organization. Bill, what do I do? What's next? What do what you're leaving? I don't know. And drawing up my breadcrumbs so everybody knew what I was doing and all that kind of stuff. And I left on October 31st and the next day started at child care. There was like no break between the two, right? I get to child care. My 87-year-old CEO, who's getting ready to walk out the door, onboarded me for five minutes. That was it. He was like, if I'm not CEO, I can't stick around here. And that was the kind of person he was.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, sure. Making sure that the leadership is clear, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. So he's okay, I'm done. He took me to his office, which is now mine office, and I'm looking and he put these folders out on the table and they had random things in it. I just still to this day don't know what's going on with that. But he was pointing me here and here and here. And then he's okay, and I'm done. And out he went. And I'm standing now in an office of a place I'm unfamiliar with, barely knew anything that was going on. And I'm fortunate that I had some people who had already been at the organization for a long time. So they popped in and they're like, okay, we'll get you oriented, we'll do all these things. So they helped out. But I was in that seat for four weeks and I jumped on an airplane and went 90,000 miles in my first year, visiting every country, visiting everybody in the program and learning all of what we do. So that period of time was an incredible whoosh of moving from a for-profit company which I knew a lot about, knew how to operate within, into something completely new. I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore when my people came through the door and said, Bill, we have to know how many goats to buy. Like goats. No one in the world has ever asked me how many goats to buy, but we were supplying goats to some communities, right? And I knew things had changed when I heard that.

SPEAKER_03

You're like, I need some context. I can probably figure this out, and you're gonna have to give me a little more than that.

SPEAKER_00

So I think the thing that I learned most out of all that experience is that God had a place in my heart for child evangelism, and I did not know that until he unlocked it. It had always been there. He was waiting and making it beautiful until the perfect time to unlock. And that's because my CEO founder at the nonprofit had his own time there. God knew he wanted him there for that particular amount of time. And he was asking me to wait at the Bible software company. Nope, don't go yet. Don't go someplace else. Don't go to another company. I got something for you. Just hold on. And the CEO's time had to go up. My time had to come. And when it came, it was like, okay, Bill, this is what you're about.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00

And he unlocked. And when he unlocked, everything came into focus. I was thinking, my goodness, I can now look back on those 25 years and see all the areas in which I learned and got prepared to be able to do what I'm doing now. And it's so clear to me. It wasn't in that first week, I can guarantee you that.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00

But after a bit of time, I said, ah, that's it. That's I get it now, and I know what this is about. And I know how to approach this, and I have some good ideas for these things. And ultimately, I am on Team Great Commission. Jesus told us as believers, go and make disciples. He didn't say, but you gotta be a pastor to do that. Or you must be a missionary to do that. No, there were no qualifications. If you're a believer, you're on Team Great Commission. And that can mean and take a lot of different shapes and sizes and all of it. So today I consider myself a member of Team Great Commission in this world called childcare worldwide. But it's what I'm doing now for God until he decides to pick me up and put me someplace else if that's his goal. Or I'll stay here until I'm 87, hand the ropes or the baton off to somebody else. I won't take them for five minutes and show them the folders I've been doing.

SPEAKER_03

You'll do what you did. You'll spend the month in the coffee shop with everyone, making sure they're good, right?

SPEAKER_00

That's right. Wow. But I will be prepared to do whatever he wants because I'm on Team Great Commission. And doing that means I am available for him.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So that's what I've learned in that span of time. I've gone from what do I do next, God? I was in radio to this Christian Microsoft thing. What's this? To bootstrapping it because we had nothing as a company, to being 450 members strong and very established to then brand new opportunity in nonprofit, which is so different from for-profit.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And now I'm seven and a half years into this job. And we've made huge changes. And we could talk about that, but it's just so clear to me that this is where I'm supposed to be. And I I want to just commend and commission anybody out there who, after years and years of doing something and thinking, this is what I do, this is the thing I do because I've done it for so long. Don't discount that God can walk in and say, wait a minute, I'm gonna unlock your heart. I'm gonna unlock it for something you don't even know about. But trust me, it's gonna be great. You are going to bless people. I'm gonna lead you through it, and we're gonna do some work together. I know that for a fact because I'm the recipient of that. And I can know that it can happen for anybody if it can happen for Bill.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so there's like 17 things from top of what you said that I want to talk about. And first of all, if you're just listening to the audio, you're probably not gonna be able to tell. But if you're watching the video and you're like watching my face as Bill is talking, I have to tell a little story. So right now we're going through this moment of figuring out, okay, we've grown to this certain point. And I wrote down while you were talking, go where you can grow. In fact, 10 minutes before this podcast started, full transparency, I'm like sitting halfway in my husband's lap, like he's like petting me on the head, and I'm like, We're doing it, I don't know what's going on. And I was like, I have this podcast in 10 minutes. But the funny part about this was that I was telling him I don't want to do any podcasts today. And yesterday, I was praying on what needed to happen today. And I was like, hey, God, look at my schedule tomorrow with me. And I heard him say, get in there and look at your podcast. And then I had two schedule, and he was like, cancel that one or reschedule that one. Like, okay. And I like looked at, I was like, ethically, I'm like, Am I in my normal reschedule? Am I like doing this? Because sometimes the enemy can get in there and make things sound that's right, like God. So I checked it, and then I went to click on yours and I heard God so clearly say keep that one. And I was like, You had me move around and cancel everything else. And he was like, keep that one. Like, okay, all right. The thing I've been working on for the last year very intensely, which you talked about here, which is you just you gotta be willing to go where he takes you and also not try to go somewhere he's not taking you. That's what I've been working on. So when I heard him say, yep, everything but that one, I was like, okay. And then even today, when I'm sitting in that chair 10 minutes before we start, and I'm like, I don't wanna, I'm like, and I'm gonna, because it doesn't matter what my flesh is telling me in this moment, I go where he sends me. I do what he tells me to do. And as you're talking, you are describing a process that you have fully gone through that I have gone through in one iteration, but for whatever reason, it did not occur to my brain that I could go through something twice.

SPEAKER_00

Sure.

SPEAKER_03

So, as someone who had a career as a nurse and a nurse practitioner, a professor for over a decade, who then became an entrepreneur, and let's see, that was five and a half years ago that I left clinical practice and left teaching. That pivot a lot of people looked at from the external and they were like, What are you doing?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I still have people that are close to me that are like, Are you ever and I'm like, I don't think so. If God leads me back to it, sure. But like He every time I even think about going that direction again when things get hard, the door is immediately shut.

SPEAKER_02

That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_03

Like, I I just feel nudged to ask you about this. What I have found over these last several years is that in this growth process, I'm doing the same thing often, but it's in different ways, it's in different iterations. Like he's giving me all of these opportunities to practice and practice. And I'm like, I get the sense that you're having me practice for something, I don't know what that something is yet, and I'm gonna be obedient.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And something you said near the end of what you were talking, like really struck me when you said he's giving me all these opportunities to learn these things, and you have this boss, which, oh my gosh, God bless your boss. That's the best boss story I've ever heard. Who is he's practicing kind candor with you and truth.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

He's promoting like faith and stepping out, right? And being curious, being flexible, like taking risks, not just any sort of risk, but like risk that helps you grow. And he's also recommending what's best for your long-term benefit, your eternal benefit, not his.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. And as I left, you're gonna love this. They gave me a graduation party.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my I'm just gonna cry five times on this podcast. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00

Because I was graduating from them and moving into the next thing. So it was a full on graduation party.

SPEAKER_03

That is so Beautiful, but I'm just sitting here going, okay. Also, you've got this voice. As soon as you said I was in broadcast, I'm like, yep, I hear it. I hear it. You're an amazing storyteller. Like, I'm sitting here for 15 minutes just going, uh-huh, uh-huh. Like, tell me more. You've hit on two things that I think our audience and myself, honestly, could really benefit from diving deeper into. And one is like just this willingness to be where you're at and grow where you are, and to really lock in with what God is telling you to do in terms of stay, go, moot, that piece. And then I think the other piece, it's almost the process of collecting these experiences for whatever it is he's gonna have you step into. Both the beauty of that and also the pain and the struggle of that. I'm just totally leaving that open-ended. Those are the two things. Please just whatever comes to you, share.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was interesting because in the decision, while we were still in that period of should I stay or should I go, my wife and I had a dinner one night and we were thinking, should we just keep talking about it? Should we really do this? And the thing I didn't mention earlier was there was definitely some material pain. I was taking about a 25 or 30 percent uh salary cut, right?

SPEAKER_03

Which is so often part of it.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. Moving from a for-profit company to a nonprofit, that just the categories are just not the same. Yeah. And you're not expected that you're gonna make what you're making at a tech company at all. And I totally get that, and I'd have no criticism of that. But that was definitely a consideration. The other was the organization at the time had zero benefits. So we're talking no insurance, no nothing, right? And I had to go on Cobra, which if you anybody knows about that's paying for the insurance you had at the other company, but paying double.

SPEAKER_03

We did literally the same thing when I went, okay, I'm gonna leave Ohio State and I'm going to work for myself. And they were like, Oh, great, here's your insurance, sixteen hundred dollars a month. And you're like, that's my mortgage.

SPEAKER_00

Yep, that's another mortgage. Same for us. It was the same thing. And my wife, Melissa, was just like, oh, I don't know about this. Because she was being practical. She's like, wait, now how are we gonna be safe? Right. Which was really what she was communicating. Yeah, not how am I gonna keep having the money that I have? It was more like, are we gonna be safe? Is this gonna work out okay? And my answer at the time was, I don't know, but I know that this is a thing and it feels like it's the right thing. And the doors haven't shut. And we just as hard as it might be, we're gonna have to trust God. And that seems like such a pithy thing to say. Oh, just trust God. Just keep trusting. But when you're in certain circumstances, there's a different kind of rubber meeting the road than when other circumstances where you're just anecdotally talking about trusting in God. So that was a real consideration and that was a real thing. And I'm telling you, the last couple of weeks before I actually announced that I was leaving, I was going back and forth in my head consistently. There was one day that I like, oh, I love this place. I just want to stay here. Oh, this is so good. But I knew that was because it was so comfortable. Yeah, and I was safe there, and I knew what was going to be next. And I had a lot of people I loved and cared for. That was the other hard part. I had to leave people that I was leading at that organization, that I was mentoring, and I was worried about them. It's like, oh, I've poured so much resource into those people and I don't want to abandon them. And so there were a hundred reasons for me to stay. But God kept saying, No, don't do that. I don't want you to do that. I gotta unlock your heart, Bill. Let me do it. Let me do it. And I was so glad that I let him do it because on the other side of it, we have been able to be taken care of. God's grace is so amazing, and his sense of care for you is so unbelievable. You can't understand it until you get past it and through it. And that's really what happened. I'm nowhere near making what I made at the software company, but guess what? I don't care. And God has taken care of us. Period. End of story. We've been taken care of. And there's been lots of circumstances that have been on that, on the way to that taking place, but ultimately it's all about his care. And him teaching us and giving us opportunities to learn is really about him discipling and edifying us and giving us a chance to get more and more aligned with his will for us. And we can fight against that and not even know we're fighting against it by saying, Oh, I don't think that's right for me, or oh, I'm scared of doing that, or what if I don't make as much money, or what if I have to move? And all those things are God saying, Listen, you're talking about circumstances that I can overcome so easily. Would you just let me help you overcome them? I can do it. Yeah. And yeah, it's easier to say that on the other side because there's real fear and there's real confusion about the whole thing. But as a person who did that, I'm just giving you one testimony that it can work. And it can work in an amazing way, which actually changed your life. This is my life work now. This is all it is, it's all it's ever been. Yet I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, there's something about when you walk through it and you're like really just surrendering to the fact that he's behind you and he's beside you, and he's in front of you, and also he exists outside of time, so he already knows what's gonna happen. It's already happened. And just going, yeah, all right. I'm just I'm scared and right, I'm terrified, and we have similar testimonies. And what I actually find interesting, and I'm just so appreciative of this conversation, is that when I originally left, like my faith was not then what it is now, and actually it ended up getting very much tested in the subsequent years, and that's where I really got to know him in the way that I did. And so leaving that position in my own strength and like kind of having him there, but going, like, yeah, I'll rely on you, God, but like only when I'm not strong enough to do it, versus the transition now and going, you know, just just like whatever you have for me, that's what I want. A prayer I've been praying recently in the morning when I get up, I always offer my day to Jesus and ask him to help me be blessed and be a blessing. Because that's a constant.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

But one of the things I've been praying recently is God, help me want what you want, love what you love, and hate what you hate.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm finding that like I'm I'm making decisions in a different way because I'm feeling repelled by things that before I wouldn't have had a sense one way or another. And I'm also feeling drawn towards things that I wouldn't have felt more drawn to. And it's very much not of me, it's of him. I see so much obedience and also surrender in your story. And you did something really brave. I know you said it was fear, but you did something really brave when your wife said, Essentially, are we gonna be safe? And you said, I don't know. Because I can remember being in that situation. I had a husband that's much like your wife, and he was like, I stay home with the kids, you're the only income. Are we gonna be safe? And I remember being like, it's gonna be great. We're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_00

Sure.

SPEAKER_03

And now I look back and I'm like, that was something I said in my own strength. And we have been fine by God's grace, and we've also gone through some ridiculously tough time. I think understanding his grace grew through those times because it was truly like daily bread situations. That's right. And when we have entrepreneurs who are going through these transitional seasons where they're being led to to go somewhere where they can grow and shift and make these big changes, and when we have people who are thinking about coming into entrepreneurship and they're like, but what about benefits? And what about this and what about that? And I'm like, look, you got to take this all to God and offer it up to him and be like, God, I trust you to provide daily bread.

SPEAKER_00

I'm so glad you said daily bread because coming into a nonprofit and learning about how we get our money, just not by selling a product, right? I can't just make more widgets, right? Yeah. I can't run a weekend sale to make the month. That was all the for-profit stuff we could do to if we were coming short or whatever. There was always some kind of lever to pull to instigate a sale or something like that. But that's not how it works in a nonprofit. In a nonprofit, you are, of course, 100% reliant upon the love and the care and the generosity of individuals. We don't take any government money, we don't take any huge, massive grants. We have just a lot of loving people who love kids, who want to serve God, and they give to us like they give a tithe. And coming into a nonprofit was like, oh, wow, what about money for next week or next month or next year? How does that work? And I had to reframe my thinking completely. And I had to help others in the organization do that too, because they were kind of all over the place. Like, when is the next major donor going to come? And what's going to happen here and when's going to happen this? What about the budget? And I instituted kind of the philosophy of God give us today our daily bread. Not tomorrow's bread, not next week's bread. We need the bread today, right? Yeah. So can you supply what we need for today? And it and can we be content and satisfied with that? And that's really our philosophy with our whole organization, right? Yes, we have budgets. Yes, we forward think. We're doing strategy and thinking about all the things we need to think about. But at the end of the day, we are as good as today's daily bread. And are we going to complain about today's daily bread? Are we going to be worried about it that it's not enough? God always shows up with just the right amount of bread. He's always done it. In seven years, I've seen crazy amazing things where I'm wondering, hmm, getting a little low on bread. I like bread, all that. And God delivers. And he delivers in ways that are so surprising. And most of the time it's because of something completely out of our hands. It wasn't like we instigated it. I didn't write an amazing appeal letter that just suddenly did it, right? I didn't present a picture that did the thing. It was God touching the hearts of people at the right time that was beyond what I could do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And then all of a sudden, bam, there it is. And I was like, oh God, you did it again. You keep doing it. Every day you keep being but you keep bringing the bread. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

It is so cool how he does that. I it's just like you can't even put into words the feeling of every time you have that experience. I don't know that I've told this story on here, but maybe about a year ago, we were low on daily bread. I'll just put it that way. We were low on bread in a lot of ways, both physically and spiritually, just in a lot of ways. And I had an event that I needed to go to in North Carolina. And the night before, my husband and I are like, literally, how do we pay for this? Like, how is this gonna happen? Like this, I have to go there. God is calling me together. I have no idea how I'm doing this, how we're feeding the kids and paying the bills and this event. And we were just talking it through. And again, we're a for-profit. So I was like, maybe I can sell something. What can I? And I'm trying, and that feeling when you keep offering it up to God, and it's like, no, that's not it. No, that's not it. No, that's not it. And all of a sudden I just heard so clearly, go to bed. And I was like, God, I have to leave.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

At eight in the morning. It is 11 at night.

SPEAKER_00

I gotta make a sale.

SPEAKER_03

And I just heard it again, go to bed. And I fell asleep so quickly, which was like, I was expected, you know, and I needed to drive seven hours. And I wake up the next morning and my husband and I still know answer. Right. And we're sitting there and we're talking and we're talking, and all of a sudden I heard post this.

SPEAKER_01

And I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_03

$17 offer. And within five minutes, we had sold several. Oh my gosh. And not just people saying all my like people clicking the link. Like it took me five, it took me, I think, 15 minutes. I like ran upstairs to my husband. I was like, I'm gonna throw this together. I have to leave by 11. I have to leave by 11. I throw this together and there's enough, and I'm like, I can fill up the gas tank.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03

And he's like, Are you going though? Because you don't have enough to get back. And I was like, I'm leaving. I'm hearing very clearly I'm leaving. I kid you not, $17 sales came in while I was driving. And every time I stopped at a gas station, I'd move the money over and I'd fill up and then I'd go. And when I got there, there was enough to do everything that was needed.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03

And then when I left, there was enough to get home.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And then that experience alone turned into later on, like multiple five-figure sales. It literally changed the way that we structured our business. Wow. Because of what happened in that event. And as if that wasn't enough. I'm driving home and it's the roads of West Virginia.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm like thanking him the whole way. I'm just like, that was so amazing, and I'm so grateful for you. And all of a sudden I hear pull over. And I was like, I have gas. I'm good. You provided. And I hear pullover. I was like, okay, pulling a gas station. I'm like, I'll just top up quick. I may be there for three minutes. I get back on the highway and it starts like pouring rain to the point I can't see. And all of a sudden, like 200 feet in front of me, there is the gnarliest accident.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03

There is a bumper that as I kid you not, Bill, maybe two seconds before I drive by, the driver pulls the bumper out of the way.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03

I would have ran it over.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03

And in that moment, he's like, I don't just provide daily bread financially. Like, I I care about you.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

I'm here. I'm always with you. I'm always protecting you. I'm always providing for you.

SPEAKER_00

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

And it's not always going to make sense to you. So after that, I came home and I told my husband, I was like, look, like I am 10 toes down in whatever he tells us to do because his ways are so much better than mine. But I wanted to share that too because even a few months later, your brain, your body can start to forget that. And all of a sudden you're back in the like.

SPEAKER_00

I was just going to say that we have a built-in forgetter.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Our sin is a built-in forgetter. It wants to wipe our hard drive, right? And immediately remove that experience and what we learned. So that you face the next thing with the doubt and the fear and the whole thing all over again. And you know what? That's not unique to you and me. You go read the Bible and listen to what the disciples went through. They were built-in forgetters every other day. What about the things I showed? And the disciples are like, uh just why we go to church every Sunday. We need to get ourselves filled back up with our brain getting back and filled again with things that are true, things that are right, so we can get back into it the next day and the next few days and all that, knowing that our little hard drives can just get wiped out and kind of being freed up and built-in forgetter. And then some of us, of course, are lucky enough to be in situations where we can read the Bible every day, we can be inspired by a podcast that gives us a good word. We can do all those things. And our built-in forgetter is not coming down too far, right? We're still kind of sitting there with God on our mind, knowing how good he is, remembering what he's done. And I'm so grateful for that in my life because I don't know what it'd be like on Friday if I had a built-in forgetter with nothing going on, right? And if I didn't go to church. So I always encourage people that God speaks through his word, he speaks through preaching, he speaks through teaching. We must get ourselves in front of something like that. I'm not saying you got to go join a denominational church or you got to do all those things. I'm saying be in front of a place where he can preach to you in the way that he does biblically. That will fill you back up and that will remove the problem mostly of this built-in forgetter, which we have this amazing experience that we go through, and it's a testimony that he wants us to share and all that. And a month later we have forgotten about that.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And we face something similar, and it's like back to God again. Oh, God, how are you going to do this? What are you going to do? And we forget what he did, right? And I feel so much like the disciples in a situation like that because there's examples everywhere of him doing it. And I have to stop and say to myself, Oh, God, remind me of who you are. Remind me of what you've done. Help me to never forget the care and the grace and the miracles you've put in my life. Oh, my God. Because if I have those on front of my head, then the next time I'm confronted with the built-in forgetter that Bill has, it's not going to last very long. Yeah. Because I'll remember you. And that's what I want to do. I want to remember him and what he's done.

SPEAKER_03

So there's two things in this. One, I'm I love that you actually pointed it out in the disciples because the place I always saw it before was right after Moses leads the Israelites into wilderness after they he's parted the sea, and like again, massive miracle. Like, and I don't think people put that miracle into context. In 2026, we can't no, I don't we don't imagine that miracle correctly because that was not it's not like a little river, y'all, like the stream that runs in your backyard. And also, it was almost two million people by estimates. If you go on the very low side, it was a million. That that is wild. Okay. So then I also think about Moses leading a million people, and I'm like, Lord, him, not me. Again, if you want me to do it, I will, but that's a lot.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But I think about just a few short days, weeks later, they're like, we should have stayed in Egypt.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, template. God, the food you're sending from the sky is no longer any good.

SPEAKER_03

We're bored with mana, God. Can we have something else? And I'm like being flippant, but but again, but I do the same thing. I'm like, oh my gosh, God, like he's like, Do you not? And I don't see him as getting annoyed with us, but I do see it as he's gotta laugh a little bit and be like, Oh, she forgot again, right? Yeah, but the second thing I wanted to pull out about what she just said here, because my background is in nervous system regulation. And so you said something super important from a science perspective of keeping your focus and what you are consuming, what you are hearing, what where you are paying attention, keeping that on God and on his word. Our reticular activating system, part of our brain, which is very similar to I mean you'd probably be able to speak to this more, but when we are using our phone, the app we have pulled up in front of us, that's what our phone's focused on. Yeah, there's stuff running around in the background, but that is where the primary amount of your energy is going. So if you're focusing on worldly things, then your brain is going to see things from a worldly perspective.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

And one of the most common things I hear from people is, oh, well, I don't go to church because and I'm like, look, my husband and I are Catholic, so the denomination conversation, we typically even just don't try to have that with people because it's very contentious.

SPEAKER_00

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

And I don't care what you do or where you go, find a way to receive his word. And even if that's you spending a year in the Bible reading that a little bit each and every day, he will lead you to the community you're supposed to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

But don't cut yourself off because oh, I was hurt at church or I I had this bad experience. The church is a crucial component. And I wanted to actually hear a little more about that with you because I know that's how you do a lot of your work is through the local churches. That's right. The church is so important. Don't hear what I'm not saying. And the word, like center yourself in that. And that is gonna make a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's right. And I think the back to the social media thing or the phone thing, that people tend to be a little prideful and they say, Oh, I don't look at pornography or I don't look at these bad things. And I'm telling you, the harmless things are the things that are gonna get into you. Yeah. They're the ones that are gonna get into your head and over time completely distract you from anything that God wants you to see. Yeah. And I think that's the harmless. It's it starts slow and it starts relatively painless and all that, but then it does happen. And so again, don't want to preach to people, don't get on social media, but be careful. Be careful about the amount of time you're spending, right? Because it is that amount of time that is either a choice between you know doom scrolling or getting something into your head that's edifying, that's going to remind you, that's going to remove your forgetter, your built-in forgetter, and remind you of what God's doing in this world. So that's a very important thing. But the other thing to remember is the church is filled with sinners, filled with sinful people who need a savior. And as a result, sinful people do weird things.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00

And churches become weird sometimes.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And experiences inside are weird, and people have motivations that are weird. And if that's your Christianity, if that's your faith, you're gonna be disappointed a lot. And you're gonna church hop forever, and you're never gonna find the perfect thing. And what you're gonna end up doing is going to a place that looks a lot like a coffee shop that has some people you're friendly with, but that's about it. Right. And that that's not God's idea of preaching the word to you. So I just want to say that it doesn't have to be this old timey back roads church. It doesn't have to be any of those kinds of things. Go to a place where a pastor preaches God's word and be edified by that and listen, right? And make that the focus of why you're there. Yes, of course, you're gonna build great relationships with people. I hope. And you'll probably have good experiences for your family to participate in and all that. And that's the community part of being Christian. That's great, right? But it's we go to church to hear the word. And if the word is not being preached, then you gotta really think about what you're doing there. Yeah. Because it's a distraction otherwise. And we, with our built-in forgetters, are not going to get filled up the way we should. So I say that all the time. And the thing that's important about the ministry that I'm in and our partnership with the church is that our churches, especially in places like Africa, have pastors who have zero formal education. They have never gone through anything. They barely even have a Bible or a library to themselves. And many of them learn how to preach by watching YouTube. They're imitating and doing things. That could either go good or go bad. And if you don't know the foundation principles of the Bible and you're imitating somebody on TV, you could be doing things that are not quite what the Bible talks about. Sure. So I think what I've experienced now about knowing that and actually being there, because when I go to church and I visit those people and I love doing that, the African church lasts three and a half hours.

SPEAKER_03

It's if you've ever been through a church, it's well, my grandparents are black Baptist, and I we had our own version of three out, four-hour church on who I'm like, yeah, it's amazing. And it's you are tired when you are done. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yes, you're worked out. But I what I saw was a hunger.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I saw a hunger for God and his word and what God would be saying. And these people were ready to get the meat. They just didn't know where to get it or how to get it because they didn't have it physically. They didn't, the pastor didn't have this massive library in their office, right? So what we did is when we came in with our own child curriculum that we build here and deliver to the kids on Saturday, that ended up being a huge gap for the church themselves, our partner. The church is like, whoa, we don't have anything like this. And actually, the kids' curriculum you're bringing to us is doing amazing things for our life center teachers who didn't know the Bible said these things. And now their lives are being transformed. And now the pastor's like, wait a minute, can I use this for my Sunday school class? Or like, of course. And then the pastor's like, well, wait a minute. If you guys are talking about this on Saturday in Life Center with our kids, and then my Sunday school's thinking about it, maybe I should actually preach on it.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00

And now we've got more churches that are united in the topic or the area that we're teaching the kids because the pastor has been so starved for resources and really needs to know about what the Bible actually says rather than some interpretation of a guy on YouTube. So we have been seeing churches that have been becoming transformed because the curriculum we're writing is going to a kid. And now who can make that work, right? We never had any intention that the curriculum we were going to write was going to be the pastor's preaching notes, right? But God had a way. God was like, you know what? I'm going to take this stuff that you're going to teach the kids and I'm going to build it out so that the rest of the church can benefit from it too. In these churches that have no resources to get the things, I'm going to make sure that they start hearing the word.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that has been amazing to see. So now when I go back and visit, when my wife comes with me, my wife Melissa writes the curriculum. She's amazing. We go there and we get these testimonies from the people in the churches that are just like, oh, we talked about this last week, and our kids did too. And we're really thinking about that. And it's so wonderful. We can't wait to come back next week to keep talking about it. And it was of no power from us. We didn't put that plan together. Yeah. God did that. So these are just the small ways that God can use something you're doing, which you think you're targeting specifically for a certain type of person, in this case, a kid, right? And bring that out and blossom that to a much greater group of people that then starts to change communities. We've had moms and dads of these kids that are in our program finally come and investigate the church a little bit because, hey, you know, Sammy's having a really great time at Life Center, and Sammy's coming home and telling us these things about what he learned. And he seems to be a much more adjusted and happier kid now. And so let's go check out what's happening. They go check it out, and of course, the church starts to engage them. And before we know it, we've had people who've have not only started coming to church but then became church members because their kids started in our life center. The power of God.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it makes sense too. And what I think is so beautiful about that is if their kids coming home and talking about a lesson, and then the pastor or the church leaders are starting to actually use that in their sermons on Sunday. Everybody's hearing about the same things. That's right. The kids are learning the same things as the adults, conversations start happening. That is beautiful. And you you talked about that hunger piece. And I see so often, especially in the US and other Western countries, like more than I think other places. Sometimes that hunger, you can temporarily satiate it with other things.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

Because we have social media, we have all of these things that are available that you can use as distractions. And again, going back to what you were saying, of it's not that these things are bad. No, it's not that these things are like inherently sinful. And the word sin, a lot of times people say it's missing the mark. And in fact, one of the other translations that I just learned recently that was so helpful was no, it's division.

SPEAKER_00

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

You are being separated from your divinity, your divine connection with God.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

So anything that's gonna distance you from him, it's not that the thing itself is inherently sinful, but it's the consequence of you participating with it is leading towards sin. And so I've had to lean into that a lot, just personally, but and also my husband is in the process of starting a nonprofit ministry involving baseball.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And which is this is something that God's been leading to for a while. And what you're talking about here is something that we've seen is you've got these people, these men who, okay, well, yeah, there's a men's group at church, but I can't go just meet with a bunch of random guys. I don't know, like men and sit in a room and talk. Most men we don't do that. And he's like, but there's a lot of men out there that loved playing baseball as a kid or would have loved playing baseball if they'd had the opportunity. And what if we just set up opportunities for them to come out and play? But we're gonna start with a Bible verse, we're gonna meditate on that while we're playing, we're gonna look at the principles around that, and then at the end, we'll go grab a Coke or a beer or whatever, and we'll sit and we'll talk. Then and it's just such a simple idea, but it's the whole thing of like how do we center the word in a way that uh like with the assets we have in a way that the people who need to hear it most will actually engage with it.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, the thing you were saying about the distractions and stuff. The thing I admire and long for, actually, is when I do go to these other countries, there are no distractions. They don't have people aren't looking at their phones 24-7. When you've got, especially on a Sunday, you get there early, and then after Sunday church is done, you're these people are sitting out underneath the tree in the yard and they're talking for another few hours, right? Because that's what you do and you talk about things and you relate to one another. And there isn't this kind of immediate pull to get back home because the football game's on, or get back home because the kids are wanting to go have their play date with whatever. And there isn't all this kind of pressure, nonstop pressure to keep moving and keep doing. And I think that is inherently a case that you see here in the US for sure, is that there's always the next thing to do, which is why our churches have contracted in the amount of time. It's don't you dare preach over 20 minutes because I got stuff happening, right? At noon, I got to be in, right? Or I'm starting to fidget because you're going too long. And we just put this contraction on that entire process of being in church because we've got things before it and we got things backed up after it. And then I've got a phone in my pocket that's vibrating, and I want to pull it out to see who's texting me in the middle of church. We got these things, and I think that those are tools that can be used for good and tools that can be used as massive detractors and distractions from what God's trying to teach us. And I'm just saying, people be discerning, do as best you can because it's tempting and it's hard. And sometimes you need that text because it's an emergency. I get it. Sure. But there's also good reason to say stop, be quiet, and listen.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And I think starting your day off that way is huge. I've noticed, and I I really hope that nobody hears that I am even close to perfect around this because I'm not. I got on TikTok this morning when I got up and I was like, what am I doing? Right, right. This is what I want to be doing. And it does go to that habit formation piece too, because typically I leave my phone plugged in in a different place. And last night I left it by my head so I could just do my thing. And so it's so easy. And I think that's the important thing for people to understand too, is it's so easy to just have those little distances, right? That's right. And to bring this back to the entrepreneurial piece, I see the same thing happening in entrepreneurship here in the US. There's so much noise. Yeah, there's so much you could do it this way, or you could do it this way. No, this is the right way, no, this is the right way. And in reality, the right way is God's way. So something I've seen that's just so amazing is you can do everything wrong, you know, in quotations, wrong. And God blesses it. And people are like, How'd you do that? You're like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_03

But for the grace of God, that that's how I did it, because there's no reason that should have worked.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

And so it is this going back to the beginning, it's that obedience and that surrender to even if God, like, even if I don't know how this is gonna turn out, even if it doesn't go the way that I'm hoping it to go, I trust that it will work out for your good. And you, I am your child. I am a brother or sister in Christ, right? And so those promises that come to me as your child, as a brother and sister in Christ, the promises that come to me say that your good is for my good too.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. Yeah, you said earlier that you had a prayer that you pray every day, and I have one too. And the one that I have goes like this I say, God, thank you for saving me. That's presenting faith and saying, God, thank you. I believe, thank you for saving me. And the next thing I say is, make me available. Period. That doesn't mean make me available from 2 to 4 p.m.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That doesn't mean make me available as I'm going into this shop tonight or going to this meeting or going to this or going to that. There are no fences around that. There's no criteria or qualification around it. It is make me available. That means I'm saying, God, however you want to do that, I'm there for you. I'm ready to be a part of your team. Just make me available. And when you pray that prayer, I'm telling you, God will surprise you in the ways he brings you to something, right? Or has you be the person talking to somebody else at the right time with the right thing. You didn't rehearse it, you didn't orchestrate it, you didn't try to do any of those things. It just happened because you offered yourself up to God to be available. That's a scary prayer to pray because you better be ready. He's gonna make you available in things that you don't think you're available for. But I'm telling you, the point is don't put a fence around that. Don't put criteria on it, and don't say to yourself, I'm only gonna do it between this and this. That's not God's economy. That's not how he works. He says, I either want all of you or you can go your other way and you can go wherever your heart wants to drive you. But I want all of you. Are you willing to give me all of you? Because if you are, then I'll make you available. I can use anybody. God's God can use lots of other people. I tell that to our folks at childcare all the time. God can use another organization to do this. I want him to use us.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I want to be ready for him and available for him. I want this organization to be shaped to be available. And if we approach that way every day, with generosity and with genuineness and commitment, God does it. And when he does it in his unique way, that we could never attempt to replicate ourselves. No way. So I say that all the time. God, thank you for saving me. Make me available. And the other thing I tell people all the time is join team great commission. And that doesn't mean you've got to get on an airplane and fly thousands of miles someplace and be uncomfortable in the middle of the jungle. That's not what that means. It means sometimes being on Team Great Commission is talking to your neighbor.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It might be going and being friendly to the person at the gas station when you're filling up. It might be in the grocery store when you'd like to get the heck out of there because there's so many people. There's somebody there that is going to come to you and you need to talk and be available to them, right? Yeah. That's Team Great Commission. Sometimes people can just be a resourcer. They don't have to be on the front line. They don't have to stand on the sidewalk with the sign. They can be the people that resource the people that do that.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

So I tell people like that all the time: I'm so glad for our resourcers, our donors who are participating in Team Great Commission by resourcing those who are doing it. That is just as valuable a team membership as the people who are actually out there on the front lines. It all comes together and God makes it work. So that Team Great Commission is my kind of mantra that I talk about all the time. And thank you for saving me, make me available, no strings attached.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. We talk about the gifts in Romans 12, 6 through 8, the seven spiritual gifts that God gives us by his grace. And one of those gifts is the steward, right? It's the one who is able to easily and beautifully identify assets and allocate them in a divinely directed way.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

And a lot of people go, Oh, I just have money. And so I'm just giving. No, what you're doing is you're stewarding an asset that God has given you for his good, for the good. And like is huge. And also, we're all called as entrepreneurs and as Christians. We're all called to develop in those seven spiritual gifts because Jesus perfectly embodied all those gifts. We are working to become sanctified to be more like him, which means we gotta grow in those gifts.

SPEAKER_01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

So I will say this too is that I see a lot of people who we call the taskmaster, they're very hands-on.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And sometimes I'm like, Great, are you tithing?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03

And they're like, Well, I am like, look, what we personally do is 10%. And it is 10% off the top. It is the first fruit. It is not after taxes, after this, after that. It's one of those things that again, are you in the word? Do you know God's promises? I always find this so fascinating that there's all these warnings against testing or tempting the Lord in the Bible. There's a lot. But the one place that God says, go ahead and test me. And He's not saying it sarcastically. He says, Give me your first fruits and I will multiply your asset. And again, that's another reason to get in your word and really know it because it's going to help you grow in entrepreneurship. And also, it's another form of obedience and surrender. You're saying, God, this is not mine.

SPEAKER_00

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

None of this is mine.

SPEAKER_00

No, it all comes back to do you trust me?

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Because if you trust me, you're going to trust me with your first fruits, with your best.

SPEAKER_03

With your best.

SPEAKER_00

You don't trust somebody who you give the dregs to or you give the last little crumb to. Yes. You only trust people that you give the best to. And that's what we're saying in our faithfulness around stewardship, around integrity, around being on Team Create Commission is all a form, whether it's tithing or resourcing, however you may do that. It's a form of saying, I trust you, God. I'm going to trust you. You have given me so much. I'm going to trust you with this because I know you're going to give me my daily bread, right? And I know that you're going to care for me. And I'm I'm more than just a flower. There's all these things, right? The Bible says all about it. We can trust and we can have that confidence. We just have to get past our circumstances and the things telling us all the time, you can't trust God. You can't trust God. Isn't that what Satan did in the garden? He absolutely said, How can you really trust what he says? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Did he really say yeah? That and that's it. And I started laughing because yesterday my husband and I were coming home and I was telling him about these ideas that I've been having and what I think I need to create. And this is also what I was low-key crashing out about before we hopped on here of like this can't be it because I've tried this so many times. But yesterday, as I got out of the car, I started worrying a little bit. And I heard God say, Do you trust me?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And I forgot. From last night till 1 30 p.m., I forgot.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. That's how it works.

SPEAKER_03

You said it, and I just had to just laugh because what a perfect little bow to tie around this.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That really is what it is. Do you trust him? There are so many worldly reasons to doubt. And when you look at stories like yours, when you look at the places God's taken you and the amount of good you've been able to do in all of your roles, and also just the stepping stones that 35 years ago you would have been like, How am I gonna end up there?

SPEAKER_00

No chance.

SPEAKER_03

It all comes back to that central question.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Do you trust? Do you trust? Keep trusting. That's really the end of the whole thing, isn't it? Just keep trusting. Yeah. No matter what comes your way, just keep trusting. God's good. God loves us. God wants to provide. God wants to do wonderful things for us. And more importantly, He wants to prepare us. And preparing us means we go through things where we can learn. I'm so grateful to being able to being to wanting to continue to learn, right? And that means learning professionally, and that also means learning what God has for me next. And there's no kind of criteria that needs to be put on that. I'm just willing to be taught by Him wherever it comes from, however it looks. And that's really the kind of the thing about trust is there's no guardrails around that. There's no fence around it. You either trust or you don't.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And we trust with qualifications as humans. But God doesn't work that way. It's all trust 100%. Be loyal to me. If you can be loyal and you can trust, watch out. I'm going to show you my girl, my glory. I'm going to show you what I can do. I'm going to show you who I am. And it's amazing when he does that.

SPEAKER_03

I sponsor, it's called OCIA. I sponsor people who aren't Christian who are thinking about becoming Catholic or people who are Christian who want to convert to Catholicism. And every Tuesday we meet, and a couple of times a quarter, one of the priests will come in and we can pepper him with all of our questions, right? And of course, we're talking about some really heavy-hitting stuff last time. And one of the topics that came up was confession. And I know a lot of people, this is a very contentious thing. And the priest said something that was so fascinating. He's relatively new. He's, I think, just celebrated his year, right?

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And he goes, one of the top things that people ask me is, Father, like, I don't want to come in here and tell you everything I've done because I'm a terrible sinner. And he's like, you know what's the best part about this? You, as a terrible sinner, are going to be telling all of your terrible sins to another terrible sinner. He's like, I'm no better than you. Okay. I got to get a confession myself. And everyone was like, what? And he's like, yes. And then the other thing he said was that there's a saint, I cannot remember who it is right now. I'll put it in the show notes. But she was having these experiences where like Jesus was appearing to her and she's having conversations and her priest didn't believe her. And he was like, Prove it to me by asking him what I confessed about.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Next time. And she's okay, I will. So she leaves, she comes back, and Father says, What did Jesus say? And she says, He says he doesn't remember. Because as soon as you go to God and you read and you say, God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry and trust you. I'm sorry I doubted.

SPEAKER_00

As far as the East is from the West.

SPEAKER_03

He forgives it immediately and holy. And so I thought that was so gorgeous of just remembering that even if you have these moments of not trusting him and you realize you're not trusting him, just start doing it again.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. We're forgiven and it reminds us of our need for a savior.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I wanted to add the last part in. Because if you heard that last part and you're like, oh my gosh, it's been so long since I trusted him. Okay, cool. Go tell him and you can both forget about it.

SPEAKER_00

The the fact that you're breathing air today means you've got an opportunity, right? You have yet another opportunity to say to God, you know what? I'm I want to turn around and I want to go this way now with you.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

You can do that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Bill, seriously, I feel like I say this often and I mean it every time, but truly one of my favorite episodes I've ever recorded. Thank you so much for being open and just giving so much value and so much wisdom. I always like to offer the opportunity for you to tell our audience a little bit about where they can go to connect with you further.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. That'd be great. Yeah, please. Childcareworldwide.org. That's our website. When you go to that site, you're going to see all the things that we do. Our primary program is Life Center, and that's on Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. till noon, where we have around 35 kids in each Life Center. We have about 76 Life Centers. So every Saturday, these kids are at church for three hours. They are outside having fun. They go inside, they have praise and worship, a lot of fun singing and dancing and all of that. And then they have Bible study time with their life center teacher. And then when they're done with that, they go and they have a nutritious meal. And for many of these kids, that's the best meal they get all week because they're from poverty situations. Their folks are day laborers. They don't know where their money's going to come. They don't know where their daily bread's going to come. So that one meal is a really substantial meal for those kids and they love it. So that happens in 76 different locations every Saturday. I wake up Saturday morning because of my time zone and I get pictures from all my WhatsApp Life Center groups that are showing me kids praising Jesus and having a wonderful time in Life Center. So that's what people can resource is kids coming to Life Center. We want more and more kids to be able to come on Saturday. So if we get more people to help us do that, we're going to have more kids that are able to do it. So Life Center is our primary thing. We do, of course, deal with some holistic issues. Some places have malaria problems, and of course, there's fresh water that's needed for these kids and food from time to time and that kind of thing. So we definitely participate in that. But our core mission is Life Center on Saturday and a place that's like an oasis for a kid in the midst of all their issues and their trouble and the hardness of life. When they come to Life Center, they're there to be with their peers and to have a Life Center teacher who just loves them and just cares for them. And it's their oasis. And we want more kids to have an oasis like that. So we're looking for people to decide to help us send kids to their oasis, the Life Center, on Saturday. ChildcareWorldwide.org will give you the information on how to do it. We'd love to have you a part of our team to do that.

SPEAKER_03

I know that there are people in our audience who are going to be so excited. And when we send out our podcast newsletter too, I know there's going to be a couple who are going to want to hop right on that. So I'm so glad we get to spread that for you. And yeah, just thank you again for being so open and just such a great conversation.

SPEAKER_00

Anytime. I just love talking about my experience and how that can help others. And then to hear from others about what they've learned that God has done in their life that I can take from and use in my everyday. This is daily bread, right? It doesn't have to be food. It doesn't have to be money. It can be just good words that remind us of the grace of God. And I thank you for bringing that to me today.

SPEAKER_03

You were an answer to a prayer for me today. So I just want you to know that. Thank you for this conversation.

SPEAKER_00

I'm grateful for that. It was because God made me available, right? And that's how He does it. And somebody else will be available to you, and you'll be available to somebody else. That's just how it goes. So God bless you for that.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. On that note, to all of our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and joining Bill and I for this conversation. And please be sure to go to the show notes and check out his organization and be a resourcer if you are able, if God calls you to. And we will catch you for next week's episode.