Latest / The Redeemed Backslider / My Journey Home- Joanna Hilton #TRB Episode 64

Transcript

My Journey Home- Joanna Hilton #TRB Episode 64 · The Redeemed Backslider

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to take a minute and make an appeal to you.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: We are almost at the end of our second year filming podcasts of Backsliders and those who never knew the Lord who have come to the Lord in recent years to bring episodes to you on the Redeemed Backslider.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: And up until this point, I have been funding the expense of these episodes, and I'm very happy to do that.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord has blessed me in my practice, and I have a burden for this ministry.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, it's just been a no-brainer.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: But the reason that I'm coming to you now and asking if you would prayerfully consider supporting this ministry is because there is more that we want to do to reach the backslider and also to reach those who still need to know the Lord.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: As you know, we hosted our first unshackled conference.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was a conference for prodigals by prodigals.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone involved in the conference was a prodigal, including my pastor, and including all of the speakers.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we plan to host another conference like that and bring in even more speakers that are prodigals and those who have a real burden in a ministry to the prodigals and to the families of prodigals because families go through so much while their loved one is not come home yet.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's other things that we are working on.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Part of that is church assessments, church curriculum curriculum.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry about that.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Many other things that I am doing in conjunction with some friends in Louisiana at High Hope Ministry.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: And they also have a prodigal ministry that is a podcast.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And together we are combining our resources and combining our ministries to create a ministry that is specifically for churches and for families.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a lot of time and expense in doing all of those things.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, prodigals go through a lot, um, as you guys have heard on this podcast, of trying to get back to the place in God that they want to get back to.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: And we're counseling prodigals, both of us are ministries, counseling prodigals that haven't come home yet, and doing other things, working with prodigals, but all of that takes time and resources.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you are a prodigal and you have come back to God, and maybe you're in ministry now, maybe you're not, maybe you're just happily serving the Lord.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or if you're a family member of a prodigal, or if you just have a burden for this ministry, or if you have a business that you want to spotlight on this ministry, we could really use your help.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that, you know, that the economy isn't great right now, but I do believe that God blesses those who bless him and the people of God.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm a giver, I give to a lot of ministries, and I know that's why God has allowed me to do what I've done to this point, but I'm at a critical point where we need to go to the next step.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you can visit our website if you have a desire to partner with us.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the website address is the redeemed backslider.org, and there's a donation page.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: You can do a monthly gift, which would be great, um, of any denominational amount, or you could do a one-time gift, and you will receive at the end of the year um a letter with your gift being tax deductible because we are a 501c3.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I just wanted to take a moment and ask if you'd prayerfully consider partnering with us.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um we gotta reach people.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's all I can say is we just have to reach people.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm doing this because I don't know any other way to do it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but the more resources we have, the more we can do.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: So um I just want to thank you in advance and thank you so much for praying for this ministry and for watching the episodes we put out, and um and I pray that God would bless you in your decision.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider with your host, Kathy Chastain, Christian-based psychotherapist and redeemed backslider.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is dedicated to those who have wandered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom found in Jesus.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Kathy Chastain.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and a redeemed backslider.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: With me today from North Carolina is Joanna Hilton.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Joanna um is the owner of decorative plants.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: She attends church in Franklin Truth at Franklin Truth Church in North Carolina.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she is married and the mother of three.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I am just learning her story.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Sister Billie Jean Bishop uh gave me her name and telephone number um because Sister Joanne is part is part of the Partners in Prayer network.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so we'll definitely talk about that.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but Joanne, thank you for coming today uh to be on the podcast and be willing to share your story.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: I look for every opportunity to help someone.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I read a little bit about your history, and you were not raised in church, but you began going to church when you were a teenager, is that correct?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yes, I was um started out in the Catholic Church when I was young, um, was raised in a Catholic school.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, of course, back then um divorce was not so uh accepted in the Catholic Church, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so um we were actually back then the Catholic schools were free.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I just found that out a couple years ago.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you were a part of a Catholic church that had a school, then you could go to your parents could send you to the school for nothing.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I didn't realize that, but back then I guess that was just the way it was.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: But my uh myself and my two brothers both went to Catholic school, and um it was, you know, just the full back then, you know, it was the black habits to the ground, you know, and the the people at the school then were nuns, the ones that taught the school.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all the all the teachers were nuns.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so um was it strict, like um like we see strict, like we see in the movies where they're just no good.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was very strict.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: My you know, thankfully they didn't have a kindergarten, so I went to kindergarten in public school, but in the first grade, I had my first Catholic nun teacher, and she was a little, she was a little um I want to say nicer.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just I can't think of any other word.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: She was very nice, and she was very loving to us children, and um we sang a lot, and you know, it was one of it was the first time that I felt real connect, really connected to God because we would sing a lot of songs, and but um even back in the first grade, I remember a friend of mine and I got in trouble.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: We were on the bus going to school, and I guess I didn't have any very good influences.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was in the first grade and we started hollering dirty words to people outside the window in the bus.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, we got you wonder where that comes from, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like in the first grade, you're barely six years old.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I guess we were my parents were they had a group of people they are always with.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: We camped with them a lot on the weekends, and I guess and and my parents loved bowling, so we were in the bowling center with these friends all the time.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: They just couldn't.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we just yeah, so we just heard the words and we knew they weren't we weren't supposed to say them.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess you know, uh that young, yeah, it's just like you don't really you're just doing something because you know it's not right, you're not supposed to do it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: So me and my best friend, which is uh he was uh a boy, and we had grown up even before we went to school together, um, we knew we were in big trouble because we were told on.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we um we could almost hear the footsteps coming down the hallway.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the principal of the school.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I remember her name was Sister Cabrini.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: She wore the full black, I mean, habit to from head to toe.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And she came to this first grade room swing in her paddle.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, wow.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And she was she was there to scare us.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if she really was gonna do anything to us as first graders, but I think she met she was gonna put the fear in us, and so immediately when my friend saw her, he just started bawling, just crying.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and I just stood there, and um, and she she gave us a good talking to, and it definitely put the fear in us.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: But it was things like that, yeah, a lot of things like that that I remember.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: How how long did you stay in Catholic school?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: How old were you?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, did you go through out high school?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, um, in the fourth grade, when I was in the fourth grade, my mother divorced, and um, that ended the free school.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Catholic.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we went for a while, we would go on Sundays, um, and my mother is still very devout Catholic.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we kind of quit going for a while at that time.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was when we started going into public school.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Do you uh this is a little sidebar, but I find it so relevant.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um do you remember the effect divorce had on you?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what the marriage was like, I don't know, but sometimes it's a positive thing if there's a lot of chaos in the house.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's a relief if a parent is gone, but you know, in other ways it's very devastating.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel like that is a um that that was a major factor in your life?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I do.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was it was a major turning point in my life.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had two brothers that were three and four years older than me.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So um you figure in the fourth grade I was around 10, I guess, nine, nine or ten, we would be.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think yeah.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: In the fourth grade, maybe ten or eleven.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my brothers then were, you know, yeah, they were like into their teenage years.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um they're most critical 12 and 13.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was just uh it was it was both things.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was a parallel of both things that you mentioned.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was devastating because there was a lot of fighting going on.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the last thing that I remember was um my dad coming in one night late, and my mother had been at the bowling alley and drinking and playing and bowling, and um I woke up to the sound of him fighting with her, and I walked into the room and he had his fist in her just ready to punch her in the face.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know what to do because this was not a home that I was used to.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this was we had there was fighting, there was a lot of fighting that was going on towards the end.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: But to see that as a young child, you know, your strong dad, um, who worked as a welder every day, you know, over your mother like that, it terrified me.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I started screaming and I ran to the top of the stairs where my brother slept in the basement.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I ran to the top of the stairs and I just started screaming.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And my um my dad came to me and they calmed me down.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: They said, It's okay, you know, you're gonna be okay.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it was right after that that my parents decided to do a you know a separation for a little while, and that didn't work, and so they ended up being divorced.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I was relieved in the sense that the fighting ended, you know, there wasn't that screaming and hollering and fighting about things, and so actually I in the eighth grade I wrote a paper.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: I had to do an essay.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no, that was in high school.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: In the eighth grade, I wrote a story, and the teacher sent it to my mother, and I found it many years later in her dwarf her dresser dwarf.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I wrote a long story about it, it was everything that had happened with the fight, with the fighting, you know, it was all about a woman who was so sad.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I told, I told all the details in this story.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was just a to giving it to the teacher, I tried to make it like it was a fictional story.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was actually everything that was going on in my life.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the story, the woman dies.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was of course was fictional, you know.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it it had to be rooted somewhere in the fear of the oh yeah, yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I was feeling I was feeling everything that I was writing, and I didn't even realize it so much till I found that story several years later in that drawer.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when I read it, I still have it to this day.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've kept it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: I got an A- on it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, the teacher knew that it was a troubling story, it was not a normal story that a kid would write.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure that's the reason why she sent it to my mother to read.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm thankful for teachers.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, she never confronted me about it though.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: But then in high school, I did another essay, and it was on I had to do this as a pro-con story, and I was very pro-divorce at that time.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so my my debate was pro for poor for pro-divorce, and um, and I just I just said it was just it was so calming to have the fighting gone.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you look back at that eighth grader, do you did you write as a way to tell somebody?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know, like when you look back, do you feel like you were trying to tell somebody, or do you feel like you were just trying to process because you couldn't talk about it?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just really don't remember.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even remember writing it.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't remember writing it till I I I didn't even remember writing it when I found the story.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, is that right?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I'm not sure.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Probably because you got one thing that happens when people journal or when they write is they get it out of their mind and they put it on paper, so in a way, you've released it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that's probably what happened for you.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Do you feel like that led to a fear of men?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Did it lead to uh a change in attitude towards your father?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Were you afraid of him?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Had you ever been afraid of him before?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: What did that do to you as a woman as you grew up and began to date?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Seeing that kind of violence I I don't think it put a fear in me because I had a good father and and he worked hard and he was good to us.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we never got spankings even when we were children.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there was one time my brothers found a tube of red lipstick, and and they were friends with twins up the road, and and they took this tube of lipstick and they went to the neighbor across the street, and we didn't like the neighbors across the street.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: There was a whole group of us kids that hung around together, and and they're again dirty words.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: They wrote dirty words on the back of the house, and they knew who had done it in lipstick, which is very hard to get off a paint.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um and my dad found out about it, and he did with my brothers, and he gave me a spanking, but he only gave me to do with it that he gave me a spanking because I um I didn't tell all my brothers I knew they had done it.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and but really truthfully, it's the only time I even ever remember getting a spanking.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was not that kind of abuse in our home at all, and and really not even the fighting till towards the end.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: So no, I don't I didn't have a fear um of men at all.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was just when when they were divorced, um my mother started going out a lot more when she was a beautician, she worked late, um, and she would stay out, and we didn't have honestly, we raised ourselves.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I my mother was there, she was a great support.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she loved us, she made sure we had a good home to live in, food to eat, but you know, even like not confronting me with the story, she just um she didn't talk to us about ways of life or anything like that.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: By the time she did try to talk to me about birds and bees, I had already knew everything.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, but she was gone a lot.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: She was just gone a lot.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I two older brothers that were three and four years older than me.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: We were in teenage years by then, and and she was gone a lot.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we it really that divorce changed in the way that we didn't have really supervision anymore.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: We were all pretty much could do anything we wanted to.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so what led you what led you to church in your teenage years?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, away from a Catholic church to uh was it a Pentecostal church at that time or no?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: They um very early um in my teenage years, they built a church right next to my house.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: They started building.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was actually in construction stage.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was probably in about between the sixth and the seventh grade then.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was we were pretty wild kids.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it school was chaotic.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we would run around the classroom, we just did all kinds of things.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was even to the point we went into this construction area one time, and um we found out that you could inhale freon from an air conditioner that was being installed, and it would give you psychedelic, you know.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so we knew we were only we were we were I I started drinking for the first time in the fourth grade right after the divorce.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: My parents kept a fully stocked bar at all times.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Were you following your brothers doing that, or did you do that all of your own volition?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was both, you know, a lot of things I was following my brothers, but once you get started and you know it's there and it's available and nobody's watching you, you just do it and you're just a kid and you just don't know any different.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we would take the bottles from the bar and we would just pour a little bit out of each one in a cup so that our parents wouldn't maybe know that we had taken it and stand over the toilet and down it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this is you know in the fifth grade, so you can imagine how we reacted to being that intoxicated.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And all this was going on, we would go into the construction side of the church and we inhaled the freon.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And a friend of mine years later, she said, I can't believe that we were we did that because I mean you're totally out of your mind when you do something like that.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and we're just kids.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're literally just kids.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you're I mean, you're seeing bullseyes in front of your face.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: You can't, you don't know anything that's going on doing that kind of thing.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's so scary.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, now we think about that as a kid that's just we were just so young, and and my friend had her little sister.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: We would this is what my brothers would do with me, and this is what we did with our with the younger ones.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: We would make them go with us, and they would make me go, they would make us go with them.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that way if we got caught, we couldn't get we wouldn't tell because then we would get in trouble too.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: But she had her little sister with her that was probably in the third or fourth grade.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my word.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: With us it was dangerous in there, it was a construction zone.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Not to mention Helene Freon is dangerous.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: But we started hanging around this church, and when it was built, we were smoking, we were so young that we were smoking cigarettes, and we would go stair well of this church, and then we realized that this they would leave that door open downstairs.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so we started going inside the church, and the Sunday school rooms were down there.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of a lower level of the church.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we would go into the Sunday school rooms and look around, and we never really hurt, you know, damaged anything, but we would walk around inside the church.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: We'd look in the Sunday school rooms.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: We might take a couple pieces of candy or whatever.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the pastor of the church realized that we were hanging around a lot.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so he he came to us when we were down in that stairwell smoking one day.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he just started talking to us.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: His name was Tom Taylor.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um he asked us just if we wanted to come to Sunday school.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we were always ready to go anywhere, even younger years.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: The bus used to come clear from across town.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: A little Baptist bus used to come and was uh a Baptist church, and I still remember the little song we sang in the church bus.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was Averyville Baptist, Averyville Baptist, Averyville Baptist Church.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: But we would baby feed us hot dogs.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: We were always looking for somewhere to go.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: We were just kids looking for anything to do.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so we started going to church there, and this was probably around that eighth grade time.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was fully in.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was just so ready.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even after all the other junk that I had done and all I'd been in, I was really ready to just dive into church.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to listen to Billy Graham Crusades.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I was baptized, I've been baptized actually four times.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was baptized right after a Billy Graham Crusade place called, I think that was when I got baptized in the Jesus Barn.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started going to this church, and a girl asked me to go um to this outdoor Christian that might have been the Jesus barn.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was there, they asked if people wanted to be baptized.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I felt like I didn't really pay attention to how I was baptized before, so I got baptized again.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I was baptized, of course, sprinkled as a baby, you know, in the Catholic Church.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I felt like I, you know, God was always kind of calling for me, you know.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: I even when I was in the first grade in that Catholic school, I could feel the presence of the Lord in that nice teacher's classroom.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: I could feel the love of God, I could feel the Holy Spirit in that classroom.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when I listened to Brother Billy Graham Crusades, I felt the Holy Spirit when I was at the Jesus barn.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: I felt the Holy Spirit, and so I I always felt kind of that you know that God was call was trying to draw me.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I was just so young and just so you know, yeah, just didn't really know that way.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I started going to that church and really involved.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was witnessing, I was telling everybody about Jesus.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: I started, I my life completely changed until they had a lock-in, you know, which is an overnight, you know, Christian thing in the church.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I lived right next door to the church.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I went into the lock-in, but then I kept going out in and out of the door because I it was my neighborhood, you know.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And finally one of the counselors stopped me at the door and he said, Listen, that you can't do this.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is not, he said, I remember I remember clearly what he said because this was a real turning point in my life.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: He said, This is not the do drop-in, and you can't just run in and out.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I left that night and I went and got drunk.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: That was about eighth grade, I think.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um go into that church.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna take a quick break for our sponsor.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: This episode has been sponsored by my friend and dentist, Dr.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Craig Sedillo at Smile Vicelia.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: If you're looking for a dentist, you won't find a better one in Tularie County.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: He specializes in all your dentistry needs, plus cosmetic dentistry and ortho.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: His phone number is 559-734-7035.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: If you call him, please tell him that Kathy from the Redeem Backslider podcast sent you.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you got offended, what we would call now offended.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it sounds like he wasn't very nice about the way he said it, you know, with the young kids.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I may be even, yeah, I may be even saying it a little harsher, but I think he was upset with me.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he had other kids that were there from the church, and you have to lay some boundaries.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure, sure.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: So did you go back to church in high school or or was uh no.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I actually didn't get back in church again until I moved to Houston, Texas.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I moved from Illinois to Houston.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in Illinois.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and I moved to Houston following a boyfriend.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that was real bad.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you guys were not in church at that time at all?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: This this boyfriend was he he did know a lot about God.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: He was very inquisitive about the Bible, and he taught me a lot.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's very intelligent, but he had a severe drug and alcohol problem.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just I met him in the my senior year in high school and moved, packed up my little car and left.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: How long were you with him in Houston?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was in Houston with him for about a year and a half, and that was when that was when I really found the Apostolic Church.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I kind of have a story because I was in an apostolic church when I was a kid, and I never remembered it until after I got the Lord literally blocked it from my memory until I got the Holy Ghost.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when I walked back, went back to Peoria, Illinois, and walked in that church.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord brought everything to my remembrance of being in the apostolic church before.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: How old were you when you were as a kid?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: When I was there, I was I was it was about um probably around that fifth grade time again, too, sixth, fifth or sixth grade.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we had a pastor that picked my next door neighbor, had a pastor, she would take us to his house every week, and he would take us rowdy kids in his home it search for truth home Bible study every week.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: You cut out so um you the pastor would take the rowdy kids.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: I missed all the rest.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he brought us in his basement in his home every week.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Home Bible studied, did the search for truth because you cut out again.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Wow and you had blocked all of that out.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, we didn't really pay attention to the Bible study.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: We were just there again, just going to for somewhere to go because somebody was willing to pick us up and take us somewhere.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And but he would, but I know he prayed, you know, and um so I went back to Peoria, Illinois, and wanted my family to go to church with me.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I started looking up the United Pentecostal church in Peoria.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when I got on the phone, he asked me my name, and I told him I wasn't married then, so it was still Joanna Clatt.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Joanna Clatt, he said, I remember you.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I taught you home Bible study.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: By then, you know, I'm like 23 years old.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was amazing.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was the biggest, it was one of the biggest God moment moments that ever happened to me.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: When I walked in that church, I said, God, you really knew exactly where I belonged, you know, all along.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: And for him, I mean, it just goes to show like we plant those seeds.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: We never know how long it's gonna take for that fruit to grow, but it does grow.
• 30:42
  unknown: Wow.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when it seems like the least likely, right, you know, a bunch of just bad kids, you know.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the way he taught us, he just taught us the word, you know.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there were no games, there was no coloring, I don't remember, no food, nothing like that.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: We went and just it was home Bible study.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow, that's awesome.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you leave you you found an apostolic church in Houston uh after the breakup, I suppose.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then did you stay in in apostolic church from then on, or did you okay, so tell me what happened?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: After my husband.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um husband and I um we we had both so you got married somewhere along the way.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I get we got married in church.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were both in church when we got married in 1985.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I really didn't want a relationship because I had just really gotten out of this relationship with this boyfriend that I'd you know, I and that was not a that was not a good situation to be in at all there.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it got really bad to the place where I had to leave.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had been taken, I took a I answered an ad in a college and career magazine.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at the ad and it said, and I just wanted out of the situation I was in.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I was seeing drugs, I was seeing people almost killed, I was seeing a lot of a very bad part of Houston, and we didn't even know it because we were from Illinois, we didn't know any better.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: I need men, and you know, um you cut out friends.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: You cut out all of that was cut.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: I couldn't hear any of that.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I just heard the bad part of Houston, I didn't hear the rest.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we lived in a bad part of Houston, and I was living with my boyfriend and a guy from Jamaica friend of my boyfriend's that was AWOL from the Navy, and he had moved to Houston from Illinois too.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um it it was a one was severely depressed.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was clinically the one AWOL from the Navy, he you would have definitely clinically been, he was depressed all the time.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nicest guy I ever met in my life.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: He really helped me through that time, and then of course, my boyfriend had this drug and alcohol problem, and um I just didn't trust him all the way around.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that was when I I knew I had to find a way out.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I answered in a college and career magazine, and um, it was for a Bible study, and I thought if I go to this class, I'll meet people from all different churches and I can decide where I want to go to.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that was when I first got in in the church, you know, and I it was another search for truth home Bible study.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, and it was the exact same Bible study, and when I was going through the charts, I would feel deja vu.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be like, I'd look at the pictures and I'm like, I think I've seen this somewhere before.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't connect it at all.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: I did not remember going through going to that pastor's house.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't remember any of that at all.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, but I would have this deja vu and all through the Bible study when I finally got there was at a church.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't at a, I thought it was gonna be at a college because it was in a college magazine.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: And who ended up being one of my very, well, was my very best friend there in Houston.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: She was the one that put the ad in the college and career magazine.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I just answered an ad, me and one other person, and I walked in and it was at a church, and there was a lot of really nice, good people there, and it was different because when I was in church when I was younger in high school, it was just kind of it seemed like people, the young people were just sad all the time.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: We'd sit around Kumbaya style, you know, and we'd tell our sad stories, and everybody would cry.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like when I went to this Bible study, people were happy, and I could sense something was different.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: They had a joy that I had never really experienced in church before.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: And how attractive is that that you would notice like that does attract our spirit attracts or pushes people away.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: It really, yeah.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody started asking me to go immediately, of course.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: People were asking me um to go to church, and I never would go um until I went through the search for truth twice, which is a long time.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never stepped foot in the church.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was there at the church at the Bible study, but I wouldn't go.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was still living with all these guys, yeah.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so finally things got really, really bad in my home situation.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: They all quit working.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the whole reason why we moved to Houston was for jobs, because things were the economy was really bad back then.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I only stayed behind for about a month or two because I had a friend that was getting married that she'd asked me to be maid of honor at her wedding.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um I so I stayed behind.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as the door was open, I packed up my car and left.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: But those guys quit working and things got really bad.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided I was gonna go to just try it out, you know, one Sunday.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was like one of the first Sundays.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: This boyfriend of mine was gone all night, and he drank a lot.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm done.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: These guys are not even working, I'm the only one paying any bills.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is ridiculous, you know.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I doing and I had already been going through the you know, to the Bible study, so I went and um started apartment right away.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then you met your husband somewhere along the way.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Then I met my husband, yeah, on New Year's Day.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was at my friend that put the ad in the College and Career magazine.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: How long were you involved in the apostolic church before you backslid?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um both of us, not very long.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: At that time, both of us, my husband and I both had only been uh I had I had never um this was the first time I was in the apostolic church, but my husband had a grandfather in the church and would take him when he was young.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: So both of us was about two, maybe uh uh almost three years, I think, before we just enough to get a little bit of a foundation and and uh acclimate to kind of what apostolic is, right?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: But not real deep roots because you still had all the other stuff.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: So um what caused I what caused if you can talk about really what caused you guys to both leave and how you came back?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um well and I and I felt really spirit-led to to share this part, which a lot of times I don't because I've been married for 42 years, but I do feel like this is a reason why a lot of black backsliders don't want to come back to church is because they have a fear that their spouse or they is not gonna come along with them.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Whoever they love is not gonna, they're not coming along with me full force.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't long into the And you gotta surrender that you know that is a that is a crossroads that everyone has a surrender, but but that's not an easy place to be.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we were out um well after we got married, it wasn't long that my husband started.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was really strong in the church when we married, and we didn't date very long.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: We were only dating for a month before he asked me to marry him.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, we were in our mid-20s almost.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we had had relationships, so you know, you really it's hard to date for very long when you're at that age, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, right from wrong and everything, and we were both very strong in the church, so I almost didn't marry him.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: My uh my pastor, we counseled with him.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: We went to different churches, but we were both in the apostolic church in Houston, and we just met that New Year's Day at my friend's house, and and we just started seeing each other every day, and um we counseled with my pastor at the church in Houston.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: He said, All right, now one thing I want to tell you is I really don't think that you ought to see each other every day.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we had already seen each other every day, so um, that was out the window, but um he also told us that he he told me he didn't want me to leave my church, and my husband was like, Well, we have to, you know, usually the wife goes where the husband goes to church, and so I don't think that that's gonna happen.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in my newly walk with God, I was gonna do what my pastor said.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I went to my husband, I said, I can't marry you.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he really got kind of upset with me because I had already told him I would.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of moped around for a while to the point where my pastor's wife came to me and said, What's wrong with you?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, you know, I was supposed to get married.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: I started crying.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Pastor D said I shouldn't leave the church.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and she said, Oh, silly girl.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Don't you know there's not a pastor on this earth that wants any of their church members to leave their church?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: You go ahead and get married.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Good for her, good for her.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Good for her.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so we did, but it wasn't long after the marriage that my husband kind of started straying, and uh, he started doing a lot of things that we shouldn't be doing.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: We moved a lot, um, it was Houston, we were young, not a lot of money.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: We were it seemed like we were always moving from one place to another, and um it got I tried to stay in church even when he was not really living for God at all.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: When you and I really tried to hold on.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: Joanna, when you look at that, um what do you think caused him to backslide?
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think it was the cares of life, the pressure of life, the the having to move?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, what what do you think?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because his heart, it sounds like, was to serve the Lord, but it but it's so easy when life begins to happen to get discouraged.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think it was that caused him to fall away?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you well, I think a lot of it is just I think a lot, I think a lot of it is just your your walk with God, um, you know, to this day, and this is something that I really feel like a lot of backsliders need to know too, is you can you can stay married.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: We've been married, we just celebrated our 42nd anniversary.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, and and we love each other and we found things that we can do together, but my husband has never had the heart to do the work of the Lord like I have, never from day one.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: You guys have different callings, perhaps yeah, and he um he just never really had a prayer life.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: He goes to church, okay, okay.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um his grandparents took him to church when he was young, and he loves the Lord, he worships, but as far as you know, trying to find a ministry, never.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so that's something that I've had to deal with, and I think that it's something that a lot of people have to go through.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have friends, we I've met many on partners in prayer.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the first things that the Lord ever draw drew me to when I got into church was prayer.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: I just I felt this call to pray.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's I was always led to the prayer room.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I went to a huge church in Houston, and my husband did too.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I went into, I would think, oh, everybody, it's this, I can't wait to go to church, even during when church service isn't going on, because I'm gonna walk into the sanctuary, and the sanctuary is gonna be just full of people praying.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: I really thought that.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the first and they kept the doors open so people.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Could just go in.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the first time I went into the church sanctuary and there was nobody there.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, why aren't people here praying?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went on, you know, I would keep going.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just something that was in my heart, and it took me a long time to realize it's not everybody's calling.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I think the thing that helped me to care to hold on that longer was my was the prayer life, and that's truly, I believe, is a keeping force.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know it with all my heart.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have a prayer life, you're gonna struggle in a lot of areas.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I I really do think that, and then he was he's born and raised in Houston, so he knew a lot of people, you know, there in the area.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's just so easy to go back to what you know, yeah.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, he was working with landscape people, and and we'd have neighbors that would drink.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was usually neighbors and places we went, neighbors, and he'd get home from work and he'd just start hanging around with them.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and um, and it was the hor it was the worst trial I ever went through because I I love the Lord so much.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: When I got in church, I was the only I had a pretty group big group youth group, and we would go out and evangelize on the weekends every Saturday.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: We would go evangelize on the weekends, we went to the worst parts of Houston, we would pick kids up.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we just did a lot of ministry, and I was so fulfilled and I was so happy that I really didn't want to date.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was the only one in my youth group that didn't want to date anybody, and I was the first one that got married.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think I told you in the bio too, it was during that time when I got involved with birthright because I had had abortion when I was with the boyfriend before I even moved to Houston.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so the first thing the Lord told me was, I want you to do something to help mothers that are pregnant and don't want to have an abortion like you.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and um I want to pause there for a second because we I I mean, I think you're my first guest who has ever openly talked about um having had an abortion.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: I I've had a lot of clients um throughout the years that have had abortions that really struggle.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: And growing up, I had friends, you know, which is shocking because you're so naive growing up in church and you find out later.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: But um I I how do you feel like that affected you?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: Was that a hard thing for you when you when you gave your life to the Lord to reconcile, or do you feel like your work with birthright allowed you to have some redemption in that?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think the trauma of the actual going through knowing that you're pregnant and having the non-support around you.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I was with a guy that said, if you have this baby, I won't I won't be around.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I truly was infatuated with him.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: I look back now and it was just infatuation, but um, I was truly infatuated with him, and I would have nightmares almost every night.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, the whole situation about the abortion was really I will never forget it.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the day, I I swore I would never forget the day that I went in for that abortion because it was a very traumatic experience.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: No doubt.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had all those nightmares, and then um, you know, it was back, you didn't have to have parent consent or anything like that.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: And went into Planned Parenthood.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, went into Plant Parenthood, and I there it was like herding cattle.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: There was so many girls in there.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was not expecting that.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was a room full.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm from Peore, Illinois at this time, so it's a fairly big city, but it's not like Houston.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's all these girls, and we're sitting around in this room, and some of them are talking about this is my third, my fourth abortion.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're joking about it.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were joking about it, like, and I couldn't take it.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, why are we waiting so long?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: And why do I have to endure this?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't want to be here.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went out to the parking lot where my boyfriend was, and they were advertising that the tickets had gone on sale for the Rolling Stones.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, that was a big deal.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was such a big deal that you had to be there when they announced it to rush down to get the tickets that would sell on minutes.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I told him, I said, I want to leave.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: I just let's just go.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: It will make me feel so much better if you'll just take me.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just go get tickets to the Rolling Stones.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so he did.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: We drove to get and we went, it didn't take us long.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: We went down, bought tickets to the Rolling Stones.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: We came back to the abortion clinic.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: The reason why we had waited so long is there was a doctor being flown in from Chicago, and her flight was delayed.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: She came in and she was the most cruel person.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I am not saying this just because I'm some kind of spiritual person.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, I remember this when I was not in church and didn't know anything about the Holy Spirit.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: She had the most evil look in her face I ever saw in my life.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: And except for maybe a deliverance service.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: But um, she was cold.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, very mean.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we, of course, you're fully coherent when you have an abortion.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: They don't do anything to put you out or anything, and it's painful, it's very painful.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember I screamed out one time in pain, and she just looked at me and she said, Shut up.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then they they they give you something to drink, they sit you in a chair for 10 minutes and you're out the door.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you go home, just feeling all that pain.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was very, very traumatic.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: As far as feeling um guilty for it, I don't really remember feeling a lot of remorse.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I would have liked to have known what my baby would have been or who they who they would have been.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's probably when I vowed that I would remember the date because to me, you know, I wouldn't know a birth date.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was the closest to a birth date that I would know.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um we went to that Rolling Stones concert, and all that was evil too.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: I remember in the middle of that concert, Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones, they airlifted him up in the air in one of those things, those platforms, and the smoke came all in, and we're in the middle of that concert, and he literally said in this concert, anyone who wants to worship the devil, stand up right now and raise your hands.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, and almost the entire crowd did it.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I all I could remember is I bought these tickets in the middle of an abortion, and I knew, even though I wasn't in church, I knew there's something evil about this.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is this whole thing is wrong, right?
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I would not stand up, but it all kind of came together, you know.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, during that time.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't feel I didn't feel like really guilty about it.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like I really I knew that it was wrong.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was probably enough.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was probably enough at that time because y'all were but I knew when I got the yeah, but I knew when I got the Holy Ghost that there I needed to help other people not to have to go through that.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: And these women from Birthright were fabulous.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: They were some of the most wonderful women I ever met.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was just in church.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was a baby in the Lord, and I didn't know anything about counseling.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Back then you could counsel people and not have any kind of degree or teaching or right, yeah.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: I had nothing.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, like telling your story and helping them where they're at, you know.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: And birthright, you know, of course, is where they give clothing and formula, and they do back then we did free birth um pregnancy test.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they could actually just come in.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: You couldn't just buy pregnancy tests over the counter then.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: So they could come in and get a pregnancy test, and we would give it to them right there, and um, we would talk to them about what we'd been through, you know, and um it was a real learning experience for me.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: We would pick girls up that whose parents had thrown them out and take them to the halfway house.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot, there was a lot of that back then.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_02: I remember um my sister got pregnant in high school and and it was really and you know, we were we grew up in Pentecost and it was really hard on my parents with that, you know, and it was really it was really hard.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: There, there's like I don't know, I guess a whole plethora of emotions when you're disappointed, you know, that that could happen.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: But my sister had the baby, thank goodness, and my nephew's amazing.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I can see where parents throw their kids out or parents, you know, just disconnect, and it's devastating for for the kiddos, you know.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: What would you say?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what would you say to somebody a backslider maybe who's still out there that might have had an abortion?
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: What would you tell them today?
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: That God is a redeemer and that that you know he understands that we get in situations where we feel we have no choice to go.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that was me.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I I felt like I didn't have any options at that time.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I only went to a Planned Parenthood.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: They only gave me two options.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: They said you can either have the baby or you can put it up for adoption.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they didn't give me, or no, they didn't even, oh, that's the two choices they gave me.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: But when they said you can have the abortion, they gave me the address, the phone number, who to contact.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: They gave me no information on adoption.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: They gave me no information on where I could go to be able to have people that would support me during a pregnancy.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: So God understands every situation.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and so and I know that most people just feel like they just don't have they don't have a choice.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I have to do.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's no option for me.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't have the money to raise a a child.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have anybody around me that I told nobody I was pregnant.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: The only one that knew was my boyfriend and and um my brother that we were I was rooming with at that time.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I I was way into adulthood before my mother ever knew.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even I don't know if my dad even knows to this day.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's not something you talk about.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't proud of it.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: Hi Well, I want to jump ahead a little bit and um get into um you know the the backsliding and yes and and how you came back to the Lord, what that looks like.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'd had um got pregnant.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was with uh I was pregnant with my um my daughter when my husband would start going out, you know, and partying and doing things at night, but I didn't know what was going on, and things were rough with my daughter.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, um my husband was going out and he had gotten an accident, and um my daughter was just newborn and he uh was cut on his face in a couple places with scars, and he went to court and had to go to jail for four months.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: For D UI.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, this was not when he read the book.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yes, yes, it was DUI that time.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um this was not the time he read the book on hell though.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I had this newborn, and I was still I was not in going to church, but I had a lady that would come across town and pick me up every now and then.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: But this was the place where I finally was like, okay, I'm about done with this.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next place we moved, there were neighbors again, you know, and I actually had to leave Houston at one time and go live with my mother for a whole month in Illinois.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: I was I told her I was just coming for a visit, and but I was gonna visit for a long time.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Joanna, you think you should really leave home for this long?
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that was when I finally broke down and cried.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Mom, Eddie's going to prison and I don't have the money to pay all the bills, and I just need someplace to go for a month or two till he gets out.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: And thank God he had an uncle that loved him very much.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: He paid our bills and he um helped my husband for a good period of that time, but he was in jail for four months, and I had this newborn, and then when he got out, we moved to another neighborhood where he started, we had neighbors on both sides that had drinking problems, and he was drinking all the time, and I just I just gave up.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, this is useless.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even have a car, I can drive myself.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: I got a baby.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was just too hard for me to stay in church, you know.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: My um, he was my husband wasn't living for God at all, and I was just barely hanging on and had this new baby, and money was tight.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was just I was separated from the church.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even have a car I could get to church, and really you didn't fall away because you were upset with God.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_02: You just sort of fell away because it was just hard to get there, and it was just too much sense of being outside of that encouraging atmosphere caused, yeah, that happens, I think, a lot.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was just um it was just too hard to live that way, you know.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I would I was living a completely separate life, and I wasn't I wasn't grounded enough, you know.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: I uh it was and and really this is one thing that you know the Lord really brought, and I've mentioned it before.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I wasn't raised in church, and I knew a lot of people in the church, I had a lot of friends, but I don't remember anybody um in the time that I was out ever contacting me to ask me where are you at?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, do you want to come back?
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even the lady that came and picked me up, she was from my first church.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she was from the church that I went to where I got the Holy Ghost before I moved, you know, after my husband and I got married, we went to the church that he went to.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she was from my first church, and her her, she has two boys that are evangelists right now, but she was a mighty prayer warrior.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: I learned a lot from her, but she was the only one during that time that came and picked me up a couple times, you know, contacted me.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, we didn't have a phone a lot of that time either.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was different.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have cell phones, you know.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was yeah, I was Houston's a huge city.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was really way far away from churches that we went to.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I was completely disconnected.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what you said is something I've noticed as well is when someone isn't there, like, especially I think in our culture today, life is so very busy.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: We don't reach out, we don't check on people, you know.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: I maybe not like we could, you know, to really notice.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_02: I notice when people are not at church.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: I notice, you know, I, you know, I sit on the fourth row, so I don't get to see a lot of what happens behind me, but I know, you know, I I look for certain people, you notice when they're not there, but yeah, I feel like just getting back to the basics would make such a difference to make people feel welcome.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, one thing about church, and I know that talking to people in my practice, when they're looking for a church, they're looking for a place to belong.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_02: They're looking for people that they could connect with.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: They're not always going first to find God, they're going to find community.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think some people find God as a result of that.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of people, especially if they do not grow up with any kind of church background, a lot of people come to church for community.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I think, you know, kind of preaching to myself here, that's just such an important piece that we have to get better at, I think, of calling people when they miss and making them feel welcome when they come.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I definitely think it would have made a difference for me.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: I really do.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think I thought of that and I think that it, I know I did, you know, during the time I it hurt me.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, you know, you feel an important it's like I you know, I remember thinking, why isn't anybody there's nobody and it and then it puts a spirit of offense inside of you, you know, where you start thinking and it's so easy to get offended.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, it is it's so like yeah, it's so easy.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_02: I've noticed in myself just in the last little bit, it can creep in, even though you're not even thinking that you're not even really upset about things.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's just so easy to get offended, and we've got to guard against that, you know, to keep our heart postured before the Lord.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely, yeah, because it sounds like you've always just loved the Lord.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: You you wanted to oh, I wanted to serve God with everything in me, but it was just like this is just not working the way I expected.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and then I let that spirit offense, yeah.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and it and I had such high hope.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I was gonna marry in the church, and we were gonna work for God and together, and it's you know, unfortunately, never really been that way, but you know, you have to get to the place where it's like, God, this is what you've called me to do.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, scripture says we have our own salvation.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, with fear and trembling.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh and I have to still be a good wife, and I want to be chased, and you know, I want to make sure and let you know I I'm not suffering any kind of abuse or anything.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: I love my husband, I wouldn't stay with him for three years, but um, but he just doesn't walk really to.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you can anybody can do that, they can you can still live for God, even without a partner right beside your life to to decide doing ministry with you.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can attest to that.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can if God calls me to do something, but and he'll put you with a person that allows you to do that, because one thing my husband's never done is stopped me from doing anything I've ever wanted to do.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um God, yeah.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, anything I want to do for God.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're in Houston and all this is happening.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: I still wasn't really partying or living crazy because of all the stuff that happened before.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I was kind of through with that, you know.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was at that part point, you know.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I'd see starting in the fourth grade, it'll do a lot to you.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like I've I've seen it all, I've done it.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: I even wrote in a journal one time, I've tried everything that there is.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was Solomon, you know, what more is there to do?
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing I would not ever do was put a needle in my arm.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I just couldn't do that.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was around people that did, and it literally almost made me sick just watching them do it.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I I never could do that.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I thank God that I just had that, I just one thing I could not do.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: But we're in Houston.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: We got to that place, and I'm still, you know, living in the world, but I'm working with plants, same as what I'm doing now.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_01: I start, I almost it's about the only job I've ever had.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I was working for a plant company where we go into big businesses, you know, put we install the plants and do maintenance on them and weekly maintenance and all that.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: And my family has always been entrepreneurs.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my parents have owned about five bowling centers at least, a truck stop, convenience store, a sheet metal company.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: My mother's had three beauty salons.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it just comes natural for you.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: Truck stops.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, and none of them ever made a lot of money, but it was just like I had a stepdad that was just a dreamer, and he just wanted to go in these businesses and just totally remodel it and do it.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm in Houston and we're backslid, and um, but I'm still just trying to, you know, make a life.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've got my baby, my little girl then, and um start talking to my mom about, you know, I think I could start this business.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Well, come on, move back to move to South Carolina with us.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: By then they'd moved from Illinois to South Carolina and they had.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Started another business there.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Move to South Carolina with us and we'll help you get started.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so she said, Find out all you can find out.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started asking questions, you know, people working around me, the salespeople, you know, and and I'd already worked in the business for many years.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so we left Houston and just went to South Carolina to start a business.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was collecting a very small unemployment check.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: And my husband was going to just take a job with my mom at the warehouse that they owned.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they were going to help me start in their little warehouse.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know anything.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know where to get plants.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know how to do it.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: I in South Carolina at the time was in it was so small, nobody even heard of it.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just like cold sales.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: So they helped me get started.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: Cold, cold calls.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm just walking into businesses that don't even know what the plant maintenance is.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: And um I started getting a few jobs, met an architect that helped me, and we're still not living for God.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um we're in Houston, and I'm trying to remember now.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going kind of blank.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um something happened with my husband again.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up in have oh, oh, I remember how could I go blank with this?
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we were living in a trailer and we were renting from some people that were like drug dealers, they were selling a lot of pot, and they were a young couple, and we were paying our rent, but they weren't paying the lot rent.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we got an eviction notice.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_01: And by then, you know, at this time we're going for Friday night, you know, spend half our paycheck is blown out the window on Friday nights.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we get home and there's an eviction notice on our door, and I get to go to the phone to call our our lead, you know, our rent, our um our landlords, and find out what's going on.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're both mad because we're both drunk.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: We just got out of the bar anyway, and I call the landlord.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, I'm trying to talk to the landlord.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hearing this weird noise going on on the other part of the trailer.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: My husband's got a little bit of a temper, he's got a pretty big temper.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: He had taken a lead pipe and he was punching wall holes to this day.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've we've got one pastor that calls him the polka dot kid because they just laugh every time they hear about.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: He put holes all over that mumble home with that lead pipe.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was dotted the whole thing.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we were like, when all that finished, I looked at him, I said, we got to get out of here.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because I knew we were gonna be in big trouble.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: We had just totally, he had totally destroyed somebody's property.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I said, We gotta we gotta get out of here.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: We packed up all we could pack up that night and moved, went to my brother's house.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: We were there for two nights.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're in a little town of Darlington, South Carolina.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: You don't hide in Darlington.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: We were there two nights, and we pulled out of a IGA grocery store with my sister-in-law, and I saw a cop car pull up behind us.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: And closer we got to the house, I looked at my sister-in-law and I said, That policeman's following us.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so he followed us up to the door, you know, and asked first.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we tried to tell him no, he wasn't.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: But long story short, we both ended up getting arrested, and my husband went in jail.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's kind of a history of all this.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_01: So my mom and my dad, they bailed me out the next morning, but they left him left him in there.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the only time I'd ever been in jail.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was horrible.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Darlington County jail.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was how long it was everything you could dream of and more.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was terrible.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've been, I've been to jail.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_02: It is no fun.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_02: How long was he there before he read the book?
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And what was the book that he read?
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't remember the name of the book.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if he would remember the name of the book, but he told me I read this book.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was just there in the jail.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody gave it to him.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was there in the jail.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I read this book on hell.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, It scared me.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm I'm scared.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_01: He said, We need when I get out, we need to go to church.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was reluctant because I wasn't really ready yet then.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was, you know, I was growing this business.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I thought we were, other than our marriage, you know, I thought everything else was going okay.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_01: I really didn't want to change too much about the way I was living, I guess.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, okay.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Was that about was that about how you looked, or was that about what you were doing?
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like what part did you feel like you weren't ready to give up?
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know with backsliders, it it's a lot of the outside stuff, you know, that they feel like when I come back, I just gotta go right back to the way I was raised.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_02: When I don't think it's like that, but but everyone I talk to, that's the wrestle.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's thinking that oh, I can't do this anymore, I can't do this anymore.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of just coming back to him.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you are contemplating whether I'm ready to jump back in.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not ready to change my life completely over again.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm not ready to change the way I look, the way I talk.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I didn't want to quit smoking, I didn't want to quit drinking, I probably didn't want to do any quit doing any of it.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, except for the problems, you know, the household problems, of course, were bad.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Problems in the marriage and things like that were bad.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so when he got out, when he finally got, he had a court date.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_01: He got out and then he was out for a while.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we went to, we tried to go to a couple different churches, and we would both walk out the door and we'd say, nope, just not the same.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_02: It just didn't trying to go to a church besides an apostolic church, right?
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's that's another thing.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's another thing that we backsliders do because we do not want to go back to apostolic church because we don't, we don't want to, we don't want to conform.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_02: So we do.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_02: We all try, I think a lot of us try a different kind of church.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the same.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we would walk out, we'd walk out after one service, and we would look at each other and be like, mm-mm, it's not, it's not here.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so finally, I think we just buckled down and said, Okay, we're going to the first United Pentecostal church of Florence.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I I remember so vividly not walking in the door of the church so much.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_01: There was a little hallway, but the door going into the sanctuary.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I remember walking through that threshold.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the only thing I can really compare it to is the time I walked through the threshold of the prayer room at the Louisiana camp meeting campgrounds, felt the same way.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_01: I could feel the Holy Spirit so strong on me.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the same way the first time I walked in the church back in Houston, you know, I felt the same thing there too.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I knew it was different.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'd been in Catholic, I'd been in Lutheran, I'd been in Baptist, I'd been, I'd been a lot of different there was no comparison.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I immediately felt the Holy Spirit, and I am one that just I didn't even, I wasn't holding back when I felt the Spirit of the Lord.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I love the Lord too much.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_01: He had brought me too far.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Church didn't even start.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_01: I walked through that door and I ran to that altar.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_01: They probably thought I was crazy.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, not people in church wouldn't think I was crazy.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I literally ran to that altar and fell on my knees.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew it didn't matter, you know, that I that I um whether I was ready to change or not, which I did.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I I didn't hold anything back.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, that didn't matter, none of that crossed my mind then.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was just I'd found my first love.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's what yeah, I had I had found what I'd been missing, and I'm not missing out on anything else but a lot of trouble.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so, um, but I did, I vowed to the Lord that day.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Lord, I won't ever let another person uh dictate whether my relationship with you ever again.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't care who comes and tries to pull me away, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna let uh people draw me away again.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's kind of the same thing I had to decide too, because it was always for me, it was always the idea of love, always a male.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_02: But it it it just doesn't work that way.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, it took me a long time to realize that Jesus was my first love.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think my heart always knew, but I didn't know until coming back, you know, this last time.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I just feel like it was the right time for everything to come together the way it needed to, always meant to be.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, God's timing is so perfect.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he knows exactly, and you know what?
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord knew that I probably in myself wouldn't have gone back by myself, but it was my husband, the one who I say, you know, is not really the one, you know, all in, but he was the one that knew I don't want there's a hell and I don't want to be there, yeah, and we need to make a change, and so it was him that that really led me back to go back in church again, and it's led me to several um and I think that all this too was kind of setting me up to the place where I've been involved in in about three home missions churches, brand new startups with very few.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's difficult, it's a difficult road to take when you're in startup churches or churches that are ready or whatever, you know.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, the church I'm in in Franklin is like, woo, it Sunday was us born no more.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it literally was, and um, you know, you just have to keep pushing and going forward and living for God, keep your prayer life up and your relationship with the Lord, because there's nothing more important as is your prayer room, and that's just constantly talking with God and and just I can just I can be anywhere here in my home or out in these mountains or walking on the trail, and the Lord is right beside me, and he's he and he's talking things in my ear, and he's telling me what I need to do and what I need to say and where I need to go.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And how great is that!
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_02: He's so present, he's so real, and that's what I you know for anyone listening.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you have if you don't know the Lord, if you if it's been a long time since you have talked with him, like he's he is just as real in how he communicates with us as you and I are today, Joanna, because you know, the Lord is speaking, and if you call on him, he will answer.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've heard so many stories of people, my father included, who didn't really know the Lord.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And he asked, if you're real, make yourself known to me.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And everyone I've ever talked to that has said that to the Lord, he's made himself known to them unequivocally, you know.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the Lord is yeah, it really is.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_01: He turns it all around, and I want to go right back to that full circle to this pastor that taught us this Bible study because that was such a revelation to me.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was like going back, it was like the physical part and the spiritual part of going back home all in a nutshell, because by then, you know, uh I'm living for God in our long that was one evidence of God that I could never God will show you something that you will, it's gonna be such an evidence that He is so real, right?
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: And don't be you can't be afraid to just let God do it, you know.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, when I walked into that church and it was like all these memories flooded in.
• 1:19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I remembered going to that church when I was a girl after you know, during the Bible study, we did go to the church, and I remember where we sat in the front the prayer room, and I remember the door was closed to the prayer room, but we could hear the people in there, the women in there praying.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it was loud, and they were very loud, and we didn't know what was going on in there, you know, crying and hollering and stuff, and we were like, What is going on in that room?
• 1:19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I remembered all that, and I walked in the church, and and that pastor was like Joanna Clatt, which I was married then because Joanna Clatt Hilton, she he says, Um, I taught you home Bible study when you were a girl, and he asked me to testify, and I stood in that church and I said, God, it's gonna only be you.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to take me so many years down the road, clear across the country, put me in the same Bible study, bring me back something I couldn't even remember.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I I told them, I said, even if you're in a Sunday school room and you got rowdy kids that you don't think is listening to a word you say, your prayers are being answered.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody's praying for you, somebody is praying for you.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_01: You but you backslider, somebody's praying for you, and God's listening to them prayers.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it is your heart, yeah.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_02: It is um it's a good life.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_02: It it, you know, I I feel like it's the enemy that shows us everything we have to give up, but he never shows us everything we gain.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_02: And um, if we could ever just overcome that fear and and trust God, God gives us back.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I feel like everything in my life has come full circle too.
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then some, you know, questions I didn't even need answers to, God has given answers to me for.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's he's just good.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I really quick.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um right now you work with partners in prayer.
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that is a I I want to say it's a 24-hour, seven-day week, pretty much prayer line, right?
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_02: There are specific hours that there is live prayer happening.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um is the website PIP or is it uh what is the website for partners in prayer?
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_01: The website is yeah, the website is pipsministry.org.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's P-I-P-S Ministry dot O-R-G.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Or.com, one or the other.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember for sure, but I think it's I think it's but it might be.com.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think just go find it either way.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Pip Pips Ministry, you look up Pips Ministry, you're gonna see it.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And they will on the website it'll give you the um it'll give you their their prayer times, and you can call, and there's always a live person leading prayer, and they'll do it for hours.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_02: Twice a year, they do a 90-day um specific prayer for prodigals.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um, anyways, Joanna is one of the prayer leads on that ministry, and um you can also find them on Facebook.
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's you just Google Partners in Prayer Ministry or Pips uh ministry on Facebook, anyways, you'll you'll find it if you look.
• 1:22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um in partners in prayer, uh if they'll look at partners in prayer wall, because it's also used to put prayer requests, like even uh aside from the um live calls, which are Zoom, the calls are all Zoom now.
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can call in on a phone, but it's most we we had a little bit of troubles where we had to switch everything over to Zoom.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um so um most of the calls are Zoom calls, but you don't have to, you know, we we don't normally do audio, you know, just a video, and you can mute or unmute um however you want, however you feel.
• 1:23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody that some some people just call in just to listen.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_01: They just want to to hear the part of it, yeah.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of the people who are who participate and lead the prayer are prodigals or have a connection to prodigals.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know Sister Billie Jean Bishop, her son passed away when he was 26.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_02: He was a prodigal.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a deep, deep connection and burden for prodigals on this prayer ministry.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I just want to give it a plug.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I always end Joanna with um a question.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_02: What would you tell the prodigal out there, the backslider?
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_02: I always call myself a redeemed backslider because that was what I was called, you know.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Some people find that name offensive, but I feel like any backslider who knows we're a backslider are not offended.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, obviously we don't want to be, but it's not a I guess it can be an offensive term, but we know where we're at if we're not walking with God.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_02: So what would you think about it?
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if they're looking for some if they're looking for something like this, if they feel like you know, my life needs to be changed.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what I felt.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh the Lord.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I knew my life needed to be, I knew that I was I was not really happy with the way I was living.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't want to change.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_01: But um what would you tell the backslider?
• 1:24:48
  SPEAKER_01: That it's not as hard as it as it as the devil.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not a difficult it's you know, I think the enemy, we all know we got an enemy of our soul.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want us to go to heaven, he doesn't want us to live a prosperous and a good life.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I know there's I know there's prodigal out there.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not drudgery, it is a good life.
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, you know, it's something I think we we conjure up in our mind and the and the and the devil speaking in our ear and making us think that it's a big thing.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_01: But when when you get to the place where I was at and you just walk through those doors and you feel the love of God, yeah, all your worries just kind of go away.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, maybe I'm not gonna change overnight, or maybe I will, but it doesn't matter.
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_01: What I what matters now is I know God loves me, right?
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And God loves you, God loves you as you as a backslider, he loves you when you come back, he loves you any way you are, but all but he'll make himself known, like you said, yeah.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And when you come back, God will make himself known to you, and it will be so much easier than you ever dreamed it could be to just to do whatever God shows you to do.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody comes back different.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Some people, you know, some people it might take years for them to even quit smoking, you know, if they that's true.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's true.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard those stories that they come back, they get filled with the Holy Ghost, they are living for God, but they just struggle with smoking.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, um, pastors walk with them through that.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, hopefully, you know, if you're not if you came from a church that was really condemning, find find an apostolic church where it's loving, because I think there's both, but you gotta find a pastor who is willing to, you know, love you and and walk with you through the process because coming back to God is a process.
• 1:26:52
  SPEAKER_02: If we do it too fast, if it well, some people can be completely delivered in the moment and they just don't care.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_02: My cousin was like that, they just whatever it takes.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Others it it's it's more of a process, but God is in the process, and um and the the goal is that you just open the door and let him in and start the conversation and and get back to talking with him.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_02: He knows how to lead us, and that's a two-way street.
• 1:27:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is a two-way street, yeah.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you just gotta you just gotta get through that door, you just gotta get to that place, and it it may not even be a door of the church, you gotta open that door to your heart again and just say, Okay, here I am, and God does the rest.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, the only decision you've gotta make is being willing to open your heart back to God.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_02: Don't worry about all the rest of this stuff, just let it come as it comes.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_02: God, God is the keeper of the heart, and there's just so much joy and peace.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and God will start putting things together.
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Does that mean there's not the devil's not gonna try to keep you from living?
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, of course, but he will he will bless in so many other ways.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say, you know, we get the the devil is real for sure, but he is not more powerful than God, and and what we gain from God far, far outweighs anything the devil can do to us.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_02: You can be in a storm, but walking through that storm in peace and and love and I mean peace is everything to me, you know.
• 1:28:42
  SPEAKER_02: It don't matter what's happening around you.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_02: If you got peace, you know everything is gonna be okay.
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_02: And the storm really isn't gonna affect you much, you know.
• 1:28:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it does at times, but that's a whole different conversation.
• 1:28:58
  SPEAKER_02: But Joanna, thank you for being with me today and for sharing your story.
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I think there's a lot to be said about being faithful in your marriage for 42 years.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I feel like I I have come to believe that we are all in some way will have a thorn in our flesh, whether it's finances or health or relationship or job, because I think those things keep us dependent on the Lord.
• 1:29:30
  SPEAKER_02: And they are the thing that keeps us seeking him and needing him and hungering for more of him.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that that's a good thing.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I I do think he makes all things good in its time, and so we'll just pray for you know, your husband to get on fire for God.
• 1:29:54
  SPEAKER_02: He's been faithful.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 1:29:58
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't you wouldn't believe the changes that have been in his life.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I tell people all the time, I said, if you would have met my husband 10 10 years ago, you wouldn't even think it was the same person.
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:30:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, like you said, it's a process, you know.
• 1:30:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's like some people just like with me, I'm just ready to go.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to go do I'm going to the Philippines, you know, with the partners in prayer.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've been on the missions trips and and I'm going to the conference and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go knock on doors, I'm gonna be at every prayer meeting.
• 1:30:31
  SPEAKER_01: But with him, the older he is, I just see him just closer and closer.
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a beautiful thing to watch too.
• 1:30:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and you know, and he's he's learning to pray and he's learning to live for God his way, and you know, you just stay personal relationship.
• 1:30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's very nice to meet you.
• 1:30:53
  SPEAKER_02: Nice to meet you too.
• 1:30:54
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you being here.
• 1:30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've enjoyed the talk.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, me too.
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_02: And for any of you watching, if you're a prodigal or if you know a prodigal who's come back to the Lord or not come back to the Lord, please share this um podcast with them.
• 1:31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and if you if you would like to share your story with us, we would love to hear from you.
• 1:31:16
  SPEAKER_02: You can email me at Kathy K-A-T-H-Y at theredeembackslider.org.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for watching today.
• 1:31:26
  SPEAKER_02: God bless.
• 1:31:26
  SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you joined us.
• 1:31:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider, we would love to hear from you.
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support our ministry, your donation will be tax deductible.
• 1:31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Visit our website at the redeemedbackslider.org.
• 1:31:44
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you will tune in for our next episode.