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Transcript

Michael & Jana McMillian-2 · Brewing Better Marriages

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_04: I guess I've been looking for you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_04: I guess I've been looking for you.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_05: Welcome to Brewing Better Marriages from T South Dakota with Philip and Debbie Sanders.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_05: If these podcasts have been a help to you, pass it on to others.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_05: And let us know within the email and also include any questions you might have on the subjects we cover.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_05: It's been so good to have Michael and Jana McMillan with us for these this last podcast, and we're doing it again today.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_05: We basically walked you up to where they met and possibly even how and how they knew it was God.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_05: And man, I just love, Deb, didn't you?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_05: I love some of that.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_05: What w what can you say now that you could pick out of that?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that look at the right kind of things.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Don't look at maybe just the one that looks pretty or you know handsome.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: But look at their life.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Are they are they dedicated to the Lord?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Do they spend time in the altar?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, all those things were brought out, and that's what they were looking for when and their parents had encouraged them to look for that.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_05: Is that what you saw in me?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_05: Of course.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_05: How quiet that got that was very good.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so Michael and Jana, uh, what would you say that you can see God in your life leading you up to this point?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you're missionaries to Tanzania right now, and um, I'm not talking about leading you to the point of coming to tea.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_05: That has to do with our friendship more.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_05: But looking back on your life after you got married, uh, what led you up to the point of going to the mission field?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we were married a long time before we went to the mission field.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_05: 40, 50 years.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um 30.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: All right, good.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um so there's a lot of things that led, there's a lot of things that led to that point.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um specifically to the mission field, um, Mike knew that he was called to be a missionary.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't feel called to be a missionary.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: I felt like I was doing plenty where I was.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I was busy, but he was working a job.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so then, you know, we he worked, I did not work.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: I worked at the I volunteered my time at the Christian school.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: So we had one income and you know, great American family on one income.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: So how we had yeah, we had our three girls.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: How old are they?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: How old are they now?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Glenn is 28, Janil's 25, and Wilma is 20.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: At that point, those these three.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_05: And then you had Michael.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: I had these three girls, and it was um, I was actually expecting Wilma the first time that he went on a missions trip.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't go with him.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, he'd been on other mission trips, but to Tanzania, and I didn't go.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then when he came home, of course, he wanted to go back, and I was the fine, I did the finances in the home.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, I understand.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_05: Can I see how many out here would raise their hand, right hand and say, Yeah, me too.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: I see those hands.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I I said, There's there's no way, you know, we we're in debt, we have, you know, there's just no way.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, I feel like I have to go.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then he told me that he'd felt since he was 10 years old.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_05: Now you're I I'm not asking for details, but your debts were like your home vehicle, even just smaller than credit cards, just living, yeah.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was in construction, and sometimes construction is up, sometimes it's down.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you have these credit cards that you tried to live on through the year, and you think, Oh, yeah, I'll pay this off, and it just, you know, it just grows on you.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, um in 2019, that summer, um, Glenn had graduated from high school a year or so before.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: I think, I think actually in 2018, Glenna and I decided we would get our midwifery license.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: I had been a mid lay midwife for 14 years.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_05: That's good.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: But um, we just the laws had changed.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: We needed licensing, so we said, well, we'll do it together.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: But I told Mike, I I don't feel like I can work at school, which I had worked there for all the years, and I struggled with it a bit.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to still be a part, so I went and offered to just be the scripture monitor.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: I'd just go a couple to hours a day and then go home.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: We would work on this schooling, which I quickly found that I it wasn't possible for me to be a mom and become a licensed midwife.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I didn't do that, but I didn't know at the time that's what I felt like we were going to do.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: It came November, and we got a call from a young lady who had been in our church as a child and then a teen, and now she was an adult, and she was in drugs and alcohol, a terrible life.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, she called Mike's phone, we were out to eat, and when he answered the phone, she said, I'm in the hospital, I'm having a baby, but they're gonna take my baby away because of drugs.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: Would you take my baby while I go to rehab for 90 days?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: And um we of course we always had a heart to help people, we said yes, but then we found out, and it's a long story, and I won't tell all the details, but there were three kids.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: So 2019, the week before Thanksgiving, we ended up with um these three little boys moving to our house.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: We were not foster parents, we had no intention to be foster parents, but we became foster parents overnight.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that was just the Lord, even in that um overnight, really.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was a few days, but practically overnight, they were ready to give us a license.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: They had inspected our home, and we were just it was it was all God.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: You know, this also this almost mirrors Deb and I with Josh and Johnny.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_05: Because it was, you know, both of them overdosed on heroin and died.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_05: Little did we know that she had written out a little old handwritten paper and had Jerry Bibbell, which was our notary, uh, to notarize it and said, if anything ever happens to me, I want Brother and Sister Sanders to raise my children.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_05: A three and a five-year-old come into our home, and uh we can relate to you.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: So we had a seven, a seven-year-old, a three-year-old, and a uh two-day-old baby came into our home.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: So this is 2019.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: So we have our four children, now these three children, and we didn't I never considered the monetary part of it.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I would always dig my heels in the ground when he said we go to the mission field because we didn't have the money to, you know, go to the mission field.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: That was crazy.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um It was actually days later, several days later.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: When somebody said, you know, you can get money for that.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, really?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: And the social worker said, Yeah, you'll starting, you know, January, you're you'll start getting money.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that was the year of COVID.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god so everything closed down.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so we're not going anywhere, we're at home.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm homeschooling seven kids.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we're living a total different lifestyle, not going out to eat, not doing anything that costs money, and we're getting this extra income coming in, and suddenly we're paying things off left and right, and praise.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: And it still didn't really click in my mind.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it was all the way to October of 2020, and I was listening to a I was listening to a uh podcast, and the minister that was doing it, he was talking about faith.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I really would have said I was very full of faith person, but he he just brought out some points um talking about obedience and and said the things that you worry over, the things that hold you back.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I kind of flippantly said, Oh, I'm not a worrier.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: And the Holy Spirit really convicted my heart right that moment.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I went to my room and got on my knees and basically prayed through and told the Lord that you know all those lists I had the reasons why we couldn't I gave to him.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_05: Can we stop right here and you go in the room and call on your knees?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, really.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I called Michael, and at the time he was working about six hours from home, leaving out every Sunday afternoon, coming back Friday night, and it wasn't we were in we were trying to be in an okay place, but it was a it was rough.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I called him and said, I just want you to know I'm I'm saying yes to whatever it is God's asking you.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: That was victory day, buddy.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: And he immediately said, I'm gonna quit quit my job.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I said that I about had a heart attack.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I said that because um, and and I don't know that I've really ever expressed this to her.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: The the time that I was in Southern California and driving back and forth, I was watching church services and stuff on Sunday evening as I'm driving down the road, but the Lord was just dealing with me and dealing with me.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: So He was already preparing my heart as He was preparing her heart.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So whenever she told me that, it was just like, okay, God, boom.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's sure.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: It it just I I don't even know how to explain it.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like this the same, the the right timing for both of us.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_05: That's right, yeah, true.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_05: And uh God had all that planned.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: All of it, yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, that that's a great story, Sister Jan.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I I will tell you, I realized in these last five years that we've been full-time in the mission field, that really being in the center of what God wants you to do is more fulfilling than being busy and doing all the things that you think you're doing for the Lord.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_05: So true.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_05: Well, have you had any struggles in the last five years?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's um.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_05: We've had a few struggles.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_05: But God has always shown himself.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_05: Well, this is wonderful.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_05: I just love hearing things like this.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um and you're in Tanzania.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: We are in Tanzania, yes.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_05: And we'll talk about that in just a few minutes, maybe on the next podcast.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_05: But uh once again, we want to say thank you for tuning in with us.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_05: And I want to thank Michael and Jana McMillan for being here.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_05: And Deb, man, it's a good to see you, hun.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_05: She doesn't talk very much.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you guys are doing so good.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have to.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I I too can relate with that because so many times, you know, God don't just call uh when it's a couple, call one of them.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's calling them both.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that that help meet has to come under that submission of the Lord in her life and and make it to where it becomes one.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: And without that, it we couldn't be successful with what God wants to make out of it, you know.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it was 10 years it took me to get to that point to where I knew it was God, and it was coming out of South Dakota staying in a motel and the Holy Ghost dealing with me.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, I think God wants us here.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: He'd been feeling that way for 10 years.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and I never thought, you know, some of us are a little more sensitive to God than others.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: But to leave a new home uh 10 years before that, and to guess just, you know, give up things that we thought we had to have.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: But when it's God, those things are not priorities.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: They don't matter like the will of God does.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_05: It's been a year.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_05: We want to say thank you again for tuning in to uh our podcast.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: Again, if these have been a benefit to you, a help, please let us know.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: They're always encouraging to get emails, although we haven't got any yet.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_05: We do want to say thank you for listening and uh drop us a line.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_05: Let us know how these have been uh a blessing to you.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you can reach us at sandersministries at gmail.com.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_05: Or go to our website.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_05: It's uh sanders dash ministries.org.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_05: That's sanders-ministries.org.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_05: You can download these podcasts once you're there and uh just listen to them over and over.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_05: You'll find little things that you've always already missed, and they will be a blessing to you.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_05: God bless you.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks again for tuning in.