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Transcript

Grief And Grace · Pastor Plek's Podcast

0:05
SPEAKER_01: And welcome back to Pastor Plex Podcast.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Pastor Fleck, and we are talking faith, culture, and everything in between.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: And we have got special guests here today, Don and Susan Thayer.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show.
0:18
SPEAKER_03: Good to be here.
0:19
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
0:19
SPEAKER_03: So happy to be here.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: All right.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: I I'm so excited uh like to hear your story because it's so powerful.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh and you've just been here for about a couple months.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Is that about right?
0:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: You just rolled in from Arizona-ish.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: Just rolled in, yeah.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: And um, all right, so tell us um, so I want to get back to the sort of the beginning of the story because you guys are missionaries.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: That ultimately we're gonna get to this place where you are missionaries uh to Thailand and you do uh business as mission with coffee, and you're you're really helping out indigenous people in Thailand not only um do business, but then also share the gospel and have plant churches and do that kind of thing.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: So that's eventually we're gonna get to, but I want to figure out how do we get there.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: So how tell me about um Don, I'll start with you.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: Like, where did you grow up and then how'd you come know the Lord and then eventually meet Susan?
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I grew up actually, my parents ran the local rescue mission in the community that I grew up in.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: And we changed churches when I was in middle school, and this was Washington State, southeastern Washington State.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: And um, this other family in the church at the new church we went to uh adopted a young lady named Susan.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, now she was a couple years younger than me, so I didn't have really much interest.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: In fact, she was my best friend's adopted sister.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, fun.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: And so Greg is his name.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: And it's actually Jeffrey Fuquay's dad.
1:51
SPEAKER_02: Whoa.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: And so Greg and I were good friends, went to the same church youth group, great youth group in Richmond, Washington, a great church.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, that's how I met Susan.
2:03
SPEAKER_02: And so we're high school sweethearts, but we met in the youth group.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: That is wild.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so Susan, you got you um you get married.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: So how at what age were you adopted?
2:16
SPEAKER_03: Uh 12.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I knew this part of the story.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: Did I did I miss this whole part?
2:22
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I was all right.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: So where were you before?
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so how did that happen?
2:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I was living with my biological parents um prior to that time, but they were divorced, both alcoholics, abusive, and totally by God's hand, reached in and plucked me out by a friend, a family friend connection.
2:40
SPEAKER_03: And they said, Hey, would you like to go to Washington State and live with this new family?
2:44
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, sure.
2:46
SPEAKER_03: And I did with a little notepad that said, We give permission for our daughter to go.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: And yes, that is the wildest thing I've ever heard.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: So you're so what was it like growing up in your house?
3:00
SPEAKER_01: Um like because you move at twelve, you left at 12.
3:04
SPEAKER_03: I did.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: So you're like basically a sixth, seventh grader or something.
3:07
SPEAKER_03: I was a sixth grader, yes.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: So prior to that, it was terrible.
3:13
SPEAKER_03: I was I would probably have been removed by this date had it been current day, but I think back then When you talk about abuse, are we talking like they beat you?
3:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh physical and sexual abuse, both.
3:24
SPEAKER_03: So wow.
3:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and so how have you processed all that?
3:28
SPEAKER_01: I this is this podcast just took a totally new direction.
3:32
SPEAKER_03: You know, I would say absolutely by the hand of God.
3:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
3:35
SPEAKER_03: Um, he reached into my life before adoption, and a friend invited me to vacation Bible school.
3:41
SPEAKER_03: And I remember sitting in vacation Bible school at 11 years old and hearing the gospel for the first time.
3:46
SPEAKER_03: Jesus loves you so much.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: He died on the cross and he wants to be your savior.
3:50
SPEAKER_03: And I pondered that for a long time.
3:52
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, yeah, I don't really think that Jesus loves me.
3:56
SPEAKER_03: Um, but fast forward literally just a couple of months when I had the opportunity to go to Washington State to live with a new family.
4:03
SPEAKER_03: And I went to church with them on that very first Sunday.
4:06
SPEAKER_03: And it was almost like now I know through the power of the Holy Spirit, but almost verbatim, the same exact words were spoken at the end of this service by the pastor.
4:17
SPEAKER_03: And he said, I just want you to know Jesus loves you so much.
4:21
SPEAKER_03: He died on the cross for your sins and he wants to be your savior.
4:24
SPEAKER_03: And that Sunday night we went back to church, and at the end, the pastor gave the altar call.
4:29
SPEAKER_03: Same words.
4:29
SPEAKER_03: And I knew in that moment that um Jesus did love me.
4:33
SPEAKER_03: I believed it.
4:34
SPEAKER_03: And I know Jesus grabbed hold of my heart.
4:37
SPEAKER_03: And I think after fully surrendering my life to Christ, even at a young age, at age 12, I was all in.
4:44
SPEAKER_03: And I really haven't looked back.
4:45
SPEAKER_03: And I think being able to walk with Jesus and wise people through my teen years and into my adulthood.
4:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: So what happened to your biological parents?
4:58
SPEAKER_01: Did you lose track or did they I didn't?
5:00
SPEAKER_03: No, I maintained some contact with them in my teen years, but it was pretty difficult.
5:06
SPEAKER_03: Um, they both have passed away a long time ago now.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: Um, I still have a relationship with I have one biological brother, and he lives um just about an hour north of Dallas.
5:17
SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: We reconnected about 11 years ago and have just a super sweet relationship.
5:23
SPEAKER_03: And then I have my adopted brother.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: Did he remember you or know you or anything?
5:26
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
5:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
5:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: So how old was he when you left?
5:31
SPEAKER_03: He was um he is six years older than I am.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: So he was like out of the house.
5:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he was already out by that time.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so you would have known him really well.
5:42
SPEAKER_03: I did, yeah.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: And so when you left, did he keep in contact with you that whole time?
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Or he did.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: We maintained contact and not great contact, but enough.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, dudes aren't exactly known for their ability to keep in contact with people.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: All right.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: So um how did you, I mean, I'm now I'm on like sexual trauma healing.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, how did you find healing for that?
6:04
SPEAKER_01: What was your like how did you process all of that?
6:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just being in a home that was functional, I guess, was probably a big thing.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it truly was.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: And you know, in all in complete transparency, because we said nothing was off the table to ask questions about.
6:18
SPEAKER_03: I think um, well, Don and I met in youth group and got married um right after I graduated high school.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: So I was 18 when we got married.
6:26
SPEAKER_03: And I think entering into intimacy and marriage was probably the first time I was very heavily confronted with abuse.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so you didn't know that not, I won't say you didn't know.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you mean by that?
6:39
SPEAKER_03: You know, well, I never really processed.
6:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay.
6:42
SPEAKER_03: So you didn't say I didn't really process the sexual abuse part.
6:45
SPEAKER_03: I knew it was there, it was a component of my life, but I don't think I ever really, I never really needed to go there again because I was living in the beauty of my walk with Jesus, this wonderful family life, activities, youth group, church.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: But when I bumped up against intimacy in marriage, that was like, oh, this is a thing.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: This is a thing, and I should probably talk about this with somebody.
7:11
SPEAKER_03: So that was when um I did seek out um some wise counsel.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: So I think that and just in our church as a whole, we've had a lot of women who have that sort of background, and then their marriages are just very difficult and they're they're feeling like, oh, there's something wrong with me.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's always those, the shame and the issues.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: And so processing that is so important.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: So how long did it take you to process that to get to a place where, like, hey, we're doing, we're, we're at a place of healing?
7:40
SPEAKER_03: You know, probably years.
7:41
SPEAKER_03: Um, but I will brag on my husband and say my husband was the number one proponent of my healing.
7:48
SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
7:49
SPEAKER_03: Um, because of his patience and his kindness and his gentleness to walk me through it and with no pressure and no shame.
7:55
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
7:56
SPEAKER_03: And so I think that's things that actually aren't talked about.
7:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:00
SPEAKER_03: That my husband was the number one gift um to allow me the space to heal.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: But you got married at 18.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: I did.
8:10
SPEAKER_03: And we've been married 33 years.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
8:15
unknown: Yeah.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: Way to go.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: 33 years.
8:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you guys get married, and was it like, were you in college or Bible school?
8:26
SPEAKER_01: Where were you at?
8:27
SPEAKER_02: So I was a few years older, and so I stuck around for Susan specifically, and then she graduated.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: Um high school, right?
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, graduated high school, both of us.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, so we ended up getting married uh just before we were headed off to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: So you guys went together to Moody Bible.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: So in that period of time in between, did you like, you know, work locally or go to community college or something like that in the meantime?
8:54
SPEAKER_02: So while I waited, I worked at the rescue mission with my parents.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then I did some community college and then some correspondence school.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: There was no internet back in the house.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: So that's yeah.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: So that tells you how old I am.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's awesome.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: So you guys go to Moody, you're in Chicago, probably I mean, that's a huge shift from Washington, especially when you're in Moody, which is downtown, downtown.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't get more downtown than that, but a very cool, vibrant part of the city.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so what was that like, just kind of culture shock wise?
9:29
SPEAKER_02: It was great for me.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: Susan worked uh and I went to school.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: And so you guys didn't stay because they had dorms there.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: They had some married student housing, but they they we we ended up just renting an apartment kind of near Moody.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: And so Susan would take the bus down to the Sears Tower, worked on the 87th floor of the Sears Tower.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no way.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:51
SPEAKER_03: That is where I got my PhT, which is putting hubby through degree.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: She's got mom too.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: That is funny.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: All right.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: So so you so you he you're at Moody, he gra you guys make it through four years at in Chicago at Moody.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: And then uh then what happens?
10:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, our youth pastor and his wife uh took a lead, he took a lead pastor position in Southern Oregon.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: And so he reached out to me.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so we ended up going to Southern Oregon, the the Medford area.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: For 13 years.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: I was the youth pastor.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: So 13 years as a youth pastor.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: So what from what 25 to 97 to 2010.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: And then uh in 2010, uh, we started looking.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, it was before that, we started looking for lead pastor positions.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, just felt the call on my heart to preach more and teach more.
10:46
SPEAKER_02: I was doing a lot of admin at the church we were at, and so uh, which is great, but I really wanted to be in that different, more pastoral role.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: So there was a church that came available in the mountains of Colorado.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, fun.
10:59
SPEAKER_02: Like Colorado.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: So in 2010, we packed up the six of us, uh, and we went from southern Oregon to a town of 5,000 uh in the mountains of Colorado.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Now, how many children did you guys have at that time?
11:12
SPEAKER_03: Four.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, four kids.
11:14
SPEAKER_03: Four young kids.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: All right, and biological adopted, what we got?
11:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:19
SPEAKER_03: Um, two biological boys and two adopted.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: All right, so give me their names.
11:23
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
11:24
SPEAKER_03: So our oldest is Nick and then Parker and Sammy and Isaac.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so how and their age range when you when you guys moved to Colorado was?
11:33
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
11:33
SPEAKER_03: So they were seventh grade, fourth grade, first grade, and kindergarten.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's a huge shift.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: That's that's a wild thing.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: And so tell me about like just life there in Colorado.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Was it sweet?
11:46
SPEAKER_01: What was that?
11:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:48
SPEAKER_03: Um it was it was a huge shock to go to a small mountain town, but honestly, we would say one of the sweetest seasons of our life to raise our kids there.
11:58
SPEAKER_03: We had our church family just precious, like precious relationships and felt super connected.
12:06
SPEAKER_03: Our kids feel like that was their home that they grew up in.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:10
SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah, it was a good, it was a sweet time.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: Really great church.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you got this great church, you guys are doing well.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: And then what happens?
12:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:21
SPEAKER_03: Well, 2020 happened.
12:24
SPEAKER_03: And I bet you would say, yes, 2020, COVID.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: 2020, COVID.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: That's my that's my normal 2020.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: I think COVID.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was really bad.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: Blah, blah, blah.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Was that your experience?
12:36
SPEAKER_03: That was not our experience.
12:38
SPEAKER_03: Um in August of 2020, we took a family vacation.
12:44
SPEAKER_03: Um Nick was older at that point, so out of our house with our three youngest, Parker, um, 19 and Sammy 16, and Isaac 15, just took a family vacation um to Arizona.
12:57
SPEAKER_03: Uh, Arizona was a little bit more open of a state, and so we didn't have to wear a mask.
13:03
SPEAKER_03: And um on that family vacation, um, after an accident, the Lord called our 19-year-old son Parker home to heaven.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: Wow, hold on.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: When you say accident, like talk to me.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Can you talk through what happened?
13:18
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
13:19
SPEAKER_03: Um we were swimming in the backyard.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: The Airbnb we rented had a pole in the backyard.
13:26
SPEAKER_03: We were just playing as a family, playing the Who Can Hold Your Breath the Longest game.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:30
SPEAKER_03: Um and Parker held his breath 19, fit, active, held his breath, swam down and back.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: And I saw him, I was watching, and I didn't realize that he had passed out.
13:45
SPEAKER_03: And um, our youngest son was also in the pool at the time.
13:49
SPEAKER_03: And when I realized that he wasn't coming up, which was not much time, um, yeah, Isaac pulled him out.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: And we believed that um the Lord had already called him home at that point.
14:01
SPEAKER_03: But we spent a couple of days in ICU um before knowing the real outcome.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: So you're sitting there on a vacation doing family things, thinking like that's a really great fun game.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've I've done that same game of swimming.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: How far can you go underwater and and all that?
14:22
SPEAKER_01: And then your son dies.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Like what feelings were just sort of rushing through at that moment for you?
14:32
SPEAKER_03: Um You know, I I think it if I if I go back to the exact moment of realizing the calling 911, yeah, but the crying out literally to Jesus.
14:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
14:44
SPEAKER_03: Like the yelling, Jesus, Jesus, we need you, we need you.
14:48
SPEAKER_03: Um the hospital just crying out to Jesus.
14:52
SPEAKER_03: Um we thought when we got to we when we arrived at the hospital, they drove us there that they were going to tell us that Parker was gone.
15:01
SPEAKER_03: And they didn't.
15:02
SPEAKER_03: Um, we had a couple days in ICU, and I think that was such a grace and kindness from the Lord to allow family to come and be with us.
15:10
SPEAKER_03: Uh, obviously, we weren't at home, we were on vacation.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: Um and it allowed, you know, a couple pastor friends and close family to be with us and walk that journey until we had to say goodbye.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: How did you like, did you call back, say, hey, I need everyone that because you're the lead pastor at this church, right?
15:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: And and you called back and you said, Hey, something happened to Parker.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: We don't know if he's gonna make it.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: Can someone come down?
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Or did, or just like, hey, what Parker, something happened?
15:40
SPEAKER_01: I guess you need you to pray, and then they they show up, or what happened?
15:43
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, a lot of it in my memory is more like slides versus a movie.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: So there's the, you know, that, but there are these these moments like we would we reached out to people, text our care pastor at the church, right?
15:59
SPEAKER_02: And Pastor George is his name, and just said, Hey, uh, there's been an accident.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: Parker's in the hospital.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: We don't, it doesn't look like he's gonna make it.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: When I got to Parker, Isaac, our son, had pulled him out of the pool, and I got him on the side of the pool and then and moved him to the grass.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: How old was Isaac at this time?
16:17
SPEAKER_02: Uh 14 or 15.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, that, yeah, just I I got Parker and started CPR.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's all kind of a blur.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: I remember, like Susan said, crying out to God, um, quoting a lot of scripture.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing, like hymns and scripture that come to your mind when you go through something that's like your biggest nightmare.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I think we reached out to our care pastor, and then he let everybody know um, active church, prayer team, all of that that happened.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh the the head of the ER at the time was a deacon at our church.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: He called, another gal from a worship team called, and I remember she sang over us, sang scripture over us, and sang over Parker.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: But but honestly, we were in such shock that sometimes I don't even know that I trust the memories that I have.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you you you're dealing with all of that.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, you're on vacation.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, how and you're you're still having to lead your family.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, how I mean, like what do you uh I can't even imagine.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: So, like like what do you do?
17:30
SPEAKER_01: Like, even even thinking like robotically, I guess we go home now.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: It like how did you like even like what what was it even like going back into your house where like now all of a sudden there feels like an empty emptiness there?
17:43
SPEAKER_01: What was that experience like?
17:44
SPEAKER_02: Leaving Parker there was really hard because he so when he was pronounced brain dead two days later, uh we had to he was an organ donor.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: If you knew Parker, he was that would is so Parker, yeah, uh giving to others.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: And so had to walk through that whole procedure of how that works, which I mean so awesome that you know some of Parker's organs are in somebody else.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Do you know the people by any chance?
18:15
SPEAKER_02: No, we reached out, uh, but they haven't reached back out, which is totally fine.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's such a Parker thing to be so giving.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: But really in the shock, I think as I look back, what came out of us was really strong faith and boldness.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: I can remember after Parker went to heaven, that I was telling everybody about Jesus.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, I had no hesitation, no reservations, no qualms about it, giving the gospel to the nurses, the docks are the doctors at the hospital.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: Susan was doing the same thing.
18:49
SPEAKER_02: We would pray over Parker.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, and those two days were really a sweetness, even though we really felt that he was with the Lord uh when he drowned in that pool.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: And we we had done a lot in our marriage and in our life to elevate our thinking from the horizontal to the vertical.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: And so we have said from day one, when Parker went to heaven.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: We didn't lose him, we know where he where he is.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's with the Lord.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: Um, he had this incredible spiritual moment two weeks before he went to heaven that really confirmed his faith.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: It was a deep, deep moment of conversion and spiritual battle that Susan and I and Parker were together, and it he just wonderfully surrendered to the Lord.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: He had some struggles of with sin, and it was like this beautiful gift that the Lord gave us because we didn't know, but two weeks later, our son would be gone.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: Um he would be with the Lord.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: And was he at Moody or no?
19:49
SPEAKER_02: So he had come home early from Moody because of COVID.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: So he finished his freshman year, did some online, and then he was working.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: Got it.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: And we were going on family vacation together.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: All right.
20:00
SPEAKER_03: So going back to the house.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Going back to the house, I mean, what was that like?
20:06
SPEAKER_03: You know, I would say our church family was magnificent.
20:10
SPEAKER_03: Um, they walked beside us.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: Um, Christian brothers and sisters basically followed us home from Arizona, drove behind us to make sure we could get there.
20:20
SPEAKER_03: And then our church family rallied in our house.
20:23
SPEAKER_03: Our house was clean, there was food in our house.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: They came in and prayed over our house.
20:28
SPEAKER_03: They put scripture in every room.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: They put special gifts for our younger kids, special blankets.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: Um with just such loving care.
20:41
SPEAKER_03: Um, because our church family was grieving too.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: They were in shock, right?
20:45
SPEAKER_03: Like Parker grew up in the church.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:47
SPEAKER_03: It's not like people didn't know him or have experiences with our family, you know.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: He was there since he was like nine.
20:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:54
SPEAKER_03: Since fourth grade.
20:55
SPEAKER_03: So um, you know, our church family just so lovingly and graciously walked us through it.
21:01
SPEAKER_03: But, you know, there's there's a darkness that settles over you after loss.
21:07
SPEAKER_03: Um, and we would say, like a loss of a core family, whether that's a spouse or a child.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: Um, everything in your home shifts.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:16
SPEAKER_03: And so there was, I would say for the first year, it's just numb.
21:21
SPEAKER_03: You're in your house, you're going through motions like, well, we have to eat and we have to take a shower, and we have other children.
21:31
SPEAKER_03: But it really became a lot of going through the motions and at the same time having precious people that just held us up during that time.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: So, like what do you you know, you're a pastor family, right?
21:45
SPEAKER_01: So usually you're used to being ministering to everybody else.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: But like, did you have to preach on Sunday?
21:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what were all the different things that you, you know, everyone's sort of looking at you as like the beacon of hope, and you're you know, I don't know, what what was your response?
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, so a few months off, and we did some counseling, yeah.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that was that was good.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: The church, I I would say of our church in Colorado, they were amazing.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, the elders, the deacons, the church family were so encouraging.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we were so broken.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: So when I went back to preaching and teaching uh and and doing the normal weekly things, uh at first I I feel like I did really well.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: Um and I think what Susan and I look back on and go, there's shock and then there's grief.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: Everybody was going through shock, you know, the initial shock of a trauma event, right?
22:41
SPEAKER_02: But then just the shock of what in the world has happened to our world.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: And then the grief hits.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: And grief is cruel.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, it is vicious.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by that?
22:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it just it's like it hits you at the core of who you are.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, the darkness, um the sorrow.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: You have you can look around objectively and go, I still have three kids, an amazing wife, a wonderful church family.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: But it I I I feel like I I never planned my suicide, but I thought a lot about it.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: Because it just hurts so much.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, it gives me a new empathy for those that struggle with with that sort of thing.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so it was hard.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: Uh again, at first it was okay, we did all right, you know, but then as fall went into winter and then winter into spring, I as a pastor, I felt like I was so angry at God.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: Um how did that come out, or how did that anger manifest itself?
23:49
SPEAKER_01: Was it like shouting at God moments, or just like backhanded or or maybe he won't come through comment?
23:56
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
23:56
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, unfortunately, I think my family took the brunt of it.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Um I was able to hold it together with the church family, but I could foresee a day where I wasn't gonna be able to hold it together anymore.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: So I just didn't feel right about how angry I was at God.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: Not that it's wrong uh to to lament and to cry out to God, but I I wasn't lamenting at that point.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: I was just just really upset at God.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: And I was saying with no filter unspeakable things to Him.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: And I I I recognized enough to go, I'm not healthy.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: I know that the church would have given me more time.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: Um they, but I didn't feel like it was right.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: And so we talked about it, we prayed about it, and I resigned in spring of 2021.
24:53
unknown: Oh man.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: And then we moved to Arizona, where our oldest son lives or lived before we moved here.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so all right, so you go down to Arizona, you've just resigned, and then was that I don't say refreshing, that's the wrong way to put it.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: Because you're in Arizona, the place where your your son had passed, but the same area?
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh we were about an hour away from the side.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so not like around.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, so you go to a new place.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Did that feel feel good to be in a new spot?
25:26
SPEAKER_03: It did.
25:27
SPEAKER_03: Um you know, it wasn't a it was it's interesting, it's hard to articulate.
25:36
SPEAKER_03: We left everything we knew, our community.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: So it was almost like we had a um a secondary loss because of the we left our church family and 11 years at this church, yes, where you're the lead pastor, where you've been involved, your kids grew up, everyone knows you, and then all of a sudden you show up in Arizona as like a new new person.
25:56
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: What was that like?
25:58
SPEAKER_03: Um, there there was certainly a blessing into it because I could go out into the community, I could go grocery shopping and nobody knew me.
26:07
SPEAKER_03: And so I was free to just be alone and silent.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Right.
26:13
SPEAKER_03: Um, but I will say at first we hid in a large church.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:19
SPEAKER_03: Because we had nothing to give.
26:21
SPEAKER_03: And then as we, as time moved on, we started attending another church.
26:26
SPEAKER_03: And I think maybe we started looking like we had our act together, even though we didn't.
26:32
SPEAKER_03: And so there wasn't a real there was not a real um people were not reaching out to us.
26:39
SPEAKER_03: And I remember going up to one of the pastors one Sunday, and I'm just bawling.
26:44
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, I have filled out three connect cards, and nobody's reached out.
26:50
SPEAKER_03: And I'm just bawling and I'm like, can you help us?
26:53
SPEAKER_03: You know, like that total, like, we're a wreck.
26:57
SPEAKER_03: We need help, we need community, we need people behind us and around us.
27:01
SPEAKER_03: And I probably just I don't I don't know what I mean.
27:06
SPEAKER_03: They're so precious and precious friends now, but I don't know.
27:09
SPEAKER_03: Have you ever had anybody walk up to you and be like, Oh, I just need so much help right now, and I'm a disaster.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's great.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: That's the best kind because then there you don't have to have it together when you minister to them.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: You can just kind of love them.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh all right.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: So talk to me though, about like whenever a this is what I've heard, when it when a child dies, it wrecks a marriage.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: What impact did that have on you guys?
27:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, that's like a common statistic, and it and it's a fact that you hear, yeah, everybody hears it.
27:41
SPEAKER_03: And the actual statistic is 80% of marriages end in divorce after the loss of a child.
27:49
SPEAKER_03: And so Don and I said early on, well, what were their marriages like before losing a child?
27:58
SPEAKER_03: And now I would say I don't think it matters what condition your marriages was in or in before losing a child, it's hard because you change instantly.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: There's no way you cannot instantaneously change.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by that?
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Talking about the change.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: Um, trauma, yeah, loss, yeah, grief.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: It just changes who you are.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: Brain chemistry changes personality a little bit.
28:21
SPEAKER_03: Yep, grief.
28:22
SPEAKER_03: And then everybody grieves differently.
28:24
SPEAKER_03: I think not only just every human can grieve differently, but men and women I think grieve differently.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: How did you grieve?
28:30
SPEAKER_03: Sadness.
28:31
SPEAKER_03: Just like just crying, crying, constant crying, and just um, yeah, overwhelming sadness.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: Um did you feel like you just like would something spur on the crying, or was it just like from the moment you woke up, it was like I think I'm gonna cry some more now.
28:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
28:52
SPEAKER_03: And I would be sitting there sometimes and not realize and the tears would just fall.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:00
SPEAKER_03: Um the depth of the pain.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Just deep, deep sorrow.
29:07
SPEAKER_03: So deep, so deep.
29:09
SPEAKER_03: And yeah.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: Were you like uh was there any blaming going on?
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Like was there like when when you think about sorrow, did you did you go, I shouldn't have played the you know, who can go the furthest game or whatever?
29:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a hundred percent.
29:25
SPEAKER_03: I think for all of us in our family, we all had a different role of what if.
29:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what if?
29:31
SPEAKER_03: And so I think actually it it's a tool the enemy can grab hold of real fast and pull you down with.
29:38
SPEAKER_03: Um, I was standing right over Parker, you know, as his mom.
29:42
SPEAKER_03: And I think in the early days, I would say day five, I surrendered that to the Lord.
29:48
SPEAKER_03: Wow, I did because I was like, I knew I could not carry the weight of responsibility because, and I have said from the beginning, theology matters.
30:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I spent a life studying the word of God, believing the word of God, trusting in who Jesus says he is.
30:10
SPEAKER_03: And if he says it's appointed unto man once to die, and I would never do anything in my power or ability to hurt my son, I had to trust God's hand in what scripture says, which says, your ways are not my ways.
30:26
SPEAKER_03: My ways are higher.
30:27
SPEAKER_03: I have a plan for your life.
30:29
SPEAKER_03: I had to trust God had a plan in this, and I had to release the responsibility that I felt, or I knew that I couldn't survive another day.
30:40
SPEAKER_03: So I had to surrender that to the Lord and say, Lord, I place Parker in your hands.
30:45
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna trust in who you are, that you are the sovereign creator of the universe, and that you had a plan for our life, and this did not take you by surprise.
30:55
SPEAKER_03: So I had to preach truth and scripture to myself.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow, powerful.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: And so what about you, Don?
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh her response was just deep sorrow.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: I would imagine most men, I would I would assume, um, check the anger card or what you know.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: What was it for you?
31:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my anger card was full.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was full.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I was a frequent flyer of the angry card, like, and it just got worse after I resigned.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: So so that didn't like resetting in Arizona.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Did the anger gr grew, maybe?
31:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I just could be a hundred percent honest with how I felt.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you're trying to, I mean, we we all do it.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we put on a front, like everything's okay, I'm okay.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: People would say things like, your sermons have never been any better.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: And that made me angry because I'm like, oh, I guess if my son dies, I'll be a better preacher, you know, just those those things going on.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: And people say that because they're like, they're trying to encourage you, exactly, and they don't realize that.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so what you're saying, the other ones weren't that good, you know what I mean?
31:59
SPEAKER_02: And we we really, even Susan and I talked about it with a counselor early on, like people are gonna try to connect with us in our sorrow and our grief and our loss, right, and say things that are really stupid.
32:11
SPEAKER_02: And we always were glad they tried to connect.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and because one, two different people could say the same thing within a span of two minutes, and for whatever reason, our mood was anger and hurt, and then the two minutes later it would be fine.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: Right.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: So we were the ones who were unstable, right?
32:29
SPEAKER_02: Not the people talking to us.
32:31
SPEAKER_02: So it's like I think it's important to continue to lean into people that have gone through a loss.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: But for me, it was anger.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Um did you take it out on Susan or the kids, or like uh how did you, or just got I mean, how did you what was your, you know, you know, I'm venting this.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: How did it come out?
32:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I definitely took it all out on uh Susan and the kids.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: Um I I think I did more taking it out on God.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'd have these conversations with God about like, well, I was serving you, and I thought like I thought I had a really robust theology of suffering.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: And I realized the only way you know that is to suffer.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: And so that crucible of suffering, I I look back now and I know God was working some stuff out in me.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: He didn't, he didn't have Parker go to heaven because of stuff that needed to be worked out in me.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Did you have to process that one thought?
33:29
SPEAKER_01: Did that come up?
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: Did I did you really need to do this so I'd overcome this?
33:32
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: And you know, why the trial?
33:35
SPEAKER_02: What's the point of the trial?
33:37
SPEAKER_02: Mostly I just was so angry because I was in so much pain and I couldn't think of anything really than myself.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: I just was navel gazing on like a biblical level and very self-absorbed, would hurt Susan, would hurt the kids, um, would hurt others.
33:56
SPEAKER_02: Short, I look back at things that I said to people.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I've written all of my kids notes of apology, you know, and um, and it was in 2023, uh, and you know, I also bartered with the Lord.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: Like if Lord, because okay, so I went through this suffering, and now I know you wouldn't allow me to go through any more suffering.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
34:20
SPEAKER_02: I've had more suffering, and I will have more suffering, and and then and then I will die and be with the Lord, and that's when the suffering will will stop.
34:28
SPEAKER_02: But until then, I'm a broken person in a broken world.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: So there's gonna be suffering.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Jesus is the ultimate, uh, he says the craziest things in John.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: I I have come to give you this abundant life.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: And then a few chapters later or before, he says, uh, in this world you have trouble.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: And both are true.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: And that's the tension, I think, of the Christian life.
34:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't understand, but I do trust God.
34:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
34:54
SPEAKER_02: And so in those moments of anger, when you're so self-absorbed and self-focused, even for a legitimate reason, like you, I I have a legitimate reason to be sad and to be angry, at least I thought, my vision was just down here.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: And then in the fall of 23, um, lots of other things happened over the next two years.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: But I finally surrendered to the Lord.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: It was like, and I always think like surrender's like this, you know, anger is like this, surrender's like this, worships like this.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: It's really hard to get to worship from navel nasal navel gazing, right?
35:36
SPEAKER_02: But from surrender, it's really easy to look up and to worship.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: And that was a gift of relief and deliverance that the Lord gave me in the fall of 2023.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: And how'd that happen?
35:48
SPEAKER_02: Trauma counseling.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think my my wife is my hero.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: Um, I watched her almost from day one lean into the Lord.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: And it was super impactful on me.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: Um, and she would say things like, I just, I look for Jesus, I invite Jesus in, and I turn around and I cry out for Jesus, and Jesus is like right there, and I embrace Jesus, and I'm just like going, I don't have any idea what you're talking about.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: I feel forsaken.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, I feel like a failure as a man, as a dad, to that I couldn't bring Parker back like any of us have the power to bring anybody back or save anybody, period.
36:36
SPEAKER_02: You know, we don't.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I watched Susan and she modeled, by the way, it's really important who you marry.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: Like super important.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh God was really kind to me.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: And I watched Susan, and I think a combination of finally recognizing that, you know, cursing God and wanting to die was not working.
37:02
SPEAKER_02: So we were going to this church, this inner city church in Phoenix at the time.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: And they had communion every week, which I just love that.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, and every week I would curse God, and then every week I would hold some bread and some juice, and I would be reminded that Jesus loves me so much, he gave his son.
37:24
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't give one of my children for anyone, but he gave his son.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: And the power in communion for me changed forever.
37:33
SPEAKER_02: So it was a combination of a lot of that.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: But again, it's the reminder of the gospel.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: Everything comes back to that incredible gift of love and sacrifice.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: That's powerful.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: That's that's wild.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Um okay.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: So you you're you're getting healing.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: Like this seems like a weird logistical question.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: How did you guys like have money?
37:54
SPEAKER_03: Well, this is actually such a fun part of our story.
37:57
SPEAKER_01: We robbed, we robbed.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:02
SPEAKER_03: Well, during COVID, early on in COVID, we just started going through our house and selling stuff on eBay.
38:08
SPEAKER_03: Like I had sold stuff on eBay when our kids were little just to make extra money because Don was a youth pastor and we had four little ones.
38:16
SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, you always need diaper money.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
38:19
SPEAKER_03: So um we picked it back up in 2020.
38:22
SPEAKER_03: And so when we moved to Phoenix, we started doing that.
38:24
SPEAKER_03: So we started buying storage units, um, like storage wars, uh, like bidding auction, and then we would pick up stuff at garage sales.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: Was it kind of fun?
38:34
SPEAKER_03: It was incredibly fun.
38:35
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: Like it was like epic treasure hunting.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh fun.
38:39
SPEAKER_03: And I would say it was stupid lucrative.
38:41
SPEAKER_03: Like wow, I just I don't, but we look at it now, like from this vantage point of where we are today, and we see God's hand of provision.
38:50
SPEAKER_03: But while we were um reselling, buying and reselling stuff on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, it allowed us this space to have some healing.
39:01
SPEAKER_03: Like there was nobody's expectation on us, right?
39:04
SPEAKER_03: Um, no job, no anything.
39:05
SPEAKER_03: It allowed us the space to heal and to be with our kids too, and to be with one another.
39:11
SPEAKER_03: And it was fun.
39:12
SPEAKER_03: And we were together.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's wild.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: So and you asked the question about marriage.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I didn't if I was allowed to interrupt you.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: No, please interrupt the poster.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm new here, so but please interrupt.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: Go for it.
39:25
SPEAKER_02: The the question of marriage is so I think there are a lot of factors why first of all, Susan's my best friend.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: And so we did a lot of work early in our marriage, and we've always made each other the priority.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I think guys have too many hobbies.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: Um, uh, and I think your number one hobby should be your family.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: So invest the time and the energy and the resources.
39:49
SPEAKER_02: And so Susan and I invested in each other.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: She's my best friend.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Why would I leave my best friend?
39:55
SPEAKER_02: It was hard because she was different.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: It was like being married to a new woman.
40:00
SPEAKER_02: And for Susan, it was like being married to a new man.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: But we had done the work and we were committed to uh fighting through those hard, hard times.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: And so again, it like even with suffering, you know, if you do the work, if you if you invest in God's word, study theology, be at every service, listen to the sermons, even when you're on vacation, yeah.
40:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can thank me later.
40:23
SPEAKER_02: It does make a difference.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: You're you're building up a storehouse of goodness.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: What about what did you guys argue about?
40:30
SPEAKER_01: I know that seems like a weird thing to ask.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: But like what you know, you you guys both had just the same sort of loss.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: You you know, it obviously we all know everyone 80% of people get divorced, so everyone's arguing.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: But like what happens where you're like the anger comes or like the defeat comes between you two?
40:51
SPEAKER_01: Like what what is it?
40:53
SPEAKER_01: What's the subject?
40:55
SPEAKER_03: Well, for us it was our other children.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
40:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, which I think what I think actually would be common.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
41:02
SPEAKER_03: So as a mom, I became incredibly protective of my other kids.
41:07
SPEAKER_03: And Don, in anger, put up a wall.
41:11
SPEAKER_03: And so now we have kids that are moving quickly into young adulthood and making decisions and moving out.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: So in the middle of all this, intense super mom or like you know, hover mom, and he's just like emotional walls are up.
41:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and okay, not just Don and I were impacted by that loss, but our other three children were incredibly impacted.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: Like, how did you process with okay?
41:32
SPEAKER_01: So we'll get to that in a second.
41:33
SPEAKER_03: But they had their own struggles, right?
41:35
SPEAKER_03: Like Don and I had a deep well with the Lord and we struggled, but our kids were younger.
41:40
SPEAKER_03: They have a smaller resume with the Lord.
41:43
SPEAKER_03: And so they're like, can we trust God?
41:46
SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure about this.
41:47
SPEAKER_03: So they began having their own struggles, right?
41:50
SPEAKER_03: Each of them individually.
41:52
SPEAKER_03: So then our I think our children was probably the thing we we argued the most about.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: What would the argument be?
41:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, you need to stop being so hovering and like you need to talk to them, but like that kind of totally.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
42:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:04
SPEAKER_03: I and I think it's sometimes probably, I don't know, maybe typical mom and dad arguments when they're transitioning into young adulthood and everything feels out of control because our life did feel like it was out of control and we're trans.
42:19
SPEAKER_03: So the timing of it all was we have child loss of a young adult child, and we have other ones in that space with their own brains trying to do their own thing.
42:30
SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to keep them close.
42:32
SPEAKER_03: Dawn is really trying to not push them away, but a wall of protection from more hurt.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: And how old were the younger two at this point?
42:40
SPEAKER_03: Um, when we were in Arizona, they were they both just graduated high school.
42:45
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:45
SPEAKER_03: So they're like 18, 19.
42:47
SPEAKER_01: So they were out of the house.
42:49
SPEAKER_03: No, they were still in the house with us.
42:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: So they were with you in Arizona.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: And so that was um, but as young adults, kind of uh were they helping you with storage wars?
43:01
SPEAKER_03: No.
43:02
SPEAKER_03: No, they were both working outside of the home.
43:04
SPEAKER_03: But I would say the the number one thing we argued about was parenting things or kid things, and not much else really, unless it was just stupid arguing like every husband and wife would have.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't all bad, but the a friend of ours, uh, Treva is her name, and her husband passed away about 10 years ago now.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and she would use a term when talking to us that it's like her skin was inside out.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: So when your skin is inside out, you're like, I imagine you're pretty sensitive, probably overly sensitive.
43:39
SPEAKER_02: Right.
43:40
SPEAKER_02: And she would use that expression, and Susan and I now understand that.
43:44
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes it was some the argument or just the frustration, which is how Christians like to say anger.
43:51
SPEAKER_02: We're frustrated, we're not angry.
43:53
SPEAKER_02: It's just anger, right?
43:54
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm but yeah, but it's like, yeah.
43:57
SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, the kids was a lot, you know, we had.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Susan's mom, Sandy, lives with us.
44:02
SPEAKER_02: She has Alzheimer's.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: She's amazing.
44:05
SPEAKER_02: We love her, but that brings challenges and just day-to-day life things as well.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: And the fact that Susan's amazing.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'm just as amazing.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: So, all right, you you you're getting it together.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: Then how do you eventually end up in Thailand of all places?
44:30
unknown: Yeah.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:31
SPEAKER_02: So in 2012, uh our church in Colorado sent out uh a family, the stoles, a mom and a dad and two boys to Chiang Mai, Thailand.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: They started a dormitory for Hill Tribe kids that don't have schools in the dorms.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: Fast forward to just before COVID, uh, and they had felt the Lord leading them to start a coffee company out of the dorm and the relationship, because most of the kids' parents were coffee farmers in Northern Thailand.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
45:01
SPEAKER_02: So then fast forward to 2023, and they said, Hey, would you guys be interested in partnering with us and selling the coffee, importing it from Thailand and selling the coffee, uh, which would help the farmers and help the kids and help the ministry and the business's mission?
45:19
SPEAKER_02: And so they asked us, and so in 2023, we brought coffee home from Thailand.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh on that same trip, we took our son Parker's ashes to Thailand.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: He wanted to be a missionary there.
45:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so we felt like it would it would have been what he would have wanted uh to have his ashes there.
45:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, that's kind of how that all started.
45:40
SPEAKER_02: And they, I guess you told me they named it Parker Land.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we did a fundraiser uh after Parker went to heaven.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like people want to do something.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in lieu of flowers.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in lieu of flowers.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: And we're like, well, Parker loves Seed of Hope.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: I had had a conversation, a providential conversation with Ryan, the missionary uh guy, and he mentioned that they were losing the lease on their rice field.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: And so I thought, well, how much do you need um for the right for a new rice field?
46:09
SPEAKER_02: And they said about 40,000.
46:11
SPEAKER_02: And so we just put it out and had people give through our church to that rice field, and 40,000 came in.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: We were we were overjoyed with that.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: That's powerful.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then so now how are you in Austin?
46:28
SPEAKER_01: And how are you still connected to to Chiang Mai?
46:31
SPEAKER_01: And how what's the vision?
46:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so after we came home in 2023, we started our coffee company in the US called P-Rex Coffee, which stands for Parker Rex.
46:45
SPEAKER_03: And our logo is a dinosaur.
46:47
SPEAKER_03: Um, not because there's dinosaurs in Thailand, but because that was Parker's favorite thing.
46:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:52
SPEAKER_03: So we started our coffee company in the U.S.
46:55
SPEAKER_03: in honor of Parker.
46:56
SPEAKER_03: And so P Rex Coffee began.
46:58
SPEAKER_03: We started our first import.
47:00
SPEAKER_03: Um, we didn't spend any money out of our coffee company that first year.
47:05
SPEAKER_03: And is going into the second year, we just felt like God was saying, give me all of your resources.
47:11
SPEAKER_03: And we said, Okay, Lord.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, how does that come up?
47:14
SPEAKER_01: It's like, zero it out.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: Zero out what do you how do you hear that?
47:22
SPEAKER_03: Um we were just saving all the money to buy more coffee.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
47:26
SPEAKER_03: And as we went back to Thailand our second year to work with our farmers, it was just very evident that all of the money was for Thailand.
47:37
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't for us.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't go buy more storage units.
47:40
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
47:41
SPEAKER_03: And we were, we were still selling stuff on eBay, but we realized as our coffee company began to grow that we did not have the capacity to do two things.
47:50
SPEAKER_03: So then Don and I just began praying and asking God, like, how do we do this?
47:54
SPEAKER_03: And I literally Googled, can you be a missionary and have a business?
48:01
SPEAKER_03: Of course.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: You can.
48:03
SPEAKER_03: So um we talked to our partners in Thailand and said, Hey, what do you think about us joining the the full-time team as missionaries?
48:11
SPEAKER_03: And they're like, Well, aren't you already doing that?
48:13
SPEAKER_03: And we're like, Well, yes, we are part of the team.
48:16
SPEAKER_03: Um, so we um found a missions agency.
48:19
SPEAKER_03: Actually, a missions agency found us and we became full-time missionaries in 2024.
48:27
SPEAKER_03: Um, so we now raise our own support because we're we also raise support for the kids at the dorm, the Seat of Hope dorm in Thailand, as well as importing that coffee with all of the proceeds.
48:39
SPEAKER_03: Um, we reinvest back in Thailand um through the coffee sales.
48:43
SPEAKER_03: So essentially we're coffee missionaries.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so all right.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: So, how could so tell me how what you do for Thailand and how the gospel goes forward there?
48:53
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
48:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so a couple different ways.
48:56
SPEAKER_03: One, the dorm was set up um predominantly to be a Christian dorm.
49:01
SPEAKER_03: Um, these kids that live at this dorm, specifically in this um area of Thailand, um, they come from mountain villages, but normally they would come out of this mountain village and go live at a Buddhist temple.
49:13
SPEAKER_03: And so our partners started the Christian dorm so the kids could get the gospel.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:18
SPEAKER_03: Number one priority um show them the love of Jesus and not make them go live in a Buddhist temple.
49:24
SPEAKER_03: Right.
49:24
SPEAKER_03: They get education and they get sustainable life skills.
49:27
SPEAKER_03: So that's the first place they get the gospel is there at the dorm, plus discipleship, like walking along with them as they grow up, um, investing in their relationship with Jesus.
49:38
SPEAKER_03: Out of that, I love to say it's it's nothing more than American Vacation Bible school.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:43
SPEAKER_03: When you reach the kids, you reach the parents.
49:45
SPEAKER_03: And that's exactly what happened that as they began to develop relationships with the moms and dads of these kids who were up in the mountain villages, that's where the coffee connection came from.
49:55
SPEAKER_03: But it's also that another, another layer to share the gospel, to be Christ to those families.
50:01
SPEAKER_03: And then just like vacation Bible school, it's kids, it's parents, it's community.
50:06
SPEAKER_03: And so the gospel now spreads through the communities around the Seed of Hope dorm.
50:11
SPEAKER_03: And we know the gospel is communicating it very clearly, but it's also how you live your life.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: Right.
50:17
SPEAKER_03: And that's actually happening just boots on the ground in Thailand with the dorm, with the Seed of Hope Coffee Company.
50:24
SPEAKER_03: They have seven-day-a-week discipleship happening with their employees and then in the remote mountain villages with the farmers that they work with as well.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: All right, that's powerful.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of like your your shtick.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: Like uh, you have like an actual roasting machine.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: You are like, you I guess you buy coffee beans from there.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: We we actually buy just from one group of farmers.
50:48
SPEAKER_02: So we know all of our farmers.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: We've picked coffee with them.
50:51
SPEAKER_02: Um I could give you some of our coffee uh and could tell you this is this is whose coffee, this is his farm or her farm.
50:58
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: And so we import the coffee.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh we just put in our order for this year of 10,000 pounds, so five tons of coffee.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh, started at 4,000, went to 5,000, then 6, and now to 10.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: So God's really blessing.
51:12
SPEAKER_02: Um and like Susan said, all of the all of the proceeds get reinvested back into the business as a mission there.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: And then we raise awareness for the dorm.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
51:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, and we one of the things that came out of this were really two things.
51:27
SPEAKER_02: So we started P-Rex Coffee in honor of our son, dinosaur.
51:31
SPEAKER_02: So we would start um farmers markets in Phoenix, thinking, you know, this is we got to get it out there.
51:37
SPEAKER_02: We we need to people don't know we exist, so how do you get it out there?
51:40
SPEAKER_02: And and so you got this poster of a dinosaur with blue eyes and a big smile, and and people would come up, hey, what's the deal?
51:47
SPEAKER_02: Why is it P-Rex, not T-Rex?
51:49
SPEAKER_02: And what we didn't realize is that that is what God used to get us talking again, to awaken our hearts to ministry again.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: Cause it's very therapeutic just to share the story a million times.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: And then, and you know, some people they want to, they want to go there.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: They're like, Well, did something happen to him?
52:06
SPEAKER_02: And we're like, Yes, yes, he died.
52:08
SPEAKER_02: And and inevitably in the conversation, and this is why we say coffee is a gateway drug to Jesus, because inevitably in the conversation, they would say, How are you even functioning?
52:20
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: And our question, our answer to that is Jesus.
52:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life.
52:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so how how do we get P Rex coffee?
52:30
SPEAKER_01: How well let's say I'm ready to go drink some coffee right now.
52:34
SPEAKER_03: Well, also, Don didn't mention, but he's our roaster.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
52:38
SPEAKER_03: So, yep.
52:38
SPEAKER_03: So, we're actually uh farmed a cup.
52:41
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
52:41
SPEAKER_03: So P Rex Coffee.
52:42
SPEAKER_03: So we work in the farm, we can trace our coffee all the way to the roaster, all the way to a bag.
52:47
SPEAKER_03: So you can find out more of our story.
52:49
SPEAKER_03: You can see pictures of our farmers, the kids at the dorm, us working there, and read more about our story at prexcoffee.com.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: That's fun.
52:57
SPEAKER_03: And you can buy coffee there as well.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: That's perfect.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: All right.
53:01
SPEAKER_01: So give me uh, like you guys have a wild platform, like a um, and it just so happens like like there are people that are obviously dealing with the loss of a child, siblings dealing with the loss of a sibling.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: Like, what is your, you know, if you could give them like, hey, here's what you need to know, what what would you say?
53:26
SPEAKER_03: That is such a great question.
53:28
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I would say even beyond just the loss of a child, when the massive thing comes to your life.
53:33
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, we don't have to compare suffering or loss.
53:39
SPEAKER_00: Right.
53:40
SPEAKER_03: But we all face a massive thing, whether that's the loss of health, the loss of a job, the loss of a dream, um, loss of career.
53:49
SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's a lot of loss that we can have.
53:52
SPEAKER_03: Um and I would say then for me personally, your investment in your relationship with Jesus, because when the massive thing comes in your life, what are you gonna do?
54:05
SPEAKER_03: Are you gonna run away or are you gonna run to Jesus?
54:10
SPEAKER_03: And my personal experience, because I had made an effort from the time I was young to pursue a walk with Jesus, to be in the Word, to be in prayer, to be in community.
54:24
SPEAKER_03: The only thing I knew to do, and I think it's like a little child when they're afraid or something bad happens and they turn around and they say, Dad or mom, they turn right around.
54:35
SPEAKER_03: And you know how like a dad will be standing right there, but a kiddo is afraid and they turn and run and they slam right into their dad.
54:42
SPEAKER_03: I think that's what happened for me.
54:44
SPEAKER_03: Because I invested, so this is this is my invest in your walk with the Lord, be intentional about it.
54:52
SPEAKER_03: Because when the massive thing happened to me, the only thing I knew to do was turn and run to my dad.
54:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
55:00
SPEAKER_03: And I slammed into his chest.
55:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:02
SPEAKER_03: And he was as close as my very breath.
55:06
SPEAKER_03: And I said to Jesus over and over, you hurt me.
55:11
SPEAKER_03: You hurt me.
55:13
SPEAKER_03: But his promises were still true.
55:15
SPEAKER_03: And and I I couldn't understand all of his, you know, like I couldn't hold on to all of it.
55:19
SPEAKER_03: I was like, the songs we sing in worship, you're a good, good father.
55:22
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, but is he but is he a good good father?
55:27
SPEAKER_03: But here's what I know he also says, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you.
55:33
SPEAKER_03: And that is true truth that you can put your life on.
55:37
SPEAKER_03: He never left me, even in the darkest moments when my face was buried in the carpet of my floor, and I could hardly lift my head.
55:47
SPEAKER_03: Jesus met me right there in that place.
55:50
SPEAKER_03: But I couldn't have been in that place had I not made it an intentional effort to pursue Christ in my life.
55:59
SPEAKER_01: So I just look at your life, Susan, you've got the sexual trauma past, you've got death of a child, you've got all all just wounds, but for you to talk about how the Lord is so good, it's so encouraging.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's something that people need to lean into.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: And I think a little bit of that is in your story on the P Rex uh coffee.com, right?
56:22
SPEAKER_01: Um and so anything else that you want to say before we we wrap this up?
56:26
SPEAKER_02: I think it's it's important to remember what the cross says.
56:32
SPEAKER_02: And so I there are moments in in my journey with this that I didn't feel like God loved me.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: And I felt bad for saying horrible things to God, and I didn't like God very much.
56:47
SPEAKER_02: But what the cross says, and that circles back around to communion, yeah.
56:52
SPEAKER_02: I said terrible things to God, and all I ever heard him say back to me was I love you.
56:57
SPEAKER_02: Ah, powerful.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: And that is so whatever you're going through, whatever you're walking through, whatever you've done or not done, God loves you so much to send you his son.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: Man, I don't know how best better to end than that.
57:10
SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks so much for watching.
57:12
SPEAKER_01: If you got any questions for Donna Susan, you can text us at 737 231 0605.
57:17
SPEAKER_01: We will bring them back if you got the questions for us.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, we would love to uh to communicate with you, so make sure you let us know you're watching.
57:26
SPEAKER_01: And from our house to yours, have an awesome week.