Latest / Desoto Hills Baptist Church / MID WEEK MOTIVATION - September 30, 2026 "A Shared Vision Turned One Congregation Into Two Healthy Churches" (Troy & Delayne Morris)

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MID WEEK MOTIVATION - September 30, 2026 "A Shared Vision Turned One Congregation Into Two Healthy Churches" (Troy & Delayne Morris) · Desoto Hills Baptist Church

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the Midweek Motivation Podcast from DeSoto Hills Baptist Church in South Haven, Mississippi.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's your hosts, Mark Lewis, David Burgess, Laura Ulrich, Hunter Smith, and Pastor Grant Steagall.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast for Wednesday, September the 30th, 2026.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_04: Today's podcast is a little different from our normal format.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_04: Next month, DeSoto Hills will celebrate its 20th anniversary.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_04: And as we approach that milestone, I decided to sit down with several people who played an influential role in the move and in helping to shape the church that we know today.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: Introduce yourselves.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_04: Ladies first.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Delane Morris.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_04: All right, and Troy Morris.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_04: All right, and y'all both moved with us from Carriage Hills.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: I want to go back way farther, though, so that we can hear y'all's backstory a little bit.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: How did the two of you meet?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, well, in college choir at Christian Brothers College at the time.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: So Christian Brothers University?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: It is now.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: So it was college back then.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_04: So it's still College C All.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_04: CBC.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: Uh growing up, what churches did you grow up in Carriage Hills?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we came to Carriage Hills when I was three or four years old.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's where I grew up, yes.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_04: When did Carriage Hills and Colonial Hills multiply?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_04: I don't even know how long back that history was.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_04: Carriage Hills was not part of Colonial Hills.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_04: Carriage Hills.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: So that's like a myth, I guess, that I had heard.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that and that was really close.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: That's that those churches are pretty close.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: To look at it on the map.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, they first started meeting in someone's house.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: Now my parents were not charter members, but they were as soon as they built a location there on Farmington across from the elementary school, that's when they joined.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: What what year do you think that might have been, or what decade?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well decade.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: I want to say Was it already established in the 60s?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Late 60s, because you know, Carrotchills had their 50th anniversary not too long ago.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: I want to say 2018, maybe?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: Was it later?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we went to that.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we went to the service.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: We went to that service, yeah, exactly.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: And um And South Haven was probably not even much of a city back then.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: South Haven didn't incorporate until like 1980.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, I mean it's I mean, my family moved here in 66.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: I have brief memories of going to Horn Lake First Baptist.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: And like I said, then when Carrie Chills came along.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: What was DeSoto County like growing up?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_04: It I obviously it didn't look anything like it does today.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: No, I mean Mill Branch uh when I moved here was still a gravel road.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: You know.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: And for the longest there was a garbage uh well, a fifty-five-gallon drum with a four-way.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: It was a four-way stop.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: State line in Mill Branch.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: No light or anything.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: And then 51 would have been the biggest probably thoroughfare.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, which would have been the highway.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: State line road was paved, two-lane.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: And of course Derry Queen, not Dairy Queen, uh Derry Haven was there.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Which is now Dell's.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_04: And the interstate wouldn't have even come through here till probably the I guess the late 60s, minute.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_04: 55 is 50.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_04: 55 was through.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_04: So the it was 55 and 51, those were the two main roads.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_04: For sure.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_04: And everything else was.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, airways was gravel.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_03: Goodman Road was two lanes and potholes, as I recall.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: So when did the two of you get married?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: 1987.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Was it at Carriage Hills?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: No, because you know we had to go where my wife went to church.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: I went to South Southland Baptist at the time.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_04: Where's Southland?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um over in Parkway Village on what is the name of that road?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Was it on Perkins?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not Perkins.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um Sheffield High School is off of that road.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's in that area.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: In that area.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_04: And then y'all moved to the South Haven at some point.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um when we got married, I was still in medical school in Jackson, Mississippi.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: And then we moved when I went to residency program at University of Tennessee at St.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: Francis.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: We moved back up here and lived in Memphis at that time.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: But we started we started coming to church.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: We started coming to Carriage Hills together then.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: And then you started in 1990.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: So you started the practice in the nineties?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: I joined the practice in 93, yeah.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_04: Awesome.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us about Carriage Hills then in the nineties.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_04: Because it was growing at the time.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Not so much in the nineties at first.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: At that time, well a little bit further back, Dr.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: Bagwell was the pastor and he married us at that time.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: And in so in the early nineties, I mean I mean the church was okay.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: It was there, but you know, there were things going on that behind the scenes that we really didn't know about, perhaps.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: And then Dr.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: and then Steve came in at some point.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Dr.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: Bagwell resigned, and then yeah, then then Brother Steve Howell came in, yeah.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: Because when we arrived it, yeah, because yeah, things changed.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: When we before Brother Steve came, he was very charismatic, he was young.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and so I think that uh and great preachers sounded like Elvis.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: And uh yeah, that's when the grove started, yes.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us about this property.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_04: Do y'all remember when the church started talking about, hey, there's some land over here we should look at well grabbing.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: I remember Brother Steve just coming to a deacon's meeting and said, Hey, there's this land I think we need to buy.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: And he I remember we like all left the deacon's meeting and drove out here and and looked at it, you know.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: And he he had I'm not sure exactly what his vision was, but he had a vision of of building a church out here.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_04: Well it's no small thing to tell the church, hey, we want to buy how many acres is this?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: 15 acres or something.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: So but we did a great deal on, as I recall.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_04: Well, at the time, was there anything out here?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: No, that was the whole thing.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: It was he had a vision, you know, clearly.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: The Lord had laid something on his heart because Oh, clearly, because this is the hottest part of part of town.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's in the middle of it all, yeah.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know, like was that 96?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: I can't recall exactly.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: So not too far ahead of dad coming as the pastor here.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_04: Now the transition.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: Delane, tell us about your role.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_04: You you were on staff at the time.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_04: I was which a lot of people probably don't remember or realize.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I ran the weekday preschool at Carrie Chills for about 15 years.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then later on, Brother Steve said we needed to hire a children's minister, and I was like, Oh, that's great.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you thinking about?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that blew me away, but I I r did both those jobs.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_04: So you were you were handling both and still were when we moved.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, still doing both, yes.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and then Dr.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_04: Troy, you were the head of the deacons at the time.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_04: Is that correct?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_04: Were you the chairman?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was the chairman of the deacons at the time, yeah.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_04: And so you had the m the task of keeping this whole ship as civil as possible.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us a little bit about and I and I know it wasn't I mean publicly it was a it was a very pleasant thing, but you did have to deal and try to keep the peace between two bodies who were wanting.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well yes, and in retrospect, I don't recall it ever being really adverse ad adversarial, you know.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um I mean I think it was your dad, brother James, that really, you know, came up with uh the concept of going ahead and you know, and because the church had voted the church had voted to just move.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_04: Everybody moved at one point in time, yes.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's what we thought we were gonna do.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then when there was a group of people that wanted to stay, well, okay.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_04: And nobody wanted to and nobody wanted to stop them from doing that.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_04: Right, exactly.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_04: I don't remember anybody saying, Oh, we shouldn't do that.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_04: And so then you had the task of trying to make sure that b both parties got everything they needed to Yeah, I think so.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I mean I think I had a lot of trust growing up in the church, you know, uh being a member of the church for so long.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh my father was also a deacon at the time.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so and he was on the stay at Carriage Hills bandwagon.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: So and you know, ultimately during the transition pair period when we were getting closer, we elected two different uh uh deacon bodies, uh one for Carriage Hills and one for DeSota Hills, and we all still met together.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh because we were still as one church.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: And uh and my father was on in that group of people.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I think that helped to some degree.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think the key was just being so open about everything.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and there was nothing behind closed doors, everything was revealed as we did it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and if you think about it, which most people wouldn't think about the the nitty-gritty logistics of that, but that's a tough thing to try to then build two churches and and have everything flowing so that when you do actually move, everything's still flowing for the other church and everything's ready to go for the new church.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_04: That's no small task.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: Because you're talking about finances and stuff.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're thinking, oh, well, we're gonna bring all this.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if they're staying, then they need it too.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_04: And that was and that was I I mean, I don't really even remember anything much contentious about the move.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_04: I think that might have been the biggest one.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_04: And I seems like Troy and dad both walked in and said, we're just gonna leave it all.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: Wasn't that basically what it was?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it came down to it.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there was I think some concern with the music stuff and you know, and things like that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: But Paul mentioned, oh, they they were had no problems with taking the drums.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, they're not.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: So there were a few things that they didn't need.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_03: But it was just the reality of, hey, it's your music, but you can borrow it and bring it back, or that type of thing.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um and obviously none of the sound equipment would have come or anything like that.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: So it really it really wasn't uh um a whole lot to get through.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_04: Now we did we did have to stretch our money.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_04: And and Paul talked about that uh on the podcast a few weeks ago, but he he mentioned that we put as much money into the facilities as we possibly could.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_04: And soft goods, I guess that's what we call it.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_04: We had to we had to shoestring it as much as and and people don't remember.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: I remember Troy, you were upstairs painting the attic.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_04: Like we people here came up here and painted and finished off finished off a lot of the interior just to try to save company.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, feature of the cleaning, yeah.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: When the tables and chairs came, bringing the tables and chairs in and things like that.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and we went and got some from uh Bellevue.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: I was gonna bring that up.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_04: If people ever if you ever go into the preschool area and look, you'll notice there's tables that don't look like they're 20 years old.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_04: They look more like they're probably from the sixties or seventies.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: The old-fashioned really good ones.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, the ones that will never break.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: They will never break.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: They will never break.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh dad told me that story that y'all actually called and they were closing down and they were getting new stuff, and I said, What are you doing with the old stuff?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And y'all did y'all just truck up and load it up as much as we could squeeze in.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_04: How amazing.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Troy found on his computer, which is scary in it in and of itself, that you still have those hard drives.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_04: It shouldn't.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_04: And that they're still working.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_04: But you found all sorts of letters.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_04: What are some of the things that you have spread out in front of you?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was just letters as the as the chairman of the deacons.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: I wrote to the church members about how things were going and what was coming up.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, and you know, I've got one here that's from October of 04, the profo proposal for establishing a church at Getwell Road and maintaining a church at Farmington Drive, and it's eleven points, you know, of how to do that.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: And it does include, you know, electing a second set of deacons and dividing general fund fifty-fifty between two fellowships and uh and things like that.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: And these are all things that we had to vote on as a one congregation at the time.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_04: And just that's pretty fascinating stuff.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_04: What's that one?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_04: What's that one you're looking at right there?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know, I'm trying to figure it out.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_04: And then you've got PowerPoints.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_04: Delane's sitting here thumbing through some PowerPoint.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, how we were combined together, and uh, you know, the late Charlie Xander, who was uh a big part of it all, and uh Barry Barton, and then Miss Vicky Bullock, the late Mary Gregory, uh Sue Smith, and then Scarlett Ulrich uh was all part of that transition team.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_04: Man.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_04: That is so fascinating.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um tell us a little bit about the first weeks when we finally got over here.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_04: Some of the thoughts.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_04: We'll start with you, Troy.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, hadn't thought about that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of it was just you know, here we are, you know.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I'll tell you one of the amazing things.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: Our first Sunday here was uh at Carriage Hills, they had the trial sermon for their next pastor.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: On the same day, on the same day.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_04: Which and they called him how how amazing that God worked that way.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: And that was just another indication that's not a good thing.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_04: Because that set Carriage Hills up in a good spot, and they never really lost any statement.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_04: They did not.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: They did not.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_04: They did not.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_04: That's amazing.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_04: Dad told me something that I had had no clue.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_04: He said that, Delane, you were the one who coined DeSoto Hills.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_04: How did you come up with the name of the story?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: We were sitting in a staff meeting discussing what the new church should be called, and I said that every church I ever went to growing up had the word hills in it.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_04: Which every church isn't that funny.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Every church.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so they all laughed and said, Wait a minute, we could call it DeSoto Hills.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_04: So was that where was that meeting?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_04: Was that a meeting or was that just sitting and eating lunch somewhere?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, we were s we were sitting in a staff meeting.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um we were in a conference room, and I guess it was at Carriage Hills.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_04: It would have been a good thing.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: I guess it was Carriage Hills before we actually Because this stuff already I mean all of these says DeSoto Hills.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we were sitting in the staff meeting and discussing it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: That is so wild.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um what were your first days here like?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Busy.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um because the preschool was small.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was very, very small.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but people were really willing to come out and you know, help out during during all the service times and everything.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um kind of getting it organized took a little bit.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um making sure we had toys and books and all of those things and then all the curriculums that we needed for all the and you were and you were pulling double duty because I was we now have separate we now have separate preschool insurance, but you were in both.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, I wasn't at Bright.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: I did that for a while, but I was also that's when I started teaching at North Point, so I was teaching full time at the time too.
• 16:19
  unknown: Man.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: That's a lot.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, we think we we still call this the new building over here.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's not new now.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_04: How old is that building?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: It's like 10 is it may be approaching 10 years now, I think.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, the new one.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right over here.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: But people take for granted that we have this massive children's space up there.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: There was no children's space.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: The children were meeting in a few classrooms on this second floor amongst the adults.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: And so it was just a lot of um interesting logistics back then.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of balance, yes.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: So uh anything else the two of you would like to talk about?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: Because I mean you were both such a huge part of the birth of this church.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I still take my mother-in-law, Joanne, to Carrie Chills, and so I know everybody that's over there, and I know that they're still going strong.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're still, you know, they hit their highs and lows too, but I mean, they're really reaching out to the community.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're always doing something for the school.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: For parents, um, they pray for them.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: They'll go walk up and down the parent line and pray for them in their cars, and the preacher will come in, you know, and talk about that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I know they're really trying to keep everything going.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: They've still got a preschool and it's going well.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_04: That's amazing.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So they're they've really I'm glad that we multiplied instead of just picking up and moving.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because that neighborhood, that community still needs that church.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_04: They still need carriage hills.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_04: People think I'm crazy.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I will ride my bike from here all the way over to that side of town.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_04: I love the old, the old the old part of South Haven, and I love riding over to the record shop over there on 51, but I will ride through that neighborhood because it's a lot safer than 51.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_04: I won't ride on 51.
• 18:10
  unknown: No.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: But Carriage Hills is a wonderful cut through.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um if you if you go down in front of the high school and then cut through Carriage Hills, and that neighborhood is still beautiful.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_04: It is beautiful, and y'all lived in that neighborhood for many years.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: We did, and that's just a beautiful, beautiful neighborhood.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and it's still a great, great area of South Haven.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_04: People don't always think about that.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: Because a lot of people on this side of town just don't drive through that side of the street.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: They don't, they don't.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_04: But it's still a uh an amazing part of town.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's still thriving.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, Trinity is now over in Colonial Hills neighborhood, and that church is is now thriving over there.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_04: So a lot of great stuff still happening over in in old South Haven.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I just wanted to thank both of y'all so much for sitting down with us today and for everything that y'all uh sacrificed and gave up in that move in those in those years.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'd appreciate it.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know if it was sacrificed, but we love this we love this church.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: It was just what needed to be done.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thank y'all so much.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks for listening.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: If you don't have a church home, we'd love to see you here on Sunday mornings.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_04: You can catch our services online at desotahills.com, our YouTube channel at DeSota Hills Baptist Church for all of our church family.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: We love you.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: We'll see you back here next Wednesday morning, bright and early.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_04: God bless.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: This has been your midweek motivation.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to have you join us in person on Sunday mornings.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Our services are at 9 and 10 30 a.m.