Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 13, 2021 | Expresso - Lindsay Wolfe

Transcript

April 13, 2021 | Expresso - Lindsay Wolfe · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm actually gonna take this out because I think I'm gonna pace a little bit.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't wanna hello.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Can you hear me quick?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, so just a little bit of more background on myself.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was born in New York.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have two siblings.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I have an older brother and a younger sister.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um we moved from New York when I was like three or four years old, and we lived in Nashville for about five years, and then we moved to Chicago.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: We lived there for about two or three years, and then we moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where my family is still living.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think I was about 12 or 13 years old when we moved to Des Moines.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um my siblings and I were all homeschooled K through 12th grade, which was a really awesome experience because um we grew up in a Christian household and both of my parents are saved.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: We were very involved in church.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I did awanas, uh, my parents did Bible studies in small groups, and so it just had a really great foundation in the church.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, church community and fellowship was always really a high priority in my family.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um that was just that combined with um being homeschooled and also just moving around so many places, and my parents always plugging right into a church was really great for me to witness as a kid.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I graduated high school in 2010 and I started taking classes at the community college in Des Moines, and my plan was to transfer to Iowa State University.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I didn't know what I wanted to study, but I had a lot of friends going to ISU and I wanted to do their study abroad program because I had a lot of friends who did that, and I was like, if I can go to college and go to Europe, I think I want to do that.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um that was my plan.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: So a year into college, I was still living at my parents' house.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had just signed a lease in Ames where I was planning to go to Iowa State with a couple friends, and I met Alex.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And Alex at the time, he had done a year of college, he was a year ahead of me.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So he had done a year of college at the University of Northern Iowa and dropped out.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he was working when I met him for his brother as um a life insurance salesman, and he was also leading worship at the church my parents went to.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was not on staff at the church, he was just volunteer leading worship.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to church one Sunday with my parents.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: My brother and I were going, we were serving in a different church than my parents, but I visited church, can't remember why, um, with my parents, and a mutual friend introduced Alex and I, and we pretty much started dating like a month later.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we were definitely crushing on each other, so not a lot of time there.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we started dating.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I had already signed my lease, so I moved to Ames, and it was about I think it was a little less than an hour from Des Moines to Ames.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I pretty much visited Des Moines every single weekend to hang out with him, and pretty much realized I don't think I want to do this anymore.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I dropped out of college because we decided we wanted to get married.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we had plans to get married the summer of 2012, in August 2012, and in June of that summer, so like a couple months before we're supposed to get married, we're doing premarital counseling.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And our pastor, who is doing counseling, basically told us to pump the brakes.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You guys have an issue, you have to talk about it, you have to resolve it before you get married.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we knew exactly what that issue was, and it was Alex's career choice.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: So he was an insurance salesman, and he is a terrible salesman, first of all, just in general, like with anything, he's a bad salesman.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: But more than that, since I met him the summer before, he would always talk to me about how he would have these meetings and like client meetings and where he was supposed to sell people life insurance, which is very important.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Life insurance, I'm you know, we have it.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pro-life insurance, but because what I'm about to say might might come off wrong, but Alex just felt really convicted that okay, I'm talking to these people about life insurance so they can set their families up for when they die.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: But if they're not saved, then it's all kind of meaningless.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he would always end up talking to people about the gospel, and he just he wasn't selling anything, it was a commission-based field, so he wasn't making any money.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that was our conflict was okay, we're getting married, we're both college dropouts, and you're not really like doing anything with this career.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, and it was it was definitely becoming an issue, it was coming up in all of our counseling sessions.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we talked to our families, talked to our pastor, and we were like, okay, well, you're not supposed to do this anymore, so we need to figure out what our plan is.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we did talk about like delaying our wedding, like, okay, what what are we gonna do?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Are we going too fast?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but we wanted to get married.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lot of people encouraging us, you know, you just need to figure out something else to do.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is just not what you're supposed to do.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So Alex called a guy that he used to meet with on a regular basis, and they would, I guess it was kind of his old mentor um at the time.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy used to be the associate pastor of the church that my parents were going to and that Alex was leading worship at.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he had moved to a small town in Iowa and he was planting a new church there.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: The church was scheduled to launch that September, so you know, a month after we were supposed to get married.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So Alex calls him and just explains our situation and just basically is asking for advice and prayer.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Well, I'm actually looking for a worship pastor, so why don't you and Lindsay come up and just meet everyone and kind of interview, I guess.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we were like, Yeah, okay.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we don't, we literally don't have any other ideas or options, so let's go.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we went up, church was, you know, core team was great, everyone was super nice.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, This sounds great, like, let's move here, yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we got married, we went on our honeymoon.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Day we get back from our honeymoon, we drove up and moved to this new town.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was about two hours away from Des Moines and from all of our friends and family there.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um that kind of began with the worst year of our lives, and this is the part that I was nervous to talk about because I knew I was gonna get emotional, but um unfortunately, this um situation just turned really bad.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it turned into a bit of an abusive situation.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was just Alex and this guy who was on staff.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Alex was on staff as the worship pastor, and he was the senior pastor.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he we didn't know it, but he had a lot of anger issues and control issues, and um took everything out on Alex specifically in the form of screaming at him every week and a lot of other stuff.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And also, you know, honestly, I could talk about this for this entire time.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much that happened.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm trying to just give you a good picture because it was it was a lot of stuff that happened, and it's like one thing led into another, but um just kind of an example of how he would operate is he tried to he was trying to change Alex into a completely different person, not just not make him a better person, a completely different person.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, getting him to do things differently, everything.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he was trying to use me to help him do that in the form of having me use sex as positive reinforcement for him.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, thankfully, because of my upbringing, I did not do this.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I did not even think for a second that this was okay or good.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any thoughts about wow, like me, no.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I told Alex everything.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: We were in great communication with each other about stuff that was going on.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: I wish we would have been in communication with others, but we were just talking to each other.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, that wasn't the issue for me.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: The issue wasn't, is this right?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is this okay?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: The issue was that I had never been in a situation where an authority figure, especially a spiritual authority figure, is abusing his power in this way.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so confusing.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: We were 20 and 21 at this time, we were very young.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And even though I knew like the stuff isn't right, it I was so confused.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember our main concern was we didn't want to be slandering his name.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't want to be responsible for tearing this church apart or pitting people against each other.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we just didn't talk to anyone about what was going on, and it was it was such a dark time because we were just, I just felt like everything was our fault or we were doing something wrong.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: But we knew, I mean, everything kind of came to a head and turned into the another time he was screaming at my husband, and Alex just snapped and started yelling back, and then they realized, okay, this isn't working.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is this relationship is not even a relationship anymore.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So Alex and I realized we have to get out of here.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is not good.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so we decided to go back to school because we didn't know what else to do.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And Alex talked to some people, decided, well, I'm already doing worship leading, we'll just stick on that path.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he found out that there was a really great worship leading program at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: So he told me, and I was like, going a thousand miles away, like that sounds great.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's go, let's get out of here.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we moved to Lynchburg.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we didn't know anybody in Lynchburg, and we were there for two and a half years, and it was awesome.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna hear me say that about like pretty much every place we moved after that, but I loved living in Lynchburg, it's absolutely beautiful.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it's so beautiful.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much to do on the East Coast, and it was just a really, we refer to it as like our safe bubble in Lynchburg.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was exactly what we needed after that year.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Alex was a full-time resident student.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: He started the worship leading program at Liberty.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was a four-year program.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually got a job at Liberty, a full-time job working in the accounts receivable office, which I loved.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: I loved working there.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I didn't want to go back to school yet, mostly because I didn't know what I wanted to study.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this whole time I was kind of waiting for like some direction and some knowing of what I'm supposed to study.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: That never happened, but I was waiting for like, okay, I'll just know, I'll know when the time is right, I'm sure.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I started working.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Alex starts his program in his first week of classes.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: All he can talk to me about is this Old Testament survey class he's taking, and he loves it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Did you know that the Bible is like one whole story?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just a bunch of little stories, and everything lines up and everything's pointing towards, and he was just so fired up.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I knew, like, could see it a mile away, he's not going to stick with the worship leading major.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So he talks to me and says, I want to change my major from worship leading to religious studies.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was a lot more discussion with that.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, part of it was also he's in this program with all of these crazy talented, passionate kids.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Alex is, he's like, I'm this self-taught guitar singer, like not even super passionate about worship leading.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'm doing here.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he was like, I need to switch my major.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want to switch my major to religious studies.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, as long as that doesn't mean that we're ever gonna work in a church again, I'm fine with that.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I never want to work in a church again.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I was beyond hurt, angry, bitter, all the things, like totally shut down from church.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: We were still going to church in Lynchburg.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I knew it was important to connect with the body, but I would sit there in church and just like project my anger and hurt onto the pastor who, whoever it was who was talking, even if it was someone we knew and I knew he was a good person, I was so angry.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just felt like this isn't who they are behind closed doors.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's not.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would say things like that, like I know that they're doing this and this and this.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I just had so much, so much going on there.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I told Alex, like, what are you gonna do?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't want to go back into church work.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even if it means, you know, you you are employed by the church, I know what that means for me.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's gonna affect me and I don't want to do this.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, no, no, no, you know, like there's lots of other things you can do, um, but I have to go to seminary after because you can't do anything with a bachelor in religious studies.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, that's fine with me, but what are you gonna do after seminary?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Well, I think I want to be a professor, and I'm like, Cool, I can totally get on board with that, like, totally.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the plan from like 2014 through like I don't know, this year.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, like through, yeah, through for most of our years in school was Alex is gonna be a professor.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so we kind of continued, you know, with our work in Lynchburg.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, about a year after living there, started going through some marital issues we were having, and they just became too much for us to handle on our own.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we went to professional counseling, and in counseling, we ironically, we started talking about our year in the church plant.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I say I don't know why I said ironically, because of course we had so much baggage and we hadn't really talked to anybody about what had really happened.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to say things out loud about what was said to us or done.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the look on his face, I'll never forget it.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking, okay, so it wasn't normal.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so like I'm not crazy, like this stuff is bad.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and he's like, Wow, okay, this is a lot, like a lot more.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we actually ended up getting to talk to someone about stuff we had gone through, and that was the start of healing, and it was so good.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he had even encouraged, I mean, Alex actually got to the point where he called our old pastor to try and reconcile things.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I wish I could say that they did, um, but he refused to talk to him and it was really sad.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: But Alex was in this place so fast of forgiveness, and he wanted to move on.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: He genuinely didn't want to have any anger, and I was wrestling a lot longer with it than he did.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but around that same time, Alex got accepted to DTS, which we were so excited about because that was like the plan, that was what we were working towards.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and right when he got accepted, I was like, okay, I need to finish school because I was working for Liberty and I had this awesome benefit where I could take classes for free.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's running out, like we're moving.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I hustled and took online classes, and we both graduated in December 2015.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the week before we moved to Dallas, my boss pulled me into his office and offered me a remote position.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when we moved to Dallas, I could keep working for Liberty, which was so huge because I had been Skype interviewing and looking for jobs in Texas.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: We knew nobody in Dallas, so I didn't know where to even start.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was like the biggest blessing ever to be able to move.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And your income is still steady.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's it's huge.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we moved.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: We were so fired up to be in Dallas, and we've just been talking about it for like it felt like ever.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we were there, we were at DTS, it's amazing.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And about a month into living there, we met this couple, and their names are Zach and Cassie.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, Zach was the college pastor at his church, and Cassie was the events coordinator at DTS.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you hear the term people say doing life with each other.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I always think of this couple.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: They truly took us in and we did life with them for about six months.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: They were graduating and moving, but they brought us to their church.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were they were doing college ministry and they were like, why don't you just come and just hang out on Wednesday nights?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: They their college ministry was at SMU campus, Southern Methodist University, and we're like, okay, like we literally know nobody, so yeah, let's do it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And they invited us into their friend group, and it was just so awesome.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: We felt like we were building community.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, then they talked to us one day and they were like, Well, we're graduating, so we would love if Alex would consider applying for the college ministry job.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we were like, No, I was like, no, church work.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I said, no.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we said no.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then Cassie talked to me and is like, you should think about applying for the events coordinator job.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because I had told her, I'm really lonely working remote.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm not making any friends.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I made all my friends in the office before, and now I'm just sitting in my apartment.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is not very fun.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was like, okay, that's cool.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so the job got posted at DTS and she sent me the job description, and it was literally the scariest job description I've ever read.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: I texted her immediately and I said, No, I'm not gonna apply for this job.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: This looks terrifying.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like not in my wheelhouse of strengths at all.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a leadership position, it was a supervisor role.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're in charge of like everything.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Your list of responsibilities is infinitely longer than what I had at Liberty.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just, I was like, no, and the pay was way less.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, this no.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that summer, um, Alex was actually in Israel.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he got this amazing opportunity to take these Israel trips with a professor of his from Liberty who was bringing him to with him to Israel to lead worship for the tours he would do, so which is just incredible.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I had gone back to Iowa.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: My sister was getting married in the fall, so we had some wedding stuff we were gonna do.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he called me one night or day or something, I don't remember the time difference, but and he's like, Hey, so um what do you think about this college ministry job?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I think you should do it.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think you should apply for it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know if you're gonna get it, but I think you should apply for it.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, really?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, here's the thing this is the first positive ministry experience we've had.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're not even in it, and just seeing the way that Zach and Cassie love on these students and the way that they've been impactful in our lives already.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like they've become our friends and our community.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we should just do it for the sake of like having a positive church experience or ministry experience.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, also I was like, I've been thinking, and I really think I should apply for this events job, but I can't take this job if you don't get another job because Alex was coaching soccer at the time.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but my salary was it was a lot higher at Liberty.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, if I take this job, you have to get a higher paying job, or we can't pay our bills.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: We were paying for our tuition at DTS out of pocket, so we really needed a certain income.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So um he's like, okay, we'll just try it.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: So he interviewed, I interviewed, we got the jobs, and it was awesome.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: We were really excited.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now he loved his job as a college minister, and I loved that he had that job because I got to go and hang out with the students and I loved them.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're so funny and just, I don't know, kept me feeling like I was somewhat in the no because that you know they're all hip.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: But my job, the whole first year I worked as the events coordinator, um, I don't think I've cried more.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to quit so many times.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was truly, truly a job that I had no skills for.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I didn't know how to delegate things.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize the weight of being responsible for something.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and even if you do delegate and they don't do it, you're still responsible for that.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And may just having to manage hundreds of different events going on campus from huge conferences to little student lunches, and everything has to be of equal importance.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so overwhelming that first year, I made, oh, actually, my whole four years, I made lots of mistakes.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: But especially that first year, I missed so many catering orders.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was forgetting things.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I crashed and totaled one of DTS's company cars.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the lowest moment, I think, of my job there.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but through it all, like I can truly say I had like the best boss I have ever worked for in any job ever.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I still text him all the time.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: He made such an impact on me.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he was so supportive and encouraging.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And he truly wanted to see me grow into the role.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: He would always tell me one thing he always said is we're not saving lives, we're just serving food.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he would say, You need to take this job and make it your own.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like you need to stop.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just kept like trying to make everything so perfect.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, You need to let go of some things.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have to stop micromanaging your team.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't mean to be, I just didn't know how else to do it.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not an I don't feel like I'm a natural leader, like take charge.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna tell everyone what to do.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to do that all day, every day.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I would come home and Alex would ask me one question like, what's for dinner?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no more decisions.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, like it's up to you.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, yeah, it was a Stretch.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I wish I could say, like, and then I grew and I got all this skill sets, but it was honestly a push the whole time I had that job.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I would have to, I mean, I just it wasn't very natural.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I did grow to genuinely love the job.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and one thing I do think I had as a strength was I cared about every single event going very well because I cared about the person who was wanting to throw the event and I wanted to do a good job for them.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so even if it was the president's office wanting to do a board meeting, um, I honestly put just as much effort into um a student group wanting just to have a meeting and some snacks.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And like I just wanted to know that like they mattered too, and I'm gonna make sure everything goes well for your event.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, I I really, really loved my job.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so things are going well.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Alex is working on track to keep his GPA high enough so he can get into the PhD program because he was gonna be a professor.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's the plan.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um he, you know, is working and in the fall 2018 is when we found out we were pregnant with our son Lachlan.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a complete shock.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually was in the middle of I was on medication because I wasn't ovulating.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was told like the year before I was not able to get pregnant.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Not ever, just there is definitely some stuff that was going on with me physically.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I called my doctor after I tested positive and I said, I just had a positive pregnancy test and I'm on this medication, but it was supposed to help you like get regular again, but you like explicitly like you're not supposed to get pregnant on this.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, It's probably a false positive.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you come into the office?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I went in the next day and she tested me and she's like, I have no idea how this happened, but you're pregnant.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they did an ultrasound.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was some like seven or eight weeks along, so I guess pretty early, but um, I it was just crazy how that happened.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And Alex was fired up.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: He was like immediately like, yes.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I which is like pretty much summarizes our personalities, but he was just ready to go, like on to the next stage.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're having a baby.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like he was so he told, like, I don't know, all of his friends that night.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Don't talk to me about this, like, don't ask me any questions.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: I need to process this.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was so overwhelmed.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I remember telling one of my coworkers, I'm gonna tell you something, but you can't ask me any questions about it.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm pregnant.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, and I'm like, no, no questions.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I was so I couldn't even talk about it.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: But um yeah, I I got really probably around the second trimester, I got really excited after I had processed, like, what is happening?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we were like, okay, it's fine.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we're gonna keep going.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's totally fine.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: We'll go back to work.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: We we found a good daycare, like it's all good.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I we had Lachlan in the summer of 2019.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had three months of maternity leave, went back to work, he went to daycare, and uh, that was really hard.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was actually just hard going back to work because I still wasn't getting sleep with a newborn.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was pumping at work at just all hours of the day, it felt like.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone needs me to be like, they need me to be a hundred percent.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I feel like my world was turned upside down, like I'm exhausted.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what my kid needs, like they're crying all the time.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And but my team and DTS is like, we have we need you to do this.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you have a job, and you know, I still need to do it.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to pull it together, and it started to get too much, especially looking ahead at a six-year PhD program, because of course Alex wanted to do the longest program that they had, literally.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um, we had a conversation, and I'm like, I think we need to take a break.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm getting so um that was December of 2019.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Alex is graduating in May 2020, and all of his classmates have already had jobs lined up.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, nobody's starting to job hunt this late.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So Alex went into the placement alumni office, and he happened to talk to a guy named Paul Pettit, um, who, if you don't know, this is home church.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: So Alex had a super long conversation with him, and he left, and I was like, How did it go?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Good, you know, he gave me some church options and and to, you know, because I told him we wanted to stay in Texas or go back to Iowa.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, Cool, that those those were the options that we were like good with, I guess.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think it was, I think what happened is Paul had sent um Alex or he sent Doug Alex's resume or something like that.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: I just know that Doug reached out to Alex, and I know Alex and I were both like, we definitely said Topeka.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: We were like, Where's Topeka?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was like, well, it's close to Kansas City.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I love Kansas City.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so um Alex interviewed with Jim and Doug.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: He said it went really great, and then he said, They want to interview, or Doug wants to talk to both of us together.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because Alex was also interviewing at a church in Dallas and in Houston and a church in Iowa, and nobody wanted to talk to me.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What's I didn't expect them to?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, they want to talk to me.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: So Alex and I zoomed had a Zoom call with Doug, and we hung up.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you guys probably know I'm gonna say, Doug is the nicest guy you'll ever meet.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: He remembers everything.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my gosh, there he's so nice.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they invited us to an in-person interview, um, which uh was the weekend, the first weekend TBC closed for COVID, which is very unfortunate.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we still came.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that morning waking up and we had our flight, and oh my gosh, the city, the world was freaking out.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, call Doug.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: He probably doesn't want us to come.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I hear Doug on the other line going, like, no, it's totally fine.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, y'all should still come.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, okay, so we went and that night we had our staff dinner, and I I was hooked after that.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like the staff here is like unbelievable, unbelievable.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like the best quality people I've ever met.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just everyone just felt like family, it felt like we were at a family reunion and we just had missed everyone for 20 years, and but we're back.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just it was crazy.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people were so nice.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember like I remember the cult the church culture in Dallas, it's it's fine.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not family, it's very business.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And coming here, it was like these people like they like each other, they're all friends.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's so cool.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we I'm everyone we met that weekend.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: We met the elders and we met um the leadership team for the young adults.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, everyone was just so nice.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: We just kept saying the same thing over.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, these people are great, like these are great people.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even really remember paying much attention to this city.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think I got this question so much when we were there that weekend, like, well, how do you feel about coming here after living in Dallas?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I don't know.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I really haven't thought about it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, but the people were great.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just felt like that's all I was really focusing on.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so we went back, and I mean, on the drive back to the airport, just took the Kansas City airport.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: I remember telling Alex, like, if you if they offer you the job, like you're gonna take it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I don't so Doug called, offered him the job, and Alex is like, yes, and he's like, Well, you should pray about it.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Okay, but yes, like yeah, so um, so yeah, we said yes, we started getting ready, moving, but unfortunately, things are just getting worse with the pandemic.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think everyone thought it was gonna be two weeks, and now it's turning into forever, you know, like at the time, and that made leaving Dallas so hard.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our college students had gone in spring break and they just didn't come back, and um, I couldn't see any of my coworkers, and we couldn't see our church family, and that was so hard.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we moved here, and on the drive here, we were crying the whole way.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I told Alex, I feel like we're sneaking away.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like we didn't say goodbye to anybody, and and it was that made the transition here really, really hard.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we were so excited to come, but we also still felt like we were visiting because we didn't say goodbye.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was really weird, and um, but uh when we met so many people here, and um everyone has still been amazing, like just like I thought they were.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was probably around December, just this past December, that Alex and I just had a conversation with each other, like, okay, we've been grieving this whole time, grieving Texas, because we were so rooted there.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, it's it's awful the way we left, and we didn't get graduation and we didn't get all this stuff.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, it was just shocking how much we were bringing that up all the time to each other, like, oh, Texas.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we're here and we want to be here and we love it here, so let's just go all in and let's just we gotta find closure because it's not just gonna like happen for us.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um through a lot of conversation, we just we just came to the best place and we got really comfortable and really happy.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when we found out like a couple weeks later, we found out we were pregnant again, and um Alex got reached out to probably a month after that by one of his buddies at seminary who was like, Hey, I have a church who is looking for a pastor in there in Katy, Texas, and we were just like not interested in the slightest.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't even want to talk about this, like I don't want to leave, like, which I'm not saying that to say, like, oh, my husband's so desirable, like churches are reaching out.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's not what I'm saying.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that like we did not want to even entertain a conversation about leaving or another church or anything, and we're so happy to be here.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I was thinking about sharing my story and just all the stuff that we'd been through.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I spent probably I spent so many years just being angry about things that we had to go through and situations that we are put in, and just feeling like, why did this have to happen?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just I don't even know when it happened, but over the years of talking with people, plugging into godly communities in our church families, we started instead of talking about like why did this happen, saying, like, thank God that this happened, and we were at this church because we went to Lynchburg, and then that led us to Dallas, and then like all this stuff, and you just don't see it when you're in it.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I can see like the blessings that God has given us, not in material things at all.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have we have everything we want for nothing, we have everything that we need here.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the blessings that we really talk about are the relationships, the people that have poured into us, um, the community that we've stepped into here that's been so welcoming.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I can't even think of anyone who who I've felt like uh you know unwelcomed.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we're so thankful for that and very blessed to be here because of the quality of people and the heart for the Lord that especially this church has.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think this church is really special, honestly.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, having moved around a lot in my whole entire life and going to a lot of different churches, I really feel like this is a really special place.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we're very happy to be here.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I know I went way over time.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, so hold on just a second.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: So um I just wanted to clarify.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you you felt underqualified for the events director position.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was underqualified.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and what about the position that you had where it had something to do with finance?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: You you at Liberty, what was that job title again?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was I had many job titles there, but it was uh accounts receivable.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Accounts receivable, yes.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the word accounts is what I don't relate to at all.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I understand receiving well.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I was just and and how much experience had you had in like finance and accounts receiving accounts?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: None.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know how I got that job.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just I love Lindsay's story, and when she was sharing it with me, I just thought, you know, it's kind of what she just said at the end there.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you think things are happening to you, but God's orchestrating things to happen for you, and you don't always know that until you get on the other side of it.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you can definitely see his hand weaving through your story, and I love that.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that Paul's mom is sitting in here?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: Have you met her?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, Paul's mom is actually here.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's Miss Rita, Miss Rita Pettit is right here in the house.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then I really have quite quite a legend, the whole Pettit legend.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's very cool.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for sharing.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: We really appreciate it.