Latest / Our Community, Our Mission / Ep #183 - Meet Greg Armbruster

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Ep #183 - Meet Greg Armbruster · Our Community, Our Mission

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day and your blessings and provisions.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: God, thank you for this time to record this podcast and all of our listeners.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Father, today we want to especially lift up our unsheltered neighbors, lord, we want to pray for them as they are going through this really great time of heat.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Lord, pray that you would just be with them, protect them, and Lord, be with our teams who are out ministering to them as well.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Lord, we again.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We thank you for this time.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Pray your blessing over in Jesus' name Amen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Hello everybody.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: You're listening to Our Community, our Mission, a podcast of the Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: This is your host, barry Fieker, here this morning with Amanda Broil, executive Director Topeka Rescue Mission, and Marion Krabill Good morning.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Deputy Director of Supporting Services.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Yes, there we go Good morning.
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: Do you forget me?
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: I know I'm kind of how could?
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: I there's just so much with it.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: You're not here, so glad you're with us.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Oh goodness, we got a lot to talk about today and a really special guest, but, of course, what we want to do this is Wednesday, july the 26th of 2023.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: This is podcast number 183.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's required by the FCC, because we're not broadcasting, but it's just really cool to say that.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: It is really cool to hear it.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: So, but today, Wednesday, july 26th, we have several things that are well recognized about this day and so that are very important, that we just fill it.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: You know people really need to know about, and so, marion, if you want to grab your cheat sheet, because I know that you really weren't prepared for this, but what is?
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: What is one of the things that it's national?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: What day?
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: Well, the one that might be my favorite is all or nothing National, all or nothing day.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: That sounds like you it does, doesn't it?
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, they're all in or I'm sleeping.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: That's right Either go big or go home, that's right and.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Amanda, what's one of the things that's nationally known about today that you really like?
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: The National Aunt and Uncle Day.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah why?
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: Because I have some pretty incredible nieces and nephews and you know there's just something different about being the aunt versus being the mom.
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: Like, as an aunt I don't say no, as a mom I say no all the time.
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: So it's just fun, you know.
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: But also I have a really, really special aunt in my life and she was and is instrumental in just my faith piece and the role that she played in me, as I had incredible parents but I had really young parents and so she just kind of stood in to be that second mom figure and we are still close today.
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: We text every day and talk a couple of times a week and she can tell sometimes by the text messages maybe it's a rough day and the next thing I know it'll say Aunt Jan's Face Timing and she'll say I just had to see your face and hear your voice.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: So I just think aunts and uncles play an important role in our lives.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, they do Well.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: It's also National Dog Photography Day.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: You want to see the pictures of Remy.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of pictures of.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Remy.
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: You do have a lot, and she just always looks at you so endearing.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: I know we got a thing going, I know.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: She's two years old.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: I know, this means she's 14 now.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Anyway, well, mary, this question's for you.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, on this day in 1775.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: You remember that?
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I do the US.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Postal Service.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Now don't quit looking at your sheet.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: You just know this because you were there.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: The US Postal Service was established by the Second Continental Congress.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, who was the first ever Postmaster General?
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: Uh, probably Is it on that sheet, benjamin Franklin.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: It might have been Benjamin Franklin.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: You've been re-banned, I do.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: You guys were friends.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I think you guys had shared emails or something.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: But anyway, yeah, yeah, I think so.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Maryam is all, or?
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: nothing in Selma.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: He hasn't called for a while though he hasn't called for a while, though he's got electrocuted, I understand.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: So he discovered electricity, they said Anyway, 1775, on this day of July 26, the Congress of the United States established the post office, and he was the first to postmaster general.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I wonder how fast the mail was then.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, well, wasn't it still Pony Express?
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: If it was still that, or wasn't it that, then Probably I don't know.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: Maryam, it's not on our sheet I'm not sure, I'm not sure.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: I know it was official thing.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: Okay, so turn about Barry right, it was.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, it wasn't there, maryam, you were there, so, okay, all right.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, we've got some really serious things to talk about.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: First of all, we're going to talk about the heat here in a minute, because we are on a record heat again globally and here nationally and we just came off of a record cold last winter and some responses that we'll talk about that in a minute.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: But, maryam, we've got some, some cool stuff coming up with a back to school bash.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so every year we try to help kids be ready to go back to school with the things that they need so that they can feel good about it.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: Kids, honestly, most of the time, get so excited about being able to go back to school.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: So we're anticipating this year that we'll help over 500 families probably with being able to help their kids go back to school with the things they need.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: But we still need some things to be able to put those backpacks together.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: So everything from backpacks to colored pencils, to crayons, to notebooks, to pencils, to all of those things Kleenex everything that kids need.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: Most of the time those things are listed on the district websites so people can check there.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: But as we just really need them to donate stuff, bring it to 401 Northwest Norris and then we have volunteers that come together and put backpacks together and then we have volunteers that on I believe it's August the 5th that we're doing that, but people can sign up to come pick up the stuff that their kids might need at 206 Northwest Norris.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: So we're excited about that.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: So if they want to volunteer, they can go to the Rescue Mission website.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: It's trmonlineorg and go to the volunteer area and sign up Absolutely.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: And if they want to sign their kids up, they can also go to our website and be able to sign their kids up for as needing school supplies.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: And you know the cost of living is not slowed down and school supplies have always been a challenge for some families.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: And to have a child that would go to that classroom, whether they're staying in the Rescue Mission or whether or not, and not have what other kids have is not okay.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, amanda, you were a principal.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I mean you know what it was like for those children to walk into the classroom and if they didn't have the other stuff the kids had, it was a bad way to start school.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: And this gives them a great start.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: You know it's kind of like us as adults and it doesn't matter if you are maybe doing hard labor out in a field somewhere or an office job.
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: You know you have your stuff, whether it's equipment.
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: You know hard hats, boots, a tie or things like that, or briefcases and laptops and computers, like it's part of your identity to be able to do your job.
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: Children are no different.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: Their job is to be a student and to learn and to develop, and so when they can tell, they can tell if they don't have the stuff they need, they can tell if others have it.
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: And so anything that we can do to bring joy to what should be a joyful experience and to equip kids not just with what they need but a little bit about what they want to.
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: You know there's excitement in that when they get the different color folders and pencils and the markers, the backpacks, you know those kinds of things.
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: It's fun.
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: Even my girls, who have what they need, that is one of the biggest excitements they have every year and they will tell you that my dad and my stepmom, year after year, buy their school supplies and they ship it to us and they know because that's the only time of year they get a box that big and they'll say it's school supplies and it's like that's what we have to do and we spend the next two hours marking names on everything, and the parents feel much better about it too.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Mary, you remember back in the day when we had the big chief tablets.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely Was that exciting.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: The big chief tablets.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Remember that red color with the chief one and all that they kids get tablets, but they're not the different kind of tablets.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very different, they very are.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so great stuff.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: You want to participate in that, help out?
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Miriam shared how you can do that and then also, if you want to volunteer, you can go to our website to do that.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Amanda, there's been a record.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: We always say records.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I mean there's always records that are breaking all the time it seems like.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: But this is a real serious deal about hunger and the Topeka Rescue Mission Distribution Center has been handing out a record number of food baskets.
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: And there's some needs here.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: Yes, you know, and Mary, this is, if I can be honest it's probably one of the challenges of my job, as I'm learning, and when I come to you about it, you say, yes, that is a challenge.
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: And so that's usually the advice I get from you.
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: But the challenge is yes, and so at least you empathize with me.
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: But the challenge in finding the balance of doing asks when we have needs and realizing that God uses such a generous community, a community that cares for others, cares for others and needs once they know that there's a need and they can participate in helping that.
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: Finding that balance between knowing when to ask and not alarming people, not sending the wrong messages, but being transparent of hey, here's some things we need in order to continue to serve those in need.
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: Finding that balance with also having faith in the Lord that he's going to provide and not fearing if we have an empty shelf or not fearing if the school supplies have come in slowly and I never want to be trying to depend on myself or man too much, because we know God is who provides and touches the hearts.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: But then there's a practicalness too that sometimes people don't know to help if we haven't told them what we need help with.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: So one of the things I wanted to communicate right now is we are seeing an increase in the number of individuals and families who are needing to access food on our distribution days, tuesdays and Thursdays, and what I mean by that is people who have never had to access TRM services before.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: So we're talking probably middle class and maybe other services too, because we have a way to check with some of their agencies to see if they've been there.
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: Correct, yes, and we're doing that so that the resources go further right, so that we're not pouring all into just one group, that we are able to use what we have to reach multitudes.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: And so we're seeing an increase in this, and, you know, even all of us sitting around this podcast right now our budgets have been impacted.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: You know, canned foods are more expensive, or toilet paper, paper, towels, things that we buy, so we're seeing an increase in people who have never needed to access services before accessing.
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: We're seeing an increase in numbers of individuals and families who have really been self-sufficient and been able to provide for themselves for at least the last 12 months.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: They're now back, and so the increase is a concern because, barry, our team is who sees those faces, the hungry faces, you know, the faces of people who are kind of embarrassed to even have to come, but they're doing that because they know that we love them, we know that there's no judgment here, and so we don't ever want to get to a point where we have to turn a car away, and so far we haven't.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Or maybe not even a car.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, some of the walks up who doesn't even have to answer the question Absolutely, and so we're seeing an increase in that.
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: We're also seeing an increase in cost.
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: So, whereas we do use some of our funds and budgets to purchase food, what used to maybe cost 50 cents now is almost double A can, and so now our team is getting very strategic in where do they order from?
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: How do they order, trying to make sure that penny goes as long as it can.
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: So we see an increase in need, we see an increase in cost, we're seeing a decrease in the canned food and non-perishable items, donations that we get, and I know that it's not because people just say, oh, you know, I'm not gonna donate anymore, but there used to be a day where maybe a family could purchase eight cans of corn and they would swing by a TRM and give us four cans of it because their family only needed four.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: Now that's just not happening as much.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: I don't know if people are cleaning out cupboards as much, because it's taking a lot for all of us to run our households.
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: So when we see an increase in needs, we see an increase in costs, so money isn't going as far when we're trying to purchase the food.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: And then we're seeing a decrease in the donations.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: We're seeing a decrease in some of the food drives.
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: So you know it used to be very popular pretty much all throughout the year where groups, agencies, schools were doing particularly canned food drives, boxed rice, things like that.
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: We're not having as much of that and so we are really struggling right now to be able to keep up with the needs.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Not just to pick a rescue mission.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Other food banks are and it's a national situation right now with groups like harvesters that have a hard time getting food, and so you look at the national and if we want to look at global, there's some real, serious concerns.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: What can we do locally here those of you who are listeners to this podcast and are supporters of the Pika Rescue Mission, if this is where you believe God is directing you, there's a significant, serious need here, and so well you may not be able to solve the world's problems right now, you can make a huge difference by helping somebody to get something to eat today.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: And the need is great.
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: Since January one, barry, we've had 341 brand new families, meaning they have never needed services from us or Catholic Charities, some of the other nonprofits that we share.
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: Our system with 341 brand new families that's not individuals, so let's say minimally that that family has two people.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: You're already up to almost 700 individuals that are new to needing resources in seven months A lot of these families are very strapped, and so I would guesstimate it's even double that at least.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: I would say so too A number of people that are needing food.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: Yes, New ones.
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: And then this is just since May 1st, Barry, I was shocked.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: Since May 1st we've had 571 walk-ups.
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: Now those can be duplicated, meaning someone may walk up on a Tuesday and then they might walk up on the following Tuesday, but still not even in three full months, not even 90 days.
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: 571 walk-ups.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: They're not driving up, they're not doing anything like that.
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: They are walking or biking to our door.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Or catching a bus.
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: maybe Correct to get down here and then we've had also only since May 1st, so not even the 90 days 381 new accesses in over a year, and that's unduplicated.
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: So people who have not needed, or households who have not needed, our services, and at least 12 months they're back.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Some people are going to have to make a decision whether to eat or pay their rent.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Eat or have their utilities on.
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: Car payments.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: That's what we're hearing People are Medication, yes, and education, and car payments.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so if we can help them not have to make their car payment for them or their rent payment or the utilities, food is still the cheaper way to go and it can help somebody right now so that they can focus on continuing to work or do those other things.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: So if people wanna help, I think that if people are able and want to, they could do their own shopping, and we do have a needs list on the website.
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: But pretty much any kind of canned good, veggies, particularly peanut butter, jelly, spaghetti-os, those kinds of things we need, and they can drop off at 401 Northwest Norris and then we will replenish our shelves.
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: People can also do orders online and have it delivered to 401 Northwest Norris if that's more convenient.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: I just had someone this weekend contact me and said you know, I wanna give some money because I realized that if I give $500 to TRM, trm's gonna be able to let that spread more because we're able to get stuff at different cost and things like that we can buy in bulk.
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: And so someone donated $500 this weekend to TRM and so that's a way that you can do as well.
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: You can do that online or mail it to us, so there's lots of ways to help.
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: And then the other thing I think of is, if you wanna do a food drive, our team, our distribution team, can come pick it up.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: So if you have a business, schools are gonna be starting, churches, sunday school classes, vacation Bible schools are happening, and sometimes there's events like the Fiesta Topeka.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: They just did an entrance was a canned good item.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: So there's ways to be creative and then we are able to help pick those up if we need to and you're making a huge difference that people need every day, sometimes more than once a day, to eat.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Two more areas we wanna talk about before we get to our guest.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: One is some upcoming community meetings.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Amanda, tell us about what they are and why.
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: Yes, we are really excited, you know.
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: We just feel like it's time.
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: We hear a lot of discussion happening in regards to homelessness, and we're hearing some things that are extremely true.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: People are seeing trends, people are seeing some increases.
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: There is just so many good-hearted people in our community who are saying what can we do?
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: And is this really a crisis, is it not?
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: What are we seeing?
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: Can you explain this to us?
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: And wanting to be parts of solutions and just helpfulness.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: We're also seeing a lot of information misrepresented out there.
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: In regards to myself, as the executive director, the Topeka rescue mission what we do, what we don't do.
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: There's also some information out there about homelessness that's not accurate, and so this is really just a time to engage everyone.
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: Engage everyone in healthy, positive communication where we can have some dialogue, and so the heart behind this is to really inform and empower our community with truth, but also camaraderie, to say here's some history of homelessness, here are some trends that we're now seeing in different parts of the country.
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: Here's what we're seeing in Topeka.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: We will also be diving into TRM operations and looking at what is our role.
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: That is, beyond just the sheltering and just the food, which I say just lightly right, that's In addition to that's a magnitude in it as well.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: But that's what I hear sometimes is well, trm is just shelter and food, and I wanna say, well, shelter and food is crucial, but we also do a lot more in addition to that.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: So we're gonna be talking about our departments, our team, and then we have a list of 10 questions that I've been hearing community concerns, because you know, barry, part of my role as the executive director is not just to surround myself with everyone that agrees with me.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: That's not healthy.
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: I don't do that personally and I don't wanna do that professionally.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: So when I hear people have concerns about the rescue mission or they have questions, I don't wanna dodge those.
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: I wanna I want to tackle them.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: No, I want to you have answers for them.
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: Yes, and I want to bring light to that.
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: And I also appreciate when people have the courage to come talk to me about difficult things, because I know that's hard for them to question something and I welcome that because that's just.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: We are transparent at TRM.
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: So this next part of it the meetings is going to be like some top 10 questions and concerns that we've heard, that we have answers for, and then we will also have a question and answer time for people in the audience and that's just gonna be a time where we want people to feel heard and we'll either have the answer or I'm gonna promise them we'll get it to them soon, but that's really a time for that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: And there's gonna be some norms for these meetings, because anything that TRM does needs to be a safe place, regardless if it's for a guest, someone on the streets, our staff or a community member.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: So it's gonna be healthy questions, healthy dialogues, and I'm excited to see how God's gonna work.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: And also an opportunity to look at maybe a plan going forward to be able to consider for the community, not just to pick a rescue mission for the whole community.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: So, Amanda, the first one is going to be tomorrow night at the former North the Pickababbit Church, which is at 123 Northwest Gordon.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: That's easy to remember 123.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Northwest Gordon, right at the almost the intersection of Gordon and Kansas, and so at 5 pm people can come to that, and then there's gonna be some other ones that are gonna follow up on that.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: They're out on the Topeka Rescue Mission Facebook.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Some are gonna be during the daytime and this one will be in the evening from 5 to 7.
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: And all are welcome.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: We're excited to see everybody and to hear thoughts and to speak truth as well.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: If people do have time.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: We do appreciate there is a registration link.
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: Of course there's no cost, nothing like that, but that does help us just have an idea for spacing.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: We want people to be comfortable with seating and we will be serving just some light snacks since the times of day and everything.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: But if for some reason you don't get around to registering, still come.
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: Don't feel like that keeps you left out.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: One more item before we get to our guests, and we appreciate our guests waiting.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of updates today and so it's hot.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: We've got a week here where we're in the 100 pluses and there are people that are attempting to survive, who have no homes.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Some people are in homes have no utilities.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Shelters are predominantly full at the mission, so outreach is doing what in relationship to the heat?
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: So I think the first thing when you say that I think of is we're being out in it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: It is important to our team to also experience the conditions that our neighbors are experiencing, because then, one, it just helps with the level of empathy, but two, it allows us to come up with pretty creative ideas of how we can better help and serve.
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: And so last week, when we saw that the heat wave was coming in and is going to continue through next week as well, we met like we do every week, where we debrief and then we come up with our outreach plan.
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: But the teams have been out and we knew it was going to be earlier than normal and later than normal.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: So the last team yesterday I didn't call off until almost six o'clock because they just could not.
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: They said please, we've got four or five more encampments to go to and then we've hit all of our goal.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: And so I allowed that.
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: But the team is going out for a couple of reasons.
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: One, to give resources, and sometimes people say, well, are you just enabling, or if you're providing stuff for them, then they never want to change.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: But what I would like to say to that is what we are trying to do is we're trying to engage with them, we're trying to learn their stories, we're trying to gain trust, because then, through that, we can begin removing barriers and helping them to get their life changed.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: But it can't just start with us saying why the heck are you out here?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: on the streets.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: It can start with us giving a banana and a Gatorade, of just saying, hey, we love you, we care for you, we thought about you, we want you to be safe.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: Talk about this real quick.
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: Why banana?
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so last summer we decided to try popsicles and the electrolyte, pedialyte ones, because it's a quick source to be able to replenish, especially if they're facing dehydration.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: And so I wasn't sure how that was gonna work, especially with grown men if they wanted popsicles.
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: But they loved it and they yeah.
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: So we kept that.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: So this year, and we did watermelon last year.
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: This year it was harder to do watermelon one to get it and two because of the cost, and so what we've decided to do, based on last year as well, we had a lot of people talk to us about that.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: They were getting cramps and we know that it was due to low potassium levels plus the dehydration and just the elements.
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: And so this year we are still doing the waters, we're still doing the Gatorades and the popsicles, but we've added cantaloupe and we've added bananas, and so we've had a couple of our unsheltered neighbors helping us cut up cantaloupe and to prepare to help them take care of their fellow people, and we've got them in individual packs, and so the thought behind this is how to best nourish people, and you can't do that without water and fresh fruits, and so that's gonna be what we're doing and we've been doing that every day and we'll continue that.
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: We might even be doing outreach this weekend because we worry about some of our people are extremely feeble and the thought of going two days without having touch points on them.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: We worry about them.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: Just a couple of weeks ago, our team was out.
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: I've not shared this on the podcast, but they heard screaming of someone screaming help and our team had been out, but they hadn't been in that area for a couple of days because we rotate all over the city of Topeka.
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: I think some people don't realize that.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: I think they think we just do outreach in North Topeka, but we go wherever there's encampments.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: But a gentleman had fallen from a tree and had fallen out on the ground and broke his leg, and when he heard the ATV he was so relieved because how long had he been there by himself?
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: He knew at least two days, yeah, two days broken leg, Nobody around him, nobody coming to help him.
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: It's hot then quite as hot as it is right now, but I think it was 98.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: And dehydrated.
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: Yes, very dehydrated, and so our team called me when they were out in the field because I'm always home base for them and we worked with AMR they were incredible to get us help.
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: We got him loaded and got him the treatment that he needed.
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: But when we say sometimes that it really is life or death, like that's not us trying to be this heroic movie or drama scene.
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: It really is what we're seeing right here on the streets of Topeka.
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: So we're doing fresh fruits, we're doing lots of electrolytes to hydrate, but even more important to that, it's just being present.
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: It's not us staying in offices saying, well, we hope they're doing okay, it's us going out, and so we're just going out to be the hands on feet.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Lessoners.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: You get to be a part of that by praying and supporting these efforts, whether it's financial or resource wise or volunteering.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Bottled water, continuing to need that when you go out so that we can chill that water and take it out to the folks that need.
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: And we're thankful for the volunteers who are doing outreach with us.
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: Because of them, we've now been able to have three to four teams out, whereas if it was just our three staff members, they can only form one team, because we need two people each, and so, when you look at that, that's decreasing the amount of time that has to be spent with just one team going out.
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: So now we divide and conquer and we're covering even more area of our community, able to have deeper conversations and be able to have more intensive follow-ups with people, because more hands make the work lighter.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you for all those updates and we wanna switch gears now to our guest that's with us today, who is just a good friend, and not only of mine and has been that way for many years, but also of the Topeka Rescue Mission as a board member of the mission for a number of years.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Greg Armbruster, welcome to our community, our mission.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Thanks, barry.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: How long have you been on the board and why Topeka Rescue Mission board for you?
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all I'd like to say I love you guys and really appreciate what you're doing.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: And so it was kind of funny when I was thinking about getting on the board, the Lord was convicting me that I needed to make a branch out and do some other ways of serving him, and I really can't say, to be truthful, that I had a heart for the homeless at that time.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: I knew you, barry, of course, very well.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Kevin Swift was on the board, I knew him and I was very familiar with what the Rescue Mission had done with Netreach and the High Crest Area.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: In fact our church was involved in that.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: But I think the one thing you guys were doing at that time you had this Restore Hope Ministry trying to help girls that had been in sex trafficking, and so I had heard a lot about that and kind of had a heart for that.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: So I think combination of those things is why I got on the board.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Greg, you've been in the Topeka community for some years.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: You people say the name Greg Armbruster.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: They're gonna many people gonna know your name because probably because you've helped them to get housed right yeah, that could be true.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: You've been in real estate for quite a number of years and now you're with Genesis Realtors or not with them, I'm not even sure what your position there is, but talk about your involvement in the community, your church, and then we're gonna get back to just a little bit more about TRM.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I attend Fellowship Bible Church.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: I've been there actually since they've started the church, I think in 96.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: And my wife and I started going there one month after the church was established.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: So I've been there pretty much the whole life of the church.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Currently you serve in leadership.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: There's an elder.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Is that correct?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Right, I'm on the elder board.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: And I'm real involved in the men's ministry.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: There.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: We've developed a mentoring program and I'm so I'm involved in that too with Fellowship.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: So how long have you been in real estate in Topeka?
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: 45 years, so it's a little while You've seen a few things.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I started in 1978.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: That was what?
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Would that be 203 years after you and Ben started in those times?
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Well, he catches on doesn't he?
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's good.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: So, greg, you know a lot of people in the community and you've served, and obviously in church, and I recall you were with the Youth for Christ Board at one time and in other areas.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: So you talked about how you became a little bit interested and then obviously been more interested in the homeless and what Topeka Rescue Mission does.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: But talk about your faith, if you would, and what God has done in your life, and I know you have shared your testimony before, but I think it'd be interesting for people to know you weren't raised in the church necessarily and you became a Christian later in life.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually was raised.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I grew up in Western Kansas little town called Ellis.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Most people know about Ellis because they go buy it on the way to Colorado.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Everything in Western Kansas you go buy, okay, fast.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: So we had a little country church Lutheran church that I attended growing up and then when I went off to college at K State I went to church one time and then that was it.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: And you know, I grew up thinking religion was kind of a system of rules to keep and I couldn't keep them.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: So I just, I guess, gave up on that, Even just attending church, so probably lived a pretty pagan life for till I was 29 and I had been married and divorced and Renee, my current wife.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: We had been married about a little less than a year and it was not going well already.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: So a friend of ours had invited us or told us about the marriage encounter and this was put on by the Methodist church.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: We went to the it was a weekend encounter in Kansas City, but when we left there they really emphasized the need for God in the relationship a man, woman and God.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: So we made a decision after that weekend that we were gonna join a church and luckily we joined a good church and after the first Sunday we were there back then.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know if any churches still do that, but the pastor and one of the elders would go visit any of the new people, so they showed up, knocked on our door on Thursday.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Now they get a text message.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right, that's right.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Or we know we see them through our camera and we don't answer the door, but anyway we.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: They presented the gospel to us and immediately Renee and I both responded to it.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: It was amazing.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I guess the Lord just had us ready for it.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: So when they say they presented the gospel to you, what was?
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Why was that different than what you'd already heard?
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Well, like I say, I just my misconception of religion totally changed.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: You can have a relationship with God, with Christ, through what Christ did on the cross.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: And just, I don't know when somebody said Jesus died for my sins, I don't know that I really knew what that meant before, and the concept of having a relationship with God now that he sees me without sin, I mean it just kind of all clicked.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what happened then from that point that was transformational in your life.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Well, that's, I guess.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you asked because I had an interesting story.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: The next 20 years had more to do with the churches that I was going to than what I was doing.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: Probably less than a year after we came to Christ, that church had a split, kind of the old elders versus preacher disagreement or whatever power struggle.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: So we left and went with the pastor keep in mind we'd only been Christians for a year and started meeting at a Grange building in Tkampsee, and so we spent six or seven years there.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: But we went through two pastors, and actually the pastor that left last one went to the mission field and turned over the church to the two elders he had trained, me being one of those, and after a short period of time one of those elders left.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: So it didn't go well and so we shut down the church and then somehow, through a contact, we started attending the church grace fellowship that was meeting in the White Lakes basement.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: So we went from a church building to a Grange building to a basement attending church, which is fine.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: But the church became ingrown and wasn't growing, and so after a few years the pastor retired and we closed the church down.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: So basically I had a split and two churches that closed down in less.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: It was about 20 year period.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Some people would say enough's enough.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: And at that time the one criteria we were looking for a church was it had to have a building.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: That was the most important thing to us at that time.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: But the funny thing was someone had told us about Fellowship.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: Bible Church had just planted.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: You know, to speak of Bible had planted that church.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: They were meeting in a grade school, but we went and checked it out and just loved it and so we stuck and so the rest is history.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Well, you certainly have seen a lot of growth with that fellowship fellowship Bible.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: That has transformed many things over the years internally and externally in the community, and so we're grateful for our brothers and sisters at Fellowship.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: For sure, Greg, you spent some time in your ministry as a professional in the community, engaging with different people in leadership and different things.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: You've also spent some time mentoring some others.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Give us a story or so about the value of that.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do have a story and it's just recent.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Some of it developed, so it's it's close to my mind and everything.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: I was on the Youth of Christ Board and they were doing that a connection with Shawnee County Juvenile Department and they were doing we were doing mentoring, and so I got connected with a young man.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: He was 17 years old and he was on probation, I believe.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: So I met with him several times, had him out to my house to watch a chiefs game.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: He was, he was kind of hard to talk to but trying to establish a relationship.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Well then he ended up, got into some altercation with his mom, went back to jail.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: So I'd go up there every week and visit him at the jail, just regularly, and it was hard, because it was hard to I had to talk through the glass and through a phone with a phone and he didn't talk a lot.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: So but I stuck with it and then he got out.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: He was put into a I think it was a halfway house in Lawrence.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: So I'd drive over there and take him out to lunch and I never did have any really good conversations with him about the Lord, it seemed like.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: But then he came back to the pica and he did get a job and then I lost contact with him and so I think my contact lasted for about a year and then, about a year and a half later, I saw a news story where he had been arrested.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: And you know, I just I remembered him and I just I felt like it was kind of a fader on my part.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: I just didn't make a lot of progress with him.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I thought, well, lo and behold, 10 years later this is just earlier this summer I get a text from him and he it made me cry because he talks about how he appreciated.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: He says you may not have known it, but you did influence me and I just appreciated you being steadfast and, you know, coming to see me at the jail and said I just want to let you know.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: And so I texted him back and set up a lunch with him.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: I said I want to get to talk to you some more and find out about your life.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: So we did and we met and had lunch and it's amazing, it's 10 years later.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: He's 27, he has a wife and a two-year-old boy.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: He's kind of a very entrepreneurial young man.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: He's got the bouncing house business.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: He bought those and he does those.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: He flipped a couple of houses and he'll buy stuff on eBay and sell it.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, just amazing how he's turned his life around.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: Isn't that wonderful.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: I had no idea.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's many lessons in that, and one is we want to quick fix.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: You know, we want to invest in somebody or something and we want it to be fixed, the homeless being one of those issues.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: But people are complicated and sometimes we feel like we failed, but 10 years later, this guy says hey, thank you for what you did for me.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think the big thing I learned too was, even though you may not have thought you said the right things or done the right things, just be in there.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Just establishing that relationship is critical.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Craig, what's been maybe one or two big surprises or a-ha moments, since you've been involved at this level of, to speak of, rescue mission that maybe you didn't know before you became a board member?
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah Well, I don't know if all of us are right way to describe it, but some of the stories where we're seeing results, success stories and especially, as I'm in real estate, the success we've had with the housing program and even though it hasn't been going on too long, it's been very successful.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: We've put people into houses and we stick with them during that time and there's very few of them have where it hasn't been successful and that's amazing to me that if you do it right and are sticking with them, it will work.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Sure, it's been a marium, 600 households a rehouse since we started this, yeah.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: See, I didn't even know it was that.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it truly is amazing.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: It truly is amazing.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: These are people would potentially still be homeless.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, in this community.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yes, literally in housing.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: No, it is an amazing program and it's really, yes, the house is really important, the roof is really important, but it's the relationship piece.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: It's just like what you were talking about with the young man.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Right, it is the relationship that changed things for him, even when you didn't necessarily know it.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and for the folks that we've been able to help get into housing and walked alongside them, it's the relationship, it's this community piece that really then helps them be successful in that, because they don't feel so all alone, you know, and sometimes it doesn't feel like it's necessarily going to work, and yet, you know, people hear what we say to them.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: People heard what that young man heard, what you said to him.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: You know, it's the seeds that get planted, that God then grows and that's and that's amazing.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: So the housing program is, it's like one of my most favorite things too.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd said I didn't really maybe have a heart for the homeless when I first got on the board, but that's really changed.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: You know, understanding what maybe causes that or events in their lives.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: I mean there's people that are homeless no reason of their own.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: I mean just some circumstance.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: And some of them, of course, a lot of them are because they've made bad decisions, but you know, we all make bad decisions.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: Some of them have worse circumstances than others.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: As a result, and some people make bad decisions because they were trained to make bad decisions by whoever raised them or whatever.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Well, greg, we thank you for your service.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: One last question for you is you've been hearing and seeing things for approximately six years with the speaker rescue mission.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: You realize that trying to help people that come from hard places is not easy work, and the issue of homelessness is exploding around the country for lots of different reasons.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: What would you want people in the community to know that is on your heart about the homeless?
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe what we ought to be doing, what we ought to be thinking about, maybe a message to the church in regards to this particular explosion of homelessness and people who are suffering.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: As a representative of the speaker rescue mission, representative of your church, yourself and Christ, what would you want people to know?
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's important to know that what the rescue mission is doing, what we can do, is help people kind of one step at a time, and what we're doing is we're not enabling people, we're just trying to help them take one step to improve their situation, whether that's healing because of emotional trauma or whatever, whether it's putting them in a house.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: And it takes relationships.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: I think that's the one thing I think people need to understand too is it takes engaging them and then building that relationship.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: And we're not going to just solve we can't just solve homelessness.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: We just have to try to help each individual one step at a time.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: I think that's so important what you said.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I mean we think about housing, we think about feeding, we think about all these things that are practical needs, but without relationship, without healthy relationships, and it takes time.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: In one situation you shared with us a great expansive time that you thought it wasn't making a difference made a difference Somebody's very significant that he's not in jail today.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: You had said you might ask me this question about solutions to homelessness and I came up with three words relationships, relationships, relationships.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: And isn't that God?
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: It's about relationships, relationships, relationships.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: And so love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbors yourself.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: There's not a lot of rocket science in that.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's pretty plain about the greatest commandment.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: We talk about rules.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: That's an opportunity.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: An opportunity to connect with the Creator of the universe in such an intimate way because he wants to have a relationship with us.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: And when we do that and we understand about that relationship with his son, then we can go out and have a relationship with others in such a practical, healthy way.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just amazed.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: The man just said at one of our board meetings one of our goals is to get to meet every person on the street.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: That's just amazing.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Just they're not homeless people, they're people who are experiencing homelessness people first.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, Mark Buster, thank you for being a great friend, a great leader in our community, a board member at Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you for waiting for us as we went through a lot of different things today and I know you've got a meeting to get to but thank you so much for your service and just really helping us to think about relationships.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, You're welcome.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you all for listening to our community, our mission, here in this hot day in July of 2023.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: If you'd like more information about the Topeka Rescue Mission, you can go to TRM on the website onlineorg.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: That's TRM onlineorg.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: If you'd like to help promote our community, our mission, you can subscribe, you can rate and you can share.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to our community, our mission.