Latest / The Resilience Project / Twice Delivered: An Ethiopian Adoptee on Faith, Grief & the Body He's Never Explored with Isaac Melber

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Twice Delivered: An Ethiopian Adoptee on Faith, Grief & the Body He's Never Explored with Isaac Melber · The Resilience Project

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi y'all, I'm Julie.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a trauma-informed adoptee coach and somatic healing guide.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: After overcoming deep abandonment wounds, I now help adult adoptees move from feeling lost and disconnected to experiencing profound self-belonging.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it is like to carry the weight of abandonment, to feel stuck in patterns of longing, adapting, and searching for belonging.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: To have tried every healing modality available and come up empty.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: My own healing has taught me this.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The answers aren't out there.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're buried within me.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm here to guide you home to yourself.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Resilience Project Podcast brings voice, visibility, and validation to the parts of adoption society rarely names, but all of us feel.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Through an trauma-informed somatic lens, I explore the lived experiences of the entire adoption constellation with a tender emphasis on the adoptee experience.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast goes beyond storytelling into soul telling.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It offers embodied insight, compassionate education, and a path towards awareness, hope, and strength.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode invites listeners to understand adoption more deeply, not just with the mind, but with the nervous system and to reconnect with the truth, identity, and belonging that were always yours to come home to.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the podcast, everybody.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is so good to be together again.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Today's conversation is one I've been looking forward to since the spring.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: My guest is Isaac Melbourne, an adult adoptee, author of the book Twice Delivered, and a speaker who works with churches, adoptive families, and adoption communities.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Isaac was adopted from Ethiopia, raised in a transracial family, and is currently preparing for ministry.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he brings a perspective to adoption that is deeply shaped by his faith, which I love.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to be honest, though, because why I wanted to have this conversation on this show is because Isaac and I don't come at adoption from the same same angle.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: My work lives in the body, in the nervous system, in what we feel before we can explain it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Isaac's work lives in faith, in what he calls God's redemption in adoption.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of you listening, faith language around adoption has been a place of refuge.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But for others, it's been a place where your grief had no room to exist and where trauma happened.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Many of us hold both.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not a debate.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, Isaac and I are on the same faith level.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just what I professionally do, he does not do.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So this is two adopted people with two different frameworks sitting down to listen to each other.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that's the work.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: More stories and more connection equals more healing, which my friend, my friend and colleague, Dr.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Liz Debeta talks about all the time.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So wherever you are with faith, you belong in this conversation.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Isaac, it is so good to have you.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely excited.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: When we first met, I just remember being so energized by you and your desire to know more, your desire to learn.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things I'd like to delve into first is your story because it is pretty powerful.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your journey from Ethiopia to the family who raised you.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: What parts of that story do you actually share when you speak?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm yeah, I'm a very open person.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there are those who want to speak a lot about adoption, others that don't want to speak any.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Not going to blame either side, because you know, you're you're going to share as much as you're comfortable with.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but right I usually, I'm the type of person I I share everything.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all the the hardships, uh, the the joy.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but I try to look at it through a joyful uh way.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh uh, you know, when I came, uh I came from an orf an orphanage, and then before that I was in a village.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so village orphanage to America.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I lived in three different homes and places, and then I, you know, I flew 6,000 miles to the United States.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but when I speak about my story, a lot of it's joyful.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of joy in my story.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I got I have a great family that loves me, that cares for me, and uh even you know, even though uh I'm not have their blood, they treated me like I am their family.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it and that's something that uh that's just something that you just can't get over.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I you just can't get over.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I also share the hardships and the sad, sad things like death.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh death is uh it's death was a part of my story, and I couldn't change it.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and uh I just embraced it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not in the sense that, you know, I'm excited, because like no one you can't be excited about death.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, death is something that we all deal with.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: At a young age, mom and dad passed away, and then various other families had to be put up for adoption.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reason why I was in the in the orphanage, and then I had to be in my village, and then I was at the US.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So usually uh I'm I'm I'm a happy person.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: At least I like to think so.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: I always want to highlight the the highs.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but sometimes in life you gotta talk about the hard things so that you they so that you can get to the joy.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in my life, uh sadness had to be a part of my story, and then that sadness I turned into joy.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so a mix of joy and sadness, uh, but they're both uh healing.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're both healing, and they are it honestly shows me where I where I came from, where I came from and who I am.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it reminds you of that for sure.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're the it's a it's a sad beginning, but it's turned into a joyful, what I would say, ending.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But dude, you're still you're 22, 23?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 20.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're 20.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I can't remember.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I thought you were the age of one of my sons.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, you're a young'un, and the fact that you are at this place in your life is just really encouraging, honestly.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So growing up as a black man in a white family, you have said publicly that people often ask you about this.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to know more about that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: What do people get right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do people get wrong?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: What does that feel like for you?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just curious about it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's interesting.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not the only non-white person in my family.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: So my brother is Ethiopian as well.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: My sister is Asian, so I mean, we're just all mixed, which is awesome.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: So when you see us in the grocery, you you might get it, we get we get weird looks.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just that's a part of it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and people ask me all the time.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, my one time I was in high school and a guy asked me, he said, Isaac, who's that?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: I said, That's my dad.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: He said, he looked at me and said, What do you mean that's your dad?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I said, That's my dad.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he's never heard of adoption.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, never heard of adoption.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you should never expect people to hear about it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I when I first came to America and Kentucky where we were at, adoption was so normal.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like every person I saw, like, man, this is adoption, it's great.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: But when we moved to Georgia, I mean, everyone was just, what's going on?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And adoption was not normal.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it made me a little lonely, but it made me realize that you know, not everyone wants to know.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And people need to hear the the joys of adoption and what it brought in my life.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but people ask me all the time, I said, Hey, how does that how does it feel uh to not look like your family?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I'll say at the beginning, it was harder to swallow because in life you cannot, I mean, you can't control your circumstances.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was in this family that didn't look like me.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and at the beginning of for example, like when I first came to America, I was not thinking of skin color.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I really wasn't.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought, I'm here, I'm safe, I have food, I am protected.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: All I wanted was protection.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: But as I got older, as I aged, a 13-year-old and a five-year-old think differently.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, more concrete, more just deep.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm thinking, what am I gonna eat tomorrow as a five-year-old?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna eat my goldfish.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're 13, you've developed, you looked around your surroundings, you're thinking, all right, this person doesn't look like me.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And kids started to ask questions, and I never knew how to answer it.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And every time I thought I I just could share my story.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when storytelling has become a very big part of my life because there's a story behind every adoption, and honestly, every person who's ever ever lived, but mine is unique because I don't look like my parents.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and some people didn't get it, others did get it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I can tell you all these times, it really took a toll on me.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: People would call me like whitewashed or all this stuff, and you're not even black.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, I'm I'm black.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, gotta be honest, like, look at me, I'm black.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, but you're you're washed or whatever.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, uh no, my it's a part of me.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm African-American.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm proud to be who I am.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I yes, I was raised by white people, and you know, I I think of myself as this might be weird to say, but best of both worlds.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm just I gotta have both sides.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, raised by white people, I'm and I'm African-American, and it just gave me a unique perspective on life.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And for the longest time, I thought that was a burden.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: But as I grew, I got older, it didn't become a burden.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: It became something I can be proud of and share.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in my life, actually, uh, for some reason, I'm the type of person who likes to unite people.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like my friends are always different.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm always a person who's always in the middle of the arguments or conversation, I'm thinking, who do I choose?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And both of them were friends with me, and I would kind of connect them.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And for my life, oh yeah, for my life, I would say that I just connected people.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when people ask me all these questions with weird, weird uh sayings, and I'm thinking I don't know what to say to them, or all I know is I have my story, and I'm gonna tell them my story, and it's gonna explain a lot of yeah, definitely.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think I want to highlight one thing that you said, you were adopted at five.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's a that's a big deal.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you had memories of all the things that you experienced before five years old.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, without a question.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and I think it's a big deal for people to understand.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I was adopted at seven weeks, I didn't have the cognition, but my body knew and I carried that.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you actually ended up having both, and we're gonna have a deeper conversation about the body a little bit later.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what I love is how you've allowed that to become not a victim mantra for you, but uh this happened for me mantra.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot happened to me, but I'm gonna turn this into an impact for others, and it's beautiful.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so thank you for that.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, you wrote twice delivered.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's the title of your book.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So what does it mean and what made you write it?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, twice delivered the title.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Man, when I I I was I I had the title and the idea honestly like noon or July of uh 2025.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking I was gonna write a book, uh, but for me.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't think I was gonna publish it.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so uh I'm I'm a believer, and no matter who you are, adopted or not, or whoever you are, you should be writing uh something about yourself or just things that you've been through.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because when you when you remember the hard things that you went through, uh it it it it it gives you drive.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: For example, uh in my Christian faith, I journal because it reminds me that I am, first of all, not alone, that God works in me.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and for some reason uh I started to write, and my mom's like, Hey, have you thought about publishing this?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because my mom read it, and obviously my mom, my mom, she's pretty blunt with me.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Something's bad, she'll tell me.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when she was reading it, she said, I was like, This is actually good.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is good.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: This could be impactful to other people.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because I've I've never been a writer.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't really not a writer, I was not a writer, any of that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I began to write and it just it it became natural, and I began to share my story.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote it because I wanted people to realize the perspective of an adoptee.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because you don't know what you don't know.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Your story.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: People aren't wondering, but they are, if that makes sense.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say that I'm adopted, they're thinking it's his job to share.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people like to ask questions, kind of dive deep in, but people are always scared to ask questions.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, I want to write this so that I can explain the story.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember at the beginning I said, I want this to be joy.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want to share a joyful story of an adoptee, what it looks like to have a Christian perspective.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why I Tyler twice delivered, uh, because I say that I was delivered from physical death and spiritual death.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: At a young age, in the orphanage, in the village, I was not uh life was not possible.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was not something that I could have had because of poverty and malnourishment, all those things that people in third world countries have.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So at the age of five, I was delivered from physical death.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that and that physical death, it was right, it was staring me right at the f at my face.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: But a grandpa and my uncle and uh sister, they looked at me in the eyes, said, You need a goat because you cannot live and we don't have the resources.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I got delivered to an orphanage, I got carried to an orphanage, and then I got carried to America, and then I was able to be delivered physically.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: At the age of seven, I was delivered spiritually when I became a Christian.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And in that time I was struggling with my story.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't the the question that we all have, is there a God?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Why God?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Which god what's going on?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the more I read, the more I realized that my life was ordained, ordained by God, and that God placed me here for a purpose and for a reason.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And at the age of seven, I've realized that I needed to be saved.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Saved from what?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Two years ago I was saved from physical death, but now I need to be saved from spiritual death.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: I had to realize I'm a sinner and I need a savior, and his name is Jesus.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that uh that really was uh the reason for the title.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but yeah, twice delivered.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: The the subtitle kind of says it all.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Two families, two worlds, one redeeming love.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Two families, I'm from two families, from two worlds, six thousand miles, and right here.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then one redeeming love.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's the redeeming love of Jesus.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh I'm I'm obviously proud of it.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm you know, I always wonder, should I publish?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Should I publish?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: But when I when it came out, I thought this is gonna be good for those who will read it.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope it encourages adoptees, parents, and many others and the church.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: You said a couple of things that uh could be considered alarming for people, one being that your biological grandfather, unc, father, uncle, and sister said you have to go.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so they put you in an orphanage.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like for you?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: How old were you when that happened?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was I was four years old, and as a four-year-old, you don't remember as much, but you get glimpses of like moments.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know how I remember this, but I remember getting transported.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, transported from from my village to this orphanage, and people say, You're a four-year-old, how can you not remember?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: How do you remember these things?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason, I was able to of course you remember.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's traumatic.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're being taken from your family.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and yeah, and those are and those are things that we forget, that traumatic situations.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, psychologically.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you would know this.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like you remember things that they're imprinted.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: You'll never forget.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I uh I mean, I I'm not saying I can remember every moment, but I remember getting transported from one place to another.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, I think deep down inside, I probably knew I was not gonna see them for a very long time.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I actually had friends that went to the orphanage as well, around my area.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: People were on my area in the village, they went home, uh they went home to the to the orphanage with me.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh I mean I was not alone.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I had people with me and we all knew uh something was up, but four-year-olds we couldn't think that far ahead.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: But when we got to the orphanage, we're thinking, yeah, uh thumbs up and uh we don't know.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't know what our whole our story is gonna hold, but uh we're just gonna be happy.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm all I could do was smile.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh as a four-year-old, you could only have so many emotions, uh, but uh deep down inside knew something was up, but had to uh had to be strong and uh tried to go into a situation uh and be happy.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well I appreciate that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think the second thing that I wanted to highlight was you talked about at seven, realizing that you were a sinner.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when people hear that terminology scary, they don't like it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're not a big fan.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm I'm careful with that word myself, but I think there's something there that maybe if you think about at the core, your identity questions that you've had were theological.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: You say that.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: You say that you believe in God and that's who shapes who we are, and I would love for you to unpack that a little bit uh in your own way.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to kind of learn from you on this.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we all have an identity.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: When I was when I was born, I I'm Isaac Melbourne, you're Julie, and we are two different people.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're both humans, but we have different different things, different characteristics about us.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And identity is a good thing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have to figure out who you are.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: For example, when I get to college, often, often and even in the Christian circle, many people uh they they they they struggle with their identity.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And they get to college and they're in their homes, they can do, they're under their parents' rule.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they get to college, they're free.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, no one is telling them what they should believe or what they should think, what identity they should have.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: For example, when I went to college, my family, we went to church every Sunday as possible, every Sunday as possible.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: But when I got to college, it was my identity, it was who I was, and my parents obviously they would encourage me, I should go to church, but I had to do it by myself.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: No one's gonna wake me up at 8 a.m.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an early riser, but no one's gonna wake me up at 8 a.m.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: and say, let's go to church.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's only if I do it.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: So identity is not bad.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Figuring out who you are is not bad.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: But as I grew, for some reason, had the idea that identity, our identities change.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: The person that I am at five is totally different than I'm at 20.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we all develop.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I believe that theology, theology is the study of God.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Theology, theology never changes.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like God, the Bible says uh God is never changing.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's called immutability.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: God is immutable, he can never change.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in my life, when I was younger, I would always think, who am I, who am I, who am I?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And people have heard about this all the time when I share with them, who am I?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I had to realize the question is not who am I, the question is who is God?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because I felt like every time I would ask, who am I, it would lead me to the same loophole.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Am I Isaac, am I Nazaretu, uh, that was my Ethiopian name, who am I?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And as an adoptee, we when you come from two different worlds, yet again, you just feel like you have to struggle between which one do I choose.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, I I realized God is in the middle of it.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the middle of it.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And identity is not an identity issue, it is a theol theological one because God is the one that defines me.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's not my past, it's not my present.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: God defines both of those.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that gave me just the uh ability to be free.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that, you know, I was I had uh big identity issues when I was a uh five-year-old, but when you get to uh middle school, you do.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you do.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the world tells you who you should be.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: You have friends telling you who you should be, you have sports coach telling you who you should be.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the more I studied, I just thought, man, all they're gonna lead me to so many places.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: But when God is unchangeable, he is unchangeable, and I can rely on him, and my identity is based upon him and nothing else, and that gave me hope.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's really cool as I watched you, and we're gonna get into this even later, but your whole your whole demeanor when you talked about that and the intersection and the connection settled.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed there was a tension that settled in you.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: That was really cool to see.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: You almost dropped into your body as you describe that.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So fashion advice.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I know you are, and I appreciate that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually work with adopted people, as you know, whose body carry that loss that you described, that division that they feel, the two different pieces of them.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they carry that regardless of what they believe.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So where does grief live in what you teach?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And was there room for yours?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Man, grief, grief is just part of the human life.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, Jesus, he grieved, Jesus wept, uh and and John, Jesus wept.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's the smallest if if you're in church, you that's the smallest uh a quote by Jesus, smallest verse in the Bible.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus wept, Jesus grieved.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus invites us to grieve, which might be something weird to for people to hear.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: He invites us to grieve.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And with grief, I I when I first came home, I felt like most of my emotions were grief.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's expected.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: When death happens, it you grieve.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: You can't you can't bypass that.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as I uh I had to heal.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Healing, that's a big order that people have been talking about over the past specifically these past 15, 20 years.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Grief, healing, healing is is a process.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when I first came to America, I didn't heal right away.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when I became a Christian, I didn't heal in the sense that everything that happened to me was gone.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it's not it's not some formula where, hey, uh, I'm gonna be a Christian.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm gonna give my life to Jesus and everything's gonna be good.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be healed.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wounds stay with you in life.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: There are some wounds that I'm never gonna forget.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they're traumatic, and how do I deal with them?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: I put them at the feet of Jesus.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And my parents, great people.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: No matter where I speak, I always mention them because they allowed me to grieve.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they said, Isaac Yeah.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: They invited me.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: They invited me and said, Hey, we know your story.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can be in my arms.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Come come to my arms.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can talk to me about this.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that that was healing.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So my family, we uh when people are stressed, and you know this, they did they fight is it fight, flight, or fawn?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that it?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And mine was always to not speak.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And anytime when I would grieve, I would go by myself and not talk.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And how I grieved, and anytime I would be angry, I would go by myself and be secluded.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how it grieved.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: I would not suggest doing that.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it it caused me some issues.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: It really did.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know I would let things out out of nowhere.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom's like, where'd that come from?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and but the more I spoke, I had conversations.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: My mom is as she's a counselor, uh T B practitioner, uh, brilliant lady.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And when I would talk to her, I can verbalize things.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I would have to verbalize my grief.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the most incredible thing ever.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because it healed my wounds by talking about it, by saying your story is hard, by saying, hey, not everybody is is perfect.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And grief was uh was just a way uh you must in order to heal, you must grieve.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's how it is.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you must grieve correctly.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: And my parents in my house, we were we were so open to that.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And my brothers and sisters, one of them was adopted from Ethiopia.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about it all the time.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: He was my partner, and then we talked about it.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hey man, how do you feel about you know you know this moment?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom, Mother's Day, my mom said, Hey, it's Mother's Day today.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm your mom, but you lost your mom.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever think about that?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I do.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I sometimes think about it.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking my birth mom, she passed away, it's sad.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I I've always um graciously I've been in a house where we talk about hard things and my parents ask me questions.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: They don't force me to speak, but they say they just throw it out there, and then I do what I want with it.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it sounds like they made space for big feelings if they existed.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: They allowed that, which a lot of adoptive families don't realize that that's necessary.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm grateful you had that, Isaac.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's such a gift.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: There is I'm gonna call them tropes uh that we adopted people experience.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Things like being told you're chosen, or things like you were God's plan, or it was God's plan.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this language that a lot of us grew up with in the church or in homes, Christian homes, question homes, affect us.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And because a lot of us that's confusing.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you think churches can use faith language in ways that make room for our grief rather than cover it?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times it is covered.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So how can we do better?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Man, so if you've experienced that uh in a church, I'm sorry.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the church is uh Bible says we're all broken and we have we're all we all make mistakes, uh, and no human's perfect.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the church, man, the church is God's plan for adoptees, for orphans and widows, as James uh 127 says, is to the church is supposed to take care of them.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you take care of them?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you have to first of all invite them.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you're harsh, if you are not receptive to the loss and you just throw away the hardships that someone is feeling, then why would why would somebody want to go there, first of all?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for example, let's say that I met somebody and I said, hey, come to church with me, come to church with me.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know them, maybe they'll come to church.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: But what if I personally know them?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: What if I asked them questions?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: What if they said, Hey, Isaac, you said you're adopted.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how how did that feel?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how has your life been altered?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: And let's say that they that person asked me, I'll be more receptive.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because they're being kind, they're showing that they care, and they're not, they're not neglecting my experiences, but they're saying, hey, look, you have lost this, you've done this, and God invites you to come.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Come to Him.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Come to Him.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in the church, the church, uh, they have good intentions.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I personally think some churches might not have good intentions, but I believe most churches that are Bible centered, they have good intentions.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: They just don't know how to do it.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and for churches, man, I'm you must step into uh what my mom calls my mom calls the hardness of life.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: The hard things.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: When something is hard, don't run away from it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's you're supposed to step into it.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because in Acts, when Jesus left, he says, You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and all of the earth.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you do that?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: You build relationships, you care for people.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And once you care, uh, then you can share the gospel.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And with churches, sometimes I do the Bible thumper, you know, Bible thumper, yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Personally, when I share the gospel with somebody, I'm sharing the gospel.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus, Jesus did with the disciples, he built relationships with them.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Peter, James, John, you know what he did?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Hey, I am going to show you that I'm the Son of God, but I must have a relationship with you.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, when he went to people, he says, Come to you who are weary and find rest in me.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously he means salvation, but I'm pretty sure when Jesus says to come, he was not uh he was not mean, he met their needs.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus met the physical needs, and then he's he met the spiritual needs.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: And in the church, church, you can meet the physical needs.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other side is if we're all just only meeting the physical needs and not the spiritual needs, then we're neglecting it.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you must have both ends.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Meet the physical, emotional needs of people, and then then you can meet the spiritual needs.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and you know, yeah, I think that's important.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you described it at the beginning was more come at it from a curious place versus a judgmental place.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh I think one of the problems that we have with our society is there is this belief that we should be grateful, that and it's not that we aren't, okay, but we also experience a pretty profound loss.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is usually swept under the rug, and we're told to be grateful.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what I appreciate about what you just said is we need to question other people's lived experience, not in a bad way, but ask the questions, explore what it was like for them versus judging.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you you should be grateful.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: You had a great family.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there are a lot of adopted people who absolutely did not have that.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just need to be sensitive to that.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what I'm hearing from you, and I appreciate that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's hard.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've I've learned, like I said, in the adoption world, I mean, obviously I'm adopted, but I've not really been in the world very long.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to realize that not all stories are the same.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: My experience of I mean personally, I have had a great family.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some might not.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was gotta be honest, naive when someone told me their situation.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, that's not how I was.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then thinking, well, not all are the same.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I grieve for those who've had unfortunate experiences because in my story, I would be heartbroken if I went from a village to an orphanage to a home that didn't love me.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's hard for people.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and I and you know, different experiences have different uh, you know, I personally realize I see why some people are harboring and are just it's it's really hard for them to trust people, it's really hard for them to be excited by adoption.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And for those that have been hurt, uh I'm like I said, I'm sorry.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: You did not deserve to be treated that way.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and from a from as a believer in Jesus, there's hope.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I always say there's hope in Jesus because Jesus, uh, he would not have you Jesus will not treat you that way.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh He He loves you, He cares for you, and He wants you to have peace and to be uh and to be somebody who uh has who's a follower of Him.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's it's clear on your website you talk about this that you speak to churches and adoptive families.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do you tell adoptive parents about nurturing their kids emotionally, not just spiritually?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Parents, it's it's the same idea with the church.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: With the church, they just want to help and uh help in a manner that's just uh whether it's physical or just uh for example, like my mom is very passionate about helping churches.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because churches so check this out.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say a kid who has neurological or psychological uh struggles comes into the church.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Why are they acting that way?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reason.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: They have they have things that have affected them.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone has things about them that are difficult, but the reason why X person is acting this way is because they've they've just been they've had a hard life.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Often churches would push them away.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, we can't deal with that.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can't deal with that.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what the Bible talks about?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Orphans, you're supposed to actually help them.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: So let's figure that out.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like yeah, yeah, taking care of them.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want I don't I don't want them to be those who just forget that they are there to help.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you must nurture people in order to help them.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: And my parents did a good job because they were they they came around me.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: They said, we're in this together.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: My mom would tell me, hey, I don't know how you feel.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't because I've not experienced my parents haven't passed away.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't taken away from a country and brought here.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you feel.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I can help you if we talk about it.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that that she even named that, I think is so unbelievably important.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: One of the phrases that I use with people all the time when they're really struggling with how do I tell my adoptive mom that that I experienced this?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't understand it.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: She says I should be grateful.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: She says I'm a blank, I was a blank slate, and that's how she knew to deal with me, which was my story, right?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I remember saying to my mom, and this shifted everything.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: I said, listen, I was adopted in 1973.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm, you know, I'm much older.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the trope that they were told that I was a blank slate.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I remember telling her, Mama, I I wasn't.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I do have a lived experience that you don't understand.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't expect you to.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: What I do expect is that you will accept it.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you can't accept it, then we're gonna have a really hard time because it's not something you experienced.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that your adoptive mom said, I didn't lose parents, I didn't get sent to an orphanage, I didn't get shipped across the ocean to a whole different country.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a big deal.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love that.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what adoptive parents need to hear is that we need to allow for the emotion that even exists in the time that it will.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because a five-year-old isn't going to be able to express that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's learning how, and if they do, it'll probably be in fits and starts, right?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just important.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you had such a beautiful landing place for being able to work through that.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, without a doubt.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Personally, nurturing uh to help me emotionally, I personally believe that's how uh God worked in my life to be a Christian.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: And parents, if you're in a Christian family, when you're you're raising your kids, it's not just do this, do that, and your kid's gonna be a Christian, some good kid or whatever.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: But those things matter.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Those things matter because you've done what you're supposed to do.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I am a mean person to my kid, why in the world would they want to come back to your house when they're 25?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: They wouldn't want to do that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: They wouldn't want to do that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, as what my parents did, I believe that their nurturing and how they helped me emotionally, telling who I was, uh not making up stories, but telling the story that I I knew, but they wanted to reiterate so that I can know, I can think.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: This happened to me.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that led me to have faith in Jesus.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that their nurturing helped me so much.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I am forever thankful because God uses people, He's He's used my parents in my life to make me more like Jesus and for me to become a Christian.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: And parents, you can be that to your child.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a formula, but just care.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Just care and nurture uh and be a parent that your kid might not have had.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so good.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And since our May conversation when we first really chatted, I talked to you about a lot of different adoptee-centered work.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember bringing it up, and you were like, I've never heard of any of these.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I sent them all to you now.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not expecting you to have read them all.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious, has your knowledge shifted or deepened since you have potentially explored these?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious what's shifted.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, uh the book, The The Adopted Journey, that one, that's what it's called.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that the I actually looked at uh the synopsis and kind of the the themes of it, and I thought that's literally my story.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's my story.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like in the sense of like, well, this this book is about somebody uh making sense of their identity and their stories from both worlds.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that's yeah, kind of how I'm analyzed.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it made me realize that we are all on different journeys.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I told you everyone is on a different journey, different, different parents, different countries, different this.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: It honestly gave me uh I opened my eyes to the idea that we we all actually do have different stories.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: And our different stories have we have different backgrounds and different things about us, and we all deal with emotions differently.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: We all deal with our identity differently, and life brings us so many things, and you know, you must be able to you don't have to be only you're you're like a PhD of yourself as a human.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're the PhD of your own brain, seriously, because you know yourself more than that another person would know you.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a journey, and that journey until you take your last breath, we're all on a journey, and that journey has ups and downs, and we must make have mile markers in our lives where we can remember these moments because identity is not built up in one moment.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: For example, when I went to visit my birth family and had that that was a good moment, but my identity was not just in that moment.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was 13 years prior, and it grew, and things in my life were able to be uh developed.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and in that book and looking at uh themes of it, uh, we do we all have different journeys and and in my journey I had the opportunity uh to see my family, and it made me realize my it made me open my eyes to that my identity even more of my past.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: It made me have a deeper appreciation of my faith, of who God made me, and uh, you know, it's awesome.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then the the one with the the the primal, the wounds, and we all have a lot of people.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Wounds, I'm telling you, like wounds, we all have them.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: And no matter I mean, we've all been scarred no matter who you are.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and you must uh you must grow.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, if you ponder too much on those wounds, you're you're your worst enemy.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and the book I can twice delivered, uh one of the one of the you know the subheadings is The God Who Heals Wounds.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and we have we have wounds in our lives, and man, my wounds wounds take a while.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And as a human, personally, in my life, anytime I try to fill those wounds with anything this world has to bring, I feel like I it failed me.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: And when I let the wounds God heal them from the inside out, because God and uh in Psalms it says heal he's here to heal the brokenhearted, to heal their wounds.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: And God wants to heal our wounds, and that begins with us having faith.
• 38:35
  unknown: Yeah.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and with wounds, talk about them.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had to verbalize them, I had to talk about them.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: And often many people they like to keep them in.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Talk about those wounds and let God heal you, and the Lord healed me.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I I hear that.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think with all of that there there's a message that you could potentially give what to a ministry leader that ministry leaders, yeah.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that don't really understand adopted people in foster youth.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: What would what would you wish they knew?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: What would you wish they understood?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're not scary.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're normal or normal.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm just like seriously.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: Just normal people.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: Different stories and different uh things that happen to our lives.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but as uh the Bible says that we are from Adam, we're human, uh, and one day when I become a pastor, Lord willing, uh I want to advocate for adoptees, not for adoption, foster kids as well, foster children, uh, because uh they're neglected.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in the Bible, it often speaks that if we're not stepping into those who are the most needy, we're neglecting what the Bible says.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: And as a ministry, as a pastor, uh, if you're listening to this, uh, we must step in.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: The church must step in.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: You must take an initiative.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a man named Andrew Hopper, uh, he is a pastor in North Carolina, and he in my parents go to his church, uh, it's called Mercy Hill.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great church.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, I believe they wanted to uh adopt a thousand kids in five years.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Their job is to uh equip parents to get them to desire that.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I if I could have a shout out, Pastor Andrew, thank you for for doing that.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: But it all begins with one spark.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I watched a movie yesterday, uh called uh I believe the Great Awakening, and Benjamin Franklin uh and uh he says it takes one spark to light a candle.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: And when you light that candle, there's going to be many more.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope, and it let's say the Lord has me as a lead pastor.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a lead pastor, emphasize adoption.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's adoption months, there's foster care months.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: Make that a priority.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Talk about it.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to have a thousand kids adopted or fostered uh in five years, but you can do what called God has called you to do.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And in my life, meeting the physical needs of mine led me to have spiritual awakening in Jesus Christ.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as a minister, we are called to do that.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: And my my passion is to be in the church and let the church realize this is an important part of ministry.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that is far off.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: My mom, my dad, uh, when I went to uh when I went to the church in Kentucky, uh just a great church, vibrant church.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what they did?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: They invited those who were adopted.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: So many kids came to that church.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know why?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because one person, and obviously the Lord used my mom, the Lord used a lot of people, but the Lord used my mom to have a heart for that.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that heart, she went, I assume she went to the pastor and said, Hey, we need to implement this.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're an adoptive mom or dad.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Go to your church and say, Hey, let's implement this.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make this a priority, uh, because it has changed lives.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to be an example uh of somebody who the church stepped into uh my life.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I, and I know the word grateful, but I am grateful, but not in the sense of like, you know, they, you know, uh I'm right, but grateful in the sense that I'm I'm happy they came because that church, because they knew how to they knew what I dealt with.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't see me any differently.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: When I walked through that doors, they didn't see in my story as someone who's lost stuff.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: They saw me as a regular person who needs a savior named Jesus.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember through that church I became a Christian.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: And church is that's what you that's what God advised you to do.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Invite those who are vulnerable.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it makes me think of the scripture in Proverbs 31, verse 8 that says, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a lot of what I'm trying to do is to advocate and illuminate.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're trying to do it in in a different way, but similarly, and I think it's really, really important.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you had mentioned this multiple times throughout.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna put it in a little bit different language, but I really believe belonging is not something we think our way into.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or even believe our way into.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's something, and this is where you and I had a little interaction beforehand that I thought was really interesting.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's something the body slowly learns to build.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so with that, I want to ask you if you could identify it, and this was what we talked about.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where have you felt your adoption story in your body, not just understood it in your faith?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where has it showed up in your body?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: And do you know?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's not something I've honestly thought about.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you can explain.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, explain.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, I want you to explain it.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Bodily, I'm uh I don't know if you're talking about uh physically, uh just uh being somebody who uh obviously different country coming to a new place.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you mean by that.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you're talking about senses or the brain or psychologically, what do you what do you mean?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the thing that I find so fascinating is that adopted people have a very difficult time dropping into their body to be able to recognize where they feel their grief, their trauma.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we were talking about at the beginning.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I want you to say that because I think it's very typical that we don't know where we feel this stuff, where it lives in our body.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we begin, and it is sensations, because for a lot of us, like me, for example, it was the first seven weeks of my life.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: I had a bunch of sensations that happened in the transfer of four different caregivers in that time frame.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't have words.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it was me being able to tune into where is that held?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know, that's an answer to, and that's information.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's what's important.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: You went through a lot, and I guarantee you your body holds it.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just learning how do I begin to explore that and uncover where it lives and allow it to teach me something.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed.
• 45:09
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a yeah, interesting way to put it.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I mean, like I said earlier, I mean, I've been I've uh yeah, three homes uh two continents.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: So and then my my family's moved a lot too uh when it comes to home states.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: So interest that's an interesting way to put it.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just something to I would encourage you to explore.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I even when I'm talking to the listeners or the viewers, I would say, listen, if anything in what we just talked about maybe triggered you or caused any sort of feeling within you, I would encourage them to lay a hand there and go, Oh, yeah, my heart felt that I felt a little twinge because I was concerned for this five-year-old that had to deal with losing his family.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Acknowledging where all of this lives and then even breathing into that space, literally taking a breath in and a breath out and asking ourselves, what is this conversation actually stirring within me?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's no right answer.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's learning how to notice it.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Any thoughts or comments?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta do some research.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do some research.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: Which is very much you, and I appreciate that about you.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a couple more questions before we close.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I wanted to know from you what is one hope, one hope that you have for the next generation of adopted people in and outside of the church.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: What would that one hope be if you could offer it?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: As a I love songs from the being a believer in Jesus, uh, there's a song that says, What is our hope in life or death?
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's Christ.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is our hope.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh when I have dealt with hardships, with things that I do not understand, hope.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hope is something that we're all looking for.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: And hope, I believe, was found in Jesus Christ.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And as a as a Christian, man, it's God is overflowing with hope.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because the cross of Jesus Christ, it is the most hope-filled display of love I've ever seen the world's ever seen.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when you are dealing with your story, with the hardships, hope in Jesus, uh, because he is going uh to to heal you, not just uh heal you physically, but he'll heal you spiritually.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: And in my life, I would question what my hope was.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the enemy, Satan, he would always ask me, What's your hope?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: What's your hope?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, is my hope in my story?
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is my hope in my uh past identity?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my hope in being an Ethiopian.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: What's what's your hope in?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: And every day I have to remind myself it's in Jesus Christ.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: And for adoptees, there's gonna be so many people, so many things are gonna tell you you can have hope in this, you can have hope in that, and a salary, you can have hope and going back to your birth country and getting all the answers you can have.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: But that hope is going to be short-lived.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because I remember, you know, I did I I went to my family, I saw my sister, I saw my village, I saw where my parents uh were buried, I saw all these things, but that didn't bring me hope.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: And as a young boy, as a young, young boy, I thought that was gonna bring me hope.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're adopting, if you're searching, searching, find hope in Jesus.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, got it.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm pretty sure I know where people can find you.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming uh in your twice delivered book, which they can get on Amazon and they can also get it at Isaacmelber.com.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: But then you have an Instagram, you also have a Facebook page.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure you're gonna give me all of those links.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I can find them, but if there's anything specific, let me know so I can make sure to put it in the show notes.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to remind you, friends, that this conversation hopefully gave you room to hold whatever you are holding right now.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: Isaac and I see some of this a little differently in our own personal experiences, but I think what you heard is that we can sit in that difference with respect, with curiosity, and without either of us abandoning what we know to be true for ourselves.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that honestly is a nervous system skill that Isaac is going to begin to develop, I guarantee you.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: But staying present with someone whose story is not your story is a part of this work.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if faith has been a refuge for you, beautiful.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if it has been a place of pain, that is real.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: And your body has been telling the truth about it.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's both, welcome.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's most of us.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: So what I keep coming back to is this belonging was never meant to be earned through belief, performance, or being grateful.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: It has been built slowly and safely in a body that learns through small repeated moments and returning to yourself and getting to know who you are.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in Isaac's faith language, whose you are.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Isaac's book, like I said, twice delivered, is out there.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you'll be able to find the link in the show notes.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if something came up for you in this episode, you can DM me on any of the socials or schedule a conversation with me.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: And as I've always said in the past, if this podcast meant something to you, a five-star review or even a written, few written words would go a long way in helping this work reach more adoptees and people who love them.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because remember, you are not alone and you are never alone in this.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because Isaac and I, we in it together.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: So stop outsourcing belonging and insource your belonging.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll see you next week.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Isaac, thank you so much for being with me.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's been great.