Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 8, 2024 | Expresso - Jackie French

Transcript

October 8, 2024 | Expresso - Jackie French · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Jackie.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Nice to meet everyone.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm at a secret women's meeting.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no babies here.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm proud of you.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you did your homework today.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, she said no I didn't.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I was born September 8th, 1987.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Picture it.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was fall.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sicily.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was not in Sicily.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was in Olatha.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like Sicily, I guess.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So with that being said, when I was born, I was born with a whole big concoction of drugs and alcohol in my system.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why my little ears, they don't, they're supposed to grow with you, but they actually don't when that is a side effect.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that was fun.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh my incubator, that's what I call her, bless her little heart.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: My incubator at that time was definitely not ready to be a mother, and my grandma would call her a um a lady of a night because she's proper.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So my incubator was a lady of the night and didn't make always the best choices.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, she would accidentally lose me and set houses when where she had her businesses at.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, with that being said, unfortunately, all the bad things that could happen to a child that you do not want to happen to a baby happened to me until I was two, when then I got pulled into foster care, and then I did not speak because of all the trauma and everything that happened to me.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then my mommy showed up.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's me.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is my church Sunday clothes, okay?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's it was a big deal in black church, okay?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have your hat and your gloves.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big thing.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know where that hat is, but I would totally wear it now.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But these are the babies.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're not in order, but that's okay.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: But my mom adopted me.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Miss Pamela Rogers.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is the only time I'm ever gonna say her legal name because otherwise I will get a whooping for being disrespectful.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: But my mom adopted me at the age of two.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I call it the baby pound.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't think that's nice, but I think it's funny.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, to tell you how pushy I am is that a little boy was sitting in her lap and she was like, Oh, I might take this one home.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, mm-hmm, I don't think so.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I quietly walked up, pushed the little boy out of her lap, and I sat in her lap.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would scream if they tried to take me away from her.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So she's like, Oh, I guess I'm taking this one.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how I ended up in Iola, Kansas.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of like forced myself on her, and she loved every moment.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: She said she kept her seats just in case I acted up, but I think that was a lie.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think she just wanted me to be quiet.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I got adopted at the age of two and still working on, you know, being able to talk and learning, you know, regular little kid things on, you know, potty training and all of that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't let my uncles ever hold me.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my mom ended up hanging for a big surgery for everything to be put back together.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was the worst case a doctor said he had seen in a child, um, to the point that I had a hernia in my belly button because the grown men unfortunately hurt me so bad that everything was pushing up and trying to push out of my stomach.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, but joke about that, you want to know what was funny?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: When I got my little brother when I was four, I thought that's where I went potty at.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was trying to teach him to potty, he was like, Oh, you have the same thing as me.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom's like, No, you don't go potty there.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's your belly button.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Awkward turtle.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't go potty there.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So now it's just a running joke that I thought you went potty some different way.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, my mom adopted me.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: She was a single mother, which is a big thing to even handle that.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: But uh our church family stepped up, helped raise the funds for her to get me, and my grandma also lived with us, so I like to say that I was one of the favorite grandchildren because she didn't live with the other ones.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: She says that's not true, but I think it is.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: My Grammy is my best friend, and at five years old, I finally started to talk, and my mom prayed for me to talk, and now she always tells me she regrets that prayer.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Which I understand, but I say, You brought this upon yourself, and now it's time to handle that.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have met my daughter, yes, bless her.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's just like me.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if you need to borrow her, please let me know.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be gladly let you have her for a little bit.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I turned 18 years old, since I did have a closed adoption, me and my friend Anna basically just called around and found out her name, and she was still actually located in Olatha, which is wild, because I thought she would have been like gone.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I really got to hear her point of view of her struggling with drugs and alcohol.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, uh, since she said when I turned 16, I don't know why it took that long, but she decided to become clean.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: So now she is very active in her church and she helps other people who are alcoholics and drug addicts, and it's kind of like a sponsor to them to show them, like, hey, you can come back from this, you can still serve the Lord, you are worthy.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she told me some scary things about when she was pregnant with me.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't know that she I could even be in there because she had gotten to an altercation and her stomach had gotten cut, and they thought that you know she wouldn't be able to be able to have a baby.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then when she found out she was pregnant with me, of course, you know, when you live in a more urban area and parent, you know, Planned Parenthood was a big thing, then you went to whoever you could at that time to make that baby go away.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so she tried that twice, and clearly I'm stubborn because I'm here, so praise God for that.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I was very thankful for that, and that um she finally decided to look to the Lord and stuff.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I told Hairspray, she asked me, you know, what is your testimony about?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, my testimony's kind of backwards.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, I did have bad things happen, but I can never recall a time that I didn't know Jesus.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't one of the people who discovered him later on in life.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: My mom that I have has completely instilled that in me for the longest time.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I thought my pastor was Jesus the whole time.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, So Jesus only comes to our church, he doesn't go to like other churches.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is is that really nice?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's nice.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom's like, oh, he is not Jesus.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, but he's right there, and there's the cross, and then no, she's like, no.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we had that little fit.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was really upset and I cried about it because I didn't understand why my pastor wasn't Jesus, and it broke my little heart.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: But finally I accepted it.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay now.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, but at the age 18, I found my incubator and we got to learn more about each other.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I am not tall, but she's tall, she's like six foot tall.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, trash, right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why am I 5'3?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want to know.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was rude.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's got this long hair, and I'm just like, uh, cool.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not bitter.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Asked her, you know, do you maybe by chance know who my father is?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And of course the answer is, what?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, not a glue.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Come to find out, I like to call him Johnny Appleseed.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I am nine out of ten that I have found.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when the youngest is 22, so we are, we are all everywhere.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it was pretty cool at that age and growing older to find siblings where I could be like, you know, could you tell me about him?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: But he was like, you know, do I look like him?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have like mannerisms like him and all that stuff, which was really cool to just build my biological side of the family that I had no idea that existed.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes people back home do forget that I'm actually adopted because I look more like my family I am now, which is definitely a blessing.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I went off to college, that was super fun, and talk about learning about Jesus.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your mom's not there to tell you to go to church on Sundays, just so you know.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're not there, but somehow they know and they'll call and then be like, Did you go?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yeah.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, What did he preach about?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Oh, about Jesus, and she's like, Yeah, nice try.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to go.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I ended up meeting my sorority sisters, my Zeta sisters, and that was amazing because they were definitely founded in sisterhood and serving, which I know that corresponded with knowing the Lord as well and being servants and being the hands and feet of Jesus, which I thought was just absolutely amazing.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, at one point at a college party, take notes, little one, do not sit your cup down.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, ever.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually having Gatorade, real Gatorade, not fake Gatorade, at that time.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I had lost my lid and I had set it down for two seconds and turned around.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then I woke up in the next morning in somebody's dorm and I woke up hurting.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a secret that I have never told my mommy because she would just set the whole world on fire.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: But that really tested my faith in God because I was like, I serve you, I talk about you.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't understand from the me having these horrible things to me happen to me as a child, why would you even allow this?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was not, like, what did I do to deserve this?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that really pushed me away from him, but I still knew in the back of my mind, you know what, look at everything you've already been through, and you've had blessings.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So just because this is a bump in a road, that does not mean I do not love you.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean because it could have been worse, I could have ended up dead, you know.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it took me a lot of time to become okay with that and just sit with the Lord.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's okay to be angry with Jesus.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I learned from my professors, like, question your faith.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: You are supposed to.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you build that one-on-one personal relationship with the Lord, which I didn't really think about that when I was younger because I just thought automatically we go to church, that's what we do, that's our habits, and that's it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not, you should not be having community out of habits.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You should not just say, Oh, I love Jesus out of habit.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: It should definitely be a personal, one-on-one connection with the Lord because at the end of the day, not all your friends are gonna be there, not all your family is gonna be there.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, in those lonely times when it's dark and you are crying, or whatever it is you do to cope, it's gonna be God that's gonna be sitting there with you in that moment every single time.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And these are my three blessings.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Israel's the one who's going like deas.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I got pregnant with him my last semester in college, and I was getting ready for the Olympic trials for throwing.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So he was definitely a surprise.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I felt bad because I was a month and a half pregnant.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I had the flu.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I did not.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: There was a small little human being in there.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know what to name him.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said, you know what?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna name him Israel.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So his name is Israel David Zion.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that he was such a blessing and made me grow up and even become more closer to God because I want to make sure my baby knew, you know, mommy's not always gonna be here, but you will always have Jesus.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um then I got married the first time.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Whoo, that was something.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a test.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go for bad voice, okay?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't last.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me, I kissed a lot of frogs.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was horrible.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So married my first, you know, I just say it was a trial run.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like on Netflix, you'd pay for the trial.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I had my 30-day trial that ended up for like five years.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um, that was definitely a DV relationship.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: He um would hit me all the time.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's knocked out four of my teeth, fractured the sides of my face, stone me through walls, um, through windows.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember the time having the babies hide and watching, you know, cartoons and eating their lunchables and locking the door and saying, you know, if mommy doesn't open this door, you do not come out.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I hate that um those are small memories that they do remember, but the twins are definitely miracle babies, and that's Eklesia and Michael.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: She's just really tall for some reason, and there's little Michael and my little cuddly wuddly.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I decided to name Eklesia after the church.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it means in Hebrew, because I really wanted a little girl, and then her twin brother Michael, because he's an archangel, and I felt like they were very strong because one time um I was pregnant before them and I got hit so hard that I miscarried.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I had to tell a story that I fell, and also my eye got knocked out, so they had to put that back in.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm losing this little boy, I am just absolutely devastated.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the ER doctor was is now my husband's mother, so she actually held my hand through all of that of the miscarriage of my little boy Ezra.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Two weeks later, did a sonogram just to make sure everything was okay, and there were two little heartbeats.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: So they are a medical miracle that the doctors cannot explain how, because they shouldn't be in there, you know, by world standards, but we know God had everything to do with that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um, that Michael came out perfectly fine because I went into preterm labor, because at one point their biological dad hit me so hard that I went into preterm labor and fell on my stomach.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just a blessing that they were safe and they came out perfectly alive.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I died on the table, but that's fine.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I remind them all the time that I literally gave up my life for them and didn't wake up for three days.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they owe me a good nursing home or something later on.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I told them, but they don't, they think I'm joking and I'm not.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the older I got, like I said, I found out who my biological father was.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: But at that point, he had already unfortunately passed away.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he wasn't the best person, so maybe that was a blessing in disguise that I really didn't have to take on that burden of the negative choices that he had made.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but let's go to some happy things.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is my Israel.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: He has the most tenderest heart for the Lord.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say it is a tender heart, he will give change to strangers.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't care because I'm like, no, that's a stranger.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: We don't talk to strangers.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, but mommy, I just feel like Jesus wants me to tell him that he loves them.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, uh, okay, but stay close.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't go too far.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really cool to see how he's 10 years old and he spreads the gospel in his school at Wichita that I share him with his biological father.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: That is me at 32 weeks, yay, with the twins.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was horrible.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Stretched to 72 weeks.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that could be a number, but it was zero stars.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is my honey bear.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we met when he was five and I was eight.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: His biological dad unfortunately passed away in a car wreck, and his family ended up moving back home, which is our home in Iola.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And our parents were friends and went to high school together, went to Allen County Community College together.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And his mother, like I said, was my doctor, all three of the kids is doctor.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we had had previous marriages and had seen every step of the way of us growing through middle school, high school, being friends, and being friends is the most important thing.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Build from there.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you go through the bad stuff, how I did this man, and I'm gonna try not to cry because crying is gross.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the night set I cried and prayed to God, just please send me the correct man because God, I am tired of getting hit.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I am tired of the baby seeing this.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I am, but I am too scared to leave.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to do?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you really love me, why am I here?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I too scared to go?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like he will find us.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And lots of times the first husband did find us and threaten us.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so Zach came into the picture and he loved everything about me, even all of my trauma.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I ask him all the time, like that little girl who's talking to her dad, you love me?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You love me?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You love me?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: You love me every day.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how he puts up with it, but he does.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: But he is truly an answer to my prayer because I prayed to God, I just help me.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want my daughter to find out what it is to have a good mom and a good dad and a dad who shows true love and makes that standard for her.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because this little girl does not touch doors.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: She is a lady, she will wait for her brothers to be like, excuse me, gentlemen.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And she has that standard because of Zach.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I absolutely love that.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And now the boys are learning how to treat a woman.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I always tell people, yes, we are raising our kids to be good adults, of course, and good members of society.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the biggest thing is when we are entrusted with these little vessels, they're going to be somebody's spouse someday.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to have them to be the most holy spirit-filled, God-fearing individuals that I can possibly help carry them to.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said, one day mommy and daddy are not going to be here.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I want our kids to know that no matter what, they have Jesus to lean on.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when you feel frightened and scared, that that blessing will come because I didn't think Zach would ever be here.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't feel like I was worthy of love at all.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I deserved everything that I got, every hit that I got.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and maybe I didn't deserve babies, you know, but God showed me otherwise that a man can love you fully for everything, all your flaws, and I got a lot of them.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But he takes every mood swing, every valley, every high, every low.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he, when I say God answers prayer, he is to a tea everything I ask God for.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why it's just not that newlywed bliss.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's I really got to marry my best friend, and this man will protect me with his life and the kids that he didn't even help make.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he loves our baby so much, and it's such a blessing just to be a part of this church.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually his idea to come here for our Christmas light show.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, and then we were just hooked ever since, and it's just been an awesome opportunity to serve and to meet all of you and to share my testimony.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.