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Ep #192 - The Path We are On · Our Community, Our Mission

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day and your blessings and provisions.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: God, thank you for your grace and your mercy that you pour out on us each and every day.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Lord, I just pray a special blessing over our listeners today, lord, that you would comfort and lead them.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: And God, that this podcast would be a blessing to them.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Lord, we love you and praise your name.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Hello everybody.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: This is Our Community, Our Mission, a podcast of the Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: We're listening here on Tuesday, october the 3rd of 2023.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: This is podcast number 192.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I'm here this morning with Lamanda Baroels, executive Director, and Marion Crabill, deputy Director of Supportive Services, and we have a special guest here today, and normally we kind of get into some updates and we have a little fun here on the front end.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: But we want to address something this morning which we know very little about at this point, but we felt like it was important to talk a little bit about a media report that came out about a tragedy in Topeka here on Tuesday that occurred yesterday late in the day, where a little girl who potentially was living homeless with her family we don't know that for sure Was assaulted and murdered in Topeka, kansas.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: These are there's no way to go around this other than this is one of the most horrific tragedies that can happen in any community, obviously to any family, and so, because it's related to homelessness, potentially and again, we don't know the news is just now coming out of this that the individual that they have arrested has been identified as a homeless individual.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: We want to pray about this and, Maryam, I'm going to ask you to pray here in a second, but, amanda, this is a tough spot for anybody, whether it's the police chief, the mayor, whether it's a pastor, the neighbors, everybody in this community.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: You're the executive director of Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I know children are extremely important to you, to say the least, as executive director of a service that has, for over 70 years now, reached out to the people who are homeless, whether they be on the streets, men, women and children, sheltered them, taken care of them.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Just share with us your heart on this and what you can and can't say at this point.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: You know, I think that it doesn't matter what position you are, if you are the executive director of the Topeka Rescue Mission, if you're a nurse, if you're an officer, if you're a principal.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: When you get news like this, I think your heart shatters, and it shatters for so many reasons.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: Some of it is out of it just breaking, some of it is out of anger, some of it is out of feeling like, oh, should we have done something more?
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: You know, when I was a principal, I also lost a student over Christmas break and it was one of the most awful things I ever had to go through as an educator and then needed to shepherd that child's teacher and the whole team and the school spoke at the funeral.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: And so I think, anytime there is a loss and there's any type of homicide or murder, when those kinds of things hit the news, my heart breaks because it's a loss.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: But there is something that is a little bit deeper when it's a child.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: And then I think it's also a little bit deeper when there's so many questions and right now I think there's more questions than there are facts and so we have to be careful with that.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: I am doing everything that I can to stay in the loop as much as what I'm privy to know.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: I also spent this morning checking on a lot of key stakeholders who I know are involved with this.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: You know, I just am concerned for the family of the little girl.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: I also can't imagine what it's like for the first responders when they show up or trying to get the child to the hospital and all of those things, and so I think, as the executive director, it's important for me to hurt as much as possible, alongside of my fellow partners who I know were more directly involved with it than I am.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: But right now, lots of prayers for the family the suspect.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: You know my heart also breaks, thinking why and what happened, and it causes me to worry and pray too about his mind and his heart and just not understanding that.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: And so it is heavy, it's tragic.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: When I first found out, you know my outreach team is some of the first that I reach out to finding out what knowledge do they have?
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: And then it's shelter staff.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: I'm asking shelter staff, what do we know?
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Is there a way that we can help?
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: There's very little information on this individual.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: But then I also have to check on them because you know our outreach team.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: Even though it's not feasible for us to be responsible for every single person that is experiencing poverty or homelessness in our county, there is this unrealistic expectation sometimes that's placed on us.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: And then my team I see work tirelessly every day, going out into encampments and doing discovery, meaning trying to find new camps and building relationships with individuals so that we can help people get from point A to point B, but also so that when situations like this happen, we try to be as relational with as many people as possible.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: But even that, you know, when I only have three and a half team members that do outreach, and when we look at however many people we could potentially have on our streets in Shawnee County, we can't have a relationship with everyone experiencing homelessness.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: So right now is a time of mourning, it's a time of prayer, it's a time of really checking on each other, because it impacts greatly and then just looking at you know, are there ways that we can help or do we need to assist?
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: But then also knowing that life is just hard sometimes and it is in times like this that we have to cling to what we believe, and here at the rescue mission, we believe in the hope of Christ, and there is scripture that shows how much kids mean to him, and I'm reminded of that, even though sometimes I don't understand why stuff happens to children.
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: But I will not let a situation like this allow the enemy to also distract from how the Lord saves us and his hope that we have in him when nothing of this world makes sense.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: So we're praying for all involved.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: We care.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: It's hard on our teams, even if we don't ever know the suspect or the victims.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: We grieve, and we grieve because our community is grieving.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you, amanda.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Another group that we wanna pray for, too, is the community of unsheltered, because this affects them if they know about this, or maybe it was in their area or whatever, and this is very challenging for them as well.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Oftentimes, when there's a tragedy, whether it's a school shooting or something of this nature, it immediately goes to questions and anger, and this is gonna be needed to be sorted out on many levels in the community as we go forward.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: But right now it's time to grieve and pray, and so I encourage everybody who's listening today and in the days following as this unfolds, that you remember there's people that need to grieve.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Go ahead and grieve.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: You may be a parent, a grandparent, great grandparent.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: It's a child and it's family, and so grieve.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: There'll be time to sort it out later.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Maryam, would you lead us in prayer here?
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Sure, sure, most gracious God, how do we even put all this into words?
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: We know you are sovereign and we know you love your people, and yet it is hard for us sometimes to understand why things like this happen, why a precious child of yours, that their life was taken so early and there are so many questions, lord.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine, lord, what the family is going through right now, and I just lift them up to you, knowing that you can embrace them with a piece that no one else will be able to provide for them.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: We don't know much, lord, and we don't need to.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: What we do know is that you love them and you love this little child as well.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Lord, our first responders and our police officers and the medical personnel and the neighbors that were around, those that are homeless, those that are not homeless that hear about this Lord, we just lift each and every one of them up to you.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Life is so uncertain for so many all the time, and it is just so crucial that they have you and that they know you.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: So, lord, use this experience for all of us to be able to lean into you and to know that you are awesome and you are love, and that you love each and every person that's involved.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Lord, calm our minds as we try to figure stuff out, things that maybe just can't be figured out.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: The person that potentially committed this situation.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: What in the world, lord?
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: What must be in his mind?
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: And so I just give him to you, lord, to also bring him peace and clarity, and the days ahead could be very, very, very difficult for him, and we don't know his situation and we don't know what he's lived through and we don't know what he's experienced.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: So, lord, we just give it all to you, because there's nothing else we can do.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: There's nothing else we can do, nothing else we should want to do either, lord, other than just give it to you.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I would ask that calm heads prevail also in our community, and as more and more people hear about the situation, lord, there will be so much anger, and there already is negative feelings toward those who are unsheltered, that don't have a solid place to live, lord, so just keep people's hearts and minds compassionate and soft.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: While we experience all of this, it's hard to know exactly what to say, lord, so you know our hearts.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: I would ask that, as we go through our days, lord, as our outreach team wraps their heads around this, and our staff, each one of our staff, who love people so deeply and who see people so clearly, lord, just protect them and let them know that you are in their lives and walking alongside them.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Lord, give them that peace.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Just give them that peace.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: I offer all this in the name of your precious son, jesus, amen.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Before we get into our guest, maryam, this reminds me of a podcast we had about three weeks ago with your pastor, gabe Pennington, pastor of Southern Hills Mennonite Church, and I kind of pressed him on some theological things, and one of those was why does a loving God allow tragedy to occur?
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember what his answer was.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: I don't, because I wasn't here.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Well, didn't you listen?
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: I did.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness, see, see, you were gonna be nice today.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna be nice, but I'm still nice, no, his answer was.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Sometimes.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: My best answer is I don't know, and that's a troubling thing.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: We wanna know why.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And so it really caused me to dig in further into the scriptures about so many times that people in the Bible were on a certain journey in life and tragedy came and they we're ready to give up.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: They didn't know why.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: They're wondering if God's even there or if he's a good God, and so many times in Scripture we find out down the road God worked all things together.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: So while we can't see that here right now and it's fine, we shouldn't try to come up with answers that don't exist about God and about any of these situations.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: But the answer is I don't know, but pivot God does, and somehow, somehow.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: And we know Him.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: And we know Him and we know God and we know this little precious child is in His arms right now.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Right now, yes, so we had planned to have a guest here today and we're going to go ahead and have this special guest, who has also kind of gone through some journeys as well and maybe has questioned God a few times through His journeys but LeManda, he's a very, very special friend of yours and the first time I saw him was on a computer, as he was singing and leading worship in a church that I now attend and he was just like really knocking it out in worship and I understand that he's the worship guy here in Topeka and so, anyway, he's originally born in Africa and doesn't look traditional African, got a red beard and so.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: But, lemanda, talk about your very special friend and our guest today.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Well, I tease him and say that he's really the bee string that I wanted his wife to be on here, but she wasn't available, so we're letting him come.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: No house to his brother.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: I know how it feels.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: No, Eric is very much like a brother to me.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: I have a lot of love and respect for him and his incredible wife, Sarah met them several years ago when he was coaching soccer for my oldest daughter and they bonded and you know she's kind of a tough nut to crack and he just got a really special place in her heart and she's 11 now and doesn't really want to act like she likes.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: A lot of people were in that tween stage, but Eric is still one that is special to her.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: So we've just remained friends over the years and as I've gotten to know him and Sarah, my love for them have just grown and my respect for them.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: You know, when I think of just authentic people who are relational with the Lord, but not about religion, I think of them and they just are on fire to live their best life for the Lord that they can and I have seen them walk through just a lot of fire and for them to do it vulnerably, authentically.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: I just know that they've really been a witness to who Christ is and not some of the falsehoods that we have, you know, and so I know that they there's just a lot of people that love the Lord, because of Sarah and Eric's influence and I just know that that makes a difference in the Kingdom, so I'm excited to have him on here.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: There's so many.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: I think we could have like a part two, part three, part four with him.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: He's just incredible.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: But I'm ready to dive in and for the listeners to learn more about Eric Olberg.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Eric Olberg welcome to our community, our mission.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: We'll start a little heavy here today.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, and you're no stranger to heavy in regards to challenges in life.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: But talk about you're known as the worship guy here in Topeka.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: I actually didn't know that.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: Did you not know that?
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: I did not know that?
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: Okay, no, well, that's a nice thing.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I mean it's a good thing.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I've been leading worship for a long time.
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: I was on staff at Fellowship Bible Church for a while.
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: My wife was on staff there as well.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: My passion is really kind of twofold obviously helping people enter the Kingdom of God through worship, but also it's in training other leaders, and so that to me looks like us just being available all the time for whatever opportunities come our way with the gifts that we have, and so, for example you mentioned I was on the computer mission church there and the reason that was because our church was meeting on Saturday nights and mission church was launching and they had Sunday morning services and they didn't have anyone to lead worship.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: And I just I went to our elders and I said why would we not help another church, why would we not serve another church?
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: So yeah, so that kind of started, started that way.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: He helped out a need over there.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so do you do worship around.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: I know you're with Capital City Church, yep, but do you do other worship leading around the community?
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I do.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: I kind of just tell people whenever they need something, just ask and I'll try to do it myself or I'll find somebody to do it for them.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: You know there's a lot of smaller churches in our community.
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: So if a worship leader the only one on staff or the only one volunteering wakes up on Sunday morning with a strep throat or something and you know, often that kind of just destroys their the music part of their worship service, messes it up Little messes.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: So I've gotten texts at you know, 11 o'clock on Saturday night hey, can you do this?
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: And obviously, being married to a much better worship leader than me, it's easier for us to kind of split sometimes.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: And so I'll go to.
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: You know, I'll go to Cap City and Sarah might go to Rolling Hills, or I'll go to Mission and she'll be at Cap City, that kind of thing.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: So so this is this is what you do in ministry, but you also have a certain kind of job that I do, very, very helpful at certain times of the year.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Talk about that, yeah.
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: So I work for my dad doing lawn care and snow removal for large facilities, so some of the big industrial facilities here in town.
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: I've been doing that industry for about 13, 14 years almost.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: So what's the prediction for this winter Are?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: you going to have a bad winter.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: Oh my goodness, I get it here and up Well we are due for a bad winter, but this this warm weather is sticking around too long for my liking.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Grass is not growing, so you can't really come in.
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: It's not snowing, exactly so it's kind of that in between.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, but at least it's called fall.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: That's right yeah.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, eric, you weren't born here.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: You have been involved in ministry pretty much all your life.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so talk about your very first beginnings and about you being a missionary kid.
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: Sure, both of my parents were actually missionary kids as well, so my grandparents were missionaries, my mother's parents were in South Africa, my dad's parents were in Central Africa.
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: I was born in Congo now it was a year at the time, mm-hmm and basically I've spent.
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: You know, we would go over to Africa for three or four years and then come back for a year of of a deputation and meeting, you know, supporters and that, and then we go back again for three or four years.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: And so I basically have spent up until I graduated high school.
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: I spent four years in in Zaire, congo, and seven years in Central Africa and Republic, which is just north of Zaire, and then my seventh grade through 12th grade was in Cameroon, which is kind of right in the middle.
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: They called the armpit of Africa.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: So so most of your, your, your early childhood, was over in Africa, yep, and so was it culture shock to come over here to the stage.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, actually it was because Africa was home to me.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: So there were things here.
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: You know we would come back and and obviously America changes so fast that that it was.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: You know you'd think one thing and you come back and four years later and all of a sudden it's wait a second, where'd all those buildings come from?
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: Where did you know, I had a friend of mine who came back and asked her mom why they hung their clothes lines so high in the air talking about power lines because that was the only visual that she had for it.
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: So that's, an example of really tall.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, oh how interesting.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: That's amazing, yeah, yeah.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of cultural differences.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: We had an opportunity here a number of months ago through Kansas State University to have, I think, 20 different fellows from Africa that were part of Kansas State and they came to the rescue mission here and we walked them through what we're doing here as well as the mobile access partnership, had a individual from the Congo come up to him Very cool, he was kind of dressed in the Congo style.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you would you know, expect you know.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: And he said we were having extreme problems with hunger and homelessness and wanted to know if we could connect sometimes.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: And I said, sure, I was having an extreme hard time understanding his dialect, of course, yeah, maybe his accent is better.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: And so I said you have me email?
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: He said, yes, listen, writing.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: And so we swapped emails.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: I haven't heard from him yet, okay, but you know, problems are problems everywhere, exactly, yeah.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And so hunger, homelessness.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: There he was talking about some civil unrest that was going on, absolutely Civil war type stuff that was very, very concerning, which fortunately we do not have here, correct.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: But you know, you came to the States still young, and so where did you go immediately To pick a Kansas?
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: No, no, I actually went to school in Chicago for two years at Trinity International University, played soccer there and studied music.
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: I was dating a girl who was younger than I was and she decided to go to KU.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: So I was like, well, of course I'm going to, you know, follow her to Kansas.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: I'd never really been to Kansas except passing through the cornfield, and so I moved here.
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: That's a brass kid, by the way.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: I mean, we missed a tour down there.
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: And yes, I moved here and she broke up with me like two weeks after I moved and I was like, no, I'm going to get her back, I'm going to stay here.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: And then I met my wife here, so that was yeah, it worked, turned out really well, yeah, it turned out really well, yeah.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: And so you eventually ended up over in New York yeah, doing what there.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: So a good friend of mine.
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: Well, it starts off with my daughter, who's 10 now.
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: Good friends with Emery, she was just started to see about.
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: She was about five, six years old and just started to recognize our homeless brothers and sisters around the community.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: She'd see them on the park benches or you know bus stops and things like that outside Walmart and she just started asking questions about them.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: You know, why are they there?
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: What do they need?
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: Why are they pushing a cart around?
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: And so I honestly I didn't know a lot about how to reach the homeless community out of help.
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: And so I got ahold of a friend of mine from Africa who now works in New York City with an organization called City Relief and I said you know what kinds of things can we do?
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: So he gave me kind of a list of things we could put together in like a, basically a care package for them.
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: My daughter called them kindness kits.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so sweet.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: So in the winter we took a blanket and wrapped up you know some food, and then you know toothbrush, toothpaste, those kinds of things, and then she would basically we had him in the car and every time we would see somebody who might need that, she would make us turn around and stop and she would go out at six years old five years old and hand it to the person.
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: And I think one of the coolest things was that she actually wrote handwritten notes in every one of them that just reminded them that they were seen, that they were, they were visible, that we loved them and they were people just like everybody else.
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: And she started that.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: About what age?
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: About five or six years old she's 10 now.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's 10 now.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: She still has to have a passion for the homeless.
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: She does, yeah, she does, um.
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: So that kind of led into us wanting to go and see what my friend Josiah was doing in New York.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: Now I think what's what's significant is you mentioned like these problems are everywhere, but we also tackle them in different ways.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: So you can kind of take nuts and bolts of something, but we couldn't take what Josiah is doing in New York City and drop it in Topeka and make it work you can't take what's working here and drop it there Right.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: So that was a good thing for me to kind of recognize as well.
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: But you know she was too young to technically serve with with that organization and so.
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: But of course my friend said hey, if you're in New York City at this time and you stop by this park, you know you might find a bus that's serving soup and if you show up and you want to help, you know that's it.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: We don't turn anybody away.
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: Exactly You're a little helper, yeah, exactly so, um, so we did, and three different days we were in New York City, and this is actually right before COVID.
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: We were in Times Square when they started shutting everything down for COVID, but we were, yeah, we were in New York City and and so she was able to serve soup, hand out socks to the homeless community.
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: She was just.
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: It was great, really fun to see.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: So, lemaine, do you got a job app ready, yeah, yeah, we've got her under contract already, yep 2030.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: And we can use worship leaders.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: That's right, exactly, yeah, yeah.
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: And honestly it was a big, big ministry to me, just her heart for the homeless community as well.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Just uh, you know yeah.
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: I just I think that, for for me I grew up overseas in, you know, around extreme poverty, and so I see it, but I also I would say that I got jaded to it, maybe a little bit, got to where I just that was the normal, and so it kind of became blind to that, and so what she ended up doing, through just her passion for it, was really helping us as a family to draw around this idea that we can help all the people around us that need help in some way, care for them in some way and see them, and I think that's just a really, really big thing.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Not everybody is gonna see things the same way.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Not everybody's gonna be touched in the same way when they see it.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And it took God to speak through your daughter to help you see something that you had just kind of become accustomed to, and I think we're a lot like that especially in these areas of the country in the United States where there is just homelessness everywhere is people.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I've been on the West Coast and I've seen people just step over bodies who were laying out on the streets and just don't even like they're there and I'm sure part of that is because they don't know what to do and maybe they've lost their desire to do anything because they aren't okay to say I don't know of what to do.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Sure Well, and sometimes I think it's just easier, when you don't know what to do, that you just choose not to see, right, because then I don't have to feel guilty, I don't have to wonder, I don't have to identify, I don't have to do any of that when I just don't know what to do.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: I think it's so remarkable that she wasn't afraid.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: You know and a quick story on that Our last day there, our second to last day, we had already served with the city relief and we were in Times Square just in the evening.
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: It's just turning dark and we were in Times Square just enjoying as a family.
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: We weren't, this wasn't part of serving, just let's go ahead and enjoy Times Square.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: And she saw a gentleman who was obviously homeless and she said I'm gonna go talk to him and I'm sitting here thinking, no, you're not, we're hanging out as a family Like this is Times.
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: Square and sure enough, she said no, I'm going and mama's coming with me and Sarah's like okay.
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: And so she went and sat down next to this guy and just talked to him for about an hour, Just hearing his story, hearing what was helpful for him and what was not helpful.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: He'd have people dropping off food with him, which was great, but the specifics.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: He's like I can't eat dairy, I can't eat.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: And so he was.
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: But he's saying I can't also reject those gifts because I understand people are trying to help, but it was just, it was really cool and I'm sitting there thinking I just want to enjoy Times Square, like really reminder of just our selfishness, I guess, as people Reminds me of the scripture we're talking about Jesus, particularly when it says a child, she'll lead them Absolutely.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Come on, mom, you're coming with me, exactly and I'll lead you into this.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: This is where we're going, yeah.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: And so she still has a passion for the homeless she does.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: And that's obviously opened your eyes Absolutely, and your wife's eyes, to this.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: And here you are today.
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, here I am.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: On our community, our mission with to pick a rescue mission.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: So you're leading worship, you and your wife are serving your coach and soccer.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Your this this all around great example from everything that I've heard.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And obviously Amanda's over here and you know she's in agreement with that, and and and and life's going on pretty good, yeah.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And then something happened?
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so in November of 21, I had been having some, some bowel issues and I you know, I was 36 years old at the time and you know I thought, well, it's just, you know the food I'm eating and that kind of thing, and I just ignored it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: And then I ended up just making a comment to my general doctor when I was doing a prescription update and she said, ah, you need to probably get a colonoscopy.
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: And I said, no, I'm 36 years old, there's no colon cancer in my family, I'm fine.
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: And actually I missed the referral call to go and get the colonoscopy anyway.
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: About a month later I thought, no, I need to probably call.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: So I went ahead and called and, sure enough, I had a, had a large tumor and a colon cancer which, at 36, again with a at the time a six year old and an eight year old was was not what I was expecting.
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: No, yeah, so we proceeded to.
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: We went to KU Med and proceeded to start chemo.
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: My first day of chemo was December 22 of that year, three days before Christmas, and I don't know how, but somehow I was able to still lead for Christmas services at both mission and CAHPSCITY.
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: It was a, it was crazy.
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: But I actually don't remember Christmas day itself because the way chemo worked for me was the first couple of days were rough, but then there was this crash about day five, and so that weekend I don't remember anything.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: I don't remember opening gifts or anything like that.
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: So so I did nine rounds of chemo every two weeks and then after that I did 28 rounds of radiation and then after that I did surgery and got a temporary colostomy bag and then I had it reversed about two months later.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: So so, they're telling you what now?
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: So now I am my markers for colon cancer are not there.
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: My scans I have scans every three months in blood work, which is a huge praise.
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: I have a little bit of an issue.
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: We're going to try to sort out when that's low white blood cell count right now, and so I'll have some scans coming up here or blood work, I guess, in about a week and a half to figure out, make sure, just confirm that it's not a blood cancer.
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: Also, they think it's most likely just that my pelvic bone was basically destroyed by radiation, which is one of the big producers of white blood cells.
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: So, yeah, so that's a lot.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: It is a lot, especially at your age.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, if it's an old guy, it's one thing, right, maybe not.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: I'm an old soul.
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: Old soul, old soul.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: But you know your grandparents or your in-laws, parents, missionaries, given their life to Christ.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: You've decided to give your life to Christ, to serve Him.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: God makes a way, and then this happened.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: What did that do to your outlook on life, outlook on God?
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: A wave of emotions for sure.
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: I think that initially I was first of all shocked and it was interesting because we actually we got my colonoscopy on that Friday and the doctor had come in and said I can't give you really any actual news, but this is gonna be cancer and it's not good, of course.
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: Then we went through the weekend and with no actual information we actually didn't get anything till Tuesday we got the results and sure enough.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: But that Sunday we were leading worship and every single song that my wife had already picked us to sing that weekend were songs about how I mean it was things like if I'm not dead, you're not done.
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: I mean just the faithfulness of God and all these different just reminders.
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: And I'm sitting there trying to sing these songs and how do I sing these and when I'm really struggling with not understanding what is going on.
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: So definitely had some just probably anger, some doubt, but it really quickly turned into this is the path that God has for us and I'm sad mostly for my children to have to.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: As a six year old, my son trying to understand why is dad not feeling good, why is he not throwing the football with me, that kind of thing.
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: But for me personally, I think Sarah and I pretty quickly realized that this was the path we were on and we were going to give God glory, no matter what happened through it.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: So you're on a path and then this happens News, it's uncertainty, it could mean I'm not gonna be around much longer.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: All those things.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: God, you've created a path for me.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: And now this.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: And you got angry, you got concerned, you went through a lot of emotions, probably Probably a lot more than we're hearing, right now.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: What turned it to you saying, okay, in spite, of this is a path.
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: So at that time we were just coming out of COVID, obviously, and at our church we had asked people to try to wear masks during COVID if they would.
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: Our church was fairly resistant to that, which is fine.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: It obviously was very, you know, kind of controversial on everything Still is, still is.
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: There was a Sunday when I started chemo where our elders went on stage and they asked our church if they would consider wearing masks if they were in the first four rows of the church while I was leading, because obviously my meeting system was compromised but I was still leading.
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: I was still leading.
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: I didn't see a life where I would finish my life if that was what God had for me, not doing what I loved and what I felt like he called me to do so.
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: I kept leading through that.
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: I had some people step in on really hard weeks and that was a huge blessing to me.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: But when they asked them to do that, I looked at those first four rows at my church who had been so resistant to masks and all of a sudden, these first four rows of people, they loved me so much that they would put a mask on and I thought to myself, how can I go through a difficult situation and not share what God is doing in my life through this, without seeing these people that are just loving us the way that they're loving us and are impacted by our ministry?
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: And I think at that point I mean I told Sarah I just rejuvenated my faith in people at that point and also just the understanding of what God can do through people, because that was a huge encouragement to me that's a huge encouragement to hear.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I mean just, you know, with our rights, we all you know we have a right for this and COVID brought a lot of that out Absolutely, you know, I have the right to do this and you can't tell me what to do and those kind of things which I get some of that, yeah.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: But even in the midst of that, they said we're gonna stand with you.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: You're a brother and we're going to do everything, even if it's inconvenient for us, we're gonna.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Amanda, that's powerful.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, I was one of those people sitting in the first four rows with the mask on, and I kind of joke and say if there was anyone that wouldn't have been, they would have been wearing it after I got done with them.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: No, I'm just kidding, as protective as I am of Eric, but no, you know, I think that that's incredible, and I remember just sometimes the gentle reminders that an elder would give when they get up there, because people would visit the church and then they wouldn't realize and so they would sit in the row and so there were extra masks there that they could do, or people, if they didn't have a mask and there wasn't a box there, they would get up and move.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, there was just this level of love and respect and you just saw people, humans being human you know, and caring.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: It was a true example of people caring for someone above themselves, and I just think that even that example ties back to Christ.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: You know how often he denied himself for the sake of others and how we're called to do that, and so I could see where that is monumental to Eric, because that's something that I think I will always remember, just hearing those announcements or seeing people respect them or if they didn't have one, they would move to a different row.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, there was just this hey, we're in it for you and with you.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: We also did a joint prayer time for Sarah and Eric and you know, I don't think that there was a dry eye in the church and to me that was another prime example of compassion that we got to see and be a part of, because people were grieving that he was experiencing some of the sickness, the unknowns, those kinds of things.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: And I think as a church body we knew there was so much that we couldn't do, but we weren't going to dwell on that.
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: We were going to look at what could we do.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: We could provide meals, we could provide gift cards, we could be praying for them, we could be taking their kids when they needed a break, those kinds of things, and I don't know.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: I was just really proud to be a part of that congregation.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: That was just like, hey, you are not gonna go through this alone, because I also think, in times like this, the enemy wants us to feel like that.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: He wants us to feel like you know that no one cares and we're alone and those kinds of things.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: And so I remember sometimes just texting Eric and Sarah and feeling like that that was so insignificant that I wanted to do something else.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: So much, but I just wanted them to know.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: Hey, I'm so sorry, today's been a rough day.
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: Just know that, even if we don't tell you every day, we are thinking and praying for you all every day.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: You're not alone.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: People that are on the serving end of things oftentimes have the hardest time receiving things.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, was that hard for you?
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and obviously, having come from another church as well, you know it wasn't just Cap City, it was this Topeka community that we've been involved with.
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: My wife is from Topeka, you know, grew up here and it was.
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: It's hard, it's hard to accept, yeah, to accept help with anything, and we had some people come over and help break the yard and I'm like that's my business, like I do, that I can do that and I was like, no, I can't do that, and so it is difficult, but at the same time you know to see, especially with our kids, that you know you mentioned people wanting to take the kids and you guys did that a couple of times and you took them to the circus a few times and things like that, but also like we had people on Christmas morning.
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: You know, obviously Sarah and I were very distracted going into Christmas and Christmas morning I mean we had people dropping off gifts for the kids and just things that just blew them away and really just obviously with children, you're trying to balance this act of what's the reality of what's going on, but also how do we shelter them a little bit and card them.
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: And we were very open, I think, with people from the beginning about the whole what was going on and how it was doing.
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: And yeah, like LaManda said, you know, there were bad days and there were good days and I felt like people need to understand what's going on in the life of somebody going through cancer, because there's so many people that are, and I think even people are like oh, that's TMI to tell us like how you figured it out.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: I'm like no, like especially men, we definitely don't want to get help, we definitely don't want to talk about, you know, our bodies and things and how often, you know, do you know, I mean I mean a couple of different cancer groups and so many of these men the reason that they're stage four or you know, on a really bad place right now is because they just didn't get it checked early enough, and so that's a big part of what I'm.
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: What I try to do too is I mean, on colon cancer awareness month, my wife actually we went out to eat and I was so embarrassed about this, but I think we're at Kiku or something like that, and as we're leaving you know you're at, we did the Hibachi, and as we're leaving there's a cup, two older couples across the table from us, and we're walking out and my wife says, hey, have you guys gotten your colonoscopy lately?
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: We're like Sarah, we just ate dinner.
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: Like you don't do that.
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: She goes.
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: They need to make sure and know, wait till they're in their car.
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: Oh my goodness.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: So maybe, maybe they'd got them checked at that point.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: But anyway, so it's just yeah.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: And that's just a teaser for Sarah, when we have her on as a guest.
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: She's amazing.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Wait for that one.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: There's so many lessons in this.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: You know, just as I'm thinking unpacking, we don't have time for all of it today, but, but you know, we oftentimes have things in life and we say why and?
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: And we really don't know.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: But then we see the different things that unfolded with this of you being the servant and people serving you, and and now speaking to others who may be in a similar situation or maybe helping prevent those kinds of things.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: And your wife, you know.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: You know, go to people while they're saluting.
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, If she does that to you, by the way, and you're listening, I'm I apologize.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: You know all those things and then to see what the body of Christ was able to do, and and, and putting down their personal desires to help support a brother and his wife and their family to be able to do that.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: There's so many rich things here.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: So, eric, thanks for being on today.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Is there anything else you'd like to share with people?
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: There probably is somebody or somebody's listening today.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: That really so, man, that was for me.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Is there anything that you feel like the Lord wants you?
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: to share.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: I think, just listen.
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: I just encourage you to listen to what God has for you.
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: The path that you're on is you're on for a reason, and it's easy to to look at it and to judge it and to be angry about it, or to even be be happy about it, but to miss the opportunity that God is giving you to be his witness and to be his light.
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's great, thank you.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Eric Goldberg, authentic worship leader in our community, who's been through some things and didn't quit.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: So thank you for being on our community, our mission.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening today.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: If you would like more information about the Topeka Rescue Mission, you can go to trmonlineorg.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: That's trmonlineorg.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: If you would like to help promote our community, our mission, you can subscribe, rate or share and remember.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Through whatever you're going through, don't be alone.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: God's with you and others are with you too, and let's be together as a community now as we wrap around the people who are suffering from an intratable tragedy that is just unfolding in our community, to be able to come with love and come with mourning, and then we'll get to some solutions.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.