A Conversation about Prison Ministry

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00:00
Today on the show, I'm going to be joined by Joy and Paige Berry, two young ladies who God is using both in a writing ministry and in a prison ministry.
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Stay tuned.
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Conversations with a Calvinist begins right now.
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Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.
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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist and I have with me on the show today, two ladies, their names are Joy and Paige Berry and they're going to be sharing with us about their ministry that they do.
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One is producing a magazine called In Pursuit of Jesus and the other is a ministry to people who are in prison.
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Ladies, thank you for being here on the show today.
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It is my highest honor to be a part of this today and be on your podcast.
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Well, thank you for inviting me.
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Yes, I'm very thankful.
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And I want to tell you, my wife loves you guys and she loves your magazine and that was part of how we came to know about this.
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Obviously I know your brother, he has been in our church for a little while and he, I think mentioned the magazine to my wife and she got a copy of it and is going to be subscribing.
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I don't know if she's done that yet.
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She told me, can I subscribe? I said, yeah, absolutely.
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So she's going to be subscribing to the magazine and so that was what let me know that you ladies were doing ministry.
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And then I asked your brother about you guys being on the podcast to talk about the magazine and he said that you were busy doing prison ministry.
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So I was like, well, I want to talk about that too.
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Well, yeah, you weren't busy in prison.
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But to start with, I just wanted to ask because I know that we we've known each other through friends and I know you girls, were y'all part of hurry? Was that, so you knew my wife through that.
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My wife worked with the hurry ministry.
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Hurry is a home education group in Jacksonville.
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And so you guys knew about that or were part of that.
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And so I've seen you over the years, seen you grow up, seen you over the years, but, but we've not been a super close.
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So I want to ask you a few questions, just personal questions.
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Um, how and when did you come individually to faith because I know you're from a Christian family.
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I know your brother's a Christian and you have multiple siblings, right? How many, how many are there? There's eight of us.
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Oh, okay.
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Well, I don't know if you know this.
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My wife is pregnant.
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So we have a, our sixth and I'm excited because it can be like the Brady Bunch, the Foskey Bunch and we have three boys and three girls.
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So how many are in the Berry Bunch? No, there's eight, five girls and three boys, five girls, three boys.
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Okay.
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So did you, I will start with you, Joy.
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Did you come to faith early or more recently? Cause I don't want to ask your age.
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I'm 23 and I came to know the Lord, but I believe on the age of 16 to 17, um, around the age of 11 God really was working in my heart and I came under conviction of sin, just knew that I needed, I was gonna go to hell if I died.
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Um, so I remember talking to my parents one day and all I remember praying was just God saved me.
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Um, and it came from my heart.
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Um, but I don't know that I really knew that it's really walking with the Lord every day and obedience.
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And just, I did a lot of self effort trying to make myself do these things that I knew as a Christian you're supposed to do and changing myself.
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And I'd let a lot more frustration through the years.
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Um, and so frustration and then eventually I just really got into a lot of just depression as the teenage years hit and I was struggling with different things and felt hard to open up and share.
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And, um, finally I did some with mom about some things and, and so that was good and getting some wanting to walk in victory over some, but I still didn't know.
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I still don't have insurance or salvation.
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I still wasn't like, am I saved? Am I not now? So, well, why am I even asking myself these questions? If I knew the Lord, I would believe that I would really had that joy and victory and peace.
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So finally after much wrestling and just really praying for many months, Lord, you'll show me, reveal yourself to me.
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Um, I've just finally yielded, just prayed.
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And I was just like, Lord, if I'm saved, give me a chance of salvation.
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I've surrendered.
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I give my life to you.
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I want to serve you.
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And if not, yeah, just, just save me.
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And so I'm really coming up from that.
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And I was just had freedom, joy, and peace that I never felt before.
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And the Bible opened up to me really personal, really real.
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And it's just been an exciting journey ever since.
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Tough and growing sometimes, but also really real and exciting.
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Well, praise God.
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Praise God for his salvation.
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And you know, it's funny cause your name is Joy.
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And they say, what you said, you have joy.
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Finally.
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And having that joy and salvation, um, you know, I, I didn't get saved till I was 19 and I didn't, I would say I didn't grow up thinking I was saved.
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I didn't care.
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I grew up in a situation where even though I went to church, I didn't, it just wasn't a big deal to me.
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It was just something people did.
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And God convicted me and brought me to him, um, through, actually through an atheist of all things.
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God saved me by sitting me next to an atheist at work who was telling me about atheism and why I shouldn't believe in God and all these things.
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And I grew up believing in God and that sort of confronted me, but you're right.
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There was a joy when I, when I, when I was about to turn to atheism of all things.
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So that really was, I was, he was, he was, he was telling me how dumb it was to believe in God and all these things.
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And, and it, it really, there was no joy in that.
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There was just the fear of nothing, the fear of absence and, and just that fear of, uh, and it was, it was miserable.
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But when, when God saved me, I remember where I was as in my truck, I was driving home.
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I was, and I cried out to God and he saved me.
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And, and even though, you know, certainly I didn't, I'm not, didn't become perfect overnight.
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I'm not perfect now, but there was a joy and a comfort.
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And, and it's interesting, uh, uh, just to follow up, my, uh, the, the new baby is a, is a boy, but if it was a girl, we were going to name her joy.
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We knew that.
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We don't have a boy name.
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We can't come up with a boy name, but it was going to be because we have faith and hope, faith, hope, and joy.
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But the Lord has saw fit to give us a boy and we can't name a boy joy.
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No, he won't fit in.
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So Paige, tell us your story.
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Okay.
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So I am, you know, of course grew up in a Christian home.
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Um, but around the age of seven, I was with my younger siblings and I'm the oldest and oldest girl.
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So, you know, always shoulder that I'm grown up responsibility kind of.
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Um, but with my younger siblings and we listened to the tape about going to heaven.
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And I was like, you know, I want to go to heaven.
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Like I've never made sure I'm going to go to heaven.
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Of course I don't want to go to hell.
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So I was like, you know, tell my parents, mom, how do I go to heaven? And mom and dad were like, well, they kind of led me through a prayer and I felt like I was saved.
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And you know, it went on, but I'd never seen like, why do I need a savior? It was just like, I don't want to go to hell.
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Um, and so years from down the road, 10, 11, 12, I began to like really see like who I was as a sinner, like bad things I did and wrong thoughts.
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And like, I'm not this perfect Christian kid.
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Like it looked like on the outside.
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And it was kind of hard for me to admit, like when God brings to that point, we don't want to admit that we're sinners deep down.
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But, and so I kept excusing it.
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I was like, well, I'm pretty good.
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Um, you know, I look really clean.
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I look really good.
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I, you know, I kind of had the good Christian kid feel going on.
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Um, and then around the age of 13, 14, um, we had some, uh, right, uh, early June, late June, there's a group of high school kids that died on their way to the beach.
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Um, last day at school, a bunch of 17 or 18 year olds.
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Um, and one of them was a cousin of a friend.
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So we almost personally knew him.
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We helped with the funeral.
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We were part of it.
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And it just hit me that young people die.
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And it was like, I could die too.
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And as soon as I thought that I was like, well, I won't go to, I don't think I'm going to go to heaven.
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Like, why would God take me? And it kind of hit me with the reality of like, where am I going to spend eternity? Like what, what's God gonna do with a sinner like me if I stood before him, you know? And it kind of shook me.
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And I was kind of like, no, I don't know what to do with this.
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Cause I've quote made a profession, but I realized I'm not a Christian.
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And, um, a week later we were at church and our pastor was preaching.
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And I don't remember anything he said, but two things.
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And one was that all sinners are great sinners.
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And that totally demolished like my good girl, all the good excuses I've been making and that, um, there's room at the cross for you.
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And if Jesus had come to die, he would have died for you.
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Like when he died, he died for you too.
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If there was.
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And that just struck me like all of my, my sins, Jesus cared for me personally enough that he would have died for me.
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And I just went home and I just remember surrendering my life to God.
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It was like, Lord, like, I believe your promise.
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You said that, you know, if we believe with our hearts, we will be saved and I need you.
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And it was just like the peace and the joy of like, Jesus was a personal relationship.
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Like Jesus had cleansed me.
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And I was made clean in his righteousness.
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And there was no longer anything I did or didn't do, but it was only his righteousness that made me right with God and just so much peace.
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Yeah.
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The peace and the joy.
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And it's been a growing ever since, you know, whole new relationship, a whole new and God.
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Yeah.
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Well, I'm not, we're not perfect.
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I'm not.
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God takes us a long ways through it.
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Like the first step of faith, right? Yeah.
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Salvation.
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Well, when a, um, when we look at your magazine, I'm going to look at this in two parts.
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We're going to look at the magazine first, then we're going to look at the prison ministry.
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But I do have a question, which, which one is, have you been doing longer? The prison ministry actually.
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Oh, okay.
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Uh, well then we're going to, we're going to be going backwards.
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We're going to start with the newest.
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Uh, what is it that made you think about this medium as a way to share Christ? And is that, is that the goal? What is the goal of the book, I guess, or the goal of the magazine? The goal is to share Christ, but mainly to encourage girls and younger ladies to pursue the Lord with their whole heart, to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, a vibrant one, a real one, not just a group in Christianity, like a Christian home, like we did.
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Um, cause we saw a whole lot of that when we were growing up and I can do other good things and I can act like I'm a Christian and maybe even I am a Christian, but I missed out on God, the power of Christ in our lives.
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That's just kind of dead and we just go through the motions, but we missed out on God's power and knowing the Lord personally.
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Yeah.
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So that's kind of the purpose behind this was to give girls like a hunger and a thirst for the Lord.
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That's what it's called in pursuit of Christ and in pursuit of Christ, discovering the heart of your savior.
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Now I was looking through this copy because this is a copy that Jennifer has.
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I noticed that you have other contributors as well.
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Who are, who are the people that are contributing to the magazine? I noticed a few names I might recognize, but.
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So we just kind of pull from people we know.
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It's not like we have a set team of writers yet and we're still kind of, this is only our second year of doing it.
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So we're just pulling from people that we know would have, have a heart kind of like ours to share Jesus with other girls.
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And so out of that for different topics, we're like, Hey, will you write on this? And if they're like, no, I don't feel led to write.
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Like, okay, that's fine.
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And we'll, you know, just kind of praying to see who God would give us to help, right.
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And that's kind of how we go about it.
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We do pray.
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These are both in prayer and who do you want to write and how, what do you want to say? Like, I don't even know sometimes the next topic.
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I'm like, would you give me the next one? What do you want to say to these girls? Cause it's his magazine.
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That's what I call it.
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Yeah.
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Yep.
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Now from, okay.
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So these are the two latest, you said? Yeah.
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Two of the most recent.
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What would be a particular article that you would say? I'm really proud of.
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I know you're proud of everything.
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Obviously it's like, it's all, you know, your, your work.
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What would you say in this most recent one? This is, I'm really proud of it.
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I hope people read this and what, what's the content.
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What is something that, that, and either one of you can answer that.
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Hmm.
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Um, this one was on salvation.
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So why you need a savior.
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And I think one of my favorite ones was, um, the one, this one by Ruthie, one of the goals, she wrote on having three mirrors, mirrors of your heart.
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And the first one is how you see yourself.
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Second one is how some of those around you, the first one is how those around you see you.
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The second is how you see yourself.
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And the third is how Christ sees you.
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Because I feel like it's very real how sometimes we think so more highly of ourselves than we really are.
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And then those around us, you know, they think even better of us than we kind of know.
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Cause we know that some of the dark things we've done, but like, you know, they just stay low, but Christ, how he flips that around.
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And when we get into his word, we see, Ooh, wow, I am not this good person that I thought I was.
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Um, even if I've never done, you know, bad outward things, I have thought all the same, you know, I had those same tendencies, desires.
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Yeah.
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And to flip that around that you, that's a sinner.
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You, you, you have broken God's law and he's righteous.
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And because of his righteousness, because he is righteous, he has to be holy.
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Yes.
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Um, but also showing the magnitude of his love that he would even consider and choose to die and give his life for sinners.
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That's right.
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And, um, and save us.
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So I hope that makes sense.
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No, it's makes perfect sense.
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Uh, Paige, did you have one that you particular? That was a favorite of both of ours.
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I was going to mention that too.
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One of our desires for this one going into a new year was that, um, girls would know like that.
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Anything we talk about stemmed out of having a relationship with Jesus Christ.
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And until we're, um, in that relationship and cleansed by his blood and fully receiving him through salvation, there can be no relationship.
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And so just bringing it back to the beginning of like, why do we, what, why did you just mean die? What, what is salvation? Um, all of that.
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So that was a very strong desire in most of our hearts that we understand that, you know, that, um, girls all over realize that we can't grow in anything with God.
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We can't just know God.
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Yeah.
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Of, you know, receiving him before we can move forward.
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When we thinking through the, the, the magazine and I remember one particular part that I saw was this one.
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It was, uh, champions of the faith and it was Francis.
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Is it Havergal? Okay.
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Now I had not known about this person.
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Uh, obviously, uh, this, this is, um, a little bit of a biography here.
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Uh, who, who, who is the author of this one? I am.
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So what is it about her that made you want to talk about her? Uh, well how she grew up in a Christian home, but she struggled until to find out, to find the Lord Jesus Christ as her personal and savior.
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And it was, it was a struggle son, you know, cause I think for some people it's automatic, for some other people it's a journey, but to show other girls that it is, it's still real, however it is.
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And, um, that you, you know, other people in the past have gone through those same things and come to find the Lord as their personal Lord and savior and a vibrant relationship with him.
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When did she live? You said in the past, I didn't get it.
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1800s, 1860s I think.
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And she was saving, she was 17, right? I think so.
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She had a, her father was a minister of her friends.
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So, and she's a famous hymn writer, has written lots of many famous hymns like, take my life and let it be.
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Oh, okay.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And it's interesting, you know, cause we think about a person like that being in the, you know, hundred over 150 years.
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Well, you said 1800, so it's 200 years ago.
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I think I'm not good at math, but, and we think about, you know, the struggles that she went through, the struggles that people go through to get today.
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And some of them are the same, like you said, struggling with that idea, the identity in Christ, knowing that you're saved not by your own works, but through the works of Christ.
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What do you think is unique and being young women today, what do you think is a unique struggle that ladies face today that maybe wasn't faced by previous generations? What's something that, you know, not to get too personal, but maybe something that you guys see that y'all have had to deal with that you don't think the previous generations have had to deal with? I have one in my mind, but I will let y'all go first.
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I'll let you answer first.
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That's a good question.
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Um, I think one, a big one, I don't know, for me would probably be like, uh, the ability to push it aside with all the technology and all the great distractions we have of today.
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There's a great easiness to, you know, kind of excuse it and just, um, fill our mind with other things and not worry about it.
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Um, to a point, of course, you know, first, but, um, that was a great, you know, great.
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It's so easy.
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There's more, I feel like distractions to keep us away from having to deal with it and think about it.
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And, um, then maybe in their day and age they had to deal with.
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Yeah.
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Um, is one.
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Are you talking about just like any common struggles? Because.
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Well, I was saying you think struggles unique to now, because I have one in my mind, like I said, and it's similar to what you just said, but, but, but is there something, you know, if you were talking to a girl today and it was a young girl who is maybe struggling with her identity in Christ or something like that, and you, you would say, here's something that your parents probably didn't have to deal with.
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Can you think of anything, like I said, that, that, that y'all have faced that maybe you think your parents didn't have to deal with? I think sometimes the pressures of our society have increased more and they increase more on girls, even like good Christian, you know, like this is what good Christians do, or this is what, um, of something like, you know, a boxed formula of what it should look like.
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And so we kind of put those either legalistic rules on people, or we put the, just throw it off and be yourself and be wild and be the change, you know, who you really are.
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And neither is really right per se.
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But I think sometimes those messages from outside coming in.
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We talk about in our church, we talk about two ditches that are so easy.
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It's so, you know, it's easy to fall into the ditch of legalism.
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It's easy to fall into the ditch of licentiousness.
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And both of them are equally bad because both of them lead you away from the gospel.
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Both of them lead you away from trusting in Christ.
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Um, and so, yeah, when you said it's, it's either too much one way or too much the other way.
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And we're not saying we want to be middle of the road or ride the fence, but there has to be a balance and, and, and, and some things that are, that are often seen as being, this is the only, uh, you know, the, the, the way.
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So when we talk about, um, what I was going to say, I thought I'd throw mine out there and we'll get you, I would get your thoughts.
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I would say that something that I didn't have to deal with, and I know I'm quite a bit older than y'all, but, uh, when I was a kid, there was no, um, there was no record of what we did.
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You know, Polaroid film was about all that we had.
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And now it's like everything is, is, is, is, is filmed.
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And it's stereophonic, you know, uh, high definition film.
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And it's like, our lives are, are spent in the view of other people.
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I mean, even this very thing, we're filming ourselves having a conversation.
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So I'm a little bit, I'm feeding the beast as, as, as, as we're saying it.
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But, um, I think that one of the things that, you know, for, you know, I have a 23 year old daughter, maybe she's turned 24.
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Okay.
20:28
So I have a 23 year old daughter and then I have a nine year old daughter.
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That's the next, that's the wide spectrum.
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Uh, because our youngers are really young and those, and I think about what my nine year old is going to have to face six years from now when she's 15 and she's, you know, starting to get her, maybe get her restricted driver's license or whatever.
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And that's when things really, you know, you start growing up at that point having responsibilities.
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And I'm afraid not, not in the sense of, I don't trust the Lord.
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I trust the Lord and I'm not fearful in the sense I'd live in a hole or something.
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But I, I, I wonder what life is going to be.
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You know, it's Instagram culture is the day of today, which means you have to look a certain way and this is what's expected.
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And, and, and, and, and it's not, it's not what should be what drives us.
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Um, and I wonder, you know, what she's going to have to face that, you know, her mother and I didn't have to face those things.
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There's no such thing as Instagram.
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And while I feel like identity is such a big thing in our culture because there's so much fed in of what you should be, what you should look, what you should do, what, I mean, there's just, it's constantly you pick up your phone every minute and you're seeing what he does and she does and they do and be what they are.
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And there's so much coming in that it's hard to receive what God says of us and who we are.
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And it feeds our covetous nature too.
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Look at that new truck he just got.
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Can you, I mean, don't I deserve it? Or look at this, you know, how beautiful their wedding was.
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Yeah.
21:53
That's one thing I see a lot of times, like my wife and I, we got married in this church.
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We were actually the first ones to get married in this church.
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And because the building had just gotten built and we didn't even have enough money to, to cater our, our reception.
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So we literally did a potluck wedding where people brought food and we, we had just enough money to buy a wedding cake.
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And so we did have a wedding cake, but the wedding cake fell on the way here.
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So, but it actually turned out as a blessing.
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Publix was the one who made our cake and they called us and said, Hey, it fell.
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We'll fix it and we'll get it there in time and we'll give you the money back.
22:29
So, so we have this fun story, but, but, but literally we had like grocery bags for luggage for our, for our, for our honeymoon.
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We had no money.
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We didn't know anything.
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And you know, you see people with these weddings now it's like $20,000, $30,000, you know, like massive things.
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And, and it really does.
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It creates that sort of green eyed sort of, you know, you said green eyed monster, 10th Amendment violence.
22:53
But people do you say no, even though you have very little, you had, you had so many special memories from those things that like the public that's really stands out in your mind.
23:02
And my mom and dad are the same way.
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I mean, just different things.
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Maybe not the wedding, but different things in their life that yeah, they didn't get the best chip on life.
23:09
You know, they maybe other people's eyes got a lower chip, but it's like they wouldn't trade that for anything because of the memories, the people that got to spend it with the time together.
23:20
Yeah.
23:20
And not growing up like you said, I think that's so key because sometimes as the pressure from, especially like young women, I know guys, I'm sure faces too, but like it can just get so hard sometimes.
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And mom and dad bringing it back to, it's like, it's okay.
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You know, that's not what you have to be leaving that pressure, helping me ultimately it's found in Christ because he is the only one that can give you wisdom and the power to walk over that in victory.
23:53
You know, like I don't have to live under those pressures, but it's, it's a process.
23:56
It's a growing for sure.
23:58
And it is good to have a good mom and dad.
24:00
I know you guys have a wonderful mother and father and to have people there that will point you to Christ rather than point you to something ridiculous or something that we can't live up to some, some artificial standard, you know.
24:13
And then even as believers still realizing the yeah, the pressure that still comes in, you know, sometimes I just got to turn off Instagram for a little bit, turn off the social just for a little bit, just so that's not the only thing that I'm hearing because it affects us way more than we think.
24:28
It's like, yeah, now I want that.
24:30
And now I want to look like that.
24:31
And now I want to do that.
24:32
And now I want to, and it totally takes my vote.
24:35
Yeah.
24:37
I spent 30 minutes, you know, getting my video just right now or whatever it is.
24:41
And yeah, I just steal so much of what ultimately could be used so much for God as a believer.
24:48
Amen.
24:49
So if somebody wants to get a copy of the magazine or subscribe to the magazine, can you tell them how to do that? So right now it's just cash or check because we don't have a website up yet, but we are working on that and hopefully here soon we'll be having that up.
25:07
And so then you can pay online.
25:09
Okay.
25:10
All right.
25:10
So if somebody wants to get a copy of the magazine, they can create a subscription.
25:16
They can send you an email address, send you an email.
25:18
Yes.
25:19
Perfect.
25:19
So my email is Jana Jane and that's spelled J A N N A J 109 at gmail.com.
25:26
Okay.
25:27
And they just let you know they're interested in that and you'll let them know how to, how to move forward for the info, contact, whatever.
25:32
Yeah.
25:32
Wonderful.
25:33
Wonderful.
25:34
Well, that is a, again, the magazine is called In Pursuit of Jesus and Discovering the Heart of Your Savior.
25:41
That is the title of all of them.
25:43
Make sure I'm right.
25:44
And how often does a new one come out? Quarterly, every three months.
25:49
Okay.
25:49
Every three months.
25:50
And it is filled, like I said, my wife and I were reading through it.
25:53
It's filled with really good articles and it's certainly a lot of, a lot of information to consume.
25:58
And I encourage you if you are interested, especially if you have a girl in your home, and you want to have something maybe you can do devotions with or something to go along with your regular Bible reading, would definitely recommend your magazine to them.
26:13
All right.
26:14
So let's talk for a minute about the prison ministry, because that is often also something that you guys do, which I wanted to highlight today on the show.
26:24
Journey to the Heart.
26:25
Is that the name of it? Okay.
26:26
That is the name of the ministry.
26:27
All right.
26:28
Tell me a little bit about it, Joyce, or Paige.
26:30
I'm sorry.
26:30
I'm sorry.
26:30
I'm sorry.
26:31
No.
26:32
So Journey to the Heart is, it's kind of like a discipleship program.
26:35
It's about a week long.
26:37
And they do them for normal people to go to, too.
26:41
So it's like a ministry, but then about 10 years ago, they actually took the ministry to the prisons and began taking it to the inmates in the prison.
26:49
And so how I actually got into it was I went on a journey myself.
26:55
It wasn't to prison, though.
26:55
It wasn't to prison.
27:02
But God just did a lot in my heart.
27:04
And I was like, wow, like how much more I came to know who God was and in seeing who God was, really things in life, you're going to fall into place.
27:12
And we begin to view life as God sees it and God sees you and just receiving like who God says you are.
27:17
And it just, it changed so much of my life.
27:19
And when I heard that they took it to the prisons too, to the inmates, I was like, wow, I'm going to know how to be a part of this.
27:25
And so that's how I got into it.
27:27
Some friends I knew did it or whatever.
27:30
And it has changed my heart just being able to see what God has done in the inmates' lives.
27:35
I've been with him about four years now, and we go twice a year into the prison.
27:39
Okay.
27:39
So I want you to explain to me a little bit of how it works because I know when I was talking to your brother, shout out to Steven, if you're paying, I know you're going to be listening.
27:52
Steven's my buddy and I enjoy him, but as he was telling me, so he was like you guys had gone.
27:57
So do you go and stay on site? How does that work? So we actually go down to the Florida prisons down in Ocala, Lake Butler, that general vicinity.
28:08
Stark and all that? Stark, yeah.
28:09
And so we actually stay at a Christian camp in Melrose.
28:13
Nice guy, Christian guy.
28:15
It's actually called Lake Swan.
28:16
And he lets us use his whole camp for very cheap price.
28:19
It's like his part of the ministry.
28:21
And so he lets us stay there.
28:22
We get our breakfast and dinner there.
28:25
Really nice place on a beautiful Lake.
28:28
And then from there we drive every day to the prison, spend all day in the prison.
28:32
And then we drive back late at night.
28:35
Now, Joy, you were there as well.
28:36
You both went.
28:37
Okay.
28:37
Now have you been doing it as long as? No, she has done it for several years.
28:41
I ran my first actually into the prisons this past time.
28:44
I helped in the kitchen crew for a couple of times because we have a whole kitchen crew that can cover meals.
28:47
But were you afraid the first time you went? I was a little bit.
28:50
I was too, back in the day.
28:53
That's what I was going to ask because, well, I'll give you a little bit of history.
28:57
I, um, I have step-parents because my mom and dad got divorced when I was younger.
29:03
And, um, my stepdad's father was a, was a cook and guard at the prison.
29:11
He actually knew a lot of like famous inmates, people that, you know, he would tell us stories.
29:16
He'd come home and tell us about it.
29:18
And so I grew up sort of in and around that.
29:22
He actually lived on a, uh, there was a, there was like a, some trailers homes that they had built a little connection.
29:29
It wasn't connected to the prison, but it was right near the prison.
29:31
So like I would go spend the night.
29:33
You'd be one fence away from guys that are walking around.
29:35
And I remember being, you know, seven, eight years old going, I really hope those fences work.
29:42
So it was for me, you know, it was a little frightening.
29:45
So I can't imagine.
29:46
So you guys went behind the, yes, the doors.
29:50
We go through security.
29:51
It takes about an hour to get everybody through.
29:53
You get, everybody gets a personal PBA.
29:56
You stick on personal body, personal body alarm.
29:59
So literally you push the button on that and everybody comes running to the place of that.
30:04
Like officers leave everything else and come.
30:06
So it's like a worst case scenario.
30:07
If you feel threatened, I've never been in that situation, but it's your, you have to remember you're in prison.
30:13
Yeah.
30:14
And the first time I went in, I remember like going through the gates closed behind you, next gate closes.
30:19
And it's like, wow, I'm actually in here.
30:22
You're locked in just like that.
30:23
You are.
30:24
Yeah.
30:24
You're in there with them.
30:26
But just as you get to know them, like God, just, you know, you sit down, I'm sitting next to whoever, you know, I mean, I just sit here and talk with them.
30:37
But how much, I mean, it's safe in there.
30:39
Prison I feel like is a very safe place in our day and age.
30:43
Um, but realizing their hearts are like our hearts.
30:46
Yeah.
30:46
Like they are, we're just, we're the same kind of people, their centers, your centers.
30:52
Now I don't legitimately don't know the answer to this question and I'm curious is, are you going to only the women? Are you going to women and men? Yes.
31:00
We just go to the women's.
31:01
Okay.
31:01
All right.
31:03
Cause the way you said it just now, you're standing, you said you could be sitting next to anybody.
31:06
I'm like, I hope you're not sitting next to her.
31:07
If I were in the men's prison, I would feel threatened.
31:09
Yeah.
31:11
So when the ladies see you coming in to minister to them, is the overall atmosphere among them thankful that you're there or are they being forced to go in there? It is.
31:22
This is a total voluntary program.
31:24
They can come if they want to.
31:25
A lot come for the wrong reasons though.
31:27
A lot of times it's to get a certificate, which, you know, we'll give them a higher points or grade in the prison.
31:32
A lot of times it's.
31:34
Yeah.
31:34
Like for probation or parole.
31:36
Or get better favors or whatever.
31:39
So they're not always there for the right reasons.
31:41
So there's kind of that, there's often resistance to that aspect.
31:43
Like I'm here, but I don't really want to be here, but I'm going to be here anyway.
31:45
Kind of thing.
31:47
So it's total voluntary, but it varies by prison.
31:49
Some prisons, God's just done more of a work.
31:52
And even in leadership based on how the ward and the officers are is how often the prison inmates are.
31:59
So it just varies.
32:00
Some prisons are harder you walk in there and there's just like, they look at you like you think I'm going to sit here and listen to you? Like, and some they're like, yeah, come share.
32:08
We want to hear what you have to say.
32:09
So it varies.
32:11
Yeah.
32:12
I, every Thursday I have the opportunity to go and preach at a ministry called set free set, set free is a, it's a recovery ministry.
32:23
That's the way they define it.
32:24
It's a church set free church, but they have a recovery ministry where they have at any time, 45 to 65 guys who live on site.
32:32
And so I go in at nine 45 and I get to preach once a week.
32:38
And I'm very thankful that God's opened that door.
32:39
I've been doing it for about four years and it's, yeah, it's nice to be able to do it.
32:44
And many of those guys have been in jail.
32:45
Some of them haven't.
32:46
Some of them is just substance abuse issues.
32:48
Some of them other reasons, but for whatever reason they're there.
32:51
But I know that when I go in that room, I have a group of people who want to hear what I have to say.
32:56
And they're thankful brother Keith, you're a favor or something.
32:59
They'll say some nice thing.
33:00
And I know they tell everybody that it's like, oh, you say that to everybody.
33:03
It's like, yeah, brother Keith, we're happy to hear you.
33:05
And then there's guys who literally sleep because they just don't care.
33:08
Um, and then there's guys who are argumentative.
33:11
Like they have come with, you know, sometimes they have an ax to grind against religion or an ax to grind against your particular version of who Jesus is.
33:20
And that's what they'll treat you like.
33:21
Well, you know, your Jesus is different than my Jesus or something.
33:24
So what would give me an example maybe of a time when you faced some resistance like that? Do you guys? Yes.
33:30
So I had one different, I'll just show a couple of different ones here.
33:33
One time I had a lady who was a Jew on my team.
33:36
Um, and she was very much by the end of the week, I was like, why are you even here? Because literally everything I would say, she would just want to tell me, well, you know, we see it this way.
33:44
And she was on your team.
33:45
She wasn't in the jail.
33:46
Oh no, she was.
33:46
Yeah.
33:47
No, she was a, it's all back up here.
33:49
When we go in, we take like two or three volunteers and we put them with a group of inmates.
33:54
So we'll have like eight or 10 of them, two of us.
33:56
And we make a small team.
33:57
That way they feel more free to share.
33:59
It's just kind of a small group feel.
34:01
Um, so she was actually on my team in that aspect, but she was an inmate.
34:04
Oh, she was an inmate.
34:04
She was an inmate.
34:05
Right.
34:05
Gotcha.
34:06
Gotcha.
34:06
Um, and that was all she wanted to tell me was, you know, just all from that angle, you know, she couldn't see Jesus in any other way.
34:13
Yeah.
34:13
Um, and I was like, why do you keep coming? Oh, well, I just, I want to know about it too.
34:17
It's just very much knowing.
34:18
And we're just here to debate.
34:19
Like she would do the whole week to debate and it kind of wore on me.
34:23
Cause I was like, I don't want to sit here and debate.
34:26
Yeah, the whole time, but she was there.
34:28
And so God knew I shouldn't need to be there.
34:30
That's right.
34:31
Um, so anyway, that I did have had, have had that sometimes.
34:34
Um, one time I had a homosexual couple on my team, um, and I don't know why they were there.
34:39
They just kind of, but in the end, the one lady got saved the last day.
34:43
So I, God had a purpose in them being there, but it was the resistance to work through at first, because there was stuff I'm like, y'all can't do this.
34:51
And that in front of me, like we're just going to set some boundaries and they didn't like that first step and they didn't.
34:56
So there's resistance in that aspect, but it's amazing how God works through all the resistance though, that the enemy I love to throw up.
35:04
Absolutely.
35:04
Now I have to ask when, when the one got saved, did the other get upset? Well, actually that happened beforehand.
35:12
So the one, it was almost like I felt was a bit of an abusive relationship.
35:16
And when, you know, there's the whole legal laws we have to abide by too.
35:20
And if they tell you something like that, you legally have to report it.
35:23
So I reported it and the one girl got really mad at me.
35:26
She was like, I'm not being that way and whatever.
35:28
And so it, that hurt, that was trouble first off, but it took her out of the picture and just left the one girl there.
35:35
And that gave God an opportunity to work in her heart.
35:38
And so, yeah, God had a purpose in the conflict too that ensued.
35:43
Did you face any conflict in your first time? It was so good.
35:48
I had three ladies and I'll tell about the one.
35:52
They were all actually really receptive.
35:54
They all wanted to grow.
35:58
Um, but one, she wasn't, she was a little argumentative kind of, um, she was a counselor, so she thought she knew everything and didn't really need us telling her.
36:08
And we weren't, we aren't trying to tell them what to do.
36:10
I just like, we want you to get into the wood and see Jesus himself because he's the only one who can give you power to change, to just know him anyway.
36:18
So she had a lot of bitterness and rage from the past to work through.
36:21
And she thought she'd given it up because she had gone through one of these before.
36:25
And she thought I've been through that.
36:26
But going deeper, she's like, I just still hate my brother.
36:30
I still hate my dad.
36:32
And so being able to take her through releasing that to God, giving that to God and accepting his forgiveness for yourself, who, who you've, what you've done against God.
36:44
And then able to just start speaking the truth to yourself over, um, like the Lord is my shepherd.
36:50
So I shall not want.
36:51
Because many of these ladies, I feel like a common problem with these ladies suddenly all struggle with so deeply is the hood and the lack of trust because some man in their life has walked down there, whether they're dad, brothers, boyfriends, whatever.
37:07
And they've just, then you try to tell them that God is good father.
37:10
And they're like, how, how can he be a good father? Because any father man in my life has just been totally bad.
37:16
And so it's going back to that, giving the real picture.
37:21
Yeah.
37:22
Yeah.
37:22
And that's interesting.
37:23
Uh, when you think about, I know that every year there's a father's day on mother's day and every year, you know, we, I don't always preach a father's day message or a mother's day message.
37:36
I always call that the Hallmark liturgy.
37:39
We don't always follow the Hallmark liturgy, but every once in a while on father's day, I'll preach a father's day message or a mother's day.
37:45
I'll preach a mother's day message.
37:46
And sometimes it's been where I've talked about, you know, my father was a good father or my mother was a good father or my mother was a good mother.
37:54
Yeah.
37:54
And it would be, you know, I know not everybody has that.
37:57
Yeah.
37:58
I'm thankful to have the dad that I had.
37:59
Now he wasn't a believer.
38:00
Actually, my dad became a believer after I did, but at least he was a, he was a loving dad who cared for me and really did protect me and did a lot of good things for me.
38:10
And so when I talk about God's goodness and God's fatherly care, I can relate to that because I had a dad who would protect me.
38:18
I never was afraid of anything because I knew my dad would protect me.
38:22
Such a blessing.
38:23
Yeah.
38:24
But other people don't have that.
38:25
People have been abused or have been mistreated or, or, or, or, you know, maybe their parents were addicts or prisoners or whatever.
38:34
It's hard for them to see that.
38:36
Cause I remember, I tell you, I'll give you a quick story.
38:39
One time, I mean I know exactly where I was when I had this epiphany.
38:42
I had an epiphany.
38:43
I said, you know what? Nothing I would ever do would make my dad not love me because he instilled in me from the very earliest age that he loved me and he would always take care of me.
38:53
And he has, I mean, you know, and I remember that that was the moment I was, I knew where I was.
38:57
I was in the, in the car.
38:59
And I remember thinking if nothing I would do make my dad not love me, then there's nothing I can do to make God not love me because God is a greater father than my dad.
39:09
And that moment was like, that was life changing for me.
39:14
So having a good father was a blessing to me.
39:18
And not everybody has that.
39:19
A lot of these people that are in jail, jail, unfortunately, becomes almost like a generational thing.
39:27
Parents were in jail, kids go to jail and it doesn't have to be that way.
39:31
You know, my dad came out of a difficult situation.
39:34
He was abused, but then he became a great father, which is crazy, right? The fact that he was in it, his mother was, was not a good mother, but he was a good father.
39:41
So it doesn't have to be that way.
39:43
But we know that often, unfortunately it is.
39:46
So what do you guys, when you go into the prison, what is your, what's the method and what's the goal from, from kind of a start to finish kind of thing? So we go in there and our first day is just kind of like getting to know them, them getting to know us.
40:00
And we start with, um, in the book, there's like five basic foundations.
40:04
One being like, um, salvation, really being sure we understand what that is.
40:08
Um, cause a lot of them, I feel like, you know, think maybe they are, but they're not really or just fully understand what really it is to come to know Christ and salvation.
40:16
Um, and then another one is like your view of God, which is huge.
40:19
Um, and then another one is like Christ in you, the whole truth of Christ lives in us and the power in that.
40:26
Um, and another one is like how do we abide in Christ? Um, and just things, and then like view of eternity, I think is the last one.
40:32
So just kind of culminate in a way of foundation.
40:34
Um, and then we go into seven different hearts.
40:36
Um, and it literally takes, um, like seven different hearts that we have, but it really is a, is a journey into God's heart because it's reality and how essence we, we can only be changed and, um, fulfilled in Christ in essence.
40:51
So like the one is like a prideful heart.
40:53
Um, but we don't just get rid of our pride.
40:56
It's, you know, coming to see who we are and turning, letting Christ and receiving his humility.
41:01
Um, and one is like an adulterous heart or like a murmuring heart or like they kind of hit a lot of the basic foundations of like at this bottom of so many struggles we struggle with.
41:11
Um, and then one of the biggest things we also struggle with is their past because everybody has, especially in prison, all their hurts and guilt and past and things like that.
41:20
Yeah.
41:21
A bitter heart is one that's, it takes like a whole day to do that one because it's either bitter at other people or even themselves.
41:27
And how do you forgive yourself for those? How did I get here? Well, it's either somebody else's fault or it's my fault or it's both or yeah.
41:33
There's so much guilt.
41:34
And then all the hurt from the past, you know, all the, they all carry so much baggage of hurt.
41:38
Um, and we go through like lies you believe is a huge one and like how to deal with the lies that we believe and the truth of who we actually are in Christ and how that can change us.
41:48
Um, so we deal with a lot of that.
41:50
And there's no set order.
41:51
We literally just go as we feel, you know, God really leads us and gives us peace to go.
41:55
And it's amazing how God always seems to lead us where so many hearts need.
42:00
Every journey is so different.
42:01
Should I say this is based in prayer.
42:03
The whole thing we have, we volunteers are praying.
42:06
We have people behind us who are praying to earnestly.
42:08
And that's why I believe is so much.
42:11
Sometimes the power behind or the effectiveness behind it, not because we are in ourselves or not.
42:17
We know, we know that, but we're just trying to point them to Christ.
42:20
And I feel like sometimes just our dependence on Lord, knowing that we are entirely nothing, would you have to do this? Sometimes you'll get down to the last day and you're like, this person still has not, you know, what else can I say to them? And you're desperate.
42:32
So you're just driving you to God to do something in this person's life to show them.
42:36
And, and he so many times has come through.
42:38
So we go from a bug, but we're not stuck to the book.
42:41
Now who put the book together? Um, a group of young people actually had a heart for, um, sharing things that God had done in their heart and breaking down a relationship with Christ to give to others.
42:53
That was literally about four or five of them that actually wrote the book together.
42:58
Okay.
42:58
And were you a part of that? Okay.
43:01
So you came in, how long have they been? They started that about 13 to 14 years ago.
43:06
Okay.
43:07
And you said yours last four or five years.
43:08
Yes.
43:09
Okay.
43:09
So I've been on the latter part.
43:10
So, um, we also watch, like we'll watch messages a lot of times as a part, or we'll just have people come and share testimonies.
43:17
Um, this last time you were in the men's prison, they did something they'd never done before.
43:20
We watched the new show me the father film that the Kendrick brothers put out.
43:24
I don't know.
43:25
Okay.
43:25
Is it good? It was very good.
43:27
Um, it takes you through, literally we've been talking about your view of God as a father, which is so huge for so many in the prison.
43:33
Um, and in the men's prison on like Wednesday, God just laid on some of the older men's hearts that we should pray a blessing as a father over a lot of these guys.
43:42
And they'd never done that before.
43:43
But a lot of these men, they had never received affirmation from their father before no one had ever told them.
43:49
Like no, no father ever told him, we love you.
43:51
We're proud of you.
43:52
You know, you're doing great.
43:53
No, they never had that affirmation.
43:55
And it just have an older man stand in the place of their father and pray that for him.
43:58
It's amazing how much hard hearts were broken up, how much men were just like weeping and willing to talk about things once they saw the actual love and care of almost like a father to them.
44:09
Um, so that was totally new.
44:10
Um, but just literally going as God leads.
44:13
Um, and it's been amazing to see the hearts.
44:15
One lady, my team, I'll just share this real quick.
44:17
Just a couple of years ago, she'd been on several of these come several times, was about to get out of prison, really felt like she was growing with God.
44:23
And she was very sweet believer.
44:27
Um, but she had so much bitterness against her brother.
44:30
Um, she had always been a daddy's girl, you know, daddy's girl.
44:33
And then when her younger brother was born, she literally hated him, wanted to kill him, almost tried to kill him one time.
44:38
Um, always was so bitter against him that he'd taken her place.
44:41
And it had been an identity thing too.
44:43
Like who am I now that he's here all her life? She struggled with it.
44:46
And just God's showing that to her.
44:49
Um, and she struggled for like a day or two.
44:51
She's like, I don't want to, but I just that resistance.
44:54
And then the day she finally surrendered it to God, she said, it was like somebody taking a weight of stuff off her shoulders.
44:59
She said, I've never felt so light and free.
45:02
It was almost a physical thing for her.
45:03
She'd been so weighed down by it.
45:04
Wow.
45:05
And to be free of that bitterness and that hate, um, she's like, now I'm ready to go to prison.
45:10
And that's what so many of them, they, they're scared of getting out almost because they don't want to go back.
45:15
But often so much of what drove them to trouble in the past was that deep desire to know God, you know, God's put in us something that can only be filled by him.
45:23
Big, you know, because we're creating his image, we're created to be in relationship with our creator.
45:28
And that's where I feel like so many drugs and sin and yeah, all that fits in is because that's never been filled.
45:36
Um, and so when they go back out there though, in relationship with Christ, they're changed, you know, it's that, that it has a pull, but it's not the hold that it had on them anymore to go back to.
45:47
Now you mentioned earlier, I know you just shared one, a testimony.
45:50
Did you have some other testimonies that you wanted to share? Was that the one there? That was the biggest one.
45:54
Yes.
45:55
Um, and I had one other one, this lady, um, that I was talking about earlier, there was, um, her and her partner were there on my team one time and how God took the one away.
46:04
Um, but she was, um, she, her nickname, her real name, her nickname was, um, trouble and she had gone on all her life being called trouble and it had literally become her identity.
46:17
It became, it was kind of a fun name originally.
46:19
But by the time she was down her mid thirties, she just felt like she was always trouble and she did not know how to quit getting into trouble.
46:25
Um, and her real name was destiny.
46:28
Um, and, but she didn't like to hear it.
46:30
It had been associated with pain.
46:32
She could remember her mother calling her that and that pain and she just hated it.
46:35
But the day she came to Christ, she was like, I don't have to live in trouble anymore.
46:41
She's like, God's taken that out.
46:43
And she's like, God's broken that power.
46:45
I don't have to live in that.
46:46
And I was like, that's very true.
46:47
I said, and in Christ, you also have a new destiny.
46:50
You have a whole new, and it's like God bought redeemed her name for her.
46:54
She was like, I want to be called destiny now.
46:57
She's like, I love that now.
46:58
And it was just like, the, the view of how God does a complete work in our life.
47:02
Um, and when he saves you, he makes all things new.
47:05
You are a brand new creation.
47:06
And just to see that in these ladies lives that, you know, we go into prison and we're like, Oh, God's got it.
47:11
You know, we think they're so far, but in reality, they're not like God's power to change.
47:16
It was the same power that changes us.
47:17
Amen.
47:18
Amen.
47:19
And we are all equally in need at the foot of the cross.
47:22
We are.
47:23
That's what we stress over and over again.
47:24
It's, it's level.
47:25
There's no higher.
47:27
And I think sometimes when we open up or honest about ourselves and our struggles, it helps them be able to open up and confess and then receive freedom, you know, receive God's forgiveness and repent because they see that we are the same too on the inside, even though we've, okay, not done these bad things.
47:45
Like you have, but yeah.
47:47
Amen.
47:49
So if someone wanted to support what you guys do in the prison, how would they do that? Would that go through the ministry? Yes.
47:58
Okay.
47:58
So just go to journey to the heart.
48:00
Um, I it's also, it's actually called life's real journey.com.
48:04
Now is that life's real journey? Yes.
48:06
Life's real journey.com.
48:08
And that's the actual journey to the heart program.
48:10
And from there you can get in touch with someone who actually would connect you to the prison aspect of the journey to the heart, taking it into the prisons.
48:19
Now let's say, and I'm, I don't know if there's anybody in the audience who would even have an interest in this.
48:24
Let's say somebody said, I feel like I want to go into a prison.
48:27
Now, is that something that, um, if let's, is there a, is there a road to that, to that type of ministry through there? And what would that look like? That's a different website.
48:41
So.
48:41
Okay.
48:41
No, that's okay.
48:42
All right.
48:44
So if somebody wants to be going to the camp and going in with you.
48:48
I'd be willing to volunteer.
48:50
Yeah.
48:51
And, um, so you said this was your first year.
48:54
It was.
48:55
All right.
48:55
So did you have to, was there a process? There is an application form you fill out first adjoining to the heart application form.
49:02
I'm just making sure it's basically just making sure that God's called you that like you and that you have a desire to, you're really seeking God yourself because if you're really thinking about yourself and pursuing him, then you have, it's not you, but God can work through you to share with them.
49:16
That's right.
49:17
Okay.
49:17
So yes, the website is called prisonjourney.com.
49:20
Okay.
49:21
And that is there.
49:21
There's a, um, you can send a message in through there to say, Hey, I want to be a part of this.
49:25
You can also support online.
49:28
Um, any gift, any amount is.
49:31
And once they get your application, they'll usually, you know, after they accept you, then the coordinator will send you the D we're going to have the DOC and they'll send you that whole application form to fill out, which is pretty long.
49:45
Yeah.
49:45
I was going to say that.
49:46
That probably is the one that's yeah.
49:47
Um, even, um, I believe if you've been in the past, a past felon, they have trouble.
49:52
You may have trouble getting in.
49:53
Although we have had some that have been able to get in, you know, and that's always a huge blessing to see one return to speak to them, but that's often more tricky or both for the average person.
50:02
How, how many did you take? Volunteers? Yeah.
50:06
How many of you all were at the camp going to the prison? So there was a good 60 or 70 of us.
50:10
Oh, wow.
50:11
Um, we go to five or six different prisons.
50:15
So there's two, three women's and often between four to five men's gotcha.
50:20
So we really split it up.
50:21
So it's not near as big in each prison.
50:23
Nice.
50:24
Nice.
50:25
So, um, I want to begin to draw to a close, but I want to say one, how thankful I am that God is using you both in, uh, both in printed word and also in spoken word by going into the prisons and speaking to people.
50:40
And I'm very thankful that God is using you.
50:42
And I think that that hopefully will be encouraging to other people as they watch and listen to the podcast, that they would be encouraged as well.
50:49
That's why I was asking, how do you get involved? Because hopefully this might be an inspiration for somebody else.
50:55
Um, and there may, and there are, obviously there's other prison ministries out there.
50:58
This isn't the only one, but this is one that we can say you've been a part of and you can endorse and say, you know, that they're doing a good job.
51:05
Um, what in your heart, um, Paige, as we begin to draw to a close, what made you want to go to prison? That's a funny way of saying it.
51:17
What made you want to do that versus serving at a red cross or a soup kitchen or something? What made you say, this is where I want to go.
51:25
Yeah.
51:25
Um, I think one of the biggest things was, this was an outlet for sharing the power of Christ, how Christ can change us.
51:34
Um, and I had seen it work in my life and I wanted to see God set others free on the inside.
51:40
And I knew prison is one where there's especially a lot of bondage, a lot of, you know, people are even in a different way, you know, need the power of Christ in their life.
51:49
And it was just, it's amazing how God's given me the opportunity to share this with, you know, people in the free world too.
51:54
But especially there's just, uh, there's a desire in my heart to see those in prison really be set free through Christ before they get back out.
52:02
Um, so that's how I ended up in prison.
52:05
All right.
52:06
Well, I want to thank you ladies both for coming into the studio today and being my first ever dual interview.
52:13
First one I've ever interviewed two people at one time.
52:16
We want to thank you for allowing us to be a part of it.
52:18
Thank you very much.
52:19
The opportunity to share and giving us an opportunity to share what God is doing.
52:22
And I just want to say, this is God's work.
52:25
Like and it's my privilege to even be a part to go with him and the work he's doing in hearts and lives.
52:30
Um, and thank you for allowing us a way to share that with others.
52:35
Absolutely.
52:35
Well, Paige, Joy, thank you and may God continue to bless what you're doing.
52:40
And for those of you who are listening, I want to, again, thank you for listening today and watching conversations with a Calvinist.
52:46
If you have any questions that you want to ask to Paige or to Joy, you can send me an email at calvinistpodcast at gmail.com.
52:55
And I'll be happy to forward those questions along if you have interest in the magazine or in the prison ministry.
53:00
And we were able to give the information earlier about those for ordering and for if you want to participate with, uh, with financially with the prison ministry.
53:08
But again, if you have a question directly or you'd like to have them back on for another conversation, please send me a message.
53:14
Calvinistpodcast at gmail.com.
53:16
Don't forget also, if you're watching this on Facebook or YouTube to please like and subscribe, or if you are watching or listening on a podcast, please subscribe so that you'll get updates on new episodes as they come out.
53:28
Thank you again for listening to conversations with a Calvinist.
53:30
My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.
53:33
May God bless you.