Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is from nothing to something else. I'm Josh. I'm sitting here with Candy, a fellow follower of Christ, Someone whose goal is to live out the mission of Christ and show love to everyone. And I am a believer of that. So I'm happy to sit down with you and talk about all things Christ and, and what we can do to help out each other.
I told you, I kind of gave you your name, but why don't you talk about why we're sitting here today and what we can go from nothing to something else.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: All right.
Thank you for letting this happen.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: I really appreciate it.
Not sure where to begin.
I have moved up to Chico seven and a half years ago when my daughter had gotten married and, and I was in beautiful San Diego.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: With great weather.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: I was just out there. It wasn't the, the greatest weather. It was humid.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: But every, every place has been unusually.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yucky.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So I came up and arrived two weeks before my first grandson was born and then stayed for two more to be born.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: So that's why I'm part of this community and trying to do what I can in, in obeying God's call on all people.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: To love their neighbor as themselves.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: And you know, Jesus is asked by a religious leader of his time, well, who is my neighbor?
And Jesus proceeds with the.
The story, the parable of the Good Samaritan. And in this story that many people are familiar. Some people may not be familiar with the parable, but Jesus shows the story of how religious leaders would notice someone in need in front of them and cross this across the road to avoid it.
And, and then the Good Samaritan ends up taking care, does not cross the street.
He's on his way to do something. He allows that interruption.
And it's not just a slight interruption, it's a big interruption to his life. And he cares for this stranger who is his neighbor and bandages his wounds, puts him on his own donkey, takes him to an inn, leaves, and you know, him in the care of the innkeeper and gives him money, goes on to what he needed to do and came back and continued to love his neighbor.
And the religious leaders, you know, you know, he's caught. And, and Jesus says to him, so who you would ask me, who is my neighbor? So in this story, who is the neighbor?
And, and neighbors go two way. If I'm your neighbor, you're my neighbor. And so the religious leader responds with the one who stopped and helped the oppressed.
And Jesus remark to him and to all of us is go and do likewise.
And so I have been doing very little, but what I can at this time to.
To expose, to bring to attention the oppression that is going on.
There's a lot of it. It's exhausting and overwhelming.
A lot of people feel like we do, like, God, what can I do?
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: And sometimes prayer itself is like you. It's almost like a last resort when it's like, no, it's our.
There's power. And the power lies in God waiting for us to make the requests and. And to be willing to be that person, that good neighbor. And so I have been trying and trying in different ways, mainly speaking up.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: And.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: And we could. We could and get in a little trouble getting a little trouble speaking out and speaking that. Which is all right, you know, and that's part of it.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: And so that will never stop for me.
If there was, you know, if I was being disobedient, then God would show me and it wouldn't be in ways of, like, you know, what you're saying is uncomfortable. You know, we need to not turn away and cross the street when we know that people are being oppressed.
And.
But I have been myself distraught. And just yesterday, if you would have seen me, you would have seen just that. I was almost, like, paralyzed with.
I don't know what to do. And. And yet feeling some hope that God is going to show us a way.
And so I.
I shared with you earlier that it was near. It was near evening, and I thought, I'm gonna just look at Facebook. I was drawn to look at Facebook, and I came across a story that I'm hoping will spread.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Get more attention.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Yes, get more attention because it is so full of hope.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: And it's something that we all can in some way contribute to and nationwide. And. And so let's start it here. Yeah, let's. Let's start it here in Chico.
Encourage people to. To start this. And. And so I'm going to share right now.
And.
And I'm going to, like, backtrack for a moment. I.
I just returned from the Holocaust memorial in Washington, D.C. and it's the third time I've been there, and the prior two times, I never got to view the bottom floor. And which is, to me, the best floor, the most hopeful floor. And so what it is is that the Holocaust Museum, the top floor, starts with the rise of Hitler, and it starts in 1933 and goes through his rise and the people's responses and the world's responses to this rise of Hitler.
And.
And then the second floor goes into. In its chronological. Goes into the increasing oppression of people. Yeah, the Jews were the main, Main people they oppress. I mean, 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
And. But there were also gypsies, disabled people, gays and lesbians, transgenders. It was like just many targets. And.
And of course, we're seeing that repeated.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: In our history right now. And I don't want to go too much into that because I want to get to the good news.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: You guys know what's happening? You guys see the news?
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
And so the bottom floor of the Holocaust Memorial is a. The story of resistance and of courage, of people of all nations, all religions.
No faith in how these people risked their lives to save Jews and from. From the killings.
And so that was I. I ran out of time again this time. And so my son and I went back the next day and just spent a few hours on that bottom floor.
And so I left there with, you know, like, just looking at the different ways that people helped. And again, they risked their lives.
And some of them themselves were killed in concentration camps or shot and.
Or beheaded.
Anything excruciating and horrible they could do is what they did to stop these people loving their neighbors and protecting their neighbor.
And so I left there with God, you're going to show us a way. But my thoughts was, are we going to have to wait until it gets that bad to where.
But it's bad now. I mean, there's people may not be in gassed right now or taken out and shot into mass graves, but there's people starving, there's people going without health care. There are people suffering there. And one of the main things are families are being separated and children who also have a heartbeat are being left hopeless. Some are committing suicide.
It's horrible and overwhelming, but there's something we can do.
And yes, pray.
Yes. Don't turn your head away from what's happening.
The price that we pay for speaking up is so small. And it could be that we lose friends, that we irritate people, we make enemies.
But what a small price.
None of us right now are losing our lives, except for there have been some, you know, Renee Good, Alex Preddy. There's others who've lost their lives for loving their neighbor.
So what this pastor Priest did.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome. Incredible.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's incredible. So he and I, I found this post on.
It's a group called the other 98, but I believe CNN may have in their archives this man's story. And so he Basically following the law.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Not breaking a law. It's not like during the Holocaust where they made laws.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: To criminalize people helping their neighbor. There's no such law at this time.
And so what this priest has done is he has, using the legal system, has.
Has received guardianship of children who. Whose parents are facing deportation and detention.
And.
And so it's legal. And it's like they have, like, six months of, like, safety.
And so I thought, if he's doing it and it's legal, let's do it. Yeah, let's do what we can.
Which will take organization.
It will take attorneys who will help with the paperwork for those people who have room to take in children to make room for them. People that don't have room in their homes but feel called to this service in loving their neighborhood, to give money, to offer rides, help the children get to and from school and get them involved. Let these children have as much of a thriving life as possible, which is really hard if they're separated from their
[00:13:03] Speaker A: parents, living in cages and attention centers.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
In my activism.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: No,
[00:13:13] Speaker B: I've been called to different things in this activism. And one of them being, how do I give hope to the hopeless?
[00:13:22] Speaker A: That's right. That's the one.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: And.
Which is really hard.
And so I feel that if these parents knew that their children were going to be loved and in a safe place, what hope that would give them tremendous, you know.
And so I just wanted to bring this story out and spread it and give people encouragement that, yes, there's something we can do, and it's what it is. What does it. Some people aren't doing. It's not going to cost us our lives.
It's within the legal system. You know, Jesus says, I send you out as lambs before wolves and shrewd.
And it's like, I feel that this. This priest has shown such an example of just the love and the shrewdness, you know, a way that we can do something.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: And I like how you said it by not necessarily being taken in 31 children. If you don't have the space. It could be something that's small, as small as sharing supplies and resources or information or kind of like this, providing a space to talk about it. I feel like one of my things, as you know, you can see all the negativity on media as much as you want. You can take in as much negativity as you want, but there's not a lot of people spreading love and spreading hope. And this is another example of just the small Things you can do, but also a lot more that can be done.
And there are people out doing it and living out the Good Samaritan ways and loving thy neighbor.
I did read a scripture, I forgot what it was, but said, deny yourselves and pick up your own cross. And we broke that down. What does it mean to deny yourselves? And what is bearing our own cross look like? Because, you know, Jesus carried his cross.
What does that look like? And so for me, for myself personally, is I have these skills, I have these talents, I have camera mics, I have those marketing skills.
But I also am very shy and like to just be by myself.
And I, you know, I don't want the attention, but I have to deny myself my laziness and shyness and do what, you know, use the skills that God's given me to help promote messages like that, regardless of, you know, like I said, sometimes it might irritate people. Some people might want. Might not want to hear it.
There's a lot of influencers out there, so another one against amongst many. And so, you know, it's just for me, that's just one way that I, I have to deny my own wants and, and do what God's given me the skills to do and promote his love and kindness. And so I think people need to figure out that for themselves. But I know a lot of, A lot of people are just caught up in their own lives, you know, and it's hard to really grasp what's going on and, and it seems so overwhelming. Like, oh my God, there's so much happening. And like you said, we can, we could go on all different kind of things on what's happening, but you know, there.
Break it down, take a deep breath.
There's something you can do that's within your. Your means. Yeah, we just gotta have some ways to.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: There's a small group of us that are, are going to be meeting soon and does your podcast have comment sections, other comment sections?
[00:16:53] Speaker A: We could put some links and information.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: So, yeah, let's, let's do that.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Find you and this article and other ways to help out.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Definitely. And we're going to start with showing some clips of stories of immigrants who have been held in detention.
Just to let people. I mean, a lot of. Most of what's being done is being done in the dark.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: And behind closed doors where nobody's allowed to go. And, and so these, there's a few stories out there that we can see. Yes, this, this is what's happening and this is affecting people.
Made in God's image that Christ died for.
And as much as for you and I, he, you know, John 3:16, it was for the world. For the world, was for the world and all of our neighbors.
And so people can leave comments.
We'll reach out to them.
We're, we're starting with a grassroots roots group that will, you know, brainstorm, figured out what we can do. I, I, something that has kept me going is just, it can, it can be overwhelming. And so, but, but that God loves everyone. And the Beatitudes talk about, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And yes, if, if no one speaks up, God somehow is going to find a way to comfort.
But we're familiar with that saying, God's work, our hands. Well, let's do it. Yeah, this is, this is our hands. And, and all ideas are, are welcome at the table.
We want to be guided by God's love and our call to pick up our cross. And it's not going to be the same sacrifice for everyone. No, but Jesus said, if you put your hand to the plow, don't look back, you know, keep going. And, you know, we, you know, we want comfort, we want, you know, a peaceful life, but at the same time, will we know the actual joy of the Lord if we do not lose our lives for his sake?
So, yeah, I encourage people to, to reach out, spread the news, the good news. Yeah.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: And again, I spoke about this. You know, a lot of times get that call from God and we're like, you got the wrong Josh.
You must not be calling me, because I, you know, that's not what I'm qualified to do. But God doesn't call to qualify. He qualifies a call. So answer the phone, answer that call, and see how God can qualify you to help out. Love a neighbor.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: So, so God bless you all.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Yes, thank you. Appreciate it.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Love you.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: Love you.
