Q&A with major bunton

Q: You have quite a fascinating story. Let's start with this: how did you end up in LA, or eventually getting connected to Renew?

Major: I don't know where to begin. So I grew up in the city of Inglewood. This is where my family moved from Indianapolis. We came out here 35, 40 some years ago and I grew up in the small city of Inglewood, right down the street from the [stadium]. I had a great childhood at the beginning stage, but when I got out here, we struggled for a minute because we just didn't have the financial situation that could help us succeed. 

At that time, I started questioning myself. I started recognizing how we were different from other people on our streets and that we were poor. I noticed that we did have some of the stuff that the other kids had. And so I think at that time, I sort of felt indifference. I start to feel left out. And I think at that moment, I started questioning how I can try to find ways to meet the needs of my influencers, the kids I surround myself with. 

I got involved in crime at the age of 12, and it was endless.

I played on a baseball team and all my teammates had accessories, wristbands and I had none of those things. And so one day I was just walking through the mall and when I saw the wristbands, all I could think about was how it made me feel that I didn't have the wristbands.

Something came over me. I grabbed the wristbands. As I tried to walk out, they grabbed me and took me to jail. At the age of 12. I was terrified. Crying. I just didn't know what was going on. And that was the first time that I ran past law, and from that it just progressed. I was progressing from selling drugs – it was the 1980s and the "War on Drugs."

I got caught up in that war that most young black males and hispanics got caught up in. 

That pulled me in, because I noticed I was able to buy the things that my family couldn't afford and then that progressed. 

It became about territory. I was trying to protect my territory where I sold my stuff. That opened up the gang lifestyle, because now I was trying to protect where I make my money. We built this crew. Then that became a gang, and then we started fighting over territory and then that became the red and blue thing. 

From that point on, it progressed even more…I started wanting to carry guns or use drugs. And so all of these things started contributing to the person I was becoming. Right before my eyes, I realized that I was becoming this menace to society. And when I looked up, I was in and out of jail for drugs, guns, stealing cars, you name it. It was part of the culture. I really felt like it was more about this reputation or just acceptance that I was trying to receive from my peers, even with all those things that came with it.

And then at the age of 20, I committed an accidental murder. They sentenced me to 15 years to life at 20 years old. I went to prison and had the same mindset. I didn't look at what I did, how it affected the community, affected, you know, the family, their additional family, you know, all those things. I had no clue the impact, the ripple effect that spread because of that choice that I made that particular night. So I lived like that for probably about 24 years. 

Around 2011 is when I turned my life over to God, and it was tough. It was tough to do it because I had to re-imagine this whole new way of life in a new way of living in this new whole belief system of doing right and wrong. So I had to realize how to replace those things. "How do I replace all the things that I was doing in the past with God?

And so there was a struggle. There were times where I'd have good and then fall back to the bad, and I just continue to believe in my change. And I started to meet the right people, tried to contact the right people. People started to see my potential. I started to see my own potential. Then I started to value myself. I started to believe in myself. And then at that point, I was just fully engaged in change. 

And I would say the biggest test God put me through was in 2014 when I was in the SHU (the special housing unit). It [was] solitary confinement for two and a half years. And, you know, I had no books. I had nothing to read. My neighbor used to play this channel on TV called Jesus Christ TV. And I listened to the music and it was therapeutic music to me. And that was my way of connecting with God.

And I started to feel like He was showing me something. He was telling me something about where I was at and how it was supposed to live when I silence out of that situation. And then after my two years in that time, I got out and I just told myself that I was going to do everything in my power to stay on a course that God had provided for me, even when I didn't even realize it. And so I did. I stayed on course. 

I eventually met a guy named Sithy [Bin]. He was in charge of the guys who were engaged with church. And so I connected with Sithy, and Sithy will always keep me accountable to be there and show up and do all my work. And so I did that and it was definitely important to have someone who really believed in me. 

In 2017, I had to go before the board to show that I was no longer the same person. I owned up to everything. My lifestyle, the gang lifestyle, everything that I did, that one particular night, everything that contributed to my behavior. I gave them causative factors. I gave them every minute of my life from the point that I started making bad choices. 

And they came back two hours later and they said, "Mr. Bunton, you're no longer a threat to the community. Therefore, we find you suitable and you'll be going home in 90 days. "And I put my head down and was like, "man, unbelievable". And 90 days later, I was on. I came home March 5th, 2018. I've been home for four years. I got off parole last year. I finally got my passport. I haven't traveled yet. I'm still thinking about where I really want to go.

Once I came home, I wanted to give back to my community. And so I started a nonprofit called Inglewood Wrapping Arms Around the Community. And what we do is provide housing for our guys who are coming home [from prison]. Sithy went through my program. Some other guys in church went through my program.

We have housing for these guys to make that transition back into the community where they don't have to pay rent. What we find funders by them, they help them pay so they can get on their feet, get ahead. And then when they're ready, we find them permanent. Housing in the permanent housing pays their rent for a whole year to the able to really just merge back into the community. So the nonprofit and on top of that, I go back into the juvenile halls and I go back into the prisons now and I teach theater now. 

We teach a highly intensive and improv style theater. We use it to express basic emotions, sad, happy fear, anger, to play in these characters that we design. We realized that when these individuals start to play these characters, they really start to play themselves and start to realize these four basic emotions and how they can be fully in control of those emotions when they're in character. 

And we try to show them how to transfer that over to their real lives that they really have full control of those characters. So when you come home and they start to beat their face with these characters, I mean, we are faced with these emotions. They know how to fully deal with them. So that's the best lesson. That's it to sum it up in a nutshell, man. 

Q: First of all, thank you so much for opening up and sharing that. It's a really powerful story and testimony and a lot to unpack there. And I guess maybe I start with you mentioned that in 2011 you gave your life to God. Growing up, was church something you regularly attended or not until later in life?  

Major: I attended church. It was more "attended" church because I was probably 10 and I had a friend that I used to love to spend a night with. And his mom would say, "if you want to spend a night, you have to go to church on Sunday." So that's when I started to engage in the church because I started to like it when I was young. And the reason why I noticed I started liking it is because my friends were really engaged in church at that age.

When I was 17, I went to church for about a year. And that only took place because I was in a foster home. I did enjoy that there was some connection, but I didn't really understand the commitment, how powerful church can be. Like I told you, 2011 is when I started to really fall into this path with God. Before that, I lost myself. 

In 1995, I met this guy who was practicing satanism. He tried to share that with me, and because I was in his dark place. It just seemed to align with that. It seemed to align with this dark world I was living in and he told me about this here, and he just convinced me that, "hey, this is okay." I said "I'm living in this dark world. And this is the parallel to how I feel this anger that I can't describe or can't control. And I started practicing it, and it wasn't like a practice or weird chant. I just said "hey, this is what I believe in." That's just what it was. And I did that for 20 years, from 1994 to 2010. 

When I was in a program called AA, they started to talk about faith in God.

And here I am dealing with this dark world. I was hearing everyone constantly talk about their faith, and I wanted to change, but I didn't understand how to make that crossover.

And then one day I was just sitting there. I was hearing the power of God, and I was hearing the way He was moving in people's lives. And right there I looked back, I saw this dark person and I was like, "the hell with you, man." I just went straight forward. I started walking towards what God was providing for me right there. And that moment he just started opening up doors that I couldn't even imagine that He had power. That's when I decided to make that change.  

Q: Wow, that's wild. Out of curiosity, what was it about Jesus that really compelled you so much? What drew you to Him?

Major: There was a young lady I met when I was inside. We would talk on the phone and she would tell me about her faith, her walk, how long she'd been walking with God. And I think it was just the way she approached me with it. It wasn't forceful. It was this generosity of sharing what she experienced. 

That started to engage my thought process in wanting to look at this particular area of my life, the spiritual area that I wanted to look at. And at that point, I started to question myself. I think that was the most important thing that I started to question what it was that I really wanted. 

And she was really the pillar of that. She really initiated that with grace and generosity and her ask that was so generous. And I think that made me feel comfortable because I had people in the past [where] it just seemed so forceful or seemed so demanding. 

I remember the first time I prayed, she said, "would you mind praying for the kids?" when we'd come to see her kids. And I was terrified. I was so afraid. I was just like, "what do you say? I don't know."

She said "speak whatever's in your heart." Like, don't worry about how it comes out. Just imagine Him being right here in front of you and just share. Just do that in a prayer. And I was terrified.

So they called me for a visit. I went out there. She showed up with her step kid and her kids. 

I prayed and I felt  so good. And I was so grateful, man. I was like, "man, God is working in my life." 

I thought, "I've done so much wrong. Why are you choosing me to walk with you?

And as time went on, I started to realize that He said that there is something much bigger than you can realize right now that I have for you. It is a testimony to your walk and your love for Christ and God. Just all these things that He was teaching me. 

My commitment to the negative lifestyle was still entwined in me. I just needed to learn how to put it in a healthier place. When I make a commitment to something, I'm all in. I made that commitment to God. I knew right there and then that there was no back and forth. It wasn't going to be back and forth walking with Him. So I would say that was my my turning point.  

Q: You mentioned going through solitary and some of those like really tough moments. How did you find joy even in the midst of such hard moments? How did you find peace or feel or connect with God even in those tough moments? 

Major: I would say faith. I think my faith got stronger. I believe that God had taken me through several tests when I was there. You know, He puts things in front of me to see what I was capable of doing, what kind of choices I was going to make. And I realized that there was a struggle, but I realized also that God was present. He was present in my life at that moment. I couldn't tell you how, but I know that He had my back. He had me like "I got you, this is nothing right here." This is going to be a part of your lifestyle and your testimony that you're going to be able to share with people. 

I finally got my own TV after four months and then I would listen to Jesus Christ TV twice a day, and then I read the Bible as well. And then I would talk to other guys who were practicing the same walk because every, every four days they let you go to these kennels like, you know, dog kennels. They're like cages. 

And they allowed us to go in there for like an hour and a half, and you would see other people in these kennels. You just see someone you like, "Hey, how you doing?" And you know, we start a conversation and we realize that we're practicing the same faith. That opens up the door with sharing information and sharing books. "Hey, I got some books you might want to read, you know, on this or that, you know, pertaining to our faith" and we shared books with each other on that. 

God was really showing me that if I wanted to find freedom mentally, this was the way to go about it, and I really realized that He really helped me find freedom in that way. Because once I went into the war, it didn't matter what took place in there. I already knew that I was mentally free already. I said, "man, I won the battle." Like, I knew that I was mentally free, and all I knew was that my body was still present in those wars.

But the most important thing to me was the prison of my mind, and my belief system that had captured me all those years was no longer in shackling me anymore.

So I realized that God allowed me to take those shackles off. And I noticed this raw view of life in freedom and love and faith. People of different races. And it just opened up a door that I never could imagine. 

Q: That's really cool. It speaks to what the Bible talks about as far as being new creations. And I think it's cool that you're able to share that fellowship with those people, even if it was only for a limited amount of time. How have you been able to build community and continue that fellowship here at Renew?

Major: I was going to a church in San Bernardino. And then I was transferred down to L.A. My close friend Kevin (Waters) said, "we're looking at a church right now. Rosie (Marquez) [and I]." And we went. We went there for the second time. They asked "would you like to join us?" And I was like, "sure." 

Back in L.A., I had no church. I definitely wanted to find a church. And so I went with Kevin now, and I think the first thing that really grabbed me was the diversity that they had. That, to me, was really powerful. And then also the pastor, you know, his approach, how he teaches, how he shares the Bible, also his background and how he was brought into this place from [Virginia].

All that really made me feel comfortable. And then the more I went, the more I started to gravitate to the word the pastor, the fellowship that we were all receiving in that space. And, you know, I just felt comfortable and I felt no pressure to be there. I started showing up every Sunday. And so it's been about probably about a little over two years now that I've been going.

Q: What have you been involved with while at Renew? Are you part of a home group?

Major: Yeah I am. It's in Inglewood. That's our own group, and we actually do it here at my office. I felt that we weren't utilizing our space on Tuesdays. I said, "listen, you guys are always welcome here." And so we've been meeting here every Tuesday night doing our own series. So it's really been pretty cool. And a lot of the people in the whole group get a chance to come by and see the office and see what I do over here on this side of town. 

Q: That's super cool. It seems like in the home groups, it's like family. People really care about each other and listen to one another. And I was curious, what's the reception when you share your story, your testimony with your home group? How have they supported you or listened to you in that?  

Major: Great question. I really believe it's so important how we put the right people as facilitators that make people feel comfortable to open up and share. That space that we share for two hours is open to each and every last one of us that sits in that circle, and open to whatever it is that may be bothering us.

So what we're going through in life or how it's fine to still connect with God on a much higher level. You're able to hear that. You can feel the resistance sometimes for people who just don't want to share, but somehow they find a way to share. I'm really passionate when someone is fighting something inside, but somehow something makes them say, "I have to let go."

I'm so connected to that because of my past, and how I'm able to watch some of the strongest belief systems change because they had to look within themselves. I'm really connected to human behavior and how people are really willing or find the courage to take a leap of faith and question themselves and want to do something better for themselves and understand that it's OK to fail. 

Q: What your organization does sounds a lot like Jesus: caring for those who falls through the cracks or those society forgets about. Jesus was always pursuing those people. What is your mission?

Major: Our mission here is [being] an Inglewood Wrapping Arms Around the Community is [to be a resource center], that's what it is. We also have other partnerships. 

We have [a program called] Creative Acts. We go into the juvenile halls and we teach civic engagement as well as some theater. And we do that and we do that for all the campuses, all the juvenile halls and all the camps all through California. 

That's one program that is up under this umbrella of Inglewood Wrapping Arms Around the Community. Then we have Dream Live Hope led by Rosie and Kevin. 

They have 50 beds that they provide for our returning citizens, those who've been incarcerated or on their way home or who are home. And they go to our resource center and get acclimated to one of our programs. And then we have 40 beds. 

And we also serve the homeless. We serve anyone in need that are looking for housing. And then we can provide the funding for them because we have certain funding resources that we can tap into to get that individual funding. We bring them in, and then we connect them with our warm handoff programs and connections that we have. And we just continue to do the work and spread the work to the community. And also we do food drives every two weeks. You know, we can serve the community right here at our office. We have job referrals. We have a connection with the [new] Clipper Stadium. 

So any of our guys who look for work at any one of those locations, we have contacts at those two locations, we can give them some employment and get them ready to just really acclimate themselves back in the community.

My most exciting project, and this is really going to blow your mind is a virtual reality (VR) program as well. And what we do is we actually shoot content for VR. We shoot a concept or we shoot a scene and we upload into our VR headset and then we go into the prisons and we share with the guys inside. 

I was gone for 20 or 30 years [from society]. I had to experience [coming back to society] on my own without any help, like swiping a credit card or using a GPS system.

We're trying to get people to reimagine what reality looks like. So that's some of the problems that we have. We've shot a bunch of content in the last few weeks, and I'm so excited to go back in April to share this information and allow these guys to find hope and to reimagine what freedom looks like. 

This is a game changer now, because when I came home, I struggled for a long time. There was this fear that I didn't know any of this stuff.

Q: Those are some amazing resources you provide for the community. What's ahead for your organization this year?

Major: Our mission this year is to extend our housing program, and we want to also try to get permanent housing for our guys. So when we say permanent housing, some of these guys are not ready to make that transition because it's just overwhelming. 

It's a lot of responsibility to have your own place. And it's terrifying at times. So we want to be sure that we can extend their stay. And then when they're ready, we can connect them with permanent housing. When I say permanent housing, there will be a funder that will pay for their housing. We want permanent housing for these guys to pay their rent for a whole year. 

And last but not least, we want to see if we can start building relationships with landlords because I didn't have a track record to show that I'd been in apartment buildings and I paid my rent on time. I had no check whatsoever, right? So every time I put in an application, they kept on denying me. "You have no track record, you have no track record." I was like "how do I get past this?  I felt like they were still charging me for the crime that I committed." 

The last apartment I looked at, the lady asked me to come by. I was like "I don't have a track record."  She's like "no, just come by." She says, "what kind of work are you involved in?" And I said, "I'm in Theater." And she says, What company? And at that time, I was working for the Actors Gang in Culver City run by Tim Robbins from Shawshank Redemption. I worked with him for about two years. And so when I told her that, she immediately said, "Oh, Tim Robbins, I've worked with him before. When do you want to move in?" Tim Robbins is the reason why I got my apartment. But everyone doesn't have that resource, you know? 

Q&A with ej & Chelsea Oruche

Q: How did you both get involved in Renew in the first place?

Chelsea: In 2016, I moved back to Culver City and needed to find a church. So I Googled churches and found Renew, which was new at the time. I started going, and around the same time, E.J. and I started dating, he was going to a different church. He was going to Oasis in Central L.A., and was pretty faithful in attending there. But after four or five months of dating, we were getting more serious. I said, "sometimes I'll go to Oasis and sometimes you come to Renew." But our relationship was getting more serious, like, we were talking about marriage and stuff. 

So I proposed that we go to the same church. And he said, "I think it should be Renew." Renew had around two hundred people at the time. We started going full time and immediately we both were serving, so I joined the coffee bar hospitality team and was on that until 2020, and on sound team for the same. So [I spent] about four years of service on those teams. 

EJ: What sold it for me was one of the times I came to Renew, it felt different. I grew up Catholic, and my church was really small. 

But it wasn't until I went to Renew and felt the intimacy of it, that I was like, "oh, I like this better." It reminded me of my church growing up in that sense of the intimacy and the smallness, and it still does today. I was like, "this feels like a place I can root down in."

Q: Renew definitely has the intimacy and the smallness, but also like the really deep connection community. If you don't mind me asking, how did you end up dating? Was that just meeting through church and then kind of hitting it off from there?

Chelsea: No, we had a mutual friend.

EJ: Yeah, [through] one of my best friends. When they tried to get us together, we were both like "no, thank you." But that's when we started having conversations. But the short of it is: she kind of friend zoned me for a while. Then I wasn't living here. I moved back to L.A., and we started dating around that time, a few months afterwards we both started going to Renew. So it was very shortly after we started officially dating.

Q: Something really unique about Renew is the inner healing ministry. How did you first hear about that and what drew you to participating in it?

EJ:  We heard about inner healing here and there, and we first started going through Renew when we got married in 2017. 

Chelsea: We did marriage prep. Pastor Dihan married us. We did marriage prep and back then Pastor Dihan led it in his garage. Part of the marriage prep curriculum is the genogram, where you unpack your family history.

[Pastor Dihan] said "you're either going to deal with it on the front end or you're going to deal with it on the back end." His advice was to unpack as much as you can together before you get married.

And I think that really cracked open a conversation more about our backgrounds and what we've been through, and what informed who we were. During that there was some marketing for the [inner] healing ministry. And the church was small. So, you know, you interacted with Janet all the time. 

We both realized, through marriage prep and all of that, "hey, we probably have like a lot to unpack as an intercultural, interracial couple, not to mention our backgrounds."

We knew we each would individually benefit from the healing ministry. But I think we committed to doing it for our relationship, more so than anything. "Hey, we both need to kind of unpack this so that we better understand ourselves and start healing ourselves, so we can be better to each other and for each other going forward. 

EJ: And I remember early on, like we were like months into being married, and we needed it. It was in the same window as when we got baptized again. It was all in that same period. We were trying to build this foundation.

Renew played a central part in our journey together. And so it was just sort of like, "how do we create these next steps of intentionality to like, build this foundation?" So I think that's what drove a lot of it. We didn't fully know what we were going to get out of it, but we knew it was something we should probably do to further unpack more about ourselves, like Chelsea was saying.

Q: Before you dive into Inner Healing, EJ, you mentioned that you had grown up Catholic. Chelsea, what's your faith background, or what were your interactions with church growing up?

Chelsea: I've been a Christian my whole life. A neighbor took me to church when I was five and I pretty much went by myself most of my life, and my mom went periodically. I wasn't really a big part of church during college. That sounds so cliche, but it was because of church hurt. 

There was kind of a falling out at one the church I went to my senior year, so I took some time off [from going]. I needed a break from church, but it wasn't a crisis of faith or anything.

Q: And then for you EJ, when did you start going to more like a Protestant type church setting?

EJ: I grew up, Catholic, and went on to college. I didn't go to church too often, but I still said I was Catholic. I did Bible studies and things, so that was like my first exposure to something that wasn't Catholic. And then when I left college, I was kind of going to church, but not really. 

So when I moved to L.A., my roommate had become active in his faith back where he lived in Kentucky. And so when he moved here, Oasis [Church] was actually in our neighborhood because we lived in Koreatown. So he started going there. 

After a while, he's like, "come with me, come with me." I was like, "fine, I'll go." I was like "okay, this is kind of intense and different, like the worship and stuff." But at the same time, I was getting exposed to the word in a different way.

I went to Catholic schools growing up too. So it was Catholic for the whole gamut of things. But that's when there was a transition from a thing I just did and just believing in God, to being like, "oh, there's a relational aspect to this I thought, understood that I don't. So that's when the story broke open for me.  

Q: Going back to the inner healing ministry, can you take me back to a specific moment where you felt like you're really connected to each other or to God. Was there a certain breakthrough that happened?

EJ: I have a more specific one. We did [inner healing] separately, but we did it around the same time. For me, what stood out was there's like a part where they ask you to look into what Jesus is trying to show you and ask "where's Jesus in that moment?" I got taken back to seventh grade math. 

For context, I used to go to this one school for my whole life. And then I switched schools in 7th grade, and one of the things I didn't realize was how far my [old] school was behind in the curriculum. I was one of the smarter kids, but I was not exposed to information that I needed to be. I was essentially behind. 

The first time I found that out was doing this math placement test, and I didn't do well on it. And the teacher wasn't really nice about it. For me, I'm always going to go and do my best. That's culturally how my family is – my family's Nigerian. So that's the whole thing. 

And I'm like, "I'm going to get this done." I was very performance driven, and I worked really hard to overcome all that stuff in high school and stuff to go to engineering school. But in the context of inner healing, I got taken back to that moment. 

Where's Jesus in that moment?

He's in front of me, and he takes the placement test paper and just rips it up. It's still very visceral because this [inner healing experience] was five or six years ago, and I still remember that point. I think that's the most clear part of the whole session. I think my godly belief was "you know, God doesn't have me do this for performance, but for worship." 

What really clicked for me in my moment is like, I'm very performance driven in a lot of things. God's like, "it's not about what you do, it's about who you are to me."

And it's not as if I mastered that. I still struggle with that, but I can always go back to that godly belief. And I have notes around it when I was doing it and be like, "OK, this is the root that's happening, and I need to take it back to Him." I can map so many things now to that one thing. That was really insightful for me.

Q: How do you feel like that has built a stronger foundation for your life, or played out in your marriage?
EJ: I struggled with it early on. I work a lot, like in engineering school, you stay up late, you just do everything you've got to do. And so that became a way to knock stuff out. Whenever I need to do a lot of stuff, I just keep working at it, and I'm very good at doing that. And analyzing things in my head. 

But when we got together, the last five years have been rebalancing that and being like, "hey, I don't want the party to get mixed up here, and I don't want to get caught up in doing this."

It's mapping back to "I don't have to sit here for hours at this computer to show that I'm using God's blessings." I can step away and be with her or do whatever. Or, you know, being honest and saying, "I need to take a break or vacation"

It was [important] to know that about myself, submit that to God, and tell her," I'm struggling with this." It's not as if I got it right year one or year two, but now I work on my startup today in a pretty healthy way.

But that was all driven from the understanding of an ungodly belief, and the godly belief I do need to have, and what that means for our marriage. And that's helped her understand where I struggle so she can gently correct me. But then also it's important for me to ask for the right help, to look for the right things to map my mind to.

Q: When do you feel like that started to shift from making it to performance to making it about presence?

EJ: I think I've grown in levels. So first, it was just about doing less, but now, recently in this last year, it's been about just being. I feel like God knew that I probably couldn't get to the "just being" right away. At first it was doing less, and then being comfortable with doing less in a smaller amount of time. One thing we did when COVID started is Sabbath Day, and that was really hard because it was the one day I couldn't do anything anymore. We took that one day away and it was like, "OK, is this sustainable?" And then within that time you do have, are you doing the right things? And now it's just [about] being.

It's me waking up and knowing what I do is already enough, and that's why I'm working on right now – understanding my identity, understanding the value I present. It's not as if I fully have mastered it. But it's progressed in a meaningful way that I think has allowed for maturity. It's allowed for [Chelsea] to be patient enough for me to get there. 

It's right on time because now being a parent, that's probably caused some acceleration. Now there's two people to think about. I think God's just ordained a timeline of learning and growing in a way that's sustainable and sticks around for me.

Q: Chelsea, what was that breakthrough moment for you in the inner healing ministry?

Chelsea: In reference to inner healing, I had a lot of childhood and family trauma stuff I needed to unpack. When I looked at getting married, I didn't have any examples of a healthy marriage in my life. I definitely didn't have examples of marriages making it that had kids. So those two things were completely missing from my community growing up. 

I had a hope that it would help me redeem aspects of my childhood. That it would go forward into a future that was different, and where God could show me that the concept of inner healing is basically like if "I don't know where you were in all of that pain and trouble, then like, how can I possibly imagine you in the future and with my own kids, or in my own family?"

God gave me a really good confirmation that EJ was my person and I was so grateful for him. So we're going to do this together. But like, I had no model. I had no map for this. Any model I had was garbage.

One of the moments in my inner feeling was specifically speaking to my role as a child. I feel like God just really showed up and showed me that it didn't really matter that it didn't really have a good example of a parent on earth, or anyone in my life who was a protector or a provider, or any sort of safety. 

During inner healing, I really felt God strongly come alongside me as a little girl and say, "I'm your Father, I'm here. And then He called me "daughter," and I think that aspect of just redeeming that relationship and parental role helped me begin better orienting myself in what role I was supposed to play in my life as a child.

Going into inner healing, [I thought] I was responsible for things that happened in my childhood. That somehow, I could have done better if they were my responsibility. What I learned from God is that it wasn't my job. I was always the child. 

Taking that into my marriage was obviously really important, because it started to help me free up, like I didn't want EJ to be my parent. There are elements in our early marriage around dependency that really factored into this like control and dependance and interdependence. Like, I didn't have any idea what that meant, I just did my own thing. I was always in charge of my whole life. 

Inner healing helped me begin that path of what is independence, what is interdependence. 

How can I rely on somebody else? What's the appropriate role for us to play for each other? How can I be like a helper and not a parent? How can I be protected, but he's not my parent. That was just brand new for me.

It was new for EJ too, because he'd never been a husband before. But his family has really some really strong marriages and really good examples. Not to say that anyone's perfect.

I guess the moral of the story is unless I had healed my childhood, it was going to be really hard for me to consider having a child of my own. I do feel like inner healing played a part in me being open to having a child.

I did a series of other things, like a healing group that we had where I further unpacked the stuff that happened in my childhood and the relationship I had with my parents. I also did some counseling, et cetera, and I think without all that, like that domino effect, I don't think I'd be as good of a mom. And I don't think I would understand my role as well – not say I am an expert at it.

Now I really enjoy being a mom. I get to enjoy my child, and I have way less resentment than I think I would have had. When you become a parent, you realize all the things you didn't have. You're like, "oh, this is what a parent was supposed to do."

Once you step into the shoes of being a parent, you realize all the things you didn't have when you were a kid, like,  "oh, this is what a parent was supposed to do. I never thought this."

I'm still unraveling that thread – like when you tug on the string of a sweater and it just keeps unraveling. It's like something was knit for me that I don't wear and it doesn't fit anymore. I feel like inner healing was the beginning, and now God is re-knitting together something that fits better. Something that fits better for me and for my marriage and family."

Q: Thank you so much, first of all, for sharing that. I know it's not easy, so I appreciate you diving into that. After going through that, how has that helped your marriage now, knowing certain tendencies about yourself or your past, on a day-to-day level? It could be something as simple as the way you speak to each other.

Chelsea: This is [similar] to the framework Pastor Dihan gave us in marriage prep: we never expected to have everything figured out. We never expected that marriage prep was just going to be the only time we ever had to work on our marriage, and we never had this map for marriage that said it was going to be easy or without work or without difficulty. 

And I would say that's generally been true. What we've always thought about is, all of these things, we think of as tools to use. In the natural ebb and flow of life in our relationship we've had periods that have been really hard for us – to communicate felt just about impossible. 

When we're at our best, when we find our way out of that, it's usually using these frameworks and remembering what God showed us about each other and about ourselves. 

Without having gone through inner healing, I don't know if EJ would've ever unpacked that he had a performance issue and that I would have ever been able to help him with that.

I do think there are practical levels of accountability there. 

And [with my behavior] he's not just like, "oh this comes out of nowhere." He's like, "I have to remember, that this is where that comes from."

I think it allows us to not to be super perfect all the time, but in practical ways to really support each other differently.   

Like, I know he's working really hard this week. He has a lot on his plate like. [I recognize] this is going to be a different week, but that doesn't mean it's going to be forever. It's okay to support him in certain weeks that are heavier, but then also help him with the accountability. To rein it back in when it's not necessary to work like that anymore.

EJ: Yeah, you said both cases really well. We thought with inner healing "oh it's going to be good." It's like unlocking Pandora's box, but in a good way where you're opening the closet you throw all the crap in, but it takes time. You just don't want to put it back in. 

Reflecting on five years of marriage, it's been part of that journey I was talking about earlier where if I look at year over year, we grew from like this point A to point B. A lot of our successes, whether it was therapy or coaching or reading a book, it was like  "OK, I know we need to learn more about this for you, or this about me, and understand and like it's probably going to read more on that in the next cycle."

But we wouldn't even know where to begin had it not been for [inner healing]. You might be able to pinpoint superficial things you can't understand, but getting to those deep roots is really powerful.

It's helpful in a lot of ways because it gives you a lens into how you see the world. It's being able to learn more about maybe why Chelsea sees things [the way she does], and get more details and information.

It's getting good clarity and a picture and then asking "God, what do I need to do as a husband and try to like, fit into that," and vice versa, "What is [Chelsea] going to do as his wife to fit into that? And then also with your child, how do you create a space where he hopefully doesn't have to go through some of that.

There's so many practical things, but it's all like we know the right things to be practical about, I suppose. I said "I don't think there's anything you can't map back to the inner healing issues."

It could be the smallest thing. Yesterday, I came into the house because I was working in the garage. When I came inside, Chelsea was stressed out.

At the beginning of our marriage, if she was stressed out, I'd be like "why are you so stressed out? I'm trying to work." Because I was prioritizing performance over her.

But now it's realizing, "oh, you're about to go take a trip and it's going to be me, her, the baby, and her mother who lives with us." There's a lot that has to do with her pain that's coming from the inner healing about that moment. 

I now have a lot of understanding about why that is, and I don't obviously think about it that way. It's more innate now. Now I can operate on a higher level because I already understand so much about the situation. Just off the top. So now I can operate better in some way. She was saying to me this morning, "OK, I know I'm going out of town, so I'm going to go get our son ready for school and take him."

I didn't ask. I was planning for something else, but she knows I'm going much faster than normal. So she was like, "that's the performance trigger. He's going to go down into this place."

Now we're starting to do stuff, I won't say automatically, but more so than like the first year, because we understand that inherently about each other. This is the place where we're going to feel that challenge. 

Without inner healing, I don't know who would be doing that. That's just maybe one practical moment, for example, of how we may be getting good at it over time.

Something else we realized through inner healing is we both obviously have things where God's calling us to in our lives, like vision casting. And I think maybe because of those ungodly beliefs, we haven't looked at them in a pure way. We've either reduced them down or minimized them. To know each thing and the godly belief that it should be, that has helped us encourage one another to go after the God vision trust that God will fill the cup.

For me with my startup, Chelsea's been able to speak into that. Sometimes I'm really struggling. She's like, "remember this part about what God is doing for you."

With the things she's going through, it's like, you can do all these things like you don't just have to be a mom, there's a new definition. You don't have to fit into this mold. You can be these multiple people, and you're unique to God.

If not for inner healing and understanding where the enemy is trying to take our legs so to speak, and our vision as a marriage, we wouldn't be able to speak over and pray over to access the higher level where we can go to. 

Even at this point in our marriage, we're at these points because we were able to say those things to each other early and we're still saying those things to each other. We're able to allow God now to take us to those higher places. 

I never thought about it before until now, but I think inner healing we set a foundation with God without really realizing like what it was going to do.

It allowed space for God to like, say, "OK, cool, I've cleared these things. Or at least you guys are aware of it now. Now I can really mold you into these people who can do these things in the world." So yeah, that's been a really powerful part.

Q: What's it like to be like a married couple with kids at Renew? Like both pour into that community and be poured into you by them?

EJ: From the jump, we got involved. So the first four years we'd been serving. We had a home group that we started. We had that for like four or five years. 

We were doing a lot of pouring into the community at the start. We were also being poured into.  We were putting a lot of our effort into Renew. When the pandemic started, that's when she was pregnant. And so we weren't going to church, obviously. But since that time, we haven't really been serving. We haven't been going to church in person between COVID and all the switches in our lives. 

There was a fear that because we weren't who we were before, what does that mean for the future? And as we're struggling with that, people came alongside us. 

Like when we were talking to Paul [Dario], we said "we don't know if we can lead a home group right now." He was like, "that's fine, go be in a home group for now." And now we're doing that in our area.

Or talking to Janet, we're like  "hey, we're not sure we can make it to church. She's like "OK you're my home group. Start here, rebuild, and we can figure out what this will look like in your season. 

What's so cool about Renew is that [the community] has adjusted and grown with how we're growing. And I think that speaks to the family aspect. 

Wow, it's been, you know, six or so years now, and it still feels just as authentic and just as deep. And we have these roots that we started planting like a while ago. 

Chelsea: I think just adding to that, COVID presented a lot of challenges for a lot of people in a lot of different ways. There are a lot of people struggling and hurting across the board, and a lot of disconnection from church.

Yet I feel like we have built a really strong community, both at our home group and at church.

We can text people and email people, and people show up. Even though what we went through was really hard, like going through a pregnancy at the beginning of COVID, or having a really difficult labor and delivery and a child in the NICU and then having like a really extended postpartum trauma drama. 

I really think our Renew community showed up for us in so many ways, and we really leaned on them, like different people and different aspects. And in a big city like L.A., we don't have any family here, like not close family. I really don't know how we would have navigated all of that without having built that really strong foundation. 

And it did feel weird to be receiving from so many people after we were normally the givers. But it really felt like this was another thing God was teaching us. "You can also be cared for by your community."  

Renew feels like family in all of the ways that families feel like family. Not without conflict, not without disagreements. But there's a deep care and like an intentionality that we've always really appreciated.  

Q&A with Dulce

Dulce: It was 2017. I was taking out a suitcase from my car when I noticed someone approaching me asking if I knew the person in the building. I said "no" and continued to open the door. When I turned around, he got inside the apartment. The man entered my lobby and closed the door behind him. He looked at me and said if I talked he was going to kill me. ⁠⁠⁣

⁠⁠⁣I'd never met the man in my life. I lowered my chin and whispered "in Jesus name, leave this house." Then he told me to shut up and go upstairs and get my wallet. ⁠⁠⁣

⁠⁠⁣I immediately started praying desperately to God [that I would] live. The man heard my prayers and miraculously, he walked downstairs because I had no money to give him. He walked himself out of the house and closed the door. I [went] downstairs to make sure the house was locked and he looked at me and he said, "you did good." And then he left. ⁠⁠⁣

⁠⁠⁣I was so raw from recovering from the assault. I didn't have peace of mind going outside after dark. My independence and autonomy were stripped, and I was surrounded by fear. ⁠⁠⁣

Q: How did you get involved at Renew?

I came as a guest to Renew and and the guest that I came with knew I was assaulted. She said "talk to the blonde lady up front, she does like inner healing stuff and she's a really good prayer person." Janet was just in the front, just kind of waiting for people to come to pray.

I was like, "Could you help me? I just came to her and she was like "yeah, there's an inner healing ministry."

She invited me to a home group in her backyard in 2017, and I was so raw from recovering from the assault. I didn't have peace of mind when going outside after dark. My independence and autonomy were stripped and I was surrounded by fear. I was a very different person in 2017, and I committed to at least going to their home group.

And I started to get to know the women and get to know Janet. And little by little, my layers started coming off. And man, it feels like forever ago. I would cry at the drop of a hat mentioning the story. It took a lot out of me to talk about it and the more time I was in therapy with them and in my group therapy, I started healing.

I started accepting what happened. I wasn't in denial. Anger subsided and confidence came back, little by little. And after that home group session ended, Janet told me she was starting a sexual abuse one. It led to deeper healing, which was such a hard time because healing is not like candy where you just feel better after eating it.

No, it's really tough medicine, with very raw, vulnerable moments. And with these women and Janet, she was leading us in her own healing. It took a lot of courage every single week. My body was exhausted from processing trauma and I didn't want to do the workbook.

But I just blossomed as a person once I was healed. I started serving a lot in my church. I started serving in different avenues. When I was in a great spot to date, I met my husband at church, and that was so beautiful because we were loved in community and we dated in community people kept us accountable.

And like the whole wedding party was the church and then the whole baby shower was the church. I have a new baby, I have a new husband. If I wasn't healed, none of this would have happened. I would have been too stressed, too anxious to date. I would have been insecure. I wouldn't have dealt with all this junk. I would have been a very anxious person through all of this.

Q: Thank you so much for sharing that. What did your healing process look like? You mentioned that you had a lot of fear and a lot of layers coming into it. At what point do you feel like you were able to flip the script a little bit and allow people in and let God heal and shed those layers like you talked about?

Dulce: Healing without community is really hard. So if you're the kind of person that just kind of goes to the home group but kind of doesn't interact with people or doesn't get involved with the church, it's really hard to love and receive love.

I started receiving love in forms of friendships and hugs. Janet and the whole group of girls were just so steady – showing up all the time and doing work.

The tension kind of drops when you see that you're loved and you're cared for and you're accepted before you share your junk. It wasn't conditional love. You know, "only if you do this." I felt the love of Christ.

There were so many points along those like two and half years where I'd want to talk about something. But the fears would consume me. They would just listen and understand and hug me. The next week it was healing and more healing.

It's such a process of like you showing up, but it's also a safe space where you're received and loved. It's both. I wouldn't be the woman I am without Janet.

Q: Was there a specific moment where you can recall that just was like a breakthrough?

Dulce: We read this book, and it was talking to victims about their experience. I read about someone who was raped and I didn't put two and two together until I started reading through that book. And when I realized that I was raped, I had compassion. I had fear and anger at the same time. I think I would've ignored that part of my life if I didn't take time to be in that group and read and show up for months.

My husband helped me through my homework, because I wanted to avoid it. I didn't want to walk through the awkwardness again. I'd cry and not sleep at night and just, you know, go through the trauma. But that's where Janet, like, was gentle enough to be like, "okay guys. That was a really hard chapter. Maybe like, let's do arts and crafts this next week." It was just a process, because there's only so much a heart can take. That's why it took years.

Q: Did you grow up in church or following Jesus? Or did that happen later in life?

Dulce: It happened later in life. And I would say I was saved in my teens and then fell off. But really, when I came to Los Angeles and saw people really practicing their faith and they wanted to practice their faith, that's where it clicked.

For instance, I saw Janet talk about her devotionals and was like "this woman is putting it into practice, following Jesus." Coming to Los Angeles and being part of this church solidified my faith like nothing else. I even got baptized. I was [previously] baptized at 14. But then so much change just happened. So I got baptized again as an adult just to put to death the old self.

Q: Did going through the inner healing ministry help you to better empathize with people who'd gone through similar things?

Dulce: Let's talk about the women first. If you're a new person to the church and you don't really have friends going to a home group where you are vulnerable, it's awkward at first. But you really get to see how beautiful they are, how beautifully broken they are.

I've kept up with these girls and even they were part of my bridal party. You know, they are family now. I really have sisters at church. You know, I really have family at church because we've walked through healing in a lot of areas.

And then [with meeting] my husband, he was serving in the men's ministry and he saw the completely transformed version of me that loved Jesus and put Jesus first. And it was all God's timing. The whole story was crazy. Like, we got confirmation. And four months later, he proposed. And then four months after that, we were married. It was like, like, almost concerning, like "what's going on?"

Q: What would you tell somebody on the fence about joining the inner healing ministry?

Dulce: Oh, man. It takes a lot of courage, but you're not going to do it alone. It takes an enormous amount of courage, but like you don't have to depend on your strength, you just pray about it. And if you feel God's tugging on your heart on the topic of inner healing, take that because if you don't treat a symptom. It's going to get worse.

I had PTSD. I [had to treat it]. I wasn't concentrating at my job. I didn't sleep well.

And it just led to an anxious life. And I was it was like torture because I was not doing the work. So I was living in anxiety. But when I started doing the work, I started having more peace in my life.

So it's going to take courage, but you're not going to do it alone. There's a huge support system at Renew that's really there to help you. You have to be present. You have to put your heart into it.

Jesus is our healer and he wants deep healing.

He doesn't want surface level healing and it takes time. Just like with friends, you have get to know a person or a spouse. It takes time to get to know them, and it takes time to to meet Jesus in that area of your life. Because when you're not ready, you're covering up that area and it's very painful and you want to avoid it.

But Jesus is a gentleman, and he's all about making you whole. And, you know, thankfully, I can walk alone now, and I don't have those fears that someone is behind me.

Q: Was there a specific moment or throughout this process like you feel like it pulled you closer to God and helped you to understand him better, even in the midst of pain?

We had to write a letter to ourselves in a loving way that showed compassion to the suffering that we were facing. Like, "I understand that you're going through this just sucks. Like it sucks that you have to pull over in the side of your car and just cry uncontrollably. I'm sorry that you're still in this healing thing."

I wrote the letter to myself, and I was just filled with compassion. It was like that first little step towards really loving myself and accepting myself in the raw, unhealed state. It's so easy to say "oh girl, love yourself. Have self-love."

But when you're loving yourself through Jesus's eyes and accepting of that, you get overwhelmed with love and security. And it reassures you that you're loved so much by God and you have permission to love yourself.

Q&A with Nicholas Baker

Q: [Give us] a sense of who you are, how you ended up at Renew - how did you end up where you are today?

Nick: I grew up in New Jersey and I went to college in South Carolina. I graduated there in 2013. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So I ended up moving back in with my parents in New Jersey and working in an insurance sales job, which I wasn't overly fond of. At that time, my grandfather (he lives in Berkeley, California) was going through open heart surgery, and I never really spent much time in California. I thought tech was a cool space that I wanted to break into. So ended up living with him for a couple of months, helping him out and then trying to get a job in tech.

I didn't initially get a job in tech, but I had a friend who got me a job in commercial insurance. So I did that for a couple of years, and then I got a sales job at a technology startup back in 2016 in between San Francisco and Berkeley and was there for about seven years. I lived with my grandfather on and off, which was really great, getting to know him while I was in San Francisco.

I wasn't attending a church, really, and just wasn't walking very closely with the Lord. I was raised a Christian, but would just pray when I needed something. I wasn't going to church, wasn't reading the Bible, wasn't really walking in the light.

I got this new job and I went to a work conference where Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of Intel, spoke. I didn't know this going in, but he is a devout Christian. This was back in 2019, where I started to slow down and not go out as much and start prioritizing what mattered. I heard him speak, read his book, and then started to get more into reading the Bible.

My mom had gotten me a daily devotional bible a while ago. I finally dusted that off and cracked it open. I wasn't regularly attending church, but started to go to a church, and I sat a little bit like, didn't say hi to anyone really made like one or two friends, but wasn't really partaking in it. And then 2020, I started this job I'm currently at. It's based out of L.A., moved down to L.A. the day before the shutdown.

It was May 15th. And at that point, I was like watching church online. I was still looking for the church, and knew I wanted to join a church here, but everything was shut down. So like for me to watch virtually might as well watch the church that I like and hear the pastor speak. And after four months of living in L.A. with everything shut down, I was like, "I'm just going to go back and live with my grandfather so I don't need to pay rent, and everything's remote anyway."

I went back to Berkeley and then tried a couple of churches I didn't really vibe with. At that point it was September of 2020. Some personal stuff was starting to get fired up again and everything was shut down again for that winter.

But I asked my friend "do you know any churches in the Berkeley area? And she was like, Oh, this guy Ray, I think he's doing a church plant. And so I googled the church and it was right next to my grandfather's house. I was like "Lord, this is a sign."

Yeah, that was mostly virtual, but I met Ray, and it was my first time meeting a pastor and getting to know him and asking him questions. He was someone I really respected and he's still a mentor. I talk with him often.

But besides my mother, I didn't really know many people of faith. And so it was really missing out on that fellowship aspect and like not having good sounding boards. I mean, you have your mom, but that's a biased source.

So it was great, even though it was virtual. I was meeting more Christians and building a community, albeit a virtual and small one. But was helping Ray out because it was like a church plant. And then fortunately or unfortunately, I came back down to L.A. April 2021.

Things were starting to open up more again, and I tried out a couple of churches in the Culver City area. That's where I live and starting with the ones that were in close proximity. The couple of churches that I went to there just were not a ton of young people, not diverse, and didn't feel like home.

And then in June or July, I saw that they were doing in-person services in the parking lot. And as soon as I walked in, like the worship team was cranking out a "Waymaker."

I was like, "wow, this is awesome. And I really felt God saying, "this is your spot." And then immediately got connected and then joined Sithy's home group in the fall. And I'm getting more and more involved.

Q: You mentioned that you'd grown up Christian, but then there was kind of a period where you weren't as engaged. What do you attribute that to? Is there a specific moment you can recall where things just clicked? Or that light bulb moment where you were like, Man, I really missed this?

Nick: Yeah. So my mom is a born again Christian. My father is not. My father is an alcoholic. And you know, that's not his identity. But it was tough growing up, and she definitely relied on the church and the Lord to get through a lot of tough times. When I was younger, it was more like getting dragged to church than really wanting to go, but I understood the gospel. You know, Jesus paid our debts and it's only through Him that we can get to the Father and salvation.

But then in high school, I went to an Episcopal school, so we had chapel two times a week and belted out the hymns, and it was a bit more formal than fostering a relationship with the Lord. And so I was always exposed to it. It's not like we had formal Bible studies, and you're just up to a lot of shenanigans in high school.

And that's when I started drinking and getting into some other drugs. And obviously that puts a cloud on your relationship.

In college, my parents were going through a separation and I think I was just a little lost and didn't have a lot of people to talk to.

I wasn't close with my brothers, but I was very close with all of my high school friends, a lot of whom I went to college with and partied with, and it was just a big part of our lives. I didn't have any Christian mentors or friends who could help guide me per se.

Like, oftentimes I would pray at night, like crying and like because I knew I wasn't walking with the Lord, but I didn't really act upon it. And that went on throughout college and a lot of post-college for, I don't know, three or four years.

I remember I went to a workshop where they had a bunch of cards, and you have to prioritize what's most important in your life. If your actions aren't dictating what's actually important to you, you're going to have conflict. And I remember there was a "Faith and God" card. And even though I was attending church, what became the most important card to me were things like health and success and all of that.

And I think that helped me realize God should be my ultimate priority, but wasn't actually living that way. Like I mentioned, I was able to live with my grandfather and get out of the city and not see my friends as much. Just getting older, partying was losing its appeal. I wasn't where I wanted to be in my career, or where I wanted to be from a health standpoint.

In 2019, that speech [by Pat Gelsinger] was another light bulb like, "oh, I should get more into [my faith]. And it's been a pretty steady increase. And now I feel much happier and I'm super excited about my thirties. With the prodigal son parable, I feel much more like the younger son and identify much more with the woman who poured out the perfume on Jesus and wept at his feet.

I'm glad that I'm forgiven and can move forward. So I know what it's like to be in a dark place, and I really feel the gospel and I'm loving the good news.

Q: When you first joined the home group, what felt different about that? What did you feel like the biggest asset of being part of something like [Renew] is?

Nick: Joining the home group and the first day we all went around and gave our story. I'm like, "oh man, I wonder if people are going to think I'm awful or judge me. I'm probably going to be like the worst person in this whole group." And everyone was just very transparent with their stories and backgrounds. The analogy I'd use is the church should be like a hospital where like everyone is trying to get better and no one is trying to be just righteous and pretend like nothing is wrong and life is good.

So I think the level of transparency and no one judging whatsoever immediately allowed everyone to be in a safe space and want to come back.

These people will be supportive, will hold you accountable and love you regardless of what you do, and you can be honest with them.

I also like the level of diversity with different upbringings. And, you know, L.A. is a great place for that. We're like, I didn't want to be with a bunch of people with my background and like, you know, so that was really awesome. And then pretty quickly, we moved into EHS (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality) which used a book and was more guided.

It was pretty intense and a lot of people shared things that you wouldn't have guessed. We got pretty deep and so real quickly. Our whole group really feels like a family. I know I can reach out to any of them for anything I need. So that's been really great. And it's awesome going to church on Sundays and hearing the sermon, but a lot of times you'll just go on living your life and then, you know, the next sermon comes and it's hard to apply it. But having a small group that you're not only meeting with once a week but also fellowship with really allows you to to build your faith.

Q: Was there a [particular] moment where you really felt like seen or heard or valued in your home group?

Nick: So at one point in EHS, there was a section called The Wall, where we've all hit walls in our lives. I tried to break through and a lot of the group members shared some really deep and personal things. And for me, I became in debt in college for illegal activities. That was part of the reason why I was crying every night to the Lord.

I had dug myself in a deep hole, had lied to my mom about it, and had never told her the truth. And this happened when I was 19. I'm 30 now, and I've been carrying this burden for 11 years. I knew I always wanted to tell her, but I wasn't sure when the right time would be, and told that to my home group.

And they were all super supportive.

I think that helped give me the courage to actually confront my mom, and she was extremely loving.

Well, I'm really glad I did it, and I'm not sure if I would have done it if I hadn't had the support of the home group. And then immediately after, I was overjoyed and just wanted to tell the whole group. I knew that they would all be really excited. So that moment stands out as that. Without that support, I'm not sure I would have had the courage to actually confront my mom.

Q: What was that burden that you were carrying? Why were you ashamed or afraid to tell your mom? What was the biggest baggage attached to that, and why did you feel like you had to keep it locked in?

Nick: Yeah. So it was my sophomore year in college and I was selling marijuana to a lot of my close friends in college. And at that time, I had some friends in Colorado who would ship me weed to sell essentially, and my mom would help out with my rent. But they would wire me like money, and then I would write a check to the landlord. That's how I was supposed to go.

Some shipments got seized, and it was like a couple thousand dollars worth and instead of paying my rent, that's where the money went. I didn't know what to do, but I was young and stupid, clearly. I just thought it would go unnoticed by the landlord and it actually did for nine months or so.

And then towards the end of our lease there, he was like "there must be a problem, we haven't received any of Nick's money." And at that time, I was with five different of my close friends from high school. And so they all knew that like I hadn't been paying and it got pretty ugly. And I actually just lied to their parents and to my mom and hoped that they would believe me and that the landlord would relent.

I was getting on the phone with all of my close friends' parents and lying to them and continuously lying to my mom because I was afraid that if I told her the truth, she would have removed me from college for an amount of time, and I wouldn't see all of my friends and all of that. And that's why I'm here and she and my dad were separated – not on good terms.

And so, I needed to talk to my dad about any of this and he was just unwilling to hear any of it. So it was really stressful for my mom. And what ended up happening is she had a friend who covered four or five thousand dollars and wrote a check. We gave that to the landlord to get them, you know, to settle up, essentially, because then all of my roommates were able to move out and my roommates were pretty quick to forgive.

I ended up confessing to their parents, and all of them were fine with it, like they didn't really care. But I could never muster up the courage to tell my mom just because I thought it would be devastating to her. And then after that I didn't lie to them or to my mom much. But it was just like this burden that I had been carrying.

And a couple of times, she'd be like "oh Nick, you always tell the truth," and that just really stung knowing that I was hiding this from her. So she was the last one that essentially found out that I had lied about this.

And I thought I wasn't really sure how she would respond, but [when I told her] she was like, "oh, that was so long ago. I feel like I've forgotten about that. But I'm really glad you told me. Honestly I thought it was something worse when you said we needed to talk."

So it's all good and well, yeah, and we had a good conversation about what was going on with me during that time. And I think she felt a little bad because like this strain of my parents relationship probably influenced some of that behavior.

Q: Going off that theme of being empowered by community, how has that shaped your faith going forward?

Nick: Yeah. So. I have, you know, a lot of those friends from college and high school here. They're nonbelievers, but they're good people, and I love them dearly, but a lot of their coming together is still heavily influenced by drugs and alcohol and living in the fast lane. Always trying to grind in L.A. to make more money or, you know, attain something that they don't have.

And if you're just, you know, surrounding yourself with those people like you start having those same desires and you don't love unconditionally. With that mindset, it's all about me, me, me. And you know, you're never going to be able to attain peace because you're never going to have enough.

With joining the Renew community and just hanging out with fellow believers, you really experience that unconditional love where it doesn't matter who you are or what you do. It just matters that you're loving and you love the Lord. And I've seen my priorities really change where I want to serve our God and help bring His Kingdom on Earth. He's blessed me with certain skills.

And like now, my initiatives are like, you know, one day lead a small group and like, memorize more scripture, and like Pastor Dihan said, love more. And what does that look like and how do we measure it?

I get much more satisfaction now out of helping others and serving the Lord instead of, like personal gain or materials.

And so I'm really shaped like how I spend my weekends and how I spend my time and what I think about. And obviously at work, it's like, "oh man, I could make a bunch of money off this or I could do that."

But then it brings me back to like, this is all the Lord's doing. And even if it doesn't go well, I'm still going to be just as happy as if it did. And that relieves anxiety, just knowing that God's got you and like if he gives even to the birds, how much more does he love us?

Q&A with Kristie Kirby

Q: How did you end up at Renew?

Kristie: I'm originally from Virginia. I've been in L.A. about five and a half, almost six years. It'll be six years in July. I came here from New York City, and my first career path in life was as an educator.

I've always been drawn to more urban, diverse areas and, you know, living outside of D.C., I got a good mix, but I always felt like I could do more. So I moved to New York for two years and I worked in a charter school in Harlem. And then that led me to my job opportunity that I took out here, which I no longer work at. But the job was at a charter middle school in Watts. And so I took a job as a fifth grade ELA teacher / curriculum specialist. And then over three years of me being at that school, I moved from that position to actually eventually becoming principal.

It was just a really toxic environment. And there was a lot of tension there. I had great rapport with the students. I had great rapport with the teachers. But I think that there is a little bit of a [weird] power dynamic there. I was in a very low place. I realized "this isn't even part of the job that I like." I like interacting with the kids. So instead of working in the office, I would sit outside at the lunch tables outside of the classrooms and do work every day. Kids would be getting kicked out of class because of behavior issues or whatever. Through that, you know, I just learned so much about the kids' home lives.

And then in my grad school program, right after the pandemic happened in the spring, we had an assignment in my children's therapy class to write a therapeutic children's book. And that just kind of got the wheels turning and gave me the inspiration that I needed. I've been pursuing the books that I'm writing and seeing if anything could come from that. So I'm kind of taken like a little breather where I'm just hardcore focusing on the books and seeing how the path unfolds from here; trying to help some people out.

Q: [Was] working with those different communities was something that pulled you to Renew, given Renew's emphasis on diversity and inclusion. Is that something that you found really resonated with you or drew you to the church?

Kristie: Yeah. I started attending Renew in May of this past year, 2021. And before that, I got into a couple of churches out here in L.A. sporadically. Once the pandemic happened, I was really honing in on my relationship with God. I guess my relationship with God started kickstarting, like really kind of catalyzing in November or December of 2019.

God was really calling me to find an in-person church, and that I had been doing this enough alone. I had really changed my circle of people who I was hanging out with. I really felt like it was such a cocoon stage where God and I were just by ourselves in this pandemic. Like, I lived alone, was doing some hardcore work on things, and he was like, "OK, it's time to to branch out and be with some people."

So I found Renew on an Eventbrite link, where I had to register and like, it was a free ticket, obviously. But I had to show the registration and it was in a parking lot at the time. It was really going in blind. I had no idea what I was getting into.

There was a baptism that first day and there was something about that that really stirred me. And then I went back the next week and then there were baby dedications and I was like, "OK, like, this place is getting me."

And then I went home for two weeks for a vacation to the East Coast, and when I came back, [Renew] had a speaker who was a poet, and she talked about radical reform like as far as diversity and as far as doing something in this city. Renew's whole mission is broken people working together to help a broken city. And that was the first time that I heard their mission statement.

It put into action their emphasis on diversity and in between the baptism, the babies that the poet speaker. I was like "this feels like a place that I want to start establishing roots." I went back to the East Coast for a couple of weeks. I came back and I kind of made the joke that every time that I've left and come back, I've met a different section of people and I've kind of established my roots deeper and deeper.

I'm working with the middle school and high schoolers now and their youth ministry. I'm starting the process of starting to work with their inner healing ministry team, so kind of doing makeshift therapy there. Then recently I just got pulled into their singles committee. So just like I said, I'm like digging myself in and it just feels like home.

Q: So, after you lived alone and went through the pandemic, what did it mean for you to find a home group? What did being around community do for your soul after a year of uncertainty?

Kristie: Yeah, I think it did everything for me. When I moved here, I had a friend from college who welcomed me into her friends and family group in L.A. I think that that's something that I always was craving here in L.A. - a group of people to be around that really felt like family.

But there was always a level of not 100 percent feeling like I belonged [in that group]. Especially because they had known each other since high school, and were very tight knit. And then, as my own walk with Christ started evolving and changing, the more I started seeing that some of their lifestyle choices were just not what I wanted to continue doing with my life. And so there was a portion of time where I was just very alone.

And I think in that time, God really showed me how to depend on just him and stripped everything away and hyper focused on our relationship, so that when I was able to rebuild with the home group, it was more of a like a reciprocity thing where like now, we can mutually transform each other instead of it being like "I need you," and then surrounding myself with only takers, which as a giver I would often do.

But the home group has been so amazing, especially the curriculum that we did. The curriculum we did was about emotionally healthy spirituality (EHS). So going through that as a whole group of people who were all kind of on the same page with their walks in different ways, and we were all going through different struggles, but we were really open to being vulnerable and courageous to share those vulnerabilities and struggles.

I was able to grow an extreme amount.

Like it really was miraculous how much I grew because I was in a safe space with people who were helping cultivate the seeds that God was planting, helping them grow in ways that I didn't even know that I needed help for them to be growing.

But I couldn't do it by myself, and I think that I have been trying to do it by myself for so long that it was just really refreshing. And like, we talk all the time, we see each other constantly. We call each other our soul family, and I do think that that's what we are. You know, we're all that God has brought together, and I think that we're doing amazing things in each other's lives.

Q: To someone not super familiar with the home groups: How does that work? What's the dynamic like? Is there a moment that you can recall from one of those group meetings that was super impactful?

Kristie: Yeah. So we meet every Tuesday. Our first meeting that we had was in a park in Culver City. And then one of the girls in our home group opened up her house to us for a couple of weeks. Just because, you know, it was winter with less daylight and it was chilly and all that stuff. So we met there for a couple of weeks and then one of our members, he co-owns a nonprofit here in Inglewood. And so he's opened up the facility to us. So we need about like from 7pm to 9pm every Tuesday.

We're starting now our second portion of the curriculum. So first, the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality for us. So now we're in part two, where it's about whole relationships, which I think has just been such a perfect moment of synchronicity with what God is doing now that we're all kind of loving ourselves and whole. Now we're learning how to better love in the relationships in our lives.

For me, I think that the moment where I felt myself kind of shifting and changing. I think it was week four of our curriculum. It was about breaking ancestral curses and generational curses, and we all kind of opened up about the home lives that we grew up in. Some difficulties and some patterns that we see in our own lives because of that.

I remember sharing something with them about something in my past. I think I've told two people, you know, and I was so. I was just stirred up to share that. And it was such a huge weight and it was such a relief that I didn't even realize that I needed it. It was something that I didn't even know was still in the back of my mind until it came up in conversation and I decided to let it out and share it.

Some of the responses that people had of being able to relate to what I shared was just so strong and so moving.

I think that it it solidified, you know, like the drying cement that we were already making in the foundation of our friendship and like our home group circle like it really was for me, kind of like, "OK, I'm all in, I'm welcomed as I am, and I'm safe here."

Q: I was curious how that contrasted with communities or groups in the past where you felt like you were just giving, giving, giving. How has that been different with this group?

Kristie: I think with this group, it is everyone's in it. Not only for their own growth, which I think is important, but to walk away with tools without draining people. I can walk away better. You can walk away better, I can help you, you can help me. And we can both leave in an elevated place where we're better than we came in.

I think that kind of goes back to all of us first and foremost working on our relationship with God and working on our relationship with ourselves. And then using everything else to supplement and to enhance instead of relying on someone else to do all the fixing for you. So it's very nice.

The emotional support has been amazing. I think that we're special. But every week I walk away and I'm thankful that I came and I'm grateful for the people, and I'm grateful for the support and the elevation that I'm really feeling like. I feel renewed every day, you know, leaving the home group.

Especially because we always kind of go off of the message that was given on Sunday. So it's kind of like a slow release. It's not like you get in one time and then you forget about it. It's like we get it on a day and then we get it again on Tuesday. And then it kind of carries you through for the rest of your week. And so you see each other again.

Q: If somebody maybe was scared to be a part of something, what would you say is the value of community? And like, why? Why do we need community as followers of Jesus?

Kristie: I think that community is everything. I think that community can be really scary because it's often a mirror that makes you realize a lot of your own patterns. The systems and the people that you set yourself around are going to give you the results for that system that you've set up. So maybe you're only setting yourself up around takers because you believe that's all that you deserve. You're going to constantly feel spent. It's going to be like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But if you can open yourself up to doing some really hard self-work and self-examination, it can be fruitful. Which is, I think, where that scariness and that vulnerability and that courage comes in. The people that I'm surrounding myself with, it's like an additional level of accountability where I don't feel scared to share the things that I have to share. I feel like it's a safe spot where I'm already doing the work. So it's not like brand new information. It's just another level of being able to, yeah, deepen the hard self-work that I'm already doing. That is just constant practice and a process that you have to put into action, you know, or it won't work. You're going to stay stuck in your current situation, for sure.

Q: If you feel comfortable sharing, you said there were things in your past that made you feel like you had to be the one giving. What was it from your own story that made you feel that way or made you feel like you were just giving yourself or emptying yourself and then not feeling that same appreciation in return?

Kristie: Yeah, I think that growing up, I've always seen my worth as what I can do for other people. My parents are still together. My mom's side consists of very strong women. My grandmother was one of 13 kids.

My great grandmother was a single mom like both of the dads left at different times. And we've always just been raised to like, be strong, but to also, like, do everything for other people and to make yourself less. You know, if we're cooking for everyone, you're going to be the last one to eat. Everyone eats before you. And then my dad is a perfectionist. He worked at night when I was younger and then when we were older and he started working during the day. And so I would go to my mom a lot, and I just don't think [my dad and I] had a solid foundation.

A lot of the criticism that I would get for not doing things right wasn't always seen as coming from a place of love, because we didn't have that relationship already established.

I didn't think that just me myself was worthy or me myself was enough. Like, I always felt like I had to earn it to prove it.

I would often, especially in relationships, surround myself with takers who I felt like I had to earn or prove or get love by doing certain things for them. Or to prove my value, it was always something that wasn't inherent, it was something I had to earn.

Even with friendships, I feel like I kind of set that up the same way. But it was always because that's what I thought I deserved. So I would surround myself with people who would give me that message back where I would have to constantly work for their love or their attention, or they would be avoiding me. So they would just be inconsistent, like I was just so much chaos.

And I think that's really what I thought I deserved. I deserved the chaos. And if it was too stable, I thought that it was not for me. I would avoid it and I'd run away.

But I think where it really started changing them. And I really started, I think, before when I talked about the course of my journey in November 2019, when I was in one of my grad school classes before the pandemic started. We did an empty chair exercise. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that technique. It's a "ghost technique" where you can pretend that someone's there and you have to confront them.

Something inside of me said "go volunteer."

I pretended like I was confronting an ex of mine who lied to me a ton, and stole thousands of dollars from me. The anger that was poured out was always anger that I had in me, but just anger that growing up, I didn't think I was allowed to express. Like I had to be like, this perfect, you know, nice, well-behaved girl.

When I was confronting him in this exercise, the teacher said something about how I was really angry and I was like, "yeah, I am angry at him." She's like, "no, you're angry at yourself." And that kind of unlocked something.

A month later, I went home and my dad and I had an incident where he said something very rude. And I was kind of at a breaking point for me, where I had a very hard conversation with him about how we can't continue going on this way.

Like, I don't feel loved, like I don't even know if you like me. And that started to do something to him.

The next month I was back in L.A. and it was January 29th. I was walking to grad school class and Kobe had just passed away. I think that the value of life, especially the work that I had done over the last two months, had been really present on my mind.

I read a book by a therapist, and she talks about her experience with her clients and her own work that she's doing. Spoiler, but there was this hard Hollywood executive who she had been talking about, just like how much of a pain he was, and he finally opened up that the reason he is the way he is is that he had had a car accident and a couple of years ago, where he was driving distracted and his child died and how he how he blamed himself.

And that kind of really unlocked a lot of things for me. So as I was walking to class and thinking about the growth that I was doing and listening to this book and that part and thinking about Kobe, I just took a moment and I was talking to God. I was saying just how appreciative and how grateful I am of, like not only the journey that I've already had and the ups and downs, but where I am now and how for the first time, like I don't feel dead anymore inside and how I'm really appreciative of my life.

And I said "my relationships are good. Like, I've never felt better. If I were to die today, I would be OK with it."

And several seconds minutes later, I was hit by a car.

Something inside me said something inside me said to jump. I jumped. And so like when I did, I landed on the hood and through a series of weird events, I had just picked up a new class that night and my backpack was extra heavy. It was like a chilly morning and I had an extra layer. So when I bounced off the car and landed on the ground, my backpack was so heavy, so I landed on my butt. My feet were up, lik was just sitting down. And then my backpack was so full that it caught my neck and my back.

I was like "I'm OK. I'm alive."

And since then, my whole life has changed. And I just feel like God has me here for a reason. Like, there's been so many times in my past where I definitely have almost passed away for one reason or another, whether it was like a weird medical thing when I was a child, or the car, or there's been other things too. And at that point, I feel like I was just kind of done denying that God has me here for a reason and God is doing things for me.

I had to stop trying to accept parts that are mine because I think of, you know, for so long, I was like, "oh I'll be a teacher because I'm good at it or I'll be a principal because it was offered to me. I think I should just be someone's wife and mother of their children, which I think were all important pieces of my journey.

But I don't think that is ultimately what God's doing for me. And I think that over the last two years, just learning how to really come into this second life that God has given me and how to be the second creature and how to fully live, you know, the path that I believe that I was created to be here for.

Q: Wow. Between the conversation with your dad and then getting hit by a car like especially just on the heels of thinking and pondering life and like you said, Kobe passing away like, that's such a crazy. Just everything coming together at once kind of thing. For clarification, what happened specifically with the accident?

Kristie: So it was such a perfect storm of circumstances that made this happen, which made me feel like, you know, it can only be God, right? As I was walking up the crosswalk, I stopped and I looked to my left, which is where the car was coming from. I thought the car was slowing down to stop.

But the car had just turned on the street and was picking up speed. So I kind of looked at them for a while and was like "oh, he's definitely slowing down. So I just started walking. And then I heard a loud sound. And I turned and I was like, he's not going to be able to stop. And like I said, something inside me said to jump. And so I did.

And as a volleyball player who has always been yelled at for their whole life, for not being able to jump, I don't know how I got that much air. Like I really must have been lifted. And then like, yeah, the circumstances of how I landed and all this stuff, and when you got out of the car, it was interesting and going back to me being a giver. He was freaking out. I think he thought he'd killed me. He was a younger guy, and I felt really bad. And I'm like, "No, it's OK. Like, I'm fine."

I was consoling him. And he said he was heading east and the sun was right there and he's like, “I couldn't see you, like the sun was too bright." It was like a very bright morning. It was, yeah, like I said, just kind of like a perfect storm of events.

It was nothing less than miraculous.

Q: Did you have a moment either through sitting with God or by proxy through this group that showed you that you had value like no matter what?

Kristie: Actually, that's why God and I have been working on the last couple of weeks. I would say since the end of October this year, God has really been working on me with removing fears like it's really been. Almost like every two weeks or so, a different fear has kind of come up and I've had to face it. That chain has been broken and I've gotten a little bit more free.

This last really embedded fear in me, the fear of me not being enough, my core internal struggle, has been something that has cycled back through.

Last week we had a church-wide fast for five days under the word abide, like abiding the beauty and power of God's love. And we had a prayer and worship night on Friday night, and I've noticed this pattern over the last three prayer and worship nights that every week of the prayer worship night over the last three months, it's been these moments of intense self-doubt, like I'm not moving fast enough.

Like when I'm writing the books. I think I'm keeping people from their blessing because I think that with these books, God has put them in my heart to really help people. And if I'm not moving at the pace that I thought that I should, then you know, like I'm not doing enough and I'm disappointing God.

I was conscious of that last week, and during the prayer I was paired up with a friend. I was kind of sharing with him my struggles and what I was going through. And as it was coming out my mouth, my own internal dialog was "you know that's not true. You know that you're valuable. You know that you're worthy. You need to have this conversation with yourself. Like, get it out. And then know that that's a lie and that that's not who you are."

Where God and I are right now, and going kind of back to the stuff with my dad, I realized over this last week or so that in my own head, I think that there's no room for error, that I have to get it perfect and I have to get it right the first time. Or I'm going to mess it up. I'm going to lose it. And God keeps telling me that the things that he has for me are for me and that they are for no one else.

And the ups and the downs and mistakes aren't even mistakes. They're skinned knees. I'm getting stronger each time. I can't be afraid to let go and to fall because He's got me. So the deeper that we go into our relationship, the more and more He's removing those fears that I've talked about, which has been great because I've been sharing this with the whole group.

You get that reflected back and hear them talk about the growth that they've seen in me too over the last couple of months. My parents, my sisters, you know, everyone who I'm letting into this journey that I'm on has definitely commented on just how much growth and how much that they see.

Where I'm at with God right now, what we are working on is just loving the journey and not being this final destination that I have to hurry up and instantaneously get it now. I feel like that's what the world and our society demands.

You know, we want instant results and we want it like right now or we're not going to get it. And I think going back to what Pastor Dihan said in his message last week, that really resonated and stuck with me.

It flipped a lot of things in my head when he talked about love being long enduring and long suffering. The patience and their gentleness and the kindness which I give to other people, I don't always necessarily give to myself.

Speaking of fear, we're really, really going out on a limb here with the finances because like I said, I'm not working right now. I don't have money to take a trip to Hawaii, but God has been really putting Hawaii on my mind and I leave next Wednesday and I'm gone for a week and I will be in Maui for the anniversary of my two years of getting hit by the car. And then it's also going to be just like an early solo birthday trip. My birthday's in February.

So, yeah, just trying to love all the ups and downs of this wonderful journey that God has created for only me. And how to handle each thing that comes my way with nothing but pure faith that this is designed with the intended outcome for my life. That God wants me here for that day. When I wake up it's because God wants me here and I'm going to keep walking in my path and purpose with him trying to bring him all the glory that I can because he's he's kept me here. He didn't have to. I could have been gone many times.

Q&A with Sithy Bin

Q: You have an incredible testimony. Where should we even start?

Sithy: I love Jesus. I love people. I love to serve. I love to place other people first. However, that wasn't always the case.

I used to be heavily involved in gang activity. When I was a young man, I was involved in a gang shooting.

Because an innocent bystander was shot during a gang shooting, I was sentenced to a total of 40 years to life in prison.

Three years ago, my family and I accepted the fact that I was going to die in prison or be 65 years old. But only by the grace of God, new laws came into effect that send me back for resentencing in 2019.

I'll get to that in a little bit. I was incarcerated in 2005. I used to be a Buddhist, an active Buddhist. I spent summer in my teenage years in a Cambodian temple to learn about the principles of Buddhism and all that. And when I was incarcerated, I fell into a deep depression. One of the teachings is karma. What goes around, comes around. You do bad, bad things come to you. You do good, good things come to you.

If someone was falsely accused and had to do something a lengthy time in prison or, that means that you did something bad in your previous life. And you're facing the consequences of it now. So because of that teaching and that belief that held on to, I fell into a deep depression. I mean, I was being sentenced to life. My girlfriend at the time was being sent. They were trying to convict her for the same shooting. She was the first shooter and they were trying to give her life [in jail].

I lost 50 pounds in three months during my incarceration. I wasn't eating or anything and had a stress spot on the back of my head. It was bad. And then I came across a Christian prayer book. It was a pivotal point in my life. The Christian prayer book was talking about those who don't believe in God or don't pray to God, or don't talk about God. Yet when they're in a dire situation, when they run away from the police, all of a sudden they start praying to God,

And I was like, “man, that feels like me." That's when the author spoke about how our Lord appeared to one of the doubting disciples, Thomas. And our Lord says that "because you see me have believed, blessed are those who have not seen me, yet have believed."

I'm like, "wait a minute, I want to be blessed." Now I'm going to end this dark time right now, and it might be a dark, long life in prison. So that's when I said "all I need to do is believe in you and have faith in you." That's when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. That was in 2005.

In my past, I was advancing the kingdom of darkness.

I was a terrible human being. I was very selfish, self-centered, and prideful. It was awful. I was trying to advertise that it was cool to be in that criminal gang lifestyle.

Now, I want to advance the kingdom of light and love, and just be used by the Lord. And now, ever since I gave my life to the Lord, I started whispering about my newfound faith. I was involved in this theological school in prison called the Urban Ministry Institute. I started a fellowship with brothers to understand doctrine. That was very important. And I would be active in the church. And that's when I grew spiritually. I was discipled by my wonderful brothers now who are serving in the church, who are preaching. And that's when I committed my life to just being used by the Lord.

A wise person learns from the mistakes of others, and I wanted to encourage others to do the same. So I started a program to mentor the at-risk youth.I started giving back to the community, to the prison community.

Then fast-forward almost 14 years later to 2019, and a new law came out. Now, the California prison secretary can recommend an individual to go back for resentencing. So by the grace of God, I don't know whom God placed in the heart to see my file, but they did.

Part of the new law is that the same judge can take into consideration post-conviction background, meaning that everything that happened after being convicted, everything that I did in prison, (the positive rehabilitative program, any type of achievement) can be taken into consideration to send me to a lower sentence.

And God is so awesome, brother.

The same trial judge that sent me two life sentences was so impressed by my transformation.

And he's older now, and he was so full of joy in his heart to see me. He even made the statement that normally when a prisoner or someone has been convicted for a lengthy time, they get tattooed on their face and just become corrupt, rebellious, and awful. With me, it was the opposite.

So when I got sent back to prison, now I qualified to see the parole board to see if I'm suitable for parole and the Parole Board, a commission, and deputy commissioner. They were impressed by my transformation because again, all this was taking place before I even knew that there was a change in law that would set me back for this opportunity.

So at first, I thought I might have been found unsuitable, because my past actually was awful.

The commissioner came in and shook my hand. He said, "I love your voice. You have influence right now. Go out there and make a huge difference." It was amazing and brought tears to my eyes. It was just an amazing feeling.

I had accepted the fact I was going to die in prison and all that.

And then this happened. However, even though I was released they put me in a separate cell and that's what I realized is going to be all bad. They picked me up for a detention center, and because I was born in another country, I wasn't allowed the same privilege as those who are born here when they get to be released, be with the family.

I was like "man, forget it. I'm going to get deported to a country I've never been to. I wasn't born in Cambodia. I was born in Thailand in a Cambodian refugee camp. Cambodia is willing to take people back because of the financial assistance they receive from going to the United States.

God is amazing. Because of COVID, there was no movement, no deportation. The ACLU had filed a lawsuit that said "it's dangerous during the pandemic to have detainees confined in a compact area like that. I was released in June 2020, and now I'm out here in Los Angeles.

I [ended up at Renew]. It's small, right? It was my first time attending a real church out in society. The people I came across were so friendly and so welcoming.

For example, I met up with Janet and started chatting and I had this rapport with the people there. Pastor Dihan spoke…it touched my heart right after the service. It was just amazing how the staff was so down to earth and related to their community members without even having to try. At the service, the crew stayed behind to pray for people to be able to engage with people.

I wanted to glorify the Lord. So that's why I wanted to learn more about Renew and be more involved.

Q: Just out of curiosity, you said you were born in a refugee camp in Thailand. How did you end up going from Thailand to ultimately the United States?

Sithy: During that time, Cambodia was in a civil war with the Khmer Rouge with the [dictator] Pol Pot. So it was a brutal massacre for those who were westernized. My parents escaped Pol Pot's regime and came to Thailand. And that's where I was born. We were there for almost two years. Then we got transferred to a transitional refugee camp in the Philippines where my brother was born.

We got accepted to the United States and then shipped to the United States, flew to the United States in 1984. I'm a legal resident alien, [which means you are deportable for crimes committed.]

Q: So you're making an appeal to the governor and making a video. What else is needed to convince them or show them that you deserve to stay?

Sithy: To combat deportation or exile is to get a governor's pardon. We have to do this process where I'm filing the pardon application. The application is separate from the petition. So the application is the whole package that goes to the governor. We have a goal of 5000 signatures for the petition.

Q&A with Rosie Marquez

Q: How did you [first] get involved with Renew?

Rosie: My fiance lives in Gardena and I live in L.A., so we were looking for a middle point. And I just went online and I found it when we were in Culver City. I went with my oldest daughter and she loved it. So because she liked it, I was like, "OK, well, we're going to try it out."

Q: Had you grown up like going to church or following Jesus? Or is that something that happened later in life?

Rosie: I grew up going to church. I had a really interesting relationship with religion because I was baptized in the Lutheran Church, but we were Catholic. We went to church like every Sunday. But for my parents, it was like if you go to church, you get to go to Toys R Us. So it was like, let's get through this so we can get our prize. I also wanted to be a Jehovah's Witness for whatever reason. When I was little, they showed up at my house and I was like, "yeah, I want to do that." And then when I was in middle school, my cousin was like a Mormon, so I was like, "oh, I want to hear about that too." I remember especially as a little kid, like never wanting to go and my mom incentivizing me to do different things.

Q: Obviously community is super important, especially since the last two years have been super weird. So what has been the biggest value of being able to be part of something like Renew? And how has that contributed to your faith?

Rosie: The biggest takeaway for me from my home group that I've been in currently is definitely accountability because some of the people in my home, I know outside of the church as well, so I see them outside of church and outside of one group. And it's like, you can't live that double life, right? I mean you can. But it's a little bit more difficult when you work alongside these people or you're mentoring these individuals.

You can't show up a certain way Monday through Friday and then Sunday, you're like this different person. So that's really helpful for me. And then just also being able to talk through things that I thought were unique to myself and just realizing that almost everyone in the whole group has the same situations and circumstances. We just deal with them differently.

Q: You mentioned accountability. I think it's really cool to be able to check in with different people and then also, in turn, help them. Like Pastor Dihan has been saying, love is the truest measure of reflecting Jesus. So that's really cool. If you don't mind sharing, you mentioned that you had some trauma in the past. Is that something that the whole group has helped you heal from or process?

Rosie: I don't really talk about it in general because I went through the inner healing group and that was really helpful for me. And it's very…I don't want to say private. I'm just conflicted because I have a son who I don't want to grow up with that burden that people of color feel.

We already feel like we have everything against us, and I don't want him to feel like because his dad did something that defines him. Because, you know, culturally, people always like, lean on that wall. " I'm just like my dad, I'm just like my mom," and stuff like that, so I don't really touch upon it so much. I've always kind of tried to deal with it on my own. It got really unhealthy to the point where that's how I ended up in the first group because I was just out with friends and someone said something that triggered me and I literally was sobbing like a baby. And I was like, "I don't understand where this is coming from," and it was because I hadn't dealt with it.

Q: Yeah absolutely. Sometimes that's the straw that breaks the camel's back. Like when somebody says something [that triggers you] it can just all come exploding out at once. Just for context, tell me a bit about your journey to Renew?

Rosie: Like I mentioned before, like several churches, I was really deep into one church before I came to Renew, and I also had a very traumatic experience there with the leadership and things like that. I actually was like an assistant for the pastor.

Things just began to unravel, and I feel like sometimes we put people on this pedestal because they're pastors or preachers or whatever they may be, but it's hard for us to separate who they are in the church and who they are as a human.

And there was just too much going on for me, where it was hard for me to even hear the word because I'm like, "you are such a hypocrite."

So I would be sitting in a church and I couldn't get anything because my heart was tired and I was very judgmental and very petty about the whole thing. I just felt like I couldn't give leadership the grace I should have given them because I was so consumed and all this stuff that they did that I didn't agree with.

So it was like, we need to find another church. My fiance said that he was living near the church and had moved away. So I was like "this is perfect timing because at my old church I was just sitting there as a body filling the seat. I had the worst thoughts going through my brain.

So I came to Renew and I really loved it. I mentioned that I brought my mother. I also brought my daughter, who is part of the LGBTQ community. And she also struggled with her relationship with the Lord because a lot of places are very much like "you're going to hell or you can't sit with this."

It was really important for me because I felt like my relationship with the Lord, even though it's been rocky and I was kind of upset and letting my emotions get in the way, I felt like it was solidified enough to where my priority was my daughter.

I want her to be comfortable, and I want her to be able to experience the relationship that I have with the Lord. You know, I don't ever want her to see herself a certain way or in a negative way because of what people around her see.

And you know, we went to Renew and, you know, Pastor Dihan gave an amazing sermon. And it's just incredible for me because instantly I was like, "this is the place for my daughter to see this. This is our place. It was so diverse, so like progressive and just like, relatable. You know, he's always talking about Chick-Fil-A and wanting to lose weight. And I'm like "yes!"

Q: You mentioned a little bit before that as a person of color, you experienced certain things growing up around you, or maybe even in church. And I feel like Renew's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is a really amazing part about the church. What do you feel makes it such such a special community where people want to stay and be planted there?

Rosie: It's so relatable and Pastor Dihan is so intentional about who he brings in as a speaker, or what the purpose is as opposed to just having people come in for the sake of taking a break. I think because I'm so used to judgmental churches where I would leave church feeling less-than. I wouldn't leave church feeling happier and closer to the Lord. I would leave the church feeling like I was the worst person.

But I really like how Pastor Dihan delivers the message. He gives so much detail and he just makes it so clear. Like he literally gives a vivid picture and description of what was happening and what was going on at the time. And he even compares it to things that are happening now to bring it all together so you get it.

There's really no judgment like, he says some topics that are touchy topics like sexuality and, you know, money and things like that. But he always does it in such a way where I feel like even though I don't agree with some of the stuff, I appreciate it because I respect him. He respects us. So it's easier. It's an easier conversation.

It's easier to digest because it's coming from a place of love and not from a place of like "you're going to hell if you don't agree with this."

He's really personable. A lot of the stuff that he says is what I feel. For instance, I had the biggest road race getting to church, but when I get here I'll praise the Lord. And so when he shares his stories of where he falls short or where he's just human, it's just funny and it lightens the mood, and it makes it easier for me to accept the word.

Q: Outside of church you have the home group. What has been the most powerful moment that you've experienced within the home group?

Rosie: Let me start off with this: I'm not the most vulnerable person. Like when Renew asked me to do this, I was kind of hesitant and then I thought it was like a ten minute little video maybe. And then when I got your email, I was already sweating.

In the home group, one of the first sessions hit home for me because I'm struggling with a relationship my father is in. I don't really talk about it too much, because I always feel like when I have that conversation, it's never a positive one. I'm stopping myself because I don't want to move past it. I'm in this negative space with my dad's wife. In my home group we were talking, we were doing a series and talking about relationships and family dynamics and things like that.

So I was like, "you know what, if I'm going to be in this group, I'm just going to be honest and transparent.

And I explained to them where I was coming from, and I knew that it was wrong, but that I wasn't ready to move past it. I was comfortable holding on to that grudge. And it was a turning point for me because when I heard myself, I was like "you sound so ridiculous, you know?"

But it's something that, like I was holding onto for dear life. Like, I'm never going to like this lady. It's always going to be a problem. And like a lot of the anger that I had was towards my dad, but [in my mind], my dad can do no wrong, so she was getting all of it.

It was interesting to hear everybody start to share their stories and talk about their dynamic. And like I said earlier, my story wasn't uncommon. It's just a moment that I'll never forget because literally everyone was vulnerable.

We shared things that we probably would never say in front of anyone. Everyone's guards were down and it just made me feel so comfortable and so accepted.

Because I always felt like "maybe it's just me, and maybe I just have a really bad attitude. Maybe I'm just going crazy."

It was just one of those moments where I realized we all have our stuff. We all have our issues. It was just impactful to me to see all of these strangers because the church is big. You see people, but you don't know them.

All these people blessed me and prayed for me and opened up about their stuff so that we could relate to each other. That was incredible for me.

I also love the fact that no one tries to fix you. Like, everyone says their piece and we listen and we might compare and share stories. But no one ever is like: "this what you have to do." I love that because I think as humans, we can't help it. We always feel like we have the best advice for someone else that's in the same situation. And it's just like, "why would we think it would work for them if we can even get to that point?" I love that they are respectful enough to let us just vent essentially and share stories. And no one is trying to fix anyone. We just literally hear each other out and then pray for each other.

Q: You had mentioned your dad and like part of your new mission I know is about reaching people. How do you feel like it's affecting you when it comes to relationships and like going forward how you approach those?

Rosie: I think it's definitely served as a buffer for me where I can talk about what I'm feeling and what I'm struggling with. Before I actually approach the person or the problem or the issue, I can bring it to my home group. You can talk about it. We can pray about it, as opposed to me not having anything in between Sunday service to get me through the week and then dealing with these things on my own. It's definitely given me the space and the opportunity to kind of like pause and just sit in what I want to say or what I'm struggling with. As opposed to being a little compulsive and dealing with it and because I don't have anyone to talk to. I do have my friends but the majority of my friends are not Christians, so their advice, even though it's coming from a good place, might not be the healthiest place.

So it's good to have a group of friends who actually are like-minded and are coming from the phase of scripture as opposed to "what will make me feel better right now?"

It's definitely been really helpful for me because again, before I was just going to church on Sunday. Sunday sometimes can only get you through Sunday, depending on how chaotic your life is or your relationships are at the moment.

And what I really like about my whole group is that we reflect on what Pastor Dihan talks about on Sunday. I get to hear different perspectives. I get to hear different examples like what their takeaways were. It's helped me to view relationships in a different, more spiritual way, in a more accountable way.

Q: To wrap up, what do you feel like the Lord has been teaching you or showing you in this season?

Rosie: The biggest thing for me right now, and I'm being convicted all the time about it, would be to pause because I am very impulsive and emotional. And I think growing up, that was like a good thing. Like, my family was very chaotic and very much like on attack mode all the time. So I was always one step ahead of everyone. Very sarcastic, very witty. Very much like "I'm going to shut this down right now."

I just need to learn that that's not the way to navigate situations. It's okay for me to sit in a situation and not have to say anything and just say "you know what? I hear you, but let me take some time to process this and then we'll talk about it again." As opposed to feeling like I have to say something. Or like someone's walking all over me or I just don't know how to react.

Pausing [has been important]. It was on my heart to talk about judgments and how it affects the other person. Pastor Dihan something that just really hit home for me, and it's like, where is it coming from?

If I'm being critical of you, I really realize that it's because I'm triggered. You did something to trigger my trauma or my insecurities or my ego.

Most of the time, it's my ego. I feel that with my kids or my staff or anyone that does something that I feel is out of my control.

And for it to go my way, then that just triggers my ego and now I have to criticize you and put you back in your place. I had to really recognize that moving forward: I can't use judgment as a self defense mechanism when I feel triggered. Or [have the posture] of "I can overcome this, why can't you? Why is it taking so long?" You know, just really remembering how long it took me and all the grace that I wish I had getting to this point and extending that to the next person.

Q: What do you attribute that defensive mechanism to? Or why did you feel the need, growing up, to respond quickly or be defensive?

I think because there was so much chaos and like the environment was very toxic, my parents were very verbally abusive to each other. It was just always like screaming and things like that. I just felt like I always had to be ready. And I would see how my mom would feel when my dad would say something to her or be little her like I never wanted to be on the other end of that. So I got really good at being ready to put someone in their place. The conversation was over.

As a teenager and even as an adult, I felt like people were always praising me for being so funny and so sarcastic and so witty. But really, it was just me being very mean, and I had to really recognize that. And that's not how I want to be or who I want to be. If my kids are seeing this, I don't want them to think that that's the norm. Like, you don't have to be mean for your friends to think you're funny, you don't have to be sarcastic or rude so that people think "let's not mess with her." You know, there is a way to toss things out, and I just never learned that.

Q&A with Natalie Stephenson

Q: Did you grow up going to church? How did you end up out here at Renew in LA?

Natalie: I grew up in a faith household, with a more like Hispanic Pentecostal vibe. I would say, once my parents split when I was like eight, that kind of teetered off. And I would just go here and there and keep it afloat. I moved out here eight years ago. That's when I got to like, get my own faith.

I prayed: "should I go out to L.A.?" I really felt called to have my own relationship with Him. I started going to a church in Chatsworth called The Garden, and that's where I got baptized. And then I took a break.

This is where my life kind of changed a little bit: I got into a car accident. It was funny because I had set a timeline for myself just because I was really close to my family and my family did not want me to go to L.A. just because they would miss me, not because they didn't support me or anything.

I went out to pursue music. I just knew I had to get out to wherever the Lord wanted me in L.A. I gave myself a two-year timeline. Like, if nothing happens in two years, I'll move back.

And then the second year that I was there was when the car accident happened.

Oh man, it slowed me down. At that time, I felt like that's where I got really close with Him. It didn't change my life where I couldn't walk or anything like that. But the pain was the number one thing that was on my brain, like my back pain was just something that consumed me.

Finding relief was the main goal. You know what I mean? I'm reading the Bible. I was like, "OK, well, I'll just got closer to Him because I'm like, I don't know what else to do.”

2015 is when this whole back pain journey started, where music just kind of went in the back burner and just getting to know Jesus and getting to know him more was part of like finding healing, you know, through that.

Q: I'm so sorry that happened to you. What happened specifically with the accident?

Natalie: I was driving on a three-lane street. The furthest two left lanes were stuck because there was so much traffic. So the oncoming car in traffic thought that he could make a left hand turn. He hit me on the driver's side. I really downplayed it, though.

I was like "oh, you know, it's my first car accident." I didn't feel all the pain that I did initially. So I was like, "I'm good. It's fine, let's just keep it moving."

But then I got into another car accident like four months later. Somebody else hit me in a parking lot. I was like, "Oh, this isn't really going to affect me." But it really did.

Q: So prior to that, you mentioned that you were pursuing music. What were you pursuing?

Natalie: I play guitar and I love to sing. It was just anywhere that I could plug myself into. I really wasn't sure what it was going to look like. But at the time, I was just trying to get over stage fright, so I was just trying to put myself out there. Like anytime it was an open mic or open karaoke thing, I would just go.

I just remember a switch where after the car accident, It couldn't stand for more than 15 minutes. It was just like "oh my gosh, I need to sit." So I would bring chairs to like any gigs that I had. I would just bring my chair or whenever playing at the Santa Monica Promenade or the pier. But that was that time where I was just getting over stage fright and challenging myself in that way. And then I would be getting shows.

I'm very grateful that during that time, the opportunities to grow as an artist never stopped. God was still showing me places to go. It was a challenge to grow myself in that way, you know, whether it was singing live or whether it was like finding someone who had a studio and wanted me to sing things.

I was getting all these new opportunities here and there, but it just wasn't going as fast as I would have wanted.

That was a lesson to like, not go by my timeline, but to just surrender to His. I'm just grateful that I was able to slow down. To slow down and to know who He is.

Q: That's really powerful. What do you feel like your relationship with God was like prior to the accident? And what effect did the accident have on your relationship? Like you mentioned slowing down and being initially frustrated that you couldn't go at the pace that you're normally going at. Did it in certain ways turn out to be a blessing in disguise that allowed you to like, refocus or get a new perspective?

Natalie: Absolutely. Yeah. Before I definitely felt like I had control of how quickly my blessing could come. Especially being out here for two years. You know, I don't have control of any of that, but I have control of getting closer with Him and building my faith. And that's what I should focus on Him, Jehovah Rapha, just getting to know Him.

It's interesting that we're in this series as a church about slowing down for your own emotional check ins. But yeah, it really allowed me to not put pressure on myself to go as fast. Or not have to accept the outside pressure of the world, like "if you don't go [fast] you're going to miss this opportunity."

Now I know that at his right timing, the blessing will come. And in the meantime, it's learning that He's pruning me.

My whole perspective has changed. I don't feel rushed to get to where I need to go or where I think my voice is going to be used to be successful. I'm just at his disposal.

I'm just waiting for direction for the next thing, because what he has shown me is that he will always provide a next step. That's one thing that he's been consistent with this whole eight year journey that I've been on in L.A. trying to pursue music. I'm so grateful for that.

And also, now that I have slowed down and don't have the outside pressure to rush to it, it's more like enjoying the journey, enjoying waiting on Him and allowing Him to be God versus feeling like I have control of something.

Q: Was there a specific moment you really felt His presence, whether that was in worship or just your own prayer time?

Natalie: I might not have a specific moment, but after the car accident, I couldn't take a full breath of air to support as long as I wanted. When I'm singing and I feel the support and I feel the air in my back like when I take a full breath that I am able to sustain that note. I get emotional because I'm still reminded of Him.

Q: What has that journey of being a performer in LA been like? I'm sure there's probably been highs and lows of trying to "make it" here.

Natalie: It's a constant being okay with rejection and seeing it as a redirection. Sometimes I can experience self-doubt for sure. Reminding myself that if this doesn't work out, it doesn't mean that it's over. Or, you know, it's just he has something better, you know? So it's more of a redirection instead of taking it internally and shutting down, also trusting His timeline.

Just the more I go around him, like, the more I read the word or just like that time to be in his presence, like he reminds me "I created you for a reason" The fight against timing and rejection are like the two main things, where I'm like "I need to be close to You to be able to handle these situations that come."

Q: What's your favorite thing about being on the worship team or worship in general? I know, like obviously like you and I know the dance there, but just for like in case I want to include this in the story, why do you think worship is important?

Natalie: I really enjoy the space that they create at Renew. There's a lot of Holy Spirit in the post-service where it's like you're praying for people. I really enjoy those moments. The best is actually like any time where it's music or instruments, just like an impromptu vibe, like a jam set.

Jam sessions are already cool, like at a jazz club where no one's a Christian, you know what I mean? Like, you can still vibe. But when you add the Holy Spirit into that, it's one of my favorite things. We were just created to worship. You know, we're just going back to exactly what we were created to do. For me, my whole body is thanking him at that moment.

Q: What do you feel like you've learned from the Renew community?

Natalie: I'm learning how to be a body of Christ. Being united, and addressing racial problems – like some churches don't talk about it. They just want to talk about Jesus, and don't get me wrong, He is the answer. But they kind of glaze over like the hard conversations, hard topics, you know, inner work like being emotionally healthy, spiritually healthy. They're really taking the time to have those hard conversations that some people just want to avoid, but I feel like when you bring Jesus into that and it's so powerful and I'm really enjoying seeing how it works.

Q: Yes! Things like the DEI Roundtable – you don't see a lot of churches doing stuff like that. It's important to talk about those things and be able to have healthy conversations around them. How have you been doing as far as healing from your injury?

Natalie: I was trying everything, and I found this enzyme [to help.] I ordered it online and it worked really well. I was like, "Lord, OK, thank you! I was going to the chiropractor, going to get acupuncture, going to get massages all the time.

And then I just felt like it was revealed, like relieving itself, like it was like working itself out. Thank God.. It was slow and steady and each day I was like "I'm better today. I'm better today. I'm better today."

Eventually it was like, OK, there's like a little bit left where it wasn't as aggravating. It's still there. It was slow and steady, gradual. Thank the Lord, now I can sleep. Whenever the pain was there, depression, anxiety, fear, and insecurities would come in. I'm just trying to build up my spiritual armor, so I can say to the pain, "no, you're not invited anymore. You can't come in."

Another lesson that I feel like He revealed to me is like, "don't downplay what you're going through. Don't downplay your pain and don't downplay your blessings, either, because whether it was good or bad, I just downplayed it. I'd say "I'm content, I'm good," instead of being honest with Him and myself.

I think this was because of self defense mechanisms. I don't want to admit my weaknesses. I still have trouble now. I want to be more vulnerable. I want to accept my weaknesses and boast in them, because that's where He's strongest.

Q&A with David Biggs

Q: How did you get involved with Renew in the first place? Are you from L.A.? What's your backstory?

David: So, backstory? I'm from the Inland Empire Area: Moreno Valley, California. I've lived in L.A. for definitely 10+ years. I'd just left a church I'd gone to and actually just recommitted my life to follow Jesus.

I grew up in the church. My father and my mother served in it. And so me and my sisters, we all kind of grew up in a church or just always were in the church environment. Towards the end of high school, our family started hitting really hard times. My dad had battles with drugs a lot and started struggling going in and out of jail. I mean, he was a great dad. He was at all my football games. He was a chemist, so he would help me stay up all night for math and science, and he was a really great guy.

But he just had a battle with [drugs] in the past, and when he ended up losing his job, it kind of hit him in a really bad spiral. Drugs were on his record and it became really hard for him to find a job. He started really backsliding. I think it kind of felt like a culture shift for our family where we all really weren't going to church. Maybe just my mom at that point.

In college I was a part of a Christian group, and it really kind of helped me re-adjust a bit. When I came back from college, [his change] was definitely evident. Now he was definitely using a lot harder and that caused a massive friction between me and him. He was pretty abusive, verbally and physically, with my mom and my sisters and I.

And weirdly enough, I wasn't mad at God.

But I had a kind of a hard time going into the church setting just because I felt like it kind of brought some triggers.

Just being in that environment.

I think the lowest part is when he ended up becoming homeless and he and my mom separated. I honestly didn't want to see him like that. So I stayed away from him, and I realized that started affecting me in a ton of ways. I just focused on work. I really didn't value relationships as much. I battled alcohol addictions during that period. So I wasn't really in a good place.

I went to the church prior to Renew, and I kind of shared my story there and I recommitted my life to Christ. I even got baptized there. Due to its distance away and my time, I wasn't able to really go there. I kind of felt alone, really alone. And so I worked really hard at my job and I tried to make my job my identity until I was fired. And I was now devastated.

But right before I got fired, maybe six months prior to that, I had visited Renew for the first time and heard Dihan's preaching during that period. I had a friend who was going at the time, and this was when they were really small. I think they said 50 people. It was pretty small. But they were new. I think they were only like maybe a year old at that point. And I came in and the sermon was really good. I know it was good because I was thinking about it throughout the rest of the week.

I actually remember [Pastor Dihan] was talking about the podcast Christian.

And, you know, when we cut ourselves off in isolation, we put walls up thinking we're protecting ourselves. But really, what we're doing is we're sealing ourselves in isolation. That just really stuck with me because I realized I was doing that.

At Renew, I met someone by the name of Antoine. He invited me to two men's groups to serve. And I was always blowing them off. So after I got fired, I was like "okay, God, I know I need to go after you. But when I got there, I was on the email chain and I realized he was already gone.

And then my friend who was there wasn't really going there, so I really didn't know anybody. So I just happened and showed up and I was like, "OK, God, whatever you tell me to do to serve, I'll do it now."

Two guys actually approached me at the time who were serving on the setup team and said they needed help. Those are the guys that literally pull the trailers out. Unload. Pack it up.

They didn't say all that. They just said Saturday and Sunday morning. But I kind of felt like I wanted to get right with God, right? I was like, "alright…"

But it was so funny. During that period, I made relationships with those guys. Being around them and knowing that they're praying, I learned some of their habits and it kind of re-triggered my old habits. But in a much more enhanced way where it was so much more now relational with Jesus, I joined the whole group in their last week.

Pastor Raul was our group leader. And it was just me and him in the valley. He was kind of a counselor at that point. I kept serving my wife, kind of just healing. And at this time, it was healing with Jesus. I was walking with Jesus. I was able to break away from the alcohol addiction. I was able to kind of be strengthened and confident in connecting with others. I started valuing my relationships more than the things I did because I didn't have that job I was trying to make my identity.

And then God blessed me with a new job and what I love. And I remember during that period, John 15, I was reading that to myself every day. And it was changing my life. I was always thinking about abiding in Him, and He in me. And I realize that when you ask whatever it is that you wish for, it's not the things that you wish for. It's for the things for the Kingdom to bear fruit.

I became addicted to bearing fruit. I remember when they needed people to do home groups. I didn't want to be a home leader. I thought that was massively responsible. But then me and John McCaffrey became good friends and led a whole group.

And then you're seeing God change other people's lives as he's still changing yours. And then you're just becoming so strengthened to the point where I went to go visit my father and see him when he was a homeless man. I was able to face him and his words weren't able to trigger me.

Jesus has changed me. He healed me. He strengthened me.

Instead of being angry with [my dad], I actually now have compassion for him. I feel bad for him. I'm praying for him. I'm still trying to figure out how to help him. And he taught me how to love even the hardest people to love.

Q: Could you take me back to that moment when you met up with your dad? What was different about that than years prior where you had had conflict with him? What was that moment like for you?

David: I remember the week leading up to that Saturday morning, he was on my heart. He was always on my heart when I prayed for him, but it was definitely coming up a lot. In our group we all have everybody share a praise report and a prayer request. And when he was coming back around to me, God was telling me, "ask the men to pray for you because you're going to go see your dad." I'm like "I don't know if I want to do that."

But after they prayed for me now, like now, I was like "OK, I'm doing this." My dad is in Paris, California. So that's like outside of Riverside County. I always knew where he was, I just didn't know specifically where he was, but I kind of knew the area that he was in. And so that Saturday morning, when I was driving out, I had friends and brothers really praying for me, encouraging me.

It was interesting, like where my people were not discouraging me, but trying to redirect me from doing this. My mom called and she was like, "David, I don't think it's a good idea for you to go see him. I don't know how he is. He might be aggressive. He was pretty hostile near the end and is being really aggressive. Don't expect it to be a heartwarming thing."

But I remembered the scripture, "if you love me, you'll do my commands." So I just kept telling myself, "I just have to go see him."

And so I said, "you know, mom, I'm not expecting anything. In fact, I actually have no expectations and I'm just going to go see him. And if he wants it to escalate, I'll leave because I have a car.

God put this on my heart. My friends love me and they just want me to be safe and protect me. And they think that that's what's best for me. I realized this what it was like to really stand firm.

When I got there, I started asking all the liquor stores and gas stations. I looked everywhere and I actually went to the last place where I thought he would possibly be. I like to say it was the Holy Spirit. I kind of felt a nudge to go right when there's nothing.

There is just maybe like a couple of pillars over and sitting behind the third pillar, he was sitting behind the third pillar.

When I saw him, my body actually reacted in shock. I stiffed up and like my neck tensed. I was in shock. I was shaking. I didn't want to see him like that because it was my biggest fear. My dad growing up was my hero. I felt like I was even seeing purple splotches. It kind of felt like I got punched in the face.

I kept saying verses to myself. I was saying Psalms 23. I kept quoting like Ephesians 6:10 through 20. I can't read quoting job 15, one 370. I just kept telling myself "My peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you." God's peace just kind of rested on me in that period, and when he recognized me, he asked me like three times if it was me.

And then we actually had a good talk for when you're like 40 minutes. It wasn't reconcile, reconcile. It was just catching up. But when he got triggered, he started yelling and cursing. He started getting really upset and it was interesting.

It was like in Ephesians when it talks about your faith as a shield blocking from the fiery darts. I could see that those were just attacks from the enemy to get me to get into a place where I was going to be hostile back.

The had to remain in the vine so that I could see that this is actually just a helpless man who's in pain.

I said "well, you know, dad, I can't bring mom and anyone else out here. We're moving past that, but I really do want to get you help."

And you know, he still was very disinterested. He kind of stormed off. But I had so much confidence and it established my faith so much more. My faith has never been bigger.

I visited him again a couple of years back during COVID because I was worried about him and everything. He still had kind of the same attitude, but he was still a little less hostile as I was on my own.

I said, "I thought about you, I just want to let you know I love you."

And that time you let me hug him – I think I gave him some cash. I had to pay to hug my dad. (laughs).

But the thing is, in my walk, God has become my father. So I don't need to demand that from [my dad] anymore. I don't need that from him. Yahweh is my dad now, you know? And man, Jesus is my savior and I. I don't need to ask that from [my dad]. He's my dad on Earth, and I'm still praying and believing in a miracle because I've seen a miracle transformation in myself, you know?