Ash Wednesday, Valentine's Day, and Barry's Birthday! Oh my!
In this special episode we discuss the significance of Ash Wednesday, the great distances we go for love, and the impact of the people that God places in our lives.
You are loved!
To learn more about TRM Ministries: Click Here!
To support TRM, Click Here!
Ash Wednesday, Valentine's Day, and Barry's Birthday! Oh my!
In this special episode we discuss the significance of Ash Wednesday, the great distances we go for love, and the impact of the people that God places in our lives.
You are loved!
To learn more about TRM Ministries: Click Here!
To support TRM, Click Here!
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day and your blessings and provisions. God, just thank you for the gift of your son. Lord, as we talk about Ash Wednesday, a little bit God and Lord, just your gift and all that you do for us. Lord, thank you for this time, thank you for our listeners and just pray you bless this conversation in your holy name. We pray Amen.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody. This is Barry Fiecker, with the Topeka Rescue Mission and listening to our community. Our mission on February 14th of 2024, podcast number 209. I'm here with Marion Krabel this morning.
Speaker 3:How are you Good morning?
Speaker 2:Good morning. Good morning, February 14th. There's a couple of interesting things happening on this day at the same time, I know. Mary, I mean those are.
Speaker 3:There's really more than just two. But, barry, it's your birthday, it's my birthday.
Speaker 2:It's your birthday, in case you didn't know, I did know.
Speaker 3:Because I know at your age sometimes things are forgotten.
Speaker 2:I was going to say let's talk about how old, otherwise you'll say what's he even talking anymore?
Speaker 3:I think it's just very cool that you were born on Valentine's Day.
Speaker 2:My mom thought was really cool.
Speaker 3:She said finally she got the gift that kept on giving.
Speaker 2:She did. I was her little Valentine.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful, but other than that, it's Valentine's Day. Yes, it is.
Speaker 3:And it is, it is Ash.
Speaker 2:Wednesday yeah, coming on the same time. I know I don't recall those two coming around the same time.
Speaker 3:No, I know Well, easter is coming very early, so I guess it makes sense. But yeah, no, I hadn't ever. I don't remember it that way. But honestly, I haven't been that in tune with Ash Wednesday for my entire life either. Yeah me you know it was not something that was maybe stressed a lot at the church that I grew up in or anything like that. So, it's been kind of interesting to learn more about Ash Wednesday and the meaning of it and why it's kind of important.
Speaker 2:Because it is today, speak a little bit to Ash Wednesday. Some people are very involved with Lent and Ash Wednesday and Easter coming and those kind of things. So what is your understanding of Ash Wednesday and the value of it?
Speaker 3:Sure, you know, I think my understanding is probably going to be so elementary in perspective of people that know a lot more, but it really is this time to just recognize that it is a time of repentance. Right, there are so many things. There is so many things that are not right with the world, with our community, with everything, and in my heart there are things that are not right, and so this is just that opportunity. When you think about ashes Ashes I usually think about it as something. When I think about it in the Jewish faith, I think about them putting ashes on when something was not right.
Speaker 2:Right, and they're needing. You're about sackcloth ashes.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And they're yeah, and they're needing to be some sort of repentance. You know, and as I think about then, the Catholic practice of Ash Wednesday and the cross on your forehead, you know, I have this assurance with my repentance, right With what's coming, right With what Christ did, what he took on he and he loved me enough, loves me enough to have taken that on and to have then died in a really horrific way but took on my sins because he loves me. So shouldn't I be called to a point of repentance on the parts of my heart that I need to get right?
Speaker 3:You know that I can recognize all of that, so that's what I think about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a lot of different people that may view this a little bit differently in one way or another, but the understanding of the grace of God, who is unequal to anything, and the forgiveness that he has given us. First of all, we have to realize we need forgiveness in the first place. We're not perfect. We're going to make mistakes, especially for a holy God. And then this gift of Christ, who has come to us as a gift yes, that the ashes and Ash Wednesday on the forehead or whatever you do, doesn't save you from all of your mistakes or sins, but Christ doesn't.
Speaker 2:It's a symbolic recognition and the willingness to say, god, you got a better way than I got.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and maybe there's something sort of beautiful that it's coming on a Valentine's Day. You know this day that is kind of held out as the day for love and everything like that. Could there be any better time to remember the love that Christ is about to if we think about Good Friday and Easter and all of that coming any better time to remember how much he loved us and continues to love us?
Speaker 2:every day. Well, here on this most sacred of days, valentine's Day not just because of my birthday. But but because of speaking of love, you know, this week on Monday we were able to have a kind of a celebration of people who had volunteered at the warming center when we had that incredible polar vortex that came through.
Speaker 2:You know, 300 people were sheltered in four different kind of warming centers. Topeka Rescue Mission took the lead on that. We recognized but the outpouring of love that came. You know I was speaking actually over at the Capitol this week to a number of pastors and some legislators about that whole thing and I got thinking 300 people were pretty well rescued off of the streets in Topeka, kansas, but there was also another 250 or so that were staying in shelter. Yes, about 550 people. Yes, lives were protected because of love. Right, isn't that cool.
Speaker 3:Isn't that amazing? Yeah, isn't that amazing.
Speaker 2:And there was a recognition by many of the people who were being helped that they were being loved.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely that they were being loved and, for some, that moved them to seeing different opportunities in their lives, right, whether it meant that they weren't going to go back out, whether it meant they were going to go into treatment, whether it meant whatever, whatever I mean love in action has an impact.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 3:You know and I'll tell you, barry, so while the people that we served during that really cold time were impacted, so were the people that volunteered.
Speaker 2:They really were.
Speaker 3:You know, people that maybe didn't know a lot about the people that we serve or had perceptions about what it was going to be like there or who folks were, and then to just see the humanity of all of those that we serve, I think that that it changes hearts, you know it changes hearts and I wish that everyone had that kind of opportunity to see folks up close and personal like that, up close and personal at their biggest struggles.
Speaker 3:You know, we had some folks in the shelter that were physically, physically having a really difficult time. You know, when I think about because of their age or because of what they've been through and that they could barely walk, which made it difficult to get to any kind of facilities, just all of those things. To see people like that it kind of takes away those perspectives that people are lazy or they just want to be this way or they just you know it can just eliminate that and give you a very different kind of perspective that I think leads to compassion and the willingness to then walk alongside you know love is about relationship and without relationship you really can't experience love, to either give or receive.
Speaker 2:And you know I think we've heard the thing love is spelled T I M E time, and it takes time to get to know people, not only on the caring for someone but to be cared for. Many of our unsheltered neighbors, or people in the community in general, have had bad experiences with other people. You know, people have utilized them for their own nefarious reasons exploitation, whether it's sexual labor, whatever the case might be, and so it takes time to undo that in order for people to really experience love.
Speaker 2:And so a lot of our folks, who we outreach a lot, who have been living outdoors for years, don't immediately go oh you're here, you care? No, not at all, but it takes time, and so we saw that happen. More people came into those warming centers because there was time on the front end been spent with them and building trust, correct, and so those folks began to realize that they can trust they can trust, there's time to put it out, and then they can receive love. And then we saw them giving love.
Speaker 3:Yes, and we saw them helping. You know whether it was shoveling snow, all those different things. People just showed who they really are deep inside, right, even though we don't always get to see that, and you know it wasn't perfect, barry, we did. You know we talk about. I think some people understand misunderstand when we, when we talk about walking alongside someone in com with compassion and respect and dignity, it doesn't mean that there aren't still boundaries and rules, right? I mean, there were folks that whose behavior was not acceptable to keep that facility safe and so they had to leave, you know. So it isn't about. It isn't about it just being willy nilly, right, that we're just going to love people and they can do whatever they want and they're going to love other people and it's going to it's not kumbaya, it's messy.
Speaker 3:It's not kumbaya, right, it's not. It's messy and but, but the ability to see past some of the craziness of the situation or the chaos of the situation or the very difficult ways that some people express themselves, it changes your heart. It just changes your heart, and I don't think that there's anything more important than that.
Speaker 2:I think the scripture that says and while we were still sinners, christ died for us. Christ didn't die for us after we got cleaned up. It was messy. If we knew anything about his life on the earth and the messages he gave and the ridicule that he took and eventually being murdered on a cross, it was messy.
Speaker 2:But he's come to address the mess and to walk with us today through the Holy Spirit in the mess. And then we have people like George, who's going to be on the podcast here one of these days, who spoke on Monday at the celebration about how messy things were for him as a veteran coming back and horrible things happened in his life, and so he didn't think anybody cared for him, so he didn't care for himself either, and he was unsheltered, and today he's working at Topeka Rescue Mission Absolutely, and so how repetitively people were coming back to him and saying we care, we care and showing it, and it being real.
Speaker 2:It being real Right.
Speaker 3:Not just. You know, I think, um, oh, amanda has had such an impact in that way because she is tenacious and she does not give up on folks that are what could be considered really hard cases, and whether it's George, whether it's others, there are many out there that are just hard cases, you know. It just takes time. They are not easily swayed by being loved or, you know, having people continue to come back. And Amanda, the story with with George and I'm anxious for that to be on the podcast it was just really beautiful that her tenacity, her love for the people that we serve came through in such a way that it moved to someone that really sort of just wanted to die on the street.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think that's a good reason in that for the helpers that, um, just because we go out of our care for someone or we notice that they need help and they don't respond immediately, that doesn't mean that there's not a process that's in at work here, right, and I think that's a good reason. Who is Seeing people care for them and just can't quite embrace it, kiss, can't quite get there, don't feel like anybody cares for me. If, if, if somebody's listening right now and feel like nobody cares for me, you know life is over. No, it's not. You're here right now. There's still another day, right, and if you'll give it time and trust God and maybe trust those that you really can trust, you might see some beautiful things happen, like we're gonna hear about with George. Absolutely, you know the other.
Speaker 3:The other beautiful thing that I thought Was when, on the videos that we had, the, the young woman that spoke and talked about, not just how much we and the volunteers helped her. What was really meaningful for her was to be allowed To give her time back to us to help and she did, and she did oh.
Speaker 3:Like a lot, because she was probably there almost the whole two weeks and she just continued to give her time and help others, and I think sometimes, I think sometimes we forget the power that might be in that too. Right, giving someone responsibilities to be able to help others Makes a difference too, and while she's not, you know she's still on the street, right, she's not at the place that we wish her to be. You know, at this point, think, think about the fact that she just thought it was so important that she was able to help, that that's what she was thankful for, that we allowed her to help, and that's the language she used, which kind of pierced my heart just a little bit and really speaks to what I think so many people want to do. They want to be given the opportunity to do something Right. It's not just about taking, it really is about giving back to, and I think there's lessons in that for all of us.
Speaker 2:Well, I would like to today, since it's my birthday yes, it is to.
Speaker 2:Talk about something that took time for me to realize, okay, and and something that Later on I would utilize to maybe help some, some other young, young folks. And so there's a, there's a chapter in in darkness. I still sign a book that came out quite a number of years ago now it's been over 10 years, but it's chapter 50 and it talks about a couple of things, one in the beginning of the book. I'll kind of finish up with that story, but it's two stories in one. One is that when I was, when I was born 1956, okay, there you go, do the math, that's pretty easy. On February 14, that's a little easier when I'm closer to that. Yeah, you know, one of the things that that I knew about was that my mother was expecting me and living in Germany with my dad and he was a military and and I knew the story that he was in a plane crash with some other soldiers and he died.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And so before I was born, and so my mother came back to the States and I was born here on Valentine's Day, that's why. So it was her little Valentine. She was a widow and and very young I think she was 21 years old at the time and and and really was was pretty alone and so forth. So anyway, okay, I knew the story, you know, growing up she remarried and I got the name Fiecker and, you know, had a great dad and and those kind of things, and so I knew this only from just kind of hearing about it. But when I was 35, I hear I'm at the rescue mission.
Speaker 2:You know I've been working since I was 30 and, you know, doing things and kind of had my own children, and one day I just had some time on a Saturday down in the basement of my house and there was this box. I've been sitting there forever and I opened it up and here were Photographs of my mother when she was a young girl and my biological dad I'd seen a couple of times. I saw a whole bunch more and their soldiers and they're in Germany and you know they're happy and she's pregnant and and and then I opened it up a little bit more. And Then there was this picture of three girls from Topeka, kansas, who had flown to New York, got on a ship and Sailed over to Germany to be with their husbands, and so they were all happy and they were waving on the boat, you know, and that kind of thing. I thought that was really cool time. And then Another article from the Kansas. So the Capitol Journal said Three went, one came back alone.
Speaker 2:Oh my and I looked at that and I was my mom. And Then it went on further, talking about the plane crash and how she was a widow and she had come back, you know, without anything, and later would find out, even beyond that, that she, they wanted her to stay there and have me there because the military didn't want to be responsible for transporting a pregnant woman Mm-hmm but there were other soldiers that knew she needed to get back to the peak of Kansas, so they stowed her away on airplanes.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness pond hopping or country hopping all the way back to the United States. Seriously, yes, on those on those cargo planes, right, okay? So, oh my goodness, because it would have taken days on the ship Sure. And so, and she got back to Topeka, kansas, and, and she came from a fairly dysfunctional home and so her mother and father were divorced and anyway she's all by herself and has me and and and then and a group in North Topeka, you know where we are now, you know, so I'm a.
Speaker 2:North Topeka and Was there and all of a sudden it gripped me what she went through with love, mm-hmm. To go through the distance and go through all those things and never really say, hey, look what I did, you know, but to have all those things. And so I picked up the phone. She was living on Alaska at this time. I remarried because my other dad who raised me, he, had passed away and so she's remarried again third husband and I called her up and she says hello, and I had this big frog in my throat and I squeaked mom, and she goes Barry, no caller ID and uh, yes. And she said are you okay? Are the girls okay? Is Tammy okay? She was panicking.
Speaker 2:I was crying, of course, when I realized the love. That took time for me to realize and I share this story. It took time for me to realize, like a lot of people who are broken and hurt, it takes time or maybe we're just not aware of how much somebody cares for us Ticks time for us to realize the length of by which people will go through to love. And I said, mom, I just read things that I never knew before about you and about your love for me.
Speaker 2:She's oh well, that was a long time ago, Don't? Worry about it, you know, and I said not worried about it, I said just want to say thank you. And so this is so oftentimes when people have been hurt or they feel like they're forgotten, who are in the streets or maybe not in the streets, who don't realize what other people are doing for them and the help her sometimes.
Speaker 2:So, it takes time and so so I just, you know, thanked her profusely and shed tears, and you know she was over it and I wasn't, but I did that awareness and that's what a lot of times people who come into the rescue mission like a Kenny ball, you know. A hundred times he said he was in and out of here and finally he realized how much he was cared for.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, and isn't that amazing. But the other part of your story, barry, is those soldiers, yeah, right. So they knew what she needed and they were willing to go beyond to try to get her where she needed. To be Right, when you think about that. So her courage was amazing, right At a time when I'm imagining grief must have been really significant for her grief and questions like now what am I going to do?
Speaker 3:kind of thing. And then those soldiers wrapping around her, knowing she needed to be home, you know, and that they would do what they needed to go the distance Can you imagine this would in in in 1955 at that time, because I was born in February of 56.
Speaker 2:And so getting on a cargo plane, morning sickness and or whatever she was having at those times, they're not our our. Boeing aircraft today. No, no heat. No, they're wearing coats and right and bumpy rides and those kind of things. And those soldiers and I met I got a chance to meet two of them in my lifetime. You have who were Yep. They said, hey, we were one of the guys that was was friends with Frank, your dad, and and and and your mom, and told me the story as they recalled it.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, they write. I mean, there's, there's people, god is, creates an army around people, and sometimes we just have to say, god, you want me to be part of that army? Right? And sometimes we have to look around and say, god, you've created an army around me, and so so another part of the story of chapter 50 was I was speaking one of our high schools and to some students there and I was talking about the rescue mission and about what we do and just kind of informing them, and I noticed there was one young man who was sitting in the in the students of about 20 or 25 kids and he was just fixed on me. I mean he was. So you know, when you're fixed, when you're speaker, you kind of look at that person and you're talking about this and the other thing, and I noticed that he was welling up with tears in his eyes.
Speaker 2:And so after the class was over and the bell rang for kids to go, I said to the teacher I talked to him for a minute and he said yeah, and so I called him over and I said, hey, what's your name? And he told me his name and I said I know that you were really, really interested in what was going on here today. And he said yeah. He said for the first time in my life I've realized how much my mother loved me.
Speaker 1:I said what do you?
Speaker 2:mean he said when I was a baby I was at the Tepica Rescue Mission and he said I stayed there and you guys took care of her, and that's where I'm at today. And he said I said How's your mom doing? And he gave her name and I didn't remember the name. But he said he said she's doing well and she's married and and we're doing really well. But he said I knew the story but I never knew everything that she probably had to go through in life being homeless and I never understood the value of Tepica Rescue Mission until today.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, yeah, I mean, it's just like so what is love T? I am me.
Speaker 3:It takes time, it takes time and others right and others and others, and that's what we saw happening at the warming centers. It's what we see happen every day here at the mission.
Speaker 3:It's what we hope people that we outreach on the streets feel from not just us but everyone around them. You know and this is a tough time you know across the nation If if I hear it once, I hear it five times a day about people experiencing homelessness all across the nation. It's a big topic, barry, and how do we help people feel the care and the love that your mom felt?
Speaker 3:or that this young man's mom felt. How do we let them know that they're not alone? You know, that was the other thing that struck me, that I heard yesterday or the day before, on Monday, whatever day that was that that people felt like they just weren't alone, or that being out on the streets is so lonely and you don't trust people and you're just lonely. I just thought, oh my goodness, how do we help people understand that that's what people are feeling?
Speaker 3:and how do we help them not feel lonely alone not just lonely, because loneliness is something different, I think, but feeling alone like there is just no one you know, and that they can feel what your mom felt, right, that they felt, though, she felt those soldiers around her, even though she was gonna be on a bumpy ride home, be impregnant.
Speaker 2:It's like, oh bless her heart, and I guess I wasn't the easiest birth.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I happen to know the size that your mom was. She was a little and I'm guessing you were not the tiniest of babies.
Speaker 2:I wasn't, I wasn't huge, but we're coming out of there, but I guess it was. Let's put it this way she said one and done. I was an only kid, so she just never went there again.
Speaker 3:Okay, that says an awful lot Of course.
Speaker 2:I thought the weather's busy because I was, you know, the best one.
Speaker 3:You were just perfect when you came she said ain't going there again.
Speaker 2:No, anybody that knew my mother. She was a firecracker.
Speaker 3:She was a firecracker.
Speaker 2:But you know, maryam, I think that for people who are listening that to this today, we it's important that we do recognize the main thing that to pick a rescue mission is here for is about to express Christ's love to those who are Vulnerable, those who are broken, those who are homeless, but that that extends to about all of us, except for the homeless piece. You know, and it's it's, I think, something that you said here about the, the, the compassion, the love, the care for people, relationship. You know, we look at ways to fix homelessness and we're not going to be successful because we've tried all these things by Trying to fix it with political measures or just money. There's debates on, you know, should they be house first, or treated first, or whatever? Housing first or rehabilitation first? It's about relationship first. You know, if we try to bypass relationship and love, the other things are Tools but they're not really what people need, right.
Speaker 2:And so, if you're listening today, we just kind of want to do, briefly, unpacked, a little bit about lint and about Christ's love for us, and and you know it's not about getting cleaned up and and repenting Before a holy God in order to be accepted. You're already accepted. It's a recognition that he's got a better way and maybe you want to change and accept his ways and and you might think about that today, if you haven't already thought about that, but also know this that he's gone to extreme measures To be patient with all of us, to love us, and he's also created people maybe around you that you haven't really accepted and maybe you're afraid understandable. But you might just on this Valentine's Day, if you're in that place of loneliness and you feel like nobody cares, to just kind of look around and maybe you'll find that there's some people around that you just kind of Maybe can let in, that really do care, and if you're, you're the person that's saying, man, I'm just really blessed and and I'm glad for my life and so forth, just know that God may have an assignment for you today to be able to go and just say to somebody maybe it's somebody sitting in the office that's getting ready to go home tonight, that doesn't feel like they're loved, or maybe they are gonna be alone, whatever, maybe that's just somebody you can just do something nice for them to express love on this Valentine's Day, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to our community, our mission here on February 14th of 2024, podcast number 209 Happens to be a day where we recognize Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day, and thank you for being a part of Topeka rescue mission. If you'd like more to know more about TRM, you can go to TRM online dot org. That's TRM online Online dot org, and just know today that you were loved.