Our Community, Our Mission
Our Community, Our Mission
Ep #262 – Leading with Faith: Meet Zack Bowles
The transformative power of faith takes center stage as Zack Bowles, Executive Director of Resurrection House in Chickasha, Oklahoma, shares his journey from trucking business owner to rescue mission leader. Serving a rural community of 16,000, Resurrection House proves that small towns can address homelessness effectively without merely relocating people to larger cities. Their holistic approach includes emergency shelter, a year-long Life Skills Institute, and a six-month work readiness program, all anchored in strong relationships with local churches to create lasting support networks.
Zack shares stories of incredible transformation, including a former fentanyl and heroin addict who now leads their work readiness program, praying, "God, use me like the drugs used me." We also dive into the heartbreak of relapses and the challenges of leadership, revealing the deep compassion that fuels their mission. Their work goes beyond providing shelter—it’s about fostering a place of hope and healing where people can discover their worth in God's eyes.
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Dear Heavenly Father. We thank you, Lord, for this day and your blessings and provisions. God, we thank you for this time and this podcast and, Lord, for all of the faithful listeners who listen every week. Lord, we thank you for this conversation. Lord, knowing that the work is going on everywhere and that there are faithful servants all across the country, pray your blessing over this conversation and this time In your holy name we pray Amen.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody, thank you for joining us for another episode of Our Community, our Mission, a podcast of the Topeka Rescue Mission here on Tuesday, april the 1st 2025. No kidding, no kidding, no kidding. This is episode number 262. Good morning Lamanda Cunningham. Good morning Topeka Rescue Mission. Hello, how are you? This is actually April 1st, isn't it?
Speaker 3:It is. And do you know, I've already been fooled.
Speaker 2:You have yes, just today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when you have five kids in your house, it's bound to happen. But I woke up this morning, walked into the bathroom and all over the mirror were messages from three of the five kids in toothpaste. Oh, but they were really sweet and honest. They signed their initials so I knew who did it.
Speaker 1:Were they nice messages.
Speaker 3:Yeah, happy Fool's Day. You've been fooled. I mean, like the whole mirror and toothpaste I don't know how I'm going to get it off. But then it was so cute because then it was E, e and B, so I knew exactly which kids had done it and which kids hadn't, which kids have done it and which kids hadn't.
Speaker 2:And then you said to them that was really cute. I'll be glad to clean that up for you. April Fools.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely, you can clean it up yourself.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Well, amanda, we always like to highlight some special things about what these days are, and our research and development department, which is right down the table here from us, and his great team, has created this day. I think it was created by these guys, and so it's called International Fun at Work Day, april 1st, and so that was made for TRM, right, josh? Exactly.
Speaker 1:We actually kicked it off. You did Okay, all right, okay, no other places want to have fun too, I guess.
Speaker 2:It's about time that you created something for international on this day, or something like that. You've been reading everybody else's for so long. So, josh, why was this day created? What's the point?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it was just to well, obviously being April Fool's Day and then having fun at work, right? Like you know, most of us still work, so you know you got to have light fun at work.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:So be careful with these guys.
Speaker 3:I know I have to watch my back, but it's fun around here every day. Even in the midst of the heavy and all of that, we have some jokesters.
Speaker 2:It's called group therapy. Yeah, group therapy.
Speaker 3:We're helping each other through all the muck.
Speaker 1:I heard somebody say one time if you're not laughing, you're crying. That's very true.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you got a day, Josh. Probably should be the Josh Turley International Fun at Work Day.
Speaker 1:Hey, there you go. I like that. I'm going to try and see. If I can't get that, Make sure we do that next year too Into law here.
Speaker 2:It's also National Greeting Card Day.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2:Do you know my address? Yes, okay, I'm expecting something in my mailbox this afternoon. Got it. It's a sweet Five to seven business days April fools, april fools. It's a way to tell people you're thinking about them, and so this is probably the biggest part of today. It's Boomer Bonus Day. Boomer Bonus Day. Do we know what Boomer Bonus Day is? Lamanda?
Speaker 3:You are a bonus every day, Barry.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:A bonus dose of a lot.
Speaker 2:Some of us boomers every day on April the 1st. Nobody can see this, can they, josh?
Speaker 3:Okay, because he's making faces at me.
Speaker 2:Is it okay if I pull her chair out from under here? April Fools so some of us who are at boomer status, instead of millennial and all those other things, we should be able to get an extra special discount today at the restaurant.
Speaker 4:You should.
Speaker 2:It should be a bonus discount Sure yes, anyway, after one of these days. Lamanda, you're going to go to a restaurant and they're going to say, are you a senior, would you like a discount? And you're going to be insulted until you find out and do the math and go yep you bet I'm going to take it. We're good. So, Amanda, any updates before we get into a very special guest today who is from Oklahoma.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:So any updates in Topeka.
Speaker 3:I would just say, if you are on our newsletter list, make sure that you checked out the newsletter that you should have just gotten in the last week or two. It was our annual report and you know we take that very seriously. That's why we do it at the end of first quarter to really analyze the data for the year before. But that annual report has everything on there from financial reportings to numbers regarding our shelter, food numbers, street reach numbers, housing numbers, all of those kinds of things. It doesn't capture everything that we track, of course, but we do try to put as much as possible in that spread and I just want to give a big thank you to all of our department heads who help keep up and track the data. You know we're big here on statistics, but we also know every statistic equals a story and we care about the story more than the stat. But we have to also report on the stats.
Speaker 3:I also want to give a big thank you to Josh and Isaiah and Miriam, who do a lot of behind the scenes of kind of hearing my vision and making it happen, and so newsletter every month with Mike Schottel and Josh. That is a feat for us three, but the annual report is a whole different beast because of layouts and graphics and triple quadruple checking numbers, all of that. So please make sure that you check that out. It should have hit your mailboxes in March. Have we done the post yet?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's posted on social, it's on our website and then yeah, and then also trying to do that during the middle of two warming centers was fun.
Speaker 3:Yes, so that was interesting. Um so it's a little bit later than normal too. Um so if anybody has concerns with that, I will apologize. I will own that, but we kind of had to take a pause on something so that we could do the warming centers. I mean that was front and center. People were more important than numbers. People were more important than numbers.
Speaker 3:So, numbers came out late, but that came out late because of me. Uh, because we put that on the back burner to operate the shelters, the warming centers. So that was the major update. Want to make sure everybody checks that out.
Speaker 3:Um, and then I just also wanted to express some gratitude you know I was reflecting um over the weekend just so much thankfulness for people who are involved in conversations right now about homelessness, who maybe never have been and they are so next steps or solution-based minded, not just to cause problems, not just to do this, but bringing their questions, bringing the uncertainties, the things they don't understand and sometimes negative thoughts.
Speaker 3:I feel like we're starting to see that really be aimed in the right areas right now and people really joining together to say, hey, I don't understand homelessness or I don't get this and those kinds of things. I've just had some really cool conversations the past several weeks and I just appreciate people wanting to educate themselves, their businesses or the groups that they're involved with. You know, I know you might want to say a thing about all hands on deck, those community meetings, but just a lot of gratitude in my heart right now for our rescue mission, not feeling isolated in this work and really feeling like people from all walks are trying to join into the complexities instead of running away from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think that the things have changed significantly, especially post-pandemic, when things got to be so much more complicated and more people on the streets and so it used to be the focus was around what is the Topeka Rescue Mission doing about this? Right Now it is what is Topeka Rescue Mission and the community doing about this, with some good conversation about does it have to be this way? And I think that the answer to that is no. It doesn't have to be the way it is. It could get worse, yes, but it can get better.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so what do we do to make it better?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I was, you know, to piggyback off of that. The last thing that I would think of is if somebody is listening to this and still like, well, I didn't get to come to a community meeting for all hands on deck or I'm not able to volunteer at the rescue mission. Another way that you can get plugged in that, I could tell you, is a way that you are immediately a part of a solution is to donate non-perishable food items to the rescue mission. You know I want to be very careful with how I word it and we don't need to sound alarms, but in the upcoming weeks we are going to be doing a podcast kind of designated to food insecurity and what we're seeing, and one of the concerns that I have right now is because of people's personal budgets being impacted and uncertainties that many people are facing in donations of canned foods, boxes of non-perishable food items, canned goods of various things, whether it's the tuna, whether it's the boxes of rice.
Speaker 3:We've seen a significant decline, and so I spent Monday walking through the distribution center Again, a lot of empty shelves and we're doing the asks. It's out there. But I recognize we have a very generous community, but I also recognize we have a community that itself is being impacted. So, if you can, or if you're involved in a church group or you're involved in a work group or maybe just even a friend group that you meet once a month, please consider maybe doing a canned food drive. What we see God do with that is you might bring us 10 cans and not think that that's enough, and we might have 10 supplemental bags that need a canned good in it and we see that all the time.
Speaker 3:So, whether you're getting involved you know, volunteering or getting involved in community conversations or a more immediate need would be, you know, shop online. If you can't come, have it sent to 401 Northwest Norris for our distribution center so that the canned goods can go straight to there. But that is a way that I can promise you. You are immediately meeting a need that we significantly have for our area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think people do want to get involved. That's a very practical way they can do that. If you want to learn more information, you could go about what's happening with homeless. You could go to the Topeka Rescue Mission website that's trmonlineorg. Trmonlineorg Also the Facebook page for Topeka Rescue Mission, and there's a new developed Facebook page called All Hands on Deck, topeka, shawnee County. That's going to really be unpacking the larger issue of chronic homelessness and how we can solve this coming up. So there is a little bit out there right now, but there's going to be a series of different posts that are coming up over a period of months that are going to help people to really know what they can do. What they can do Well, amanda, one of the things that you have done this month marks your third year as CEO come April 22nd.
Speaker 2:You were on board for a number of months before that, so we're running kind of like three and a half four years of you being here.
Speaker 2:But one of the things you got involved with was a CityGate Network annual conference and in that you were introduced to some other what would be called emerging leaders and you've been able to be able to engage with some of those leaders and it's not all executive directors or CEOs from rescue missions around the country, with what's called the CityGate Network, which I think is approximately 300 in North America, and so one of the things that you have been doing is keeping in touch with them and having monthly Zoom calls and then when you get to see each other, and so one of the things that you wanted to do which I think is a great idea is to be able to peak a rescue mission in our community, our mission, to highlight some of those rescue missions, the relationships that you had and today we're going to have here via Zoom online podcast technology. Thank you, josh. However, you do all this mojo, but it's the director from the Chickasha, oklahoma rescue mission. Please introduce your friend and we're going to talk to Zach.
Speaker 3:Yes, so joined with us today is Zach and Zach. You know, I know, Barry, we're not supposed to have favorites.
Speaker 2:Well, I know I am so, but yeah, I forgot.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm not the director anymore, that's right.
Speaker 3:You're my favorite, april Fool's, but my real favorite would be Zach and his sweet, sweet wife, gloria, one of the first couples that I met at the CityGate Network Conference, one of the first conferences that I went to, and you know I was personally in the stage of I'd been an educator and I'm switching from education to go to rescue mission work and definitely did not feel qualified for that. But yet, walking in my calling of God, doing that, and what I found was there were many of us in that room where we were all like man, all of us feel like we're unequipped for this and it just feels like the job is so big and the pressures are so big and sometimes some of us felt like we had really great leaders to help mentor us into that role and some of us felt like we were kind of more on our own and I don't know. Stories just started being told and Jordan, who we spoke to last month, and I just realized like hey, we need a community and we don't know what that looks like, but we need something. That's outside of this annual conference and so it's neat. A lot of us were able to get to know each other via social media.
Speaker 3:You know technology is not always bad. Even though I'm old school and I like my pencil and paper, I do like being able to keep up with a lot of my friends and emerging leaders, and so, yeah, zach, I wanted him to be on as our second ED CEO level person that we're interviewing. Last month we talked to Jordan Smith and he is over development and everything at his rescue mission, and so now I think that it's neat to be able to switch states and go to Oklahoma and kind of hear what's going on, what trends Zach's seeing the challenges he's facing, but also a little bit of his testimony on what trends Zach's seeing the challenges he's facing, but also a little bit of his testimony how to get there.
Speaker 2:Well, zach Bowles, chickasha, oklahoma, Zach, what's the name of your rescue mission there? Resurrection.
Speaker 4:House Resurrection House. Thank you all so much for allowing me to come on and I'm excited to you know. See you guys and LaManda, and it's just that CityGate thing. I don't know. I think we went to our first city gate thing at the same time.
Speaker 3:I think so too.
Speaker 4:I think it was both our first ones, and so it was exciting to be able to see that, just the transformation that God does in people.
Speaker 2:Zach, how long have you been with the rescue mission there total or in your position and what's that rescue mission like in Oklahoma?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I came on on April 1st of 2020. So the big dreaded date of COVID shutting everything down.
Speaker 2:Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary, oh wait, it is my anniversary. Wow, hey so I've been here for five years.
Speaker 4:Just realized that. But time goes fast when you're having fun.
Speaker 2:So, you came in as executive director at that time five years ago. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I've had zero experience anything. I did own my own trucking business, so I left it to come to this. So I'm sitting here laughing at her education.
Speaker 3:I'm like, hey, at least you got education.
Speaker 2:I didn't have nothing.
Speaker 4:You know, I just had a call from God, and so it's exciting to see what God can use out of somebody. You know, something that I've always seen is exciting to me is when God uses somebody that is completely not set up for that type of mission and he just goes in there and he truly uses that individual to shake things up a bit.
Speaker 2:So in the old days he used to say that rescue missions were the only place you could crawl in the front door as a hopeless alcoholic and 10 years later be the executive director. Sounds like that wasn't your story. But you were walking by the door one day and they grabbed you and brought you in and made you the director. Huh yeah pretty much.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my pastor. He had just came on and so I'd surrendered to the ministry under him and he was wanting to do some sort of like addictions ministry through the church. And one of our church members had said that, uh, he didn't want him to reinvent the wheel. He's like you know, there's already a ministry here in town. Why don't you get plugged in with that? And so whenever he met with him the director at that time, he was like, hey, I'm looking for a retirement plan, I'm looking to make my way out, and I just surrendered, and so they brought it to me and so I started kind of getting plugged in and about a year later well, yeah, around a year later I stepped in the doors the executive director and the previous executive director. He stayed on with us for about seven or eight more months and then, and then he, he retired and left it all to me.
Speaker 4:And I tell you it wasn't the, it wasn't the greatest. Uh, I remember calling him. I was on my way to work april 1st listening to the radio of everything getting shut down, and I called him. I was like, hey, what am I supposed to do? Here he goes. I don't know. You're the executive director, you get to make that decision.
Speaker 4:So be trusted in God and move forward.
Speaker 3:There's been probably six times now that I call Barry and Barry has got to be and I know I'm biased, but he's got to be, hands down the best mentor on earth. April.
Speaker 2:Fools again.
Speaker 3:No, that's not an April Fools, I'm being nice but I love it and I love that I can bring anything to him and all of that. But last week I brought something to him and he does this thing where he chuckles and then he says, well, I don't know Cause I never had that happen. And so last week I told him, I said, if I hear that out of your mouth again, wise out, we're going to have a problem. And he said, well then, quit having junk happen that I have no experience with. And we just laughed.
Speaker 3:But when you said that you know, three years into this role, there's still stuff that just happens. And I'm like, okay, the wise thing here is to go to your mentor. And then I go to my mentor and Barry reminds me like, like it's something new all the time, even with all of the wisdom, all of the experience he has. You know he did it 36 years before retiring or 37. There's still stuff that just comes up and you don't know. But it's incredible to have support, whether it's through friendship, whether it's through city gate mentorship, whatever it is, so that when you go, hey, what am I supposed to do about this? Somehow between that village you figure it out, and the Lord, of course, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Zach we've all had our first day and unless we worked in rescue mission work, LaManda had not done that, I had not done that, you had not done that. I can't imagine your first time in the door you get a pandemic thrown at you at the same time. I mean time in the door you get a pandemic thrown at you at the same time. I mean, who had radar for that? Who had understanding for that? So you believed, you understood, not believe, you really understood. The Lord called you there, and so what was that like to have this whole thing in your hands now and then this pandemic, and you call your former director and he goes man, I've been there, done that. So what went through your mind? Go back to trucking.
Speaker 4:No, no, it was simply, um, trust in the Lord. I knew that I could. I couldn't look at every other business or every other church or whatever in the same light of what we were doing, because we would do with it. We were putting people's lives at risk if we didn't open our doors, and so we just had to have faith and trust in the Lord. And that's what we did. We just kept moving forward. We did as many precautions as we could, but we just kept going on and the Lord blessed that. The Lord bless that. The lord. Uh, you know, um, we had maybe two or three small outbreaks, like not during that time, though it was after everything had opened up. So, during the time of when everything was closed down, we, uh, we really were able to move forward and and, uh, no, nothing real bad. I don't think we had anything for about a year of any type of COVID in the building, and then, honestly, I think it was the staff that got it first and then some of the folks here.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, just trusting the Lord, and whenever you do this, I'm sure y'all understand there's a lot of that trust in the Lord, because there's a lot of questions that you don't have, and that's something I'm super grateful for CityGate, I didn't I'm not trying to be rude or anything but the previous director that we had, once he stepped away. He stepped away, and so I didn't have anybody that I could sit there and call up on other than my own pastor, and he had never done anything like this before either. So it was both. So that's where CityGate came in and played a huge, huge role in our developing where we are today and just continuing to grow and continuing to serve the Lord.
Speaker 2:For those that don't really know much about CityGate, it's an organization, an association of rescue ministries in North America that's been around for over 100 years and it's predominantly relational people getting to know each other, some technical training, but it's missions sharing with missions, about what they've learned, what they're doing, director sharing with directors, food service sharing with food service and those kind of things. So I was in the same boat as you. When I came, there wasn't anybody around and there was no one to show me the ropes. And, yeah, you trust the Lord. And then you're grateful when you get that call hey, would you like to come to a meeting where there's some other people doing your stuff? And you go, yeah when, like this afternoon maybe, no, down the road, we didn't have the technology back then.
Speaker 2:We had three times a year that we could get with folks and actually we did have telephones back then, which was really kind of cool, but we had no emails or internet or those kind of things, and so it was pretty much desert until you got a chance to go meet with the folks. But now, because of the technology, you guys can get on a Zoom like we're doing right now, share information back and forth. So, zach, talk to us about the rescue mission there in Chickasha. How long has it been around? Who do you serve? How big is the community of Chickasha?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we've been around for 34 years Actually, no, 36 years now, man, 36 years and really it just started to help serve those that were living under the bridges here in Chickasha. Chickasha is a rather small community. We have 16,000 people in our town and so really the people that we serve I wouldn't say I would say it's more of a middle class community, not necessarily high class or low class, but we deal with a lot of drugs and I'm sure, like everybody, mental health is a huge thing here. But the drugs we have two interstate systems that run kind of right right around Chickasha and they're both large state systems and so we see a lot of drug trafficking and really we haven't had to deal with a whole lot of sex trafficking or anything, but I would say the drug trafficking and the mental health, those are our two main main individuals that we serve. But our goal is just to commit to provide life skills, training and shelter for families and individuals in our area for Christ.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting 36 years ago you guys were starting and at that time it was a response to a pretty small community, 16,000 or so people who were experiencing homelessness at that time. But it does make sense when you're talking about mental health and addiction issues that were affecting even a small community in what might be considered rural Oklahoma. How close are you to Oklahoma City or Tulsa? Those areas?
Speaker 4:So we're about a 30-minute from Oklahoma city and then about two and a half hours from from Tulsa, um, and so we have that. And then we have a community, uh Southwest of us, called Lawton. I don't know if y'all have heard of Lawton, oklahoma, but uh, they've got quite a bit of uh struggles with poverty there. They're a larger town, about 100,000. And so we see some folks coming from there as well.
Speaker 2:So you do see some spillover from those communities too. You know, in Kansas there's communities of 16,000, a little more, a little less that have no resources for their homeless population. It sounds like what happened 36 years ago is they said we don't necessarily want to just send them over 30 miles away to Oklahoma City, we need to take care of our own, which says a lot about you guys and what started almost 40 years ago. Talk about the services of your rescue mission there. You mentioned families. So we have single men, single women and families, and approximately how many people do you serve at a time?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we have one building but we've kind of got it divided into two buildings really. But we serve women, men and families. We're pretty limited on capacity on families, but we also don't see a whole lot of families as well. But we see, probably our average is probably around 25 men a night and then we have usually around 10 to 15 women, so much more men come through here. We see, right now we're seeing maybe three or four families a year, so we really don't see a whole lot of families. But yeah, that's the main things.
Speaker 4:We have a shelter which is what is actually called the Resurrection House. We have three different programs. So we have the Resurrection House, which is considered our shelter, and then we also have the Life Skills Institute. So that's our program. It's a one-year program and our goal in that is to really walk alongside these individuals and walk alongside their churches and kind of just encourage that relationship to grow, because we know that we're not going to be here forever for them but their church should be, and so that's our goal is to kind of just mend those two relationships and then help them to walk together.
Speaker 4:We also have a work readiness program help them to walk together. We also have a work readiness program. Something that I was unaware or of thinking about was that, you know, my thought was get here and help them get a job. But whenever you realize that there's a lot of them, especially with the mental health or the backgrounds that they may have, it's not that easy. And so we developed a work readiness program, which is a six-month program that they worked with us through that and then at the end of that program we helped them get a job that's able to be a good start for them. So that's our three programs, but really the the our biggest hope and prayer is that they have a good relationship with Jesus Christ At the end of their stay with us.
Speaker 2:Zach, what changes in the last five years have you seen in regards to the needs there in Chickasha, and how has a resurrection House responded to those needs? Has there been any needs? Again, you came in during a pandemic. Things were starting to really unravel in so many different areas, so maybe you don't have any radar prior to the pandemic, but has there been an increase in people who are unsheltered, an increase in people struggling with mental illness and addiction there? And are you looking? Are things pretty status quo, or are you maybe busting at the seams and maybe need to do something more?
Speaker 4:No, I mean really what I would say was addiction rose during COVID. People didn't rely on what you know us, as Christians are able to rely on. They rely on different sources, and so we did see addiction rise, which led people to bad circumstances. We have a county jail. That's also a transport system for the, you know, for national inmates and stuff, and so federal inmates. So we did see, we do see a lot of people coming from the jail system here, but so that was where we saw an increase.
Speaker 4:And then mental health, I think. I think mental health's been pretty steady since I've been here. I wouldn't say it's necessarily gotten better or worse. I would say our main thing that I've noticed is the addiction seemed to get worse and then kind of going down.
Speaker 4:Now, as far as us, we have an incredible building that God blessed us with. Our biggest need is the funds to be able to hire the staff. So, like right now, we're kind of lower on numbers, but whenever it's the winter months, the middle of summer, we see a lot of people and we're just kind of handling what we can handle with the amount of staff we have. We have four no five staff full-time staff members and then three part-time. So it can get a little interesting whenever we do see numbers. We kind of put our cap for how many people we're able to serve here as 35 to 40, just depending on the needs. But it's pretty rare that we get up to that. I would say we we can kind of get up to that 35 number pretty easily, but it's it's rare to see 40.
Speaker 2:Zach uh. Rescue missions, um, are kind of downstream from a lot of society problems. Talk about the addiction, the mental illness, homelessness itself as a condition of other or symptom of other conditions. Talk about what you've discovered in your relationship with Jesus Christ and how this is so important to you personally as well as the people you're trying to serve.
Speaker 4:Well, I think, as the Bible talks about the Great Commission, I think we all have a certain responsibility of spreading the gospel.
Speaker 4:But the thing is you don't see many people that have the idea that the gospel is the way of life or that Christianity is the way of life.
Speaker 4:It's kind of an idea or a one-time thing. It's kind of an idea or a one-time thing, but what we try to share here and encourage here is to live by the principles of the Bible and the gospel, because that's really where you see growth, you see people changing their lives. You do see, you know, I've seen Christ do incredible miracles to people that I really didn't personally have a whole lot of hope for. But it doesn't stop there. And so, just teaching them to continue that life, a lot of our curriculums that we do we kind of put together ourselves because we want to make sure that they get the point of there is, even if we have somebody that's not a believer, there's still core principles in the Bible that can teach you how to live a healthy lifestyle, and so we just completely surround our, our people that come in and everything we teach with with the core values of Christ and what he teaches.
Speaker 2:So what would you say to the listener here who really doesn't exactly understand the Christian life or what that could be for a person who is suffering from the different things we've talked about? And you talk about these miracles of people. Maybe you weren't sure there was much hope for, but you saw a miracle happen. Give us a paint, a picture on that for us.
Speaker 4:Well, I just I have a gentleman here that now works for us he's actually our director for our work readiness program and he came in addicted to fentanyl, addicted to heroin, and really had just no hope for life. That would be pretty serious stuff, yeah, and whenever he came in fentanyl, I'm just kind of learning about it.
Speaker 4:And all I'm hearing is people dying right and left. And so I see this guy come in and he's broken. So I see this guy come in and he's broken. He's been through multiple rehabs, multiple secular programs, different things that he's just like you know. He's kind of starting to get to the point where he's giving up hope. He is tired of hurting relationships with his family, he is tired of hurting his friends and just continuing down that path and so. But the reaction to the gospel with him completely changed his life, because it was.
Speaker 4:People think that we live in America, everybody's heard of Jesus Christ, everybody's heard of the gospel, but people may have heard the name but they don't understand what power he holds. And so him actually changing his life for Christ. Now he's in the ministry full time, now he's doing things, and this is somebody like that has no signs of any type of mental health problems today, as we can see, but has been through mental health facilities, through. So it tells you how much drugs really mess up with your mind and everything. And now you're talking about a guy who's completely freed from all of that, and so that's our hope and it's a blessing that he gets to work with us, because that guy walks around the facility every day as an example.
Speaker 4:Yes, it can be done and God, just God, uses so many different examples to be able to use to help people overcome something. We don't always know exactly what somebody is going through, but God, god works through all of us to be able to kind of hit that spot that somebody could actually relate to him, and so I'm sure we all have wonderful pictures of what it looks like for God to take hold of somebody. But that's what we have here and our case manager, he's been through it, he's went through another program but we've brought him in. Uh, and just the passion, um, he has a, he has a saying that say it says God used me like the drugs used me and that's his, and that's his go-to and and he goes hard for those people. I mean he will go to the thick and the thin and the rough and everything just to share the gospel with somebody.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine these five years now, your anniversary day, just reflecting hearing what you're saying? This is probably what really keeps you in the game, doesn't it?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I remember what's what's wild um. And another, another example of god um, the gentleman that we have now me and him are super close friends as well and, uh, I had just got burned by a guy that I was really kind of um, discipling. He was doing good. Well, then I found out that he had been using some drugs that weren't passing on or popping up on UAs and stuff, and it really hurt me because I was really close with him and found out that he is, you know, in my mind he's betraying me this and that. But I had to grow from that and learn that that's just how addiction works sometimes. But I was kind of at my breaking point. It wasn't that I was ready to quit, it was that I was just like I'm lost, I don't know what to do here.
Speaker 4:I remember praying to God. I said, god, I need you to send somebody that I can look at as an example and say, okay, you're doing something here, you're doing something in me. And I look back and I'm like, well, god answered my prayer. It's not one of those things where you see it immediately. You know, sometimes it takes a little bit, but just to see the I mean the heart and everything of these individuals that come from addiction and come from these struggles, and once they're sold out, they're sold out.
Speaker 4:I mean they are there and ready to serve the Lord.
Speaker 2:Well, amanda, you have been, as we said, here almost four years now in total rescue mission work. You've had Christ in your life for many years, but it's hard work, a lot of heartbreaks in many areas that people don't even know about, talk about, as maybe Zach has. How does this Jesus factor play into your ability to do what you do and to keep you moving forward?
Speaker 3:You know, I think, like Zach kind of mentioned, you know he has to walk through this lesson right when you're talking about the betrayal and then you have to give it to the Lord. And because we're people too right I'm trying to do, we're ordinary people trying to do super ordinary things that require the Lord because we cannot do it in our power. But I think one of the biggest lessons that I've learned in this work, in this ministry, and it's also it's been so rewarding I don't know if that's the right word, but also corrective in my life but it's that Christ's character is not determined by circumstance. Christ's character is not determined by circumstance.
Speaker 2:What's an example of that?
Speaker 3:character is not determined by circumstance. What's an example of that I think I have, you know you mentioned. You know I was saved at eight and I was a very mature kid, kind of had to be because of my upbringing and I remember loving people deeply. My mom tells a story oftentimes about um, we would be walking in a store, particularly Walmart, before they were supermarts, and they she would turn around and she would be going down the first aisle and she'd realize I never came in the store because I was sitting next to someone at the front door and I told her well, they were hurting, so I was talking to them. So I mean this has been kind of embedded in me.
Speaker 3:But even growing up in church I felt like God is punitive when you're bad and he's loving when you're good. That's kind of how I had this mentality and over the years that has molded and I think softened and understood and all of that, especially as a teacher, special education teacher, and then as a principal and then getting into some leadership stuff, I started realizing like God's character he does not change because of the circumstances that change in this world, like who he was in the Bible is exactly who he is today and will be until he comes, and so I've wrestled with that on my own things. So when I've messed up, I feel like you know the lesson I was supposed to learn of that is well, what's? What am I getting punitively from the Lord and what? How am I going to be punished? And this, this and this.
Speaker 3:And what I've realized is that, even in the struggles regardless if it's addiction, regardless if it's mental health, regardless if it's sin, regardless of whatever it is that we serve a God who made us in his image and we serve a God who does not like those things but loves the person. And when Zach has talked this whole time about just being so excited of the transformation, I would have to agree with him. And when you look at that, I think the biggest thing we need to be telling people is that Christ doesn't change. Even when we do so, if that person is in the middle of addiction and is strung out, passed out, whatever, there is a God that's still looking upon that person lovingly and is breaking for that person and is wanting that person to come to him ready to transform that heart and that soul, and it is so cool to be a part of that, that we see it.
Speaker 3:But then I think it's also powerful and I hope many leaders are doing it that we look at ourselves that same way and that sometimes, when we're hard on ourselves because we don't have the answers, zach, or we might make a mistake, or we walk in the flesh because our feelings are hurt because of betrayal or worry or whatever, that, that same God that loved people in the scripture, even when there's consequences and stuff, god is so, he's so just that.
Speaker 3:That same God is the same one for us that is telling us like, hey, I love you, son, I've called you to this, or daughter, I see what you're struggling with, but you have that power, you have me in you and to me. That is what motivates me, because I'm not sure as a society we truly understand the character of Christ, because we've made it so reformed, we've made it so ritualistic, we've made it so checkboxy. And I just need people to know that people that seem very unlovable on the streets or in our shelters or in the midst of the, whatever struggle it is, that they are truly loved by the Creator and the Creator is not waiting to sit there and put His hammer on them. And we're called to share that hope. And that same level of hope of transformation also happens in us as leaders, if we allow the Lord to work in us. And that is what is so motivating to me, but also corrective, because God has shown me. I did not understand his character until this role.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amanda Zach, I think that one of the things that the world is very hungry for is the authentic Jesus and we have reformed him to utilize his name. And without the power and unfortunately that becomes legalistic law, and there's so many people, even in church today, in church today. One of the things that I've enjoyed about a rescue mission experience is not only that practical help and getting me to see God step into these places miraculously, that we couldn't do, you couldn't have done the pandemic without the Lord, none of us could have navigated. You can't navigate. You couldn't have navigated these five years without the Lord. You know that this is too hard work, it's impossible work.
Speaker 2:But not only do we get to be in that space where we can walk with the people that Christ walked with, but also the other people that Christ walked with that don't necessarily know they need him and to be able to be that reflection of so that's authentic Christianity. Not because of us you mentioned. We're people. We're kind of messy. Sometimes it's a messy world. Jesus came for messy people, but we get to see God walk in the middle of the mess and Zach, amanda and other rescue mission staff members, volunteers, people they get to walk in the mess and they get to see the Jesus in the middle of the mess, and there's no covering it up, there's no. You can't make it look pretty and shiny, it's just not. But it's authentic, it's real, it's it's, it's. It's a place you can find Christ, because we're desperate for him and the people that are coming through the doors are desperate for him too.
Speaker 3:Can I say one thing on that? I think that's. I love how Zach mentioned like the hurt a little bit when somebody whether it's a relapse or maybe someone seems like they're on a path and then stumbles. You know, I think that we need to start talking about that more too. I think there's a lot of pressures on leaders. I have never been asked, whether it's in a church, speaking event or whatever. I've never had somebody come up to me and say, well, how many people have relapsed?
Speaker 3:But everybody wants to know the success, outcomes, what looks good, right, what's what's happened, and I think those things are great. But I also think that we're shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit, because there were a lot of successes with that individual that you mentioned, zach. Like there's a lot of successes that he was able to jump through and to do. And just because there is a backslide does not mean that that's an outcome we shouldn't be reporting on. And the other side of that is that's probably the hardest part of my job on a spiritual level is the they're not ready yet and I don't have the answers to that. I don't. I don't know if that ever gets better. I don't know. I don't know if you, if you juggle it better, but the Lord is really correcting me. There's a pattern here. If you haven't picked up on it. I'm going through a lot of correction in my life.
Speaker 3:No-transcript, because we also serve a God that has given us free will and choice, and all of that because he is a just God and he's a father. But that's probably one of my biggest challenges now and has been since I've been in this role, and I'm not sure it gets better. But it's just the worry that comes along when someone's not ready yet. And where did they go? Are they okay? And a couple of them have ended in death and I still wrestle with that. I still wrestle with that and just hope that they were healed in a way that that couldn't be done on Earth. But I think I think that there needs to be more outlets for leaders, particularly to be able to talk about those mishaps, the relapses, the backslides, because those hurt a lot for ourselves and our teams and sometimes we don't get to talk about that part of the humanity piece.
Speaker 3:We should hurt one another.
Speaker 4:Something that helps me through that is, a lot of people are like well, how many people return to your facility? How many people leave and then come back? Well, there's a few, but the reason they're coming back is because they realize that the path that they decided to leave for was not the right path, and if they would have never saw that through us in the first place, they wouldn't have anywhere to return. So it may not be the first time, may not be. I've seen I'm sure y'all have too three, four, five times where people come in and come in, and then they finally get it right.
Speaker 4:But that is something I have to always hold dear to, that I can't be the one who's making the timing, but I can at least plant the seed. And then also, I always have to realize that this is not for anybody, but for the Lord, my mission. At the core of it I'm serving God, and so even whenever I fail, I know that I've brought glory to him in some way. So if you stop bringing glory to God, that's whenever we're messing up, sure.
Speaker 2:When others hurt, we're supposed to hurt with them. That's the full definition of compassion. There's hurt, we're supposed to hurt with them. That's the full definition of compassion. That Greek word, splagnesomai.
Speaker 2:When Jesus saw the multitudes he had, splagnesomai he got hit in the gut when they were hurting because of all their needs. But he didn't stop with the hurt. He then began to minister to them, to touch them, to love them, to heal their sick and to feed their hungry. And that's what we've been called to do. But we're still going to hurt. And if we don't hurt, then we probably should get a different job. And so but you're right, we're not the finisher of the story.
Speaker 2:And so we're just a piece of the story. So, Zach, anything else you'd like to share with us today? Our listeners are not only here in Topeka, Shawnee County in Kansas. There are a lot of different places. Might be even somebody from Chickasha, Oklahoma, that's going to get a chance to listen to this. I hope so. Anything else from your perspective there in Oklahoma Rescue Mission work now five years city gate. Anything else you'd like for us to know?
Speaker 4:I think the biggest thing that's been a big part of my heart, like you had mentioned, rural areas. They don't get touched a whole lot. This is very rare to have a ministry like this in a rural community. My heart's big on it doesn't take a lot, it takes somebody. It takes somebody just to move forward and say, hey, you know what, we're going to put something together where these ones that want help I understand it's tough for the ones that they have that back and forth and they all want help, but some of them desire a different way of getting it.
Speaker 4:But to create a path for the ones that are ready to make a change, I think every community needs that, whether you're 5,000 people or a million people. So I just I pray that we see more churches and more community efforts to the smaller communities as well, where it may be not put so much pressure on the big cities that are already dealing with their huge, huge crisis of, of, uh, of homeless. But we can. We can help with what we have and so, uh, that's that's been my heart and that's where I'm hoping that I'm leading this ministry is to continue growing on that aspect.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate hearing that. Um, we're struggling with some of that in our part of northeast Kansas right now. Some of the smaller communities are beginning to see things they've never seen before and their solution is send them to Topeka, send them to Lawrence, send them to Kansas City to be able to move them out. But I think you know, zach, just understanding a little bit more about you and what you've done, what people did before you, could be a great role model for some of our other communities to know what they might do locally as well. So don't be terribly surprised if I don't pass your information on to somebody else here in.
Speaker 2:Kansas. You may get a call, but, yeah, share with them and, of course, the most important foundational thing is about the relationship with Christ. So, zach, thanks for joining us today. Lamanda, anything else?
Speaker 3:No, thanks, zach, for coming on and thanks for what you do, thanks to your wife, because I know that that is a sacrifice, right, because the position is demanding and it impacts everyone, the good, the bad and the ugly. So you're just very special to me, you're very special to CityGate Network and we appreciate you sharing your heart and your thoughts about your own self, your ministry, what you're seeing and your area. So glad you're on.
Speaker 4:Thank you all so much for having me on. And, amanda, I've been telling you for like three years now that one day we're going to come up there and visit y'all. So, I'm still holding to it.
Speaker 2:I don't know when that's going to be, and it is coming up here.
Speaker 4:I'm super grateful for what y'all are doing and I'm grateful for both of y'all, especially Amanda, being there. I mean, there's been calls both ways for support so thank y'all both.
Speaker 2:That's why they call it the network. So, anyway, we've heard from the executive director of Resurrection House in Chickasha, oklahoma, zach Bowles, who's a member of the CityGate Network and just wanted to highlight this relationship it's Topeka Rescue Mission benefits from, as well as also contributing to in this bigger work of helping our neighbors and loving the ones in front of us. Thank you for listening to our community, our mission, a podcast of the Topeka Rescue Mission. If you'd like more information about TRM, you can go to trmonlineorg. That's trmonlineorg. Thank you for listening.