An Army of Normal Folks - Bishop Martin: My Small Church Adopted 77 Kids (Pt 2)

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Bishop is the inspiration for Angel Studio’s latest film, Sound of Hope. And we hope his story will inspire an adoption revolution in America.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Bishop W.C. Martin right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. For decades, the Mafia had New York City in stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle

the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government.

From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our

lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more, because the more we know about what's running under the hood,

the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971, a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy shit, we are really here. This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals.

They were ordinary citizens, but they needed to know the truth about the FBI. Burglaries, forged blackmail letters, and threats of violence were used to try to stop anti-war marches. Even if that meant risking everything. I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop

the fire. I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two Medburg, the story of a daring heist that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite.

I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, voila, you got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Buzz Knight and I'm the host of the Taking a Walk podcast, Music History on Foot. Ian Hunter. Hello, Ian. It's Ringo. How'd your faxing going on the tour? You get the chills when a Beatles or your answering machine. The podcast is an audio diary of insightful conversations with musicians and the inside

stories behind their music. Kenny Aronoff. I wake up every morning and I feel grateful, but I know it didn't come from luck. If you get a lucky break, you better be prepared. You better be ready. If you've done your homework and you're continuing to do your homework,

you'll turn that lucky break into something great. The message of the podcast is simple. Honest conversation with musicians about the music they create. Cardi Wilson. You know, I mean, Elton John picked me up and put me back in my crib when I was a toddler. It's like, that's the thing that's so cool is you got, I've got these stories because

of my life. Listen to the Take and Walk podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Donna was struggling and you said God put it on her mind to adopt or foster? At first we didn't know what he meant, give back. So what we done, when I got home that evening, she went to telling me about it. And see, the thing of it is, I told her, girl, you done lost your mind. And you have lost your last mind. Because see, the reason why I felt like that because of my biological son. My biological son Princeton was born with severe brain damage. My wife stayed in labor for 18 and a half hours and the doctors didn't

know she couldn't have a child normal birth. After the jokes he came out with brain damage. And all I could think of, this was a handful, because even the doctors, when he was born, tried to get us to award him to the state. He was just that bad. And I told him, no, he's not mongoloid at all, but he do have brain damage. And he's 40-something years old now,

about 44 years old now, and we still have to take care of him. And he was a handful as a little boy. That's what I'm saying. We already had our handful with him. And then the Donna, she came along and- Your natural daughter. Yeah, my natural daughter.

And then when she gonna tell me about adoption, I thought she was like lost her mind because she knew. Well, and plus, it wasn't like you had a bunch of money. No, no, we didn't have no money. That wasn't enough money. I mean, you were piecing it together. That's right. Uh-huh.

And, and uh- So one, you already got your hands full with a special needs son and another little girl. You got a whole church you gotta pastor to. That's right. Which means on the weekdays, every night you out take care of somebody. And it's not like you living high, I mean you making your bills, but that's about it.

And now she wants to go bring somebody else you got to feed, care for, spend time on, spend money on. So you said what I would have said to Lisa, you have lost your mind. See, because when you start, like when you was in a situation like I am, you have compound interest problems. That's why I put it here like that. It was interest with compound, you know. So we talked to the Lord about it.

And God told us foster and adopt. So when I knew one thing, she had already called, set up her appointment, and here's what's so amazing about it. Did she tell you about that? Yep, she did, when I found out about it. No, she didn't. After the fact the fact. You know, after the fact. And that woman, and that and they told her, said, well, said, we got a full class, we don't have no room for

nobody else, but you come on and bring your sister, because she called her sister to go with her. Said, y'all can come on. But we can't promise you nothing. To go to the class door. Go to the class. And got there, they had two empty seats. The Lord provided that. Two empty seats called two people's council. And they would get to see so late on. I started going to the classes with them. I think when they got middle-weight, in Texas you have to go 16 weeks of what they call pride classes. And I started around maybe the ninth or the 10th,

you know, week somewhere along in there. And started going, cause I had to beat us for some of it. Cause I saw she was just adamant about it. She wasn't going to stop. And I got involved in it and everything. So after we got the class, we're taking a class. Uh, cause I saw she was just adamant about it. She wasn't gonna stop. And I got involved in it and everything. So after we got the class women taking a class, when they get something hard on their mind, I'm telling you, I mean, our team

of elephant can't pull it out. So you might as well hang it up. So it was going to be an amazing time. Well, I already got my son president. I'm scattered all over the place. So her sister, Diane, she got a little boy by the name of Nino. And see what happened.

Was she the first? She was the first. And we didn't know, to be honest with you, I did not know all about her. I didn't have a clue what was going on in there since. So when she got that little boy, and then a lady, a few months later, a lady called her and said,

look, they just closing up in a foster home down here. And I know where you can get two little children, a little boy and a little girl. And Susan, who was our caseworker, And Susan, who was our caseworker, did not want to bring those two to our house. Why? Because they was too tough. She felt like we'd been inexperienced that we wouldn't have known what to do. The little girl was five years old and the little boy was three.

Now, I said, you don't think that I can handle a five year old and a three year old? I am too old a cat to be fooled by a kitten. You can hang that up because that ain't possible. And just like Susan said, they was tough. What makes them tough? What are the circumstances that you might find in the background of these children?

Neglect, abuse, hungry. See what happened. Mercedes' mother got killed in Dallas, Texas in a bad drug deal Mercedes Had to feed Tyler her little brother and the police found him walking down the street eating out a garbage can But I promise you one thing. Oh, hold it. Hold it. Hold. Whoa. Whoa All right. So Mercedes and Tyler are the two first of all

Donna's sister adopts Nino and then Susan, the caseworker calls you, but says these two are tough. And these two are Mercedes who is five is the daughter and Tyler's little boy, three, her, their mother was killed on a bad drug deal beforehand and nobody took care of them and they're walking down the street, that's what was told in a garbage cans in the United States of America at five and three and nobody. That's what was told to us. So I really don't know. Wow.

But one thing I can tell you that I do know, nobody was able to handle Tyler and Mercedes. That's why there was in nine homes in one year. Oh, so then they go to foster homes. Right. But they're so traumatized that their behavior is so bad that foster homes are now bouncing. So not only have they lost their mama, been through that trauma, now they've literally been in nine different foster homes where now they're just passed around

like an old pair of shoes. That's right. It's like a rubber ball. And the thing of it is, you see, they present a picture of many children in the system. And this is why, and I got to hit this right here, this is why I feel that we have lost some spiritual connection, some spiritual knowledge and understanding about the children. It is crazy to me. It's past crazy, it's ludicrous for a child to be in nine homes in one year. First of all, you asked about the background. First of all, think about it. What do you expect for a child that don't know no better? No one ever taught them, no one ever

shown them the love, the compassion, and most of all, giving that that father and love, mother's love, when no one ever spent the time with them. And then you tell them, oh they're so bad, well what do you expect? They don't know nothing, no one ever spent the time with them, and they ended up a system that they didn't have nothing to do with. It had been better for them to just stay where they were and bring them here in the world and letting them loose like they are nothing. And one of the things that we're going to all have to understand, these are children that God allows in this world. And if God allows them in this world, we're going to have to change the dynamics of what's going on in the world. See, that's to change the dynamics of what's going on

in the world. See, that's why I don't understand the churches and I say this boldly. I don't understand the church. I don't understand some of the things that goes in the church. He's more than church than preaching a sermon, singing a hymn, taking up an offering. You know, fellas, it's more church than that. That's one thing I love about Jesus. He demonstrated to us, you looking at the church, demonstrating the church, how the church ought to be. We ought to be out there doing something to save this generation of children and until we do that, there's an indictment against the church because we haven't done do whatever. It don't make no sense

against the church because we haven't done do whatever. It don't make no sense that you have 400,000 children in a system and you got over 400,000 churches in this world. Do the math, what is one church? Every church in America would take one child. What, we will empty this thing completely out. And if you got to go all the way to possum trot to show where a little choice sitting back in the woods with literally nothing that said, hey look, we're going to do something about the problem. We see we got the problem and we understand the

problem, but we're going to do something about it. And you get 23 people to adopt 77 children out of the system with nothing? Come on, now let's be real. We overlook what James 1.27, pure religion is under foul that God accept that we take care of the widows and the orphanage. And we also got to understand one other thing too. Adoption is just not adoption. God Himself started adoption.

Not all the way we was able to get back to God was through adoption. And we missing it because of the fact that we don't know that Moses was an adopted child. It was not a formal adoption, but it was informal adoption, but it was an adoption. We got to get Esther was adopted. So God himself started.

And if you read Ephesians, the first chapter, you will find out it was God good pleasure to adopt us through his son Jesus to get us back in relationship with him. So I don't want to just go ram ram ram, but we got to understand right now that we got a critical problem on our hands. We got a major problem on and God is looking at the one initiative that he ordained to fix this problem and that's the church. that he ordained to fix this problem, and that's the church. Casius, can I get an amen? I know.

So, you've heard him say it, and we'll just go ahead and reiterate it. Two hundred people at Venice Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Little Possum Trot, adopted 77 children. That's the sound of hope. We'll be right back. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain

of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order, Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order, Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast, Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you

not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks and why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971, a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy s**t, we are really here. This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens, but they needed to know the truth about the FBI. Burglaries forged blackmail letters and threats of violence were used to try to stop anti-war marches. Even if that meant risking everything.

I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two Medburg, the story of a daring heist that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. Hey, GB, explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went

from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the you get your podcasts. I'm Buzz Knight and I'm the host of the Take and Walk podcast Music History on Foot. Ian Hunter.

Hello Ian, it's Ringo. How'd your folks go on another tour? You get the chills when a Beatles are your answering machine. The podcast is an audio diary of insightful conversations with musicians and the inside stories behind their music. Kenny Aronoff. I wake up every morning and I feel grateful, but I know it didn't come from luck.

If you get a lucky break, you better be prepared. You better be ready. If you've done your homework and you continue to do your homework, you'll turn that lucky break into something great. The message of the podcast is simple, honest conversation with musicians about the music they create. Cardi Wilson.

You know, I mean, Elton John picked me up and put me back in my crib when I was a toddler. It's like, that's the thing that's so cool is I've got these stories because of my life. Listen to the Take and Walk podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Mercedes and Tyler lived in nine houses. And Susan, with the state, who didn't know

you yet, figuring you out. And you said, what you think I can't handle a three and five year old, we're gonna take him. In fact, we want the most difficult child. And you took him. See, right where you are now, when he said we couldn't handle him, but here's what God did. My wife and I decided to pray about this thing.

Lord, those are our children, we want them. Susan said no. We said yes. But then we talked to the Lord. He said yes. And what happened is we asked the Lord, touch that woman hard. And I said this last night, touch that woman hard and let those children come in our home. But I know he's going to do it like that. And she ain't know with a triple bypass in the hospital. But the thing of it is, her supervisor called and she said, as soon as in the hospital, the children will be in your home in the morning. That next morning, they showed up with Tyler and

Mercedes, little boy and a little girl, about racial children. And Susan ended up recovering so fast that she blew the doctor's mind. Cause they said they'd never seen a case like this where the woman was recovering so fast and back in the field doing her work. Tell me about Tyler and Mercedes, what you saw when they first showed up. I saw two little children, hungry and neglected.

I saw two little children and didn't understand because I never will forget it. When Tyler saw me, he just ran to hug me and just grabbed me around my knee and just started hugging me. He just hung on to me. And Mercedes grabbed my wife and just hung on to me. These two little children, I don't know how the Lord, I saw how the Lord provided

but I didn't understand it. A lot of things God does we don't understand. We just go around and accept it. And that those kids, and I'm not going to sit up here and tell nobody. This was an easy road to home. Man, dumb kids gave me a PhD degrees in child psychology. I'm telling you, they tore my mind up, but we wouldn't refuse to give up on them. They was hungry and see, he was a crazy thing. Mercedes, in the midst of that she developed a habit of stealing. Ooh, that little girl can steal.

Lord knows that child can steal. Good Lord she can steal. She was a, at five years old, she was a professional thief. That she saw something that she wanted. She was gonna get it, one way or the other. Mercedes stole food because evidently they've been hungry and she was gonna make sure that they weren't gonna be hungry again. So what she did, she stole food. We go to bed at night, Mercedes get up and go in there and steal food. And my wife showed them when they got there,

said Mercedes, go in the icebox and see all the food that y'all can get food. We got water, we got drink, whatever you want, we got it here. But then she didn't take that at heart. So she said that, well, okay, thank you. Mercedes stole some of my food and she had an old backpack. She stuffed it in the backpack under the bed and I kept, I didn't miss the food, but I kept walking by the room where it was. I'll tell my wife, something ain't right in that room and I just don't, every time I passed that door, like something in there and see we didn't know this, we didn't know that. Look and I went in there one morning after they went to school and ripped that room apart, looked under bed. I saw this old backpack underneath that room.

Open it up, there was old food. Just look at it, been in there for months. And she kept packing up because she said, if I leave this house, I'm gonna have some food to go with me. And that's how, but I end up breaking that habit. It took me a few years. Mercedes, we were riding on one day,

Mercedes said, ooh daddy, said, I hear this sound, somebody must be in a store or something. I said, okay, I see. And one night I was doing a revival and we was on our way back home. We stopped at our house to get some, you know, to eat. And she had got them Funnys face pancakes. And I saw this policeman walking there.

And I told him I said man I said I got this little girl and she was still you blind and I said, can you help me out any kind of way? He went out there and got them hands coming with the rolling around her hand He said who is Mercedes? I said and she looked up and she forgot about them panting them funny face panting And look up at that man. He said, girl, if I catch you stealing again, I'm gonna put you under the jailhouse. Let me tell you something. I ain't gonna steal no more.

And see, she didn't steal no more. She did not steal no more. That ended her day. Tyler was on the other hand. He was just movable. He was just a boy. His biggest passion was little trucks. And if you wanted to do something to hurt his feeling,

take one of his trucks. I mean, he just, he just like he done lost his life. So you take them truck and line them up on the floor. He just sit there and just drool over those trucks. So he was just a freak behind those trucks. So he was just a just a freak behind those trucks So if he do something wrong Like one day I remember he was in school after he had got in school and he'll go out there and you know And I told them y'all bring happy face in it

I don't want you know sad face bring them happy face because in tech to give him happy face when they have a good day So Tyler kept bringing them sad face and I started taking them trucks good day. So Tyler kept bringing them sad face and I started taking them trucks. When I started taking them trucks, that broke his spirit and he started doing, bringing them happy face. And he's so slick that one day when he got off the bus, he got a curve ball right there. He stuck his homework up in there and see, he used to do that. But, but to say it all, the children have grown up. They've grown now. Tyler got two children. He got a girl and a boy. Mercedes got two girls and they all got children now. But then when they start having a problem and I'll tell them that, well, she's doing this and he's doing

that. I will go look in the mirror and you'll see why. Look at yourself because you did the same thing. Did I really do all that? You done worse than that, so let me tell you something. So, okay. So at this point, you've got Tyler Mercedes at your place. You've got, is it Nino? Nino. Nino at your sister-in-law's place.

You're doing what you feel called to do, but it ain't easy. I got to believe folks in the neighborhood are looking at you like you're a little crazy at first. Little? How about a whole lot? A whole lot crazy. Why you doing this to yourself? You already struggling just to pay your bills,

now you gotta feed two more, you got your troubles your own, and now you just bringing more mess on top of your lives. I dealt with that, and I dealt with that. One little nugget that I forgot to throw in the pot. The Bennett Chapel now is not the Bennett Chapel where my wife's mother died. We was in this old church and a woman came in and done three night

crusade for us. She prophetically told the whole church you all gonna be on television all over the country. It's gonna be a book. It's gonna be newspaper articles. It's gonna be radio. It's going to be radio. It's going to be a movie. She told all that before. Everybody was saying, yeah, right, back in these woods? No way. They didn't believe it. She pathetically spoke that in the church.

And neither did we know that that was a plan for God, had for us. So now, I wanted to throw that in pathetically so you see what happened, how it all begun anyway because it was this woman and and she did we didn't know how God was gonna do it and once we got adopting them children we still didn't know, didn't have a clue. So we got Tyler, we got Mercedes, there's Nino, then the Naesales, the peoples, began to talk. That man lost his mind. I mean, that was the word.

And then someone was saying, what is he doing now? He always doing something. I don't know what y'all going to do with that man down there, but y'all need to get that man out of this community. But I wouldn't stop. So what happened was, and I guess the next question gonna be, how did the church get involved? You just got two people here that's gonna adopt. How did church get involved? Good question. I'm glad you asked me because what happened was I did not know that there was so much biblical information concerning adoption. So after we got and after we taking the class we started getting and we carried the children to the church out of they still giving problem but we still have him to church. And once we got him to church,

I'll get to looking up in the Bible and discovering that all of us has been adopted back to Jesus. I started preaching about adoption. Doesn't let them know, hey, look, you got here through adoption. God brought us, you in his trade because through adoption, you love Jesus because adoption. God brought us, you and his trade, because through adoption, you love Jesus because adoption.

Then- I love what you said about Moses. You know, it's the truth. It is the truth. He was in a basket on the river. And he got plucked out and loved and taken care of. See, that's what we got to understand about adoption. I never thought of Moses as an adopted baby,

but Moses was absolutely adopted. Esther was too? Esther, yeah. And let me tell you one that a lot of us don't believe. Jesus was an adopted child. That's true. Well, it's true. I mean, Joseph wasn't his biological daddy.

That's right. Come on now. Man, but what did he tell her? He said, he said, look, he said, don't be afraid to take Mary as your lawful red wife. That she is caring is of the Holy Ghost. But train him and teach him. That's right, Joseph was not Jesus' father.

He wasn't. See, but he was his father because when they saw Jesus, they're afraid, I know you, you the carpenter's son. That's the way they expressed by Jesus. So that's why they couldn't believe, they had a hard time believing

that he was the son of God. They didn't understand. And see, when you look at adoption, y'all help me now, help me. When you look at adoption, adoption only means one thing. You lose all your rights to one family and you gain all the rights to a new family. Now, bring that home on the spiritual level. I can preach that. When you, when you was in sin, and you were lost in this world, Jesus brought you in. You lost all your rights out there in the world. And Jesus gave you a brand new life. He changed your whole everything. Now you got

heaven in view. Now you one of the king kids. So you're saying as a Christian you are spiritually adopted? You're spiritually adopted. Only way. Ain't no other way. Okay so I gotta believe you get in your all-day Sunday service situations at Possum Tribe and you bring it. I'm telling you, it's got the people have to know now. They got to know. They got to understand why did God come out of his way to bring me back? Why would he do that? I mean, I'm lost. I'm in a world of lostness, and there's a man that leaves his heavenly home and come in the darkness. The Bible said while we were yet in sin, Jesus Christ died on the tree.

But why? Because of love. And this is the love that's in the church. This is the love that he implemented to the church. His church ought to be the one that rise up. And let me tell you all something else too. The Congress can't fix this problem. The President can't fix this problem. They cannot. Your representative, your Senator. Can the folks on Fox and CNN fix this problem? They can't fix this problem. And the people in D.C. can't fix this problem. They can't fix this problem. But the people in DC can't fix this problem. They can't fix this problem but the church helped me Holy

Ghost. Thank you Lord. The church, you about to make me feel something here. The church, what other entity on this earth that you know that God ordained other than the church. On the day of Pentecost when the church was ordained and established to be able to take care of God's business and that when God ordained that church, remember what he said, if you keep on reading in the book of Acts you're gonna say and as they went out, as the apostles went out thousands of souls was added to the church. It was the lame, it was the hawker, it was the one. And you know what? Jesus was always concerned

about those that didn't have a way out. He had a feast one time, a man had a feast one time. And in this feast this man had, you know, he invited the elite folks, all of them couldn't come because they had excuses. I got to feed my cow, I just got married, I just got this and I get them. So he, the man, the man said, well go on, go down in the hedges and in the bough and invite the lame, the halter,

the one that's less fortunate, invite them all to the feast. And this is what Jesus is doing to us in inviting invite them all to the feast. And this is what Jesus is doing to us in inviting all of us to the feast. But in the midst of that, we got children that need to be invited to the feast. They in a system that if somebody don't like myself, don't get up and tone the bell and let this world know

that this is not the will of God. It is God's will. He came here for freedom to set all of us free. He came, he said, I came to set the captive free. Now, where are those children? They're in a system that they didn't cause. They're in a system that they know nothing about. They didn't ask to be in it, but yet and still they're in it. So we as a church, what are we going to do? Are we going to consider sit down and continue to let this problem go on? Are we going to change the dynamics of it and say, look, if the Lord needs somebody

here, I'm out sending me. I go out and do something about it. And so your church did. We did. We not, we not just talk us, we walk us. We'll be right back. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement

seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them

that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts,

this is Law and Order Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads.

We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks, and why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives.

Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971, a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy shit, we are really here.

This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens. But they needed to know the truth about the FBI. Burglars forged blackmail letters and threats of violence were used to try to stop anti-war marches. Even if that meant risking everything. I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. They just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon, and it was just my job to stop the fire. I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two, Medburg,

the story of a daring heist that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation.

Hey, GB, explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith

and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiral'd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Buzz Knight and I'm the host of the Take and Walk podcast, Music History on Foot.

Ian Hunter. Hello, Ian, it's Ringo. How'd your fax ago and all the talk? You get the chills when a Beatles on your answering machine. The podcast is an audio diary of insightful conversations with musicians and the inside stories behind their music. Kenny Aronoff. I wake up every morning and I feel grateful but I know it didn't come from luck. If you get a lucky break, well you better be prepared, you better be ready. If you've done your homework and you're continuing to do your homework,

you'll turn that lucky break into something great. The message of the podcast is simple. Honest conversation with musicians about the music they create. Carney Wilson. You know, I mean, Elton John picked me up and put me back in my crib when I was a toddler. It's like, that's the thing that's so cool is

I've got these stories because of my life. Listen to The Take and Walk podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what did your church do? We, when I started preaching, then I had members, They come to me and said look what how can we we want to do this? What can we do? But we can't drive but we ain't talking about wealthy folk here. No, no, no, we come out people that about Possum trot even the name itself you ought to know that ain't too well down there Possum Trot, even the name itself, you oughta know that ain't too well down there. I mean, what?

Possum Trot. You know, it's kinda like what the Bible said, can anything, any good thing come out of Nazareth? Can any good thing come out of Possum Trot? You know, so we showed them that something good is in Possum Trot. So, So your parishioners came to you and said,

I, we hear you, what do we do? What do we do? I went to the state, they said we can't drive no 120 miles around Trump. That's what my wife and I had to do. They take no classes. Not at night. Because we win, we can't get them. I'm wondering would they be willing to do the classes here? I went to the state. I said look, I got some people who want to adopt but they can't drive. The woman said, if you can find me eight families, I think it was five families, we'll come to y'all church.

I found 13 families that were willing to adopt. That started it right there. So the classes you had to go to, the state actually came to your church and your families came to church and they taught the classes in Possum Trot at the church. Well, hold it.

I thought the state and the church can't work together. Well, that's a lie. Okay. The devil is a lie. See, and this is what I told them. I said, your rules is on paper. You can revise them or do anything you want to do with those rules.

I got 66 here. I can't do nothing right. I'm not the author and I'm not the finisher of it. So since I'm not, I can't change it. It's not in my hand. The Congress is the father, son and the Holy Ghost. They're the one to make the changes. So if any changes to be done, they got to make it. So I got to abide by what it says. And this is the thing of the state and church. And see, this is what, see, we got to understand now that the

enemy will do anything he can to keep us from coming together. That's his elbow, separation. He loves separating. And he'll use any little clue he can to do that. Do you mean he might craft narratives that would divide us? That's his job. So you're saying Satan's job. Is to conquer us and divide us. Is to craft narratives and tell stories about one another so that we can be divided.

Divided. I just wonder. So you're saying that's satanic. Yeah, that's satanic. That's it. That's not God because you know why? That's okay. Now let's look at it. Jesus came and died for what? The sins of the world. So that included all of us. I don't care what color you are, I don't care if you can't talk good, I don't care if you got nappy hair, straight hair, blue hair, gray hair, he died for the sins of the world. And because he died for all of us, it means that he's given us an opportunity to come in. So he said, when they went to ask Jesus one day, well where's the Father?

He said when you see me you see the Father because we are one. This is what he wants the church to be one. His church ought to be one. All this other stuff that we just done but we're gonna have to get back to basics, and that is the word of God. Because it's the only surety that we have is believing in the word of God. God, the Bible said he stand watch over his word to perform it. So you shared this little bit of information

with the lady from the state and said, I got 13 families, you got kids at Edes Homes, but you're gonna have to come teach my families and my church because we can't be driving all over the place at night that far. And so they did. They did, but only they cut the classes down. There wasn't no 16 classes no more.

I think it was 10 classes. Okay, it was five, 10 classes, but they did. They did, they did. And now you got you, you've got your sister-in-law, Donna's sister Diane, and 13 more families. And y'all go to taking kids. We start taking kids. And not just taking them, not fostering them,

adopting them, making them mommas and daddies and love and family. That's right, cause we didn't set it up. We was in there, we had to keep, I think of like six months. After six months, you were standing in front of the judge. He was hitting that gavel and saying, they are yours now. And see, we didn't even know, we didn't even know that that's what they wanted to do. But they said that was the agreement that we signed. After six months, they become our children.

So all the children that we've gotten, name has been changed. Every last one of them. Along the lines, you got a really, if you thought Tyler and Mercedes were challenging, you brought in another girl. And your family, your new daughter, her name, Terry. Terry. I don't know if I'm supposed to. Well, it's in the movie, so I'm not putting her business on the street. She come from an extraordinarily abusive situation. Sexually, physically, mentally,

spiritually. She'd been in foster homes that were horrible. And when she got to mean, she was she to handle Tyler and Mercedes. So then they came up with this slogan, all the problem children that we have, we're gonna send them to possum tribe. That's what we ended up with, all of the worstest children that was in the system. But Terri was one of those, her mind was just completely warped.

She used to stay, her foster parent was a professor at a college. And because Terry was so messed up, the woman couldn't deal with her no more. So we both got Terry as respite for this woman going on vacation. Two weeks later, they came back, the state came back and told us that the woman don't want Terry back. So now they got to break that news to her. She's already messed up, got to break that news to her. So when they called in the house that evening and told her about him, I mean, she must have cried for a while because she felt like that this is it. But

she didn't realize that this was one of the best things that ever could happen to her because now she's getting in a spiritual home. But the problem that Tara had was adapting to our lifestyle. We want these people that that that you know go out do all this kind of stuff. She didn't have to worry about it because my home was clean. You know because I had Lord looking over our household and I had to kind of walk upright before him. But then Terri had a hard time adapting. She would she would use this old I don't know what kind of lifestyle you would call it but she would leave home

dressed one way, because she knew I had her. I was very particular about her, because she was a big girl, and she was a good looking girl. And I called her, my wife got in there and got that head straightened out. She was a good looking girl. You ain't gonna leave the house looking like

you're looking like no little ghetto child. You're not finna go out and look a little hoochy mama on the street. That ain't finna happen. You finna put some clothes on're not finna go out and look a little hooch at mama on the street. That ain't finna help. You finna put some clothes on and you're gonna go out. But what she did, she had to change the clothes in her backpack. She would go out there to that school,

tell how she get there. She would go in the bathroom and change. And I decided one day, I said, I'm just going to go out here and see what's going on. There she was sitting outside the door in the hallway in some little daisy Duke britches. Man, I must have blown the roof over that building. I was so upset with her. Looked in her backpack and in her luck, she had all kind of little short tight outfits in there that she was changing clothes. She did that because she didn't think

that people were noticing her enough. She wanted to be seen. I said, Terry, as big as you are, you mean to tell me folk can't see you? And she was not no ugly girl. She was a very attractive young lady, but she just wasn't getting all the attention that she wanted, but we finally got it. Well, don't you think that comes from a childhood of being starved from attention?

I think it had to be because see, if she felt that was in her mind, that she wasn't getting the attention from where she had come from. So now she have to do something to put that focus on her and make people look at her. The other thing is she when you first got her, she had an interesting coping mechanism. She thought she was a cat. She did. And the reason why she realized how crazy that sounds, man a man look that did she really tell you I'm a cat She said sure. I don't she didn't say hey, I think I might be a cat. She looked at you dead on

I'm a cat. I'm a cat She said and the reason why it happened like that pride Family that she had they didn't deal with her with the issues that she had that she had, they didn't deal with her with the issues that she had. So what they did, they bought her this big time cat and she spent so much time with that cat and when her mind was already weak in the beginning, that was her only friend. That was her only friend and she began to take the mentality of a cat. So she thought she was a cat.

Did she walk around acting like a cat? Yeah, she did it. Meow-ing. Yeah, she did it. Meowing? Yeah, she did that. She didn't crawl around. Man, what you talking about? Are you for real? Is Jesus in heaven?

Now, let me ask you something. If people came by your house and you had all these kids and one of them crawling around by the cat, they must thought you were crazy. Well, I mean, you know, I had it, wasn't nothing I can do about it. I had to do something to try to help out. But we did. We did.

How'd you break her? Well, one day we got ready to eat. Yeah. I told us to tear us it off. And my wife called and said, come on, we're going to eat y'all. And I tear you in eat y'all. And I tell her, Joe, in there, y'all go wash up. She came walking up in there. And I looked at her, I didn't say anything,

but then the Lord quickened my spirit. That's a cat now. And that food was looking so good on that table. All them greens and things up there, and them candy yams, sweet potatoes, and all that stuff looking good. All that smothered chicken and cornbread and rice lamb. And I said, she went to pull that chair.

I said, where you going? I'm gonna eat. I said, eat what? She said, I'm gonna eat what? I said, no, baby, you a cat. This is for adults. You can't do that here. So what you gonna have to do? Y'all go out there and find me some of that. It was some old food in the freezer. Here's what you're gonna need here."

And she said, I can't eat that stuff. I said, well, if I know what to feed you, I'll probably do better. Boy, she got hot. She got hot. She got mad. She stormed out. See where the world, she wanted to eat. But then again, she wanted to keep her same attitude. And I just told her that ain't gonna happen here, honey. So you going out there and you're gonna stay out there on that porch and you're gonna sleep out there and you're gonna eat out there. Because that's what cats do. That's what cats do. I don't allow cats in my house. Some people do, but I don't.

They got too much hair falling all over the place. I find some cat hair in my food. I'm gonna have somebody got to go home. You know, so I broke, she finally realized cause when I'm hungry pain, when the big intestine started whooping on that little one and she got hungry, she decided then that cat days was over. So we fixed that problem one and she got hungry. She decided then that her cat days was over.

See, so we fixed that problem. And she became a human. She became a human then. And we hadn't had to deal with it. One time she came back up and said, what's wrong? Oh, I don't know, what you doing? I don't know. Her mind started regressing back in it all.

I said, all right now, you'll be back out on that porch again eating dead almonds and food like that, so you better straighten up here. And she broke, we broke that stuff. Tara stopped doing that. That is so funny. I got to tell you something. I hate bad table manners. And one time my daughter, she just had the worst, worst habit of smacking

and carrying on and she wouldn't sit up at the table and she'd lean on her elbows and scoop food like she was a caveman or something. And one time I just had enough and I said, you act like a dog. And I took her utensils from her and put on the floor. And I made her get on her hands and knees and eat from that plate like a dog was a dog bowl.

And all the kids were laughing and stuff. And she was down there crying. I said, you're going to finish your food. I want to carve that food. You know what? The next day. And from then on, she had great table manners. It only took one time. If you're going to act like a dog, let's eat like a dog. You're going to be like a cat. There it is. When I read that and then saw that movie, I recollected about when I did that with my daughter. And I just, I started dying laughing. I was like, you get her brother, you get her. Because sometimes love looks hard, doesn't it?

Look, let me tell you something. My mama taught me tough love. A lot of love like this. I mean, children don't understand tough love because they're so used to getting their ways and doing what they wanna do. But you got to have some sense now, you just can't do things to go on,

you got to come up with a plan. And see, a lot of this is not a textbook idea. This is just old plain mother with something that my mama would have done to us if we just started acting like that. Yeah, PhDs don't even agree with us. It don't even, uh-uh, but no way. I don't care, common sense trumps it when it comes

to stuff like that. They're not gonna get it and see that the thing that bothers me about this system. The system is broken all over this country. This is a broken system and they don't have to do something to fix this system. And instead of getting a guy that who does stuff because he done wrote a book ain't never done anything I told I told his senator this representative came to our church as you know what need to happen I said each one of them congressmen and senators and represented them need to get two or three dumb children take them home with them for one weekend then you

can talk some stuff then but right now getting a guy they never been there done that I've done anything else, they gonna write a PhD degree book, what's wrong with you, man? That book ain't no good, because you need to talk to someone who done got down in a grime, who done dirty their hand,

and you know what's going on. This will change them. So this guy said, look, I need to come down here and talk with you. And they brought a coup down there, and we met and we told him, the system is broken. It need to be fixed fixed and going up that congress can't fix it but you need to talk to the little country folk like me that done been there done and they got a t-shirt and a cap to

prove it to show y'all what y'all need to do. You mean when just average normal folks see areas of need and fill it? That's it. It's it. average normal folks see areas in Eden, Phillip. That's it. It's there. We'll be right back. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end,

sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government.

From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcast, this is Law and Order Criminal Justice System. This is Law and Order, Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order, Criminal Justice System on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast, Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America.

I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks?

And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971,

a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy s***, we are really here. This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens. But they needed to know the truth about the FBI. Burglaries, forged blackmail letters, and threats of violence were used to try to stop anti-war marches. Even if that meant risking everything. I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon, and it was just my job to stop the fire.

I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two, Medburg, the story of a daring heist that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. Hey, GB, explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith

and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Buzz Knight and I'm the host of the Taken a Walk podcast Music History on Foot.

Ian Hunter. Hello Ian, it's Ringo. How'd your folks are going on the tour? You get the chills when a Beatles on your answering machine. The podcast is an audio diary of insightful conversations with musicians and the inside stories behind their music. Kenny Aronoff. I wake up every morning and I feel grateful, but I know it didn't come from luck.

If you get a lucky break, well, you better be prepared. You better be ready. If you've done your homework and you're continuing to do your homework, you'll turn that lucky break into something great. The message of the podcast is simple. Honest conversation with musicians

about the music they create. Cardi Wilson. You know, I mean, Elton John picked me up and put me back in my crib when I was a toddler. It's like, that's the thing that's so cool is you got, I've got these stories because of my life. Listen to the Take and Walk podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. So now you got Terry, you got Mercedes, you got Tyler, everybody thinks you're crazy, your daughter, now you get 13 people to get trained up and they start adopting folks. They start adopting and we ended up single parents adopting children. Wow. Grandmothers and grandparents, everybody that wanted the training got the training but at the same token they was adopting children and was it easy or No it wasn't. Did your church in the throes of it, could you sense the stress and the anxiety as people were bringing kids in and the difficulties both financially and socially? I guess what I don't understand is what was the timeline from when you guys really started doing this work until you felt like you had persevered through it and it was really working

for everybody? How long did that take? It took some years. It took a few years for us to get that point. Because it's hard work. It is hard. It's the kind of work that would make you, or would keep you up at night.

You had to patrol your own home. You got to watch everything. And sometimes they wasn't used to that. So over a period of time, it went that way. In the movie, two of my top pet peeves, when when Tyler was afraid of hot water, he would just start screaming. Why had he been burned as a child? I think he was burned as a child. Okay.

And had to, the water was too hot for him. But then when the bishop went back to church and began to tell the church that he tried to bathe the little boy went screaming and hollering because he was afraid of hot water. And when like things that was just going crazy, crazy, crazy, just down here, down here, down here. When he stood up and said, the children can't take the noise anymore. He hit on the drum about three or four times, they can't take the noise anymore. He said, so I know you all are feeling bad because I feel it too, but it's time for us to rise up. All of you all that's going through all this trauma,

I want you to come and stand around the cross and let's begin to pray. That moment, it kind of flipped things over where people began to do this and come together in our church and work together to help out what was going on. So you mean like other church members when they knew, all right, so when one couple or single mother or grandma, when somebody had adopted a child and they were struggling, other church members recognized it and then they came and helped and supported other church

members. That's what happened. And see, in my home, my wife and I, if there was a mother or father who was dealing, who had a child that they couldn't handle, now I got Tyler, I got Mercedes, I got Terry, I got Josh, then I got Prince. But then again, well, just to again, we're bringing a child to my house and keep them of them a few weeks. We've done more respect in everybody else

because they were telling me to turn around. We just turned to bringing them in, keeping them, helping them and sending them back home. So we got together and began to pray like never before. In the Lord heard to pray out and he turned that thing around. Then family began to share one another burdens. Family began to understand what can we do to help and this is something that I want to share with everybody. All of us may not be able to foster and may not be able to adopt. But in the process of it all, all of us can do something. If you can't do anything but just cook a meal, if you can't do anything but just go pick up the kids

and take them and buy them hamburger or a coke somewhere. Give the family a break. If that's all you can do, do it. But do it. Don't talk about it. Do it. That means that God doesn't leave anybody out. And I said last night that anything God is involved in, I want to be involved in it. And I feel that so necessary that this is so important that we all can be, how you may say, we can share in this process together. And that's what happened down there. We, all of us got involved and shared in the process together. The other part that I love about the movie at the very end of the movie It shows all the real families

They showed who played who and showed the real person But it also shows something else. It shows togetherness It showed that the family have reached that plateau That the children are happy and they got their own families and they are happy. And we gathering at this big feast down there, barbecuing and music playing and riding horses and just enjoying ourselves. That let anybody know Whatever storm you are going through with whatever problem that you are having The Sun is gonna shine if you just stay in the process and don't give up on the process The Sun is gonna shine

The Sun was shining bright and pretty that day and all of the families and all the families had adopted had all their children there And it was a beautiful occasion. This when people put something in a child's life, and when they came out of their comfort zone and put something in child life. I know for a fact, I know for a fact, even here right now, everybody can do something to help to save this generation of children.

There was another scene in the movie, you just talked about two. There's a third where you call the state and you say, okay, we we can, we've got another family or our church has another group that can take on another child. And you were told, it ain't no more. There's no more children that need a home. That's right. Your church eradicated children's needs from home within like a hundred mile radius in every direction of Boston Trump.

Your little church, your little struggling financially, not wealthy, but rich in spirit group of 200 people shut down the foster care system and the need for it. That 100 mile radius. See, this is why I say, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that math, you know, the math don't add up. So I have interviewed over the last 14 months, all manner of people that do all kinds of things. But we have had four or five or six guests who do work in and around foster care systems, adoption, trying to figure out better ways, better policy, because like you say, the system is absolutely broken.

I've interviewed women who have organizations because they were once trafficked and the traffickers stamp their girls with tattoos. And when these girls get rescued from that trafficking and they try to move on from their life, every time they see themselves in a mirror, they hate themselves because they see the evidence of their trauma. And so she removes their tattoos from them. I've seen just over and over again, but the thing that I've learned, probably the most profound lesson I've had since doing this work of an army of normal folks and all the amazing people I've interviewed is this. The vast majority of people that are homeless, the vast majority of people that are trafficked, the vast majority of people that fill or overfill jails, the vast majority of people that are on the streets,

the vast majority of people that are part of the systematic issues in and around our society and culture today were once lost children. And they came through this broken foster system and never found somebody to love them and care for them and be part of what you said, the process of fixing them in long-term. And it is so clear to me, we could solve 75% of our country's issues if we just didn't have the need for a

foster care system and all these unwanted, unloved children that end up being the very demographics and the data points that we talk about. We could fix so much of what else is if we just take care children. An impassioned trot. There's a church of 200 people from a low income area, and I would assume are all black, that eradicate with a hundred mile radius of their little spot, like you say, off in the trees. The need for foster care and thusly for a generation have had to have had a lasting impact on the culture and society in that area because you've eradicated so much of what becomes the issues. The thing that we need to understand, and this is why I feel that God has an indictment against the church because of the empowerment of the church. If you come to Paws from Trap and come to our church, it's nothing out there. We got, we got a, we got the church here on this side. You see a base,

a basketball court that Motto Valley Lutheran Church in Southern California sent a mission team up there and put a basketball court up there. Nothing over it, two little goals sitting on each end. You got the church. Then on the other side you got a cemetery. That's all I tell. You see dirt? That's, that's even today. There are so many needs at that church. It's unreal. But we never stop to look at needs that we have. We look at needs of others. If you look at this whole thing, we should

have the same attitude that Jesus. Jesus left his home in glory and came here to save us. So what are you looking at? And I told him last night that the first law of nature is self-service, but the first law of grace is others-service. Service. Service. Jesus was about service. He was about, we so busy, the church is nowadays is about church work, but Jesus was about ministry work and he left this for the church to take care. You don't have to have X, Y, and Z to get up and preach about. There's a need here. There should not be a child waiting on a home, but it should be a home waiting on a child.

Because why? We done emptied the system. What we had, we done the best we could with what we had. And the Lord was with us. We never did lose any children, we done the best we could with what we had. And the Lord was with us. We never did lose any children, we kept them all. That's amazing. We'll be right back. For decades, the mafia had New York City

in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them

that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order, Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order, Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast, Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much?

Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971, a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy s***, we are really here. This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens. But they needed to know the truth about the FBI. Burglars forged blackmail letters and threats of violence were used to try to stop anti-war marches.

Even if that meant risking everything. I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two Medburg, the story of a daring heist that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. HGV explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas

play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, voila!

You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Buzz Knight and I'm the host of the Take and Walk podcast Music History on Foot. Ian Hunter. Hello Ian, it's Therene Gokles. How'd you fancy going on a tour? You get the chills when a Beatles or your answering machine.

The podcast is an audio diary of insightful conversations with musicians and the inside stories behind their music. Kenny Aronoff. I wake up every morning and I feel grateful but I know it didn't come from luck. If you get a lucky break, well you better be prepared. You better be ready. If you've done your homework and you're continuing to do your homework, you'll turn that lucky break into something great. The message of the podcast is simple. Honest conversation with musicians about the music they create.

Cardi Wilson. You know, I mean, Elton John picked me up and put me back in my crib when I was a toddler. It's like, that's the thing that's so cool is you got, I've got these stories because of my life. Listen to The Take and Walk podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The thing that I don't understand, a lot of people hear me talk and they say, well, that guy man may be out here.

I'm not out of my mind. I'm in my mind. Because I know. I'm sitting here across from you now for almost two hours. They're not about you out of your mind. Because I know. I'm sitting here across from you now for almost two hours. You know. There ain't nothing about you out of your mind. You know, but the thing of it is how they expect us to do this and do that. Well, I don't expect you to do anything. Just do it. It's not how. Just do it. And somebody, well, how did you do that? It ain't no how. We just did it. It wasn't about what

we had or what we didn't have. This was a job that we had to do because God was letting his country know, if I can show up in them bushes, I sure can show up right here in Memphis. If they did it in the bushes with nothing. right now and let me tell you something else too the resources that's out there now is crazy. We had it with no resources. We did it with no resources. There are so many different resources out there now that can strengthen families and helping families. You know I'm a part of Care Portal. Care Portal is a powerful organization. Care Portal is amazing. And it does things. See, and there's others out there that's doing things to help people. We did not have all of that. What we had was love,

togetherness, and the love of God. And we worked together to do what we done. I got one little girl, I think it was ABC came down and did a story and they did about three families up there and this little girl was in this family one of the ministers of the church she jumped up and said she was just crying out one day the interview and she said I don't know why my mama gave me up and every day I cry about why did she give me up? If she didn't love me, why did she bring me in this world? And she said that hurts me. One day she came to church, went home that evening, went in the bathroom and got a razor blade, cut herself all up. Just cut herself all up. They rushed to the doctor. He said it had been 10 minutes later, she'd have bled to

death. They got her there. They stopped the bleeding. Today, that same little girl is one of them. She's going to, she's going to end up in the Olympics as a track star. She got a bachelor's degree in child psychology. She said she wanted to help other children. This little girl is you're going to probably hear her speaking somewhere because she's powerful. The first time she started moving, she walked up to me and she said, Bishop Martin, I just want to thank you for saving my life. We got to understand we don't have a clue as what is locked in that system. We got some of the greatest minds and some of the most strongest people is locked in the system.

Doctors, presidents, lawyers, preachers, teachers. I mean, you go home, but they in a system and they got no way out. They can either be that or they can be part of the demographics we talked about in jail one day. That's right. The difference is what you putting in them. That's it. What are you putting in? See, I don't believe that this was no accident. I don't believe me being up here. It's no accident. I believe I'm here because of the divine will of God to raise this awareness concerning what we need to do. Y'all, this is a problem and this whole nation needs to know it ain't getting better.

It's getting worse. But the thing of it is, what are we gonna do? We can't talk how bad they are when we never done anything to try to help them. How do you expect for a child to respond when nobody never taught them anything? So what they do, they act out of the only way they know how

and do some stuff. I said last night, I went to see a little boy one day, five years old. I said, man, what you want for Christmas? He said, I don't want no toys. I don't want no little ponies. I don't want no clothes. All I want is a mother and a father, somebody to love me. Five years old. Is that too much for a child to ask for? The sound of hope, the possum trot story, is not based upon a true story. It is a true story. And until we, as a people of God, rise up and say, let's take it by force. We're gonna keep on mushrooming the problem.

This is gonna keep on happening. But I believe that there's enough preachers, enough churches in the United States of America to fix this problem and to keep it fixed. All of our guests leave their contact information. Would you please share your email address in case there's people moved and they just have questions about adoption and all that? I can give them the whole nine yards. Okay go for it.

Okay my address is Bishop W.C. Moorean. The name of the church is Benny Chapel Baptist Church and my address is P.O. Box 1147 Center, Texas C.E.N. T.E. Aura, Texas 75935. My email address is Aura Lakin Rabbit, Martin M.A.R.T.I.N. at B.C. B.Lakin Boar, C.Lakin and rabbit martin m-a-r-t-i-n at bc be like in boy see like in charles ministry m-i-n-i-s-t-r-y dot odd my number that you can be reach me at 936-591-7299. If any are interested in the work that Bishop Martin's done and involving yourself in the needs of children, there's a man right there who can walk you through the whole thing. Now I got another question. What does your church need? What does your church need? We need, right now, we need doors on the church. Our doors on the church doesn't

have been there ever since in the 90s. They need to be replaced. We got some double doors, two double doors on the front and we got three single doors, one on each side and one in the back. Are they rotting up and leaking? Well yeah, the roof is leaking real bad. We have dirt for our parking lot. We need to do some about that parking lot. Do you have a playground for the kids? We don't have no playground, nothing like that. The only thing we got out there, that goal that that church came down and put up there out there, you know, that pad, that concrete pad out there. But we have nothing else out there for the children to do. And we're trying to get something done out there. I had tried to get a grant one time from the state to try to put a playground out there,

but that didn't happen either. So I let that alone. So you need doors, your roof leaks, you need asphalt and you need a playground. All right, listen up everybody. These are people without a whole lot of means who have eradicated the need for the foster system in Possum Trot, Texas. If you have ever listened to this show and thought about, well, I can't get involved in this, but I can't get involved in this,

but I would like to write, y'all, come on. Yeah, I want you to watch the movie, but it's not like they're making millions off royalties of a movie, trust me. From Undefeated, I can tell you, it doesn't work that way. There's fame and there's fortune. Fame's easier, fortune's pretty fleeting, and it's producers and the people who. Fame's easier. Fortune's pretty fleeting.

It's producers and the people who distribute the movies that make the money. These folks are not getting rich off this thing. They're just telling their story because they want to inspire people to do the right things. They have needs. I don't think I've ever pled with our listeners the way I'm pleading now, guys, reach out to a community, not just Bishop Morton, but this whole church's community, who have spent everything they had, their emotional, spiritual capital, as well as what little money they could pull together as what little money they could pull together to really change the entire area of our country

and they have needs. I hope God blesses you with some help here. I praise God that he would and I believe he will. I think that it's in God's hand and I think that he's going to send them in from the north, north side east and west and they're gonna do something I don't know what but they're gonna do something You know, we're a type of people that that are we're not choosy We just accept whatever God does and if you can't do anything just keep us in prayer Well keeping you in prayer is the easy part everybody the movie is

The sound of Hope, the story of Possum Trot from Possum Trot, Texas. It's Angel Studios' latest film. You go to angel.com, you can download the movie and watch it. Lisa and I watched it a couple of nights ago and balled. Bishop W.C. Martin, W.C. stands for W.C. He is the pastor of Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church

in Possum Trot, Texas. He is a country boy. Grew up on a farm with no water, no electricity. grew up on a farm with no water, no electricity. He is a hardworking man from Houston who spent six years in seminary to become a pastor of little ol' Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Possum Park, but do not mistake this man for any man's fool.

He is also a visionary, he's inspirational, he is loving, he is a father to many, and he's an inspiration to me. Praise the Lord. And Bishop Barton, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to join us, really, for a couple of days. I know you spent time down in Oxford, Mississippi with Alex yesterday talking to some folks. And I know you're going

to leave here and go be part of a lunch with a bunch of clergy here in Memphis. And I hope they will listen to you because so much of what else is in Memphis could be fixed by what you and your church did. and you're gonna have an audience of a bunch of clergy here in Memphis, and I hope you, what'd you say, move them? Move them up and out and doing something. Amen. Bishop Martin, thank you so much for joining me.

God bless you. God bless you. Can I just close in prayer? Please. Gracious Father, we thank you so much. For you are our God, you are our leader. You are our life giver, our life sustainer. And we can't do anything Lord God,

until you anoint us and you prepare us for the task that's set before us. We have a problem here Lord and and you are calling on us to be the arms and feet of Jesus. The problem is we have hundreds and thousands of children who are in a system that need a home. You said Lord God that the harvest is plentiful but the labels are few. They prayed that more labels was coming in and we ask you today to send them in from the north, south, east and west. Fix it here just like you did in Possum Trot. Call your people, Lord God, to stand in attention. Bring healing and deliverance to our children. To this nation, bring us on one accord that we can carry out your will.

We pray now Father, that somebody listening will come running, what can I do to help? What can I do? And get the mantle Lord God and go out and then bring some deliverance to these children. We thank you Lord God for this establishment here and we pray Lord God as they continue to go you will continue to rise them higher and higher that they are able to accomplish your will. We thank you Lord God in all that we fail to ask, don't fail to give. In Jesus

name we pray, amen and thank God. Amen. Now, where's the chicken? That's a good question. Thank you for being here. God bless you. And thank you for joining us this week. If Bishop Martin or other guests have inspired you in general or better yet to take action by adopting a child, rallying your community to adopt all of its orphans, getting involved with Care Portal or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it.

You can write me anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us. And I promise you, I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast rate and review it. Join the army at normal folks dot us. Consider becoming a premium member there. All of these things that will help us grow. An army of normal folks.

Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end. It sent the message that we can prosecute these people. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Our iHeartRadio Music Festival presented by Capital One. Coming back to Las Vegas, September 20th and 21st. Our iHeartRadio Music Festival presented by Capital One. Coming back to Las Vegas. September 20th and 21st. A weekend full of superstar performances. ASAP Rocky. Big Sean.

Camila Cabello. Doja Cat. Dua Lipa. Gwen Stefani. Halsey. Hozier. Keith Urban. New Kids on the Block.

Paramore. Shaboosie. The Black Crows. The Weeknd. Thomas Rhett. Victoria Monet. Coldplay's Chris Martin. And more. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church, voila, you got straight away.

They tried to save everybody. Listen to Spiral on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives.

Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever get the feeling someone's watching you? We know they're looking for us. Well, in 1971, a group of anti-war activists had that feeling. I was in the heart of the dragon, and it was my job to stop the fire.

So they decided to do something insane, break in to the FBI and expose J. Edgar Hoover's dirty secrets. We had some idea that this was pretty explosive. I'm Ed Helms. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.