An Army of Normal Folks - Shawn and Inga Arvin: Love City (Pt 2)

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Inga Arvin felt called to move to the challenging Louisville neighborhood of Portland, but her husband Shawn didn’t want to because he used to buy drugs there. Their obedience strangely led them to get a house for free if they bought a community center, which of course led them reinvigorating it with over 200 kids playing basketball, a 400 person fish fry, a school, and a thrift store. Welcome to Love City, who’s beating heart is neighbors loving neighbors.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 Sean and Inga Arvin right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Hey, everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the home stretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Estet Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these

days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlamagne the God. We're gonna take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me,

Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To get to love city you two guys met. How briefly, we've eaten up so much time with some really cool stuff. Briefly, first of all how do you get from there to Louisville and why, and then how to join me? So kind of when I said in the beginning, like when you join the intelligence community, it's like joining the military. So even as a contractor, it took the government about five years to catch up on their hiring. So about five years into it, remember, I'm still doing the job of a government employee, the government started coming to all these contractors

and saying, okay, we're, if you want to stay doing this role, you're going to have to be the job of a government employee, the government started coming to all these contractors and saying, okay, if you want to stay doing this role, you're going to have to be a government employee or you tell your company you want to go somewhere else. So that's what started happening. So I started seeing the writing on the wall. And then it was the same decision that I had to make when I was in that briefing. Do I want this to be my life and my career? And I felt no. Like that I don't, I already had like, I mean, that watch this is only part of what I did. Like I already had a whole bunch of stuff I couldn't talk about and it's real hard to

get another job when you say, well, I have experience, but I can't tell you what it is. So I decided to get out and I have family in Lexington. And so I just drove out to Kentucky. It's like Louisville feels nice. It's an hour away from Lexington. That's good. That's good. So then I just started applying for jobs and got a job with Humana and moved to

Louisville. And y'all met. You want me to tell that part? Sure. Yeah. So we remember I was telling you, I went to decided to apply for Bellarmine and got accepted. And so I'm going that's in 2014 and I'm going through the MBA program

1313. Yeah, and didn't know her but Inga applied in 2014 to go to Bellarmine and at Bellarmine one of the things that you have to do is you have to study abroad and studying abroad means you got to go for two to three weeks and a country that they select and you get to go there and learn about how they do economics. And so we we both I applied for the end of my study and you had a choice, you could do it at the end or you could do it at the beginning. And Inga applied for the beginning for us to go to Italy. I didn't know her, never had met her, never hung out with her, never talked to her,

didn't know her at all. But I was in the class 2013. She was in the class of 2014. We get to Italy. It's the very first day we're in Rome. We get there Sunday. And the crazy part was I because I just had fallen in love with Jesus

and I was like wanting to learn everything about this thing that how did it get this way? Where did it come from? So as soon as we land, man, I'm beat feeding down the corridor of the airport to get in a taxi to go to the Vatican because it was Pope Francis' very first mass ever. And so, man, I get there in time and St. Peter's is like packed elbow to elbow

with people but Inga didn't go. She stayed. So the next day we wake up and we're going to these classes and I'm in the lobby waiting for the bus to come to get us and this lady walks up and a part of my past was womanizing you know that was just a part of my past you know brokenness looking for a mother's love I mean you go through multiple people think I can fix people and I can fix this woman I can do this I can do that because that's what you live from your childhood So here we are sitting in the lobby and this woman walks up to me and she I'm doodling and When I'm doodling I'm

getting these visions and these words from the Lord about like what the kingdom of heaven here looks like on earth and how to restore it. And I'm writing all this stuff in these books. And Inga comes walking up and she says, are you waiting for the bus? And I was like, I still had my head down. I said, yeah. And she said, I said, yeah, I'm part of the Bell and my groom. She said, so am I. So what are you doing?

And I look up and I see how beautiful she is. And I'm like, whoa. Man, get the hell away from me. Man, this is, man, come on now. Man, behind me, Satan. And I get what's going on here. I just put my head down and ignored her. I was just like, nah, man, I'm not going there. I've put my head down and ignored her. I was just like,

man, I'm not going there. I've already did that part of my life. So later that day, if you ever been overseas, especially in Europe, man, when they take a break, it ain't the American 10 minute break and everybody get back to work. Man, they, man, you 30, 40, 50 hours. Yeah. Yeah.. Yes, this is like for real life, you know? And so we get this big break and I'm sitting over by myself again and I'm doing the same thing, writing all kinds of dreams down. And I'm like just chilling out and then you walks up again. She says, no, like, really, what's going on with you? And then it was the very first time in my whole life

that I felt free that I could just be this new creation, this new person and tell this woman the truth. And I look up at her and I just said, yeah, you wanna know what's going on with me? I tell you, four months ago, and I fell head over heels in love with Jesus. I told him, man, I'd just go anywhere, do anything, be whatever you want me to be for the rest of my life. And man, that's what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. I don't even know why I'm here at this

college finishing up this degree. I don't even care about this. And that's how I want to live my life for the rest of the time I'm here on this earth. And I'm thinking, man, this chick is gonna go, what a nutcase. She's gonna wheel, wheel, get out. Man, like, dude, you are like a nutcase. And she looked at me and she said, wow, why don't you tell me more about that story?

And I was like, huh? What interested you? So, you know, I had known Jesus my whole life. And by then I was 33 and I couldn't have kids because of my heart condition. And I didn't really, I hadn't, I mean, even though I'd grown up in the church my whole life, I hadn't really met anybody. This might sound weird, but I hadn't really met anybody that knew Jesus the way I knew

Jesus. Like, they all said they did, but it just, it wasn't, I just couldn't tell, you know? And so I had kind of given up on dating because in that, in like the Christian dating world, like if you couldn't have your own kids, you were kind of like, push this side a little bit to begin with. And then I was just like, I don't agree. I don't agree with this whole church thing. There's just something like, yes, I love Jesus, but there's just some off and I don't quite know what it is. I couldn't put my finger on it. And so I had kind of given up on meeting anybody that knew Jesus as a potential spouse, you know, spouse. I was like, well, that's just not going to happen for me, I guess. And so was that sad for you?

Oh, I was angry. I was very angry. I was very angry. I was angry at God. Yeah, I was very angry at him. And, and so he gives you when he with that. A son of a prostitute and an almost suicidal former military guy. Yes, yeah. Gee, thanks. So when he busts out with that, I was like, I'd never heard that from, I was like, tell me some more about that.

Like, huh? Like that was like the best pickup line ever for me, which he had no idea that that was the case. Sean got God game. Yeah. Yeah, very much. Man's not even knowin' it. Man just goin' hey, yeah.

So you meet in Rome of all places. Yep. All the way. Then later that day, we're goin' to the Roman Colosseum as a group and we get there and uh, Inga's all the way on the other side of the Coliseum. I'm on one side and ever since I've fallen in love with Jesus, I'm a filler. Like I can feel stuff, you know, like, like I never had that before,

or maybe it was just hidden, you know, it was robbed in that verse. And, uh, let me ask you something real quick. Side note. Yeah yeah does that include empathy and things like that I think that there's three forms of that word that you would just you use I think there's sympathy empathy I think there's different forms of it and compassion yeah? Compassion. Yeah, compassion. And I think that most people get them misconstrued.

They don't understand because they're so uneducated. Empathy means, yeah, I feel something for you, but I'm gonna feel something for you, but it really doesn't matter. And then, Sympathy. Sympathy means I really feel something for you. I wanna help you, but I'm not gonna do anything.

And then compassion means really, man, I feel these things for you, I agree with them, and I'm gonna do something about it with you. I've heard that definition before and I love it. I just mean, coming up the way you came up, I'll just say this, coming up the way you came up. I'll just say this, coming up the way I came up, oftentimes I recognize people's hurt, but I was dealing with so much of my own life,

I wasn't able to be fully empathetic or compassionate. And when you say, prior to knowing Christ, I didn't really feel things, and once I knew him, I started feeling things. I wondered if really feel things. And once I knew him, I started feeling things. I wondered if that included things like compassion and empathy. And this particular, and this answer that question, I'm sitting there and I'm observing the Roman Coliseum.

Have you ever been there? No, but. Oh, it's like crazy. Like, and there's all these feelings, you know, like from the past, yes, historical. Oh my gosh, man. Thousands and thousands of Christians followers of Christ, who probably back in that day really were followers of Christ, were in these battles and just fed the lions and there's catacombs

right outside the Coliseum these, huge just mounds of dirt, and they would just throw them in there and kick a little dirt on people. Man, I'm sitting here observing all this is going on, and I'm just bawling. I'm just like a little kid going, oh my gosh, what is going on in this atmosphere? And I'm just like, it was so overwhelming,

and I felt the Lord just say to me, Hey, I need you to lift up your head. And when I lifted up my head, I looked across the Coliseum, and Inga was lit up like an angel in this gold and glowing and she was so just like magnificent and beautiful. And he said, that's gonna be your wife. And I was like, I don't want a wife, man. I just want to be free. I just want to go do whatever I want to do. Man, I don't want.

He was like, no, that will be your wife. I was just like, oh, man. And so overwhelmed with like, what is going on here? And we end up leaving there and we go down to the forum and if anybody you know the Roman forum is where they all the Greek gods and all the Roman gods they used to build all these temples and they would worship them and this is the craziest thing about religion is the most nuts for me. Now you got to remember a four-year-old baby reborn lamb, if you want to call it me, you know, who doesn't know

anything about this past on and know any of this stuff. But man is just being overwhelmed by all this like false stuff that man is like so unreal that I'm just looking at it and going, this is nuts. We get to the forum and the dude who's with us is like one of the most profound professors in Italy, Sean. I don't remember his last name, but he was like worked for the Vatican. You know, he's this dude is like top notch and teach it. And he says, yeah, you, you all won't believe this, but when they destroyed all

this, these false gods, they took all the remnants, all the gold, all the marble, and they took it over here and they built St. Peter's. And I'm like, and as baby going, you all just took one false thing and built another false thing. And was so overwhelmed that I was just like, this can't be real. So they asked us, anybody want to go back?

They were going to go do something, walk over to the Vatican and like, anybody want to go back early? And I was like, yeah, I do. And then there was about five or six more that wanted to leave because we had jet lag, people were super tired and they were like, well, Sean, you know how to get back. Right. Can you just lead them? And I said, yeah. It was like a mile and a half walk back. So Inga was walking beside me and we're just talking and talking. And I was like, oh, you know, man, you live in Louisville. And she's like, yeah. You know, maybe we should

hang out sometime, someday in Louisville, you know, if you want to. She goes, yeah, that'd be cool. So we're walking up this hill and there's just like, in Italy Louisville, you know, if you want to. She goes, yeah, that'd be cool. So we're walking up this hill and there's just like in Italy, they, the restaurants, they always storefront, like whatever they're going to cook that night, like fresh, like see bag. It's how they call it. Ice, you know, up there in your walk. I go, ah, what are you doing tonight?

You have dinner plans? And she was like, no, not really. And I said, how about we go out to dinner tonight? And she was like, okay. And so we're still walking, we're all talking and we get back to the hotel. And the lords already told me, man, this is gonna be my wife, right?

And I believe that because man, when he tells me stuff, I truly believe it. So they all get on the elevators, go up to the rooms and I told him, well, we meet like seven o'clock and down here in the lobby and we'll go. And as soon as she goes to the elevator and she gets in, I beat feet over to the concierge and I'm like, dude, where is the best restaurant in all of Rome? And can you get me in there tonight? And I want you to have a car here. And man, it was insane.

And we drove up and it's right above the Spanish steps. And it's this beautiful restaurant that overlooks all of Rome. We sit there, have the most beautiful dinner, man, just conversations. And it was so crazy at the end of it, man, a fireworks show goes off over the city. There's in the background fireworks going on. And pretty good first date.

Yeah. I bet you weren't angry. You weren't angry anymore that night. You can tell the story about you didn't know it was a date till like... Oh yeah, I didn't know it was... I mean, so I can be a little... So my dad's family is German and I can be a little literal. And so when he was like, oh, let's just go have dinner, I was like, oh yeah, cool. So we go have dinner and now granted like, we'd just met and we're in a foreign city, right?

And I had traveled internationally a lot before that, but so I was pretty comfortable. And so we go down to the lobby and there's a taxi waiting and so we jump in the taxi and I'm like, oh, where are we going? And he's like, oh, it's a surprise. And I was like, okay. I'm like, I'm in a foreign country with somebody I just met getting into a car, not knowing where I'm like, oh, where are we going? And he's like, oh, it's a surprise. And I was like, okay. I'm in a foreign country with somebody I just met getting into a car, not knowing where I'm going.

And I'm like, okay. So we pull up to the restaurant and there's this huge mansion on top of the Villa Bargayse above the Spanish steps and red carpet and everything. Please tell me at that point you realized it was a date. At that point I realized it was a date. Oh, I'm on a date. We got out and I was like, oh, I'm on a date.

OK. You get married. Yeah. So that night when we finished eating dinner, nobody get married that night. But close, we go down the Spanish steps and at the bottom of it that night. We had our very first kiss, like right there on the Spanish steps in Rome. I mean, that kid, there you go. Yeah,

but when it's written by God, the playing man, it's pretty amazing and beautiful. We'll be right back. for a new season of my podcast, Next Question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon.

But we're also gonna have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha B., Roy Wood Jr., and Charlamagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people.

So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just over the next 10 days, we're traveling throughout learning about economics and man, we end up like falling deep ahead over Hills and Love. At the end, Inga was supposed to go back and I was supposed to go just backpacking through Europe on my own.

Yeah, because you didn't have a job at that point. I was just going to go do my thing, you know, with Jesus, I already had sold all my stuff. I had a fire. I caught a fire. So like on that derby morning when the Lord was talking to me, he told me to sell all my stuff. I sold everything except two beds and two suitcases full of clothes in my,

in my house and so everything like all the cars took them to Carmack, sold them, like just got rid. And the more I got rid of stuff, the man that freer I felt. And so I'm thinking, man, I'm going to go backpacking and me and her fall in love and we're sitting in Florence at this crazy like total front for the Russian mob. I mean, like this place looked like a eight star, you know, but nobody was there, but they let me and anger just like hang out there like that. We would come French with them.

Yeah, they were just like, I'm in there. If you want coffee, just go back there and I'll show you how to use it. It was just crazy and free Wi-Fi. So we're sitting there and I said, well, so what are you going to do? And she said, well, I got to go back because you know, I can't change my airplane ticket that Delta and I said, well, let's just track and so she gets on she calls.

We call up Delta and they're like, oh yeah, no problem, man. We will change your airplane ticket for you so you can extend your stay another five days. And we're like, yeah, no fee. Yeah. problem, man. We will change your airplane ticket for you so you can extend your stay another five days. And we're like, yeah, no fee. Yeah. Like, okay. So we're sitting there after we get that done and then it's like, man, what are we going to do?

What do you want to go? I said, man, I ain't got a clue. I said, uh, but man, I've always wanted to drink a Guinness in Ireland. And, and if you know anything about European travel, they have this thing called Ryan Air. It's like spirit and like here. It's like an air taxi. Yeah, you go anywhere. You go anywhere for like 30 bucks.

Like you just get on and just go. We ended up catching a flight and we were walking around Holt Island, which is right outside of Dublin doing a hike. And man, just felt like we should commit ourselves to one another right there overlooking the Sea of Ireland. And man, it was the most beautiful moment I've ever experienced and we both committed to, hey man, we're gonna do this thing

called life together forever. And did it made a commitment to God right there. And we believe that man, if you are united through God, that's the first most definitely wedding that you're going to have is with him. And then the second one is a piece of paper for man, just to solidify. That's two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice job. Yeah. Yeah. For being angry to marry pretty quickly. Yeah. God's like here. Take that. Okay. We're married. So now we're gonna get to love

city. Yeah. So you guys are now back in Louisville. I'm sure there's a story but we were back in Louisville and you got to find a place to live. Well, anger. I had a house. Okay. So get to remember I moved from DC. Yeah, that's right. Sure. Louisville. So I had a one bedroom condo in DC that I sold for the same price that I bought a three bedroom two bath house and like a really nice section of

Louisville. That's how it works. That's how it works. Leave in places like D.C. and New York and go into Memphis or Louisville. So you got a house. So he moved in because he had just sold everything. So he just we just moved in to my house and we lived in. It's an area of Louisville called Crescent Hill. It's on the east side of downtown. And nice area. Nice area. Yeah. I mean, like coffee shop right there, like stores, restaurants, you know, a hip story. Yeah, yeah, no parking, but it's a great area. And so then we're man, she's I go to work every day. And I go to work every day.

And I'm waking up, making her breakfast and packing her lunch and loving on her and thinking, man, life can't get no better than this. It's pretty sweet. You know, from where I came from to that moment was just like, and she would leave and I would get up and I would study scripture for like 12 hours like just like I wanted to know like what what is this thing called following Jesus and I was about the first year I was just immersed in Matthew Mark Luke and John because I think during that period of time I know now looking you know, he wanted to solidify my identity in him because those are the books that man teach you who you are and whose you are and where you come from and who you serve and what you're supposed to be a part of.

about a year and meanwhile man I was hanging out the coffee shop every once while hanging out the bus stop when people I'd meet people and I'd be like hey man you ever heard about this dude named Jesus and I'd have crazy conversations with people you know just wanting to know like other people's perspectives and we started opening up our house and we every Friday night we would have just opened up the back gate to the patio and man all of our neighbors started coming over and people would just show up and it was had this guy one time break into our house came in you left the side door unlocked when she came home and I was upstairs studying and there was this guy come in, came in the house and we had a bulldog, an English bulldog and he didn't make any noise, but I heard some noise down in the kitchen and I was like,

man, what is going on? And I was like, Tank, that's his name, Tank. And I said, he don't make noise like that. And I came downstairs and there was a guy in our kitchen, like who had came in and I went back upstairs and being ex-military, I do have a firearm. So I told Inga, I said, you stay up here until I clear this house. And because the wall was where you couldn't see it.

And you could look at the story. It's a crazy funny story in the end. But there's this wall and you can't see. I can only see one. So in my past, you know, I was like, how am I going to clear this with only one person and this dude's behind this wall? And I don't know if there's more, you know, I don't know if there's more people back there.

So I sneak around to the side and I see him and he's in the fridge and draw my firearm and and I'm like, dude, you better get on the ground right now. And he had pulled out a bottle of wine and he was trying to get a wine. He's looking for a wine opener. And like he's in this fridge and he puts it down and he gets down on the ground. And I clear the rest of the house. I tell Inga to call 911. She calls 911 and I, you know, we're telling people we're in, somebody's in our house. And I tell Inga get out of the house, go out the front and go next door.

We used to have this hippie dude who lived next door to his name Dave who was ex-military Navy. I said go over and get Dave and have him come over here right now and I've got him on the ground and he's like just laid out and Dave comes in and he's like standing there. And all of a sudden you can start to hear sirens in the distance coming and the dude starts to get up and Dave goes, a buddy may. I don't know if you know this, but this dude is an army dude with a ton of PTSD.

And I suggest that you just lay there or he's going to blow your head off. And the guy just lays back down. I would tell you, but the dude just like all air went out. He laid down a dick. They come to find out, man, this dude was an ex veteran man in Vietnam War and had came in who was an alcoholic, got disorientated, had a tumor in his brain. Thought he was in his house.

Thought he was in his house and was just pouring himself a glass of wine. And man, they get him out front and they get him into the car and I'm sitting on the front porch with Inga and our swing and I'm just bawling. I'm a on the front porch with anger and our swing. And I'm just balling. I'm a mess, man. I'm just like. And. I still got a lot of healing to do. And I asked the police officer, and by then they had like the FBI there and all kinds of like swat and swat. And I just said, can I please just go over and I can just pray for him?

And they said, yeah, sure, man. And I pray for all the police huddle up and I pray for them, you know, just because when they go through so much trauma, that they end up hating people instead of loving people. And I pray for Mr. Bob Bush, Bob Bush. And man, it was just amazing. And then we stayed connected, became friends. We and Inga would take him Thanksgiving meal. He would come on Friday nights to the back porch with everybody else, have a couple beers.

One day, Inga's getting in the car to go to Humana and we're sitting, I'm walking her out and this big truck like F-350 pulls up and it's this big, huge burly man. And he jumps out of the car. Is there Sean Arvin that lives here? And I was like, holy crap, man, this is going to be a big task. And I tell him, man, baby, just go ahead and go. I got it. I need a call, please. What's going on?

He comes over and he whips out his hand. I mean, it was like a huge Paul. And he was just like, dude, I want to shake the hand that saved my brother's life. And it was Mr. Fallenbush's brother. Used to be an offensive lineman for UK and was just like, dude, I don't know how you did that, but thank you, man. Thank you. Yeah. It was a crazy story. So how do you get to the place that you bought?

So, so all that was happening. So, So we, I had lived there for five years and knew hardly none of my neighbors. And Sean moves in and within three months knew everybody on the street. Like hundreds of people. Shocking. Everybody. So we had people come in.

I can tell you pre Jesus, I was not like this. I got it. So we had people come in every Friday, just hanging out. And we felt like, I mean, that neighborhood is fairly old. And so the house was a hundred years old. And so we felt like, well, let's just get a little fixed up, get it painted, put it a new HVAC. You know, it was 30 year old HVAC.

So we started doing all that. And then we felt like we should put it on the market. Like not any idea of we were going to move or where we were going to go or anything like that. So like we were being like we were being led to put it on the market. So we put it on the market and it sold and we put it for like. A little higher. A lot more than a little higher.

Yeah. And we got a cash offer. I mean, it was, you know, like walks up. I'm in the house. This woman walks up. We just put it for sale sign out. She walks up, bangs on the door and I come out and she was like, yeah, I want to see the house. And I said, ma'am, you got to go through my real car. My realtor right there.

And she goes, I want to see it now. And I was just like, ma'am, we have my dogs out. I mean, we're not set up for it. Like for you, and she goes, I want to see it now. And I said, ma'am, just call him and then he'll tell me whenever the appointment is. She goes outside and about five minutes later, our rotor calls and goes, dude, you better let this lady in

because she wants to buy the house now. And she walks in, she walks around the house and she goes, okay, I'll be in contact with you. That afternoon, it was a cash offer for what we asked. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. We were like, whoa, this is crazy.

So at that at that point, we we had a little cabin down at a lake, like an hour and an hour south of Louisville. And so we were like, well, I guess we'll go stay there for a little cabin down at a lake, like an hour and an hour south of Louisville. And so we were like, well, I guess we'll go stay there for a little while. So Sean went down for a few days, just kind of pray and get away. And I mean, I was only 24 hours and I was like, can I come down and hang out with you? We love to be together. Yeah, I get it. Like nonstop.

I get it. So I went down. They're like, I need my space. You got your, nah, man, there is no space. So I'm in your space 24 seven. So I'm driving down to the, to the cabin and yeah, you have to go out 64 to Indian and then go south back into Kentucky. And so going that way, you go past Portland, like on the west side of Louisville. And so I go past the 22nd Street exit, which is right there in Portland.

And it just, it was one of those things where like, it wasn't like an audible voice, but it was like a, we're moving to Portland. Like God saying like, you're moving to Portland. And I was like, okay, I don't know what that looks like, but all right. Now remember, I don't know what that looks like, but all right. Now remember I'm not from Louisville.

So I go down to Sean and I say, hey, you know, I think we're supposed to move to Portland. And he was like, you mean Oregon? I was like, no, no, in Louisville. And he was like, yeah, no. No, no, no. That's not where you're going to move. No, we're not doing that.

I know what you're talking about, but that ain't gonna be where I'm moving to. We're not doing that. Because that's why you spy my drugs in that neighbor. I knew like this is not the neighborhood for us to move to. And she was adamant. She was like, no, we're moving there. And I was like, OK, and let's go see what what's there. Yeah.

We'll be right back. Hey, everyone, it's day. Yeah. We'll be right back. Hey, everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the home stretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near right in time for a new season of my podcast. Next question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones,

Jen Psaki, Estelle Herndon. But we're also gonna have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the

news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we just went down there and started driving around. Found a house that we most definitely was just like, wow, man, this is the house that we love. Just want to come here and do the same thing like we did over in the other side of town and just get

to know our neighbors and love people and man just be on the journey with them. I heard that, but the house deal itself was interesting. Oh, yeah. So the house had been boarded up for about 30 years at that point. Is that all? Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with it. Yeah. Yeah. What was right? Yeah, there wasn't really much anything right with it. So what the house was was basically the house was the house wasn't Yeah, the so the the bones of the house was

were good, but the house was not all that was Yeah. So the the the bones of the house was were good, but the house was not all that was there. So right now, there was no. Yeah, there wasn't anything. I mean, it was framing was there. But the next door to the house was a 20,000 square foot old community center that. So we so we went to go approach the owner of the house.

Cause there wasn't like a for sale sign or anything out front. And we were like, we're interested in this house. Who it was. And we went over there to talk to him and man, what a story this dude had an orphan at 11 years old from New York city, caught a Greyhound bus, ended up in downtown Louisville and just built a life for himself and Bobby and just owned a car lot there. We go over to talk to him. He takes us in the building shows us all around. We're recording it, you know, look, he's like, he said, oh, the house is,

it's a package. Like if you go to you for free, I'll give it to you for free, but you got to buy the building. The 20,000 communities in the community. You can have the house. You can have the house. God, by this 20,000. Yeah. Behemoths. Yeah. Yeah. Now, why? Why was that his deal?

Because it was all on one deal. Oh, I got it. And he wanted if he was going to say so, you guys are looking for a house. Yeah. And then we ended up with a community center and he told Man let's go home and think about it. We want to pray and I think one of the most beautiful parts of that story was we get home. We're thinking about it We're like man, I mean are we supposed to do that? We know how to do this, how, loving on people.

And that's a big endeavor, you know? And we're contemplating about it. And I said, I'll tell you what, man, you go to your prayer room, because Zingah had a prayer room, and I'm gonna go up to my office and spend as much time as you need. I'm gonna pray up to my office and spend as much time as you need. I'm going to pray and you pray and let's get back together when we're done

and ask the Lord to tell you what we should offer. And we both came back down probably about half hour later was sitting in the living room and we both had it on paper and we flipped them over and it was the same exact number. And we both had it on paper and we flipped them over and it was the same exact number 50,000 dollars less than what he was asking and we walk in and we're talking to him and this dude is like He loves Inga Not too fond of Sean, you know, he's just a staunch business I mean, he's got a heart of gold that he comes across. He tries to hide it all. Like, the dude plays Elvis.

The dude has it in the parades. And anything we ask him to do, he'll come. He'll show up. He takes care of people in the neighborhood. I mean, he just keeps it all hidden. He doesn't want people to know. And so we walk in. We're talking to him.

And I was just like, here's our offer. We tell him what our offer is. And he stands up and he's got tears in his eyes. And he comes over and he shakes my hand and he says, you got to do. And then I've been waiting for you waiting for you all to come. He didn't know us. No, I didn't even know. I said, I've been waiting for you all to come. And he's watched us over the years, just transformed this.

Well, that's oh, well, yeah. So you get the house done. Right. 11 weeks with no idea how to do construction at all. They figured it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now you got your house, but you've got this twenty thousand foot thing over here. There was a tenant in it at the time. And we thought they they said they wanted to stay there for like five years. They were going to do all this work in the community.

And we were like, man, this is cool. We can do we can do it together, you know, man. And then first month comes doesn't pay his mortgage. Second month comes then pays rent. Third month. And we're like, bro, you got to like pay your rent, you know? And he's like, no, we're in, you know, Jesus and I know Jesus. So I shouldn't have to.

I saw it. I'm like, right. I don't know what kingdom you live in. Yeah, I know the kingdom economies, you know, and then that turns into did you look at him and say, do you know, uh, you need to pay your rent? Cause my wife used to work for the CIA. This dude had like, I brought his family over, staying in my living room, praying for all of us and all this stuff.

And then turns around and just like, you're a terrible person because you're making me make my rent. Yeah. Okay. Well, the next word is goodbye. Yeah. Oh, wait. Then it took a process. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then we had to go through the court system, which I hated.

I have such a big heart, man. I'm just like, this sucks. We're sitting in there and the judge go hits her gavel for us to come up. And we get up there and she goes, Oh, this should be interesting. Someone's kicking a church. Yeah. Let's see. Who's the big thing at church. And I'm like, prejudice much. Like, man, this just got like. So we had to get a lawyer involved and then we found one pro bono who helped us and had to get. Oh, it was horrific. Yeah. That was the first.

That was the first experience experience. And we were just like, what? How we got that man? We know you called us to do this. You asked us to come down here. You were doing it. Man, I don't know about this. This is like so this dude ends up moving out.

That's in October. Me and Inga have no idea about Love City, like what we're going to do. There's not even a name love snow, or any of the name love city. So we start praying. It was like the end of September, October, we started here. Two thousand fifteen, fifteen, fifteen. Yeah.

We, we ended up going down to Savannah, Georgia, where Angus families from on a road trip, like we are here with you, we get down there and we're staying in a Marriott and we just start getting all these. I opened up those books about the dreams that he had given me. We start putting post-it notes all over the room of like, how what's this look like? You know, it was just like dreaming and praying and asking like, what do you want? What do you want? What's this look like? How do we help? And by the end of those four days, we had a five year business plan

of like what it would look like. Love City would love that. Community center. Yeah, what looked like which was attached to a house because you needed to buy a place was eventually going to look like. Yep. And we had this dream. And in the way love city came about is in scripture, it says I love because he says that we are created in his image and a lot of people think that's a human form, but what does he say?

His image is he says God is love think that's a human form. But what does he say his image is? He says, God is love. And that's his image. And that's what he wants us to be, is the pureness of him, because that's what Jesus was. Jesus was fully God, fully human. We could get into a long debate,

but I believe that so are we. We're just, Jesus says that, man, I'm the firstborn brother and of many. So we're all sons and daughters and we all should be living with the same power and the same love that Jesus came here to bring to earth is what I would say. But a lot of people don't know this. But it's hidden and it says love city, but it really means God's city because God is love.

Got it. So how does it start? This thing's got a basketball floor. Yeah, yeah. We've got a great gym. Me and Igor are like literally laying in the floor and we're like, man, what the got a great gym. The dude moves out. Me and Igor are literally laying in the floor. And we're like, man, what in the world are we going to do? What are we going to do now?

This is crazy. And we're just laying there. And I'm like, well, we got basketball. And when I tell you, man, the gym today doesn't look like it did. Goals were falling down. No nets. It was just old broken down bleachers that you couldn't even pull out. It was just a drop down ceiling where half the plywood was falling down

because the roof if it rained hard man, just like in the corner just put it was just like it was a disaster. Yeah, it was just like what am I doing here? This is, this is insane. I'm sure you know, from us being up knowing your story, there was a, you probably asked the same questions on a drive home on a lot of nights. Like yeah. Yeah.

Like this is what have I got? Yeah. Yeah. What we say to each other now, you know, looking back, I love how God works. And I'm sure he worked this with you. He tingled your heart. He got your attention. He got your yes.

I think that that's the most important thing is a follower of Jesus is I get your yes. And then you get, he gets the yes. He moves you into it. He doesn't give you any like what you're going to go through. And then all of a sudden you go through all this stuff and that's when you start questioning, like because we're humans, right. And we're even like, you mean like being angry and 14 years later being engaged over a Guinness in Ireland.

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So something kind of like that. I think kind of like, yeah. All right. So you open this place for kids to come play basketball, expecting 10 kids to show up, have over 3000 in five years.

We went too fast. Yeah. What happened the first year? First year. So there was this kid that when I was redoing our house, there was this kid and we have to go back a little bit. But pre love city in July of that year. We moved in in June 2015 into the house thinking man. We got five years because this dude is going to be in the in the building and we're going to have a block party and we decide man, let's have a block party

and see what happens. That's in July and we think we're gonna, maybe 50 of our neighbors will show up. And we had over 800 people show up from across the city into this. Oh, across Portland. We're not even talking Louisville. No, Louisville, across from across Louisville. Oh, okay.

Yeah, everywhere. Like people come from everywhere, 800 people. Including the dude that broke in and stole your wine. No, Mr. Marlborough didn't come. No, Mr. Marlborough didn't come. I'm just kidding. But yeah. I wish you would have. I would have been good. 800 people including the dude that broke in and stole your wine. No Yeah, I wish you would have been welcome it sounds like it would be but we did have Kenneth who helped Do a lot of repairs on our house who lived over there on that side? But we had a lot of people from our neighborhood. They did come down and see what we were including I think the Heather who bought our house, she came, she came.

The ladies bought our house. Walked in about your house. OK, so all these people show up. Yeah. But still, this is not love city. No, not. This is a broken down community center that you're saying, hey, everybody show up. Yeah. So then we end up. And you still got her job. I'm still working. She's still going to the office every day.

I pay the bills here. You know, we bought this. A lot of people don't understand like how it evolved was meaning of bought this off the surplus of what we made off of our house. Right. Yeah. And and people don't understand when you get a commercial loan, it's not like you're putting $5,000 down, man. If you're a first time person, they were doing some, they need 20% or more. Yeah. And a $275,000 loan, man, they want 50,000 bucks. So all the money that we had like off that sell the house went straight into the bank for us to get this commercial load to get started. So then we took it started with something that didn't even a thing yet. Yeah,

they didn't even a thing. So then we come back from Savannah and, uh, I told Dina, meaning you guys really put literally everything that when, when, monetarily, not emotionally, not spiritually, but physically monetarily, without having a single person in the place yet, you literally put everything you had into this house and this piece of property. On blind faith, that something good was going to come of it. With no idea of how we were gonna sustain it. Right. You didn't even have income.

No. No, I mean we had my job which was paying the mortgage and that was about it. Yeah, so no form of sustainability at this point. And you said this school that you both got your MBAs from is a good school? You said this is a good school, right? When you follow Jesus, man, all that goes out the window.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So... I love how people love writing a plan and then asking God to bless the plan. And he laughs and he goes, no, it's my plan and you just follow me. We'll be right back. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the home stretch, We'll be right back. like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's,

to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon, but we're also gonna have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about?

Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happens? So I told Inga, man, there was a kid that used to walk down in front of our house every day when he'd get off the bus when I was renovating it and his name was

Dante. Deante. Deante. Deante. And he would always have a basketball and I was like, dude, you any good? And, you know, shooting the crap with him and he would be like, yeah, man, I said, man, one day, dude, I'm going to show you

basketball and I'm going to school you and just talking smack and me and him would talk smack him. And when we got back from Savannah, they had no idea what was going on. Didn't even know the buttons to turn on the lights, anything in the building, figuring it all out. Got a group of keys like this, don't even know, don't even have the conditioning. Don't work. None of it works

No heat man. It's just like insane. So That day when we got back and you went to work and I said I'm gonna open up the gym today and just see what happens and she was like, okay I said I'm gonna be home at 5 And she was like, OK, I said, I'm going to be home at five. I said, I'm going to do it at 230 when they get it. When the bus comes out front and the bus pulled up out front and I'm sitting on the steps out there and first person get off the bus with the auntie.

And I said, you ready for that game sucker? And he was like, what do you mean? And I'm sitting in front of the building and he was like, what do you mean? And I'm sitting in front of the building and he was like, what do you mean? I said, well, I own the gym. I thought me and you could shoot some hoops. And he was like, you don't own that building. I said, yeah, I do, man. I just never told you.

I just want you to know that I'm just a neighbor who loves you. And he was like, yeah, man, I'll shoot some hoops. And that one kid grew into over 3,000 different kids coming into that atmosphere over the next five years. We had about between like 200 to 300 a day that were coming between 230 and eight. You alone cannot handle two or 300 kids. I did for about the first year.

And then people started showing up that wanted to help. And the first year, uh, there's a sign in the gym that there's like six rules that you got to follow. And I used to just have them on a poster board hanging up as you come in. And what are they? I don't remember them all. One of them is no racial slurs, no fighting. At the very end, it says most of all, you got to love one another.

And it's just simple. I had to come up with some rules. Yeah, come on. So, yeah, Like it was crazy. So I just had a poster board hanging up on Jim. We didn't have sign in. We didn't keep record of anybody in the early beginning. No insurance in case somebody breaks her neck.

We did have insurance. We did have that. I have insurance. And in October, when we got the name Love City, we came back and then he says, I'm'm gonna apply for a 501 C3 and we figured out how to do it ourselves. But they said it could take a year to two years to take forever. Yeah, by November 1st.

We had that 501 C3. Really? Yeah, just gotta read the fine print. Yeah, that's amazing 501 C3s take forever. No, November 1st, we got it in the mail. Yeah, OK. In the mail. So now you've got and I assume over the five years that these kids are coming in, you're doing little upgrades on the building.

Yeah. Yeah. And then also the very first we're standing out back a Friday night, me and Nega are and the group that had been before that were serving some sandwiches out of the back like fish. And there was like 10 people who would come on Friday and get a fish sandwich or something. And so I'm standing back there one night, we're locking up and these people pulled in the back park a lot and they said, Can we get a fish sandwich? No, we don't have no fish. And they were like, Oh, well, maybe you should. And I was like, and maybe we should. The next week, we started a fish fry in the back of an illegal.

Yeah, totally. Don't have a hood. Why did these people think you had a fish sandwich in the first place? Well the people who were renting the building from us occasionally they would do fish. So they thought it was us. Yeah. So we're standing there and I was like, oh, so by the next Friday I had figured out how to do a fish fry. So we had one Friday.

I'm talking about one Friday. Yep. And it was going to work. I put up, took another piece of postboard, put a sign up side, uh, fish fry and hung it on the fence, like with a tape and said, $5 fish sandwiches. And man, that week we had probably eight people come in and buy a fish sandwich. And in those five years, it grew from five people on that first Friday to over 400 people coming in every Friday buying fish.

So we would have the gym going on, we would have people hanging out, we would have neighbors, what we call near and far, coming and buying fish. But we had a community, we got a community going on now, and we're self-sustainable. Because, so my paycheck was still paying the mortgage, but the light and water bill for that building was as much if not more

than the mortgage payment. Fifteen hundred bucks a month was the average. We didn't have that. The fish fry was paying that. Yeah. Yeah. So we. But meanwhile, you're growing this safe. Yeah. Meanwhile, we got two, three hundred kids coming to that didn't exist. You have no idea. Well, yeah, you do. I saw. Yeah, you do. go to that didn't exist. But you have no idea.

Well, yeah, you do. I saw. Yeah, you do. Yeah, I saw your document. Yeah. We're like, oh, yeah, we were both going. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Been there. Been there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been a part of that. And and what we didn't know was the complexity

what was happening there. So many people were coming that we had like four different gangs showing up every day. And hanging out in the gym at the same time. Together, and I had them all working together. But every once in a while, man, odd takes or something. One comic. It's a very difficult culture to navigate

when you're doing stuff that those kids are Melding together happily, but then when they leave you and they go back to their colors Yeah, and they go and those Instagram and they go back to all that and all of that requires a Different type of interaction. And balancing those two can be really, really difficult. And we had like six events per year where people would come together every week. Did it wig you out the first time you would see two kids

having a lot of fun and getting along together And then you would find out later that each of their two groups of friends were then fighting and carrying on did they wig me out the most was when I had a family in there a Kid who was 14 there was his brothers who were like six and eight and then I had another group that was like the same age and. And you got to remember my past. So I the sermons off the hook, you know, I know what's going on here.

I mean, used to buy drugs. Yeah, I know what's what you guys are going through so I could speak true to them and love. Man, it took me a year, but I used to say I love in the movie how the one dude said the other dude was gay. And when I used to tell all those dudes, because there would be 80 percent of those 3000 dudes because we had a gym for you to shoot. And they would show up and I would tell, I knew every one of them by name.

I knew every day when they were leaving, I would give them a hug and I would say, I want you to know I love you. And they used to, at first they would be like, pushing me away, like, dude, don't you, man, don't say that to me. And then about after six months of doing this, they finally started saying, hey, Mr. John, I want you to know I love you too.

But no homo. That's always like a scabby idea. Listen, I wonder the weirdest things was, you know, that movie that you're referencing was my six year. And you see me hugging on those kids and them hugging me back. But it didn't start that way. When I tried to hug somebody first, they were like, man, what's wrong with you? Get your hands off me. What are you doing?

They never had a father do that. They've never seen male love. They've never seen a male do that. Which is God's love. Yes. I've never seen it. It's exactly. John 10 10, the enemy comes to kill, seek, steal, and destroy. And that's what it does to those kids. It makes them feel like it's weird when it's not supposed to be weird.

Yeah, and it's no wonder why. So the very first time I saw that, that hit me the most is I had this one group and this other group and them and Then they on a fourth of July when we weren't even open there at the we restored a whole city Park the city gave us the keys to it to use they owned it, but it was horrific Yeah, I look like a pretty me and Inga went out and probably raised over $200,000 and we did the whole park and made it like where it was super beautiful.

And the kids are over there and everybody's using it. They get into a fight at the, we put a full court basketball in over there. to full court basketball and over there. The dad of one group is ex banger himself out of prison. And when you start getting that age group, that age group don't play like the young cats, but you can fight. That age group is a different story. And I'm sitting at home one night on my front porch. We meaning it loves it now on the front porch, because by this time,

man, neighbors had started coming out of their houses and people would start to like believe that the community was changing. And I hear the the precincts right around the corner. And every time that you hear like six cop cars, you know that there's a shooting Yeah, you know, I was wondering if you heard the gunshots themselves a lot of times in the first month that we lived there We had three murders right around our house and you heard them, you know, like people buying drugs people It was at nighttime and that night I'm sitting on my front porch and I hear the cop cars take off.

And at the same time my phone rings. And you know. Yeah. And it was one of my kids telling me, man you better get down to 26th and Bank because the Mary Hunt's dead. And I ran down the street because it's only like a block away.

And that group from the first, they had gotten that fight at that playground and that dad gave a kid a gun and they walked up to the car and they shot him five times in the head. So. car and they shot him five times in the head. So it was so unreal. I just couldn't believe it.

It's kids 15 years old. It was just so unreal. It was like, in time, it didn't even matter what the military, with my past, it was so just unreal. Like, I remember I held his grandmother at the funeral home while she platted his hair while they tried to put his face back together. And I remember having the funeral. By now we have a church during that five year period,

right around the corner was a church called St. Cecilia that the Catholics had decommissioned and wasn't using anymore. And they were seeing what we were doing so they came to us and asked if we'd be interested in buying the Plad of Lamb with the rectory and the church and the bingo hall. And I remember there was like 900 kids in the church. We had a funeral there. I remember what I told them. It doesn't have to be this way.

You know, man, 3,000 came through that building, but there's over 75 that we have documented that's either in prison or dead. We'll be right back. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. We'll be right back. people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon. But we're also gonna have some fun, even though these days fun and politics

seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlamagne the God. We're gonna take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on,

this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In New Chicago, which is where Manassas sits, an 18-year year old male was three times more likely to be dead or incarcerated by his 21st birthday as he has to have a job. Sounds like a similar area. The 10th most impoverished area in America. Right. But we have this is where I get like, if you want to call it preachy or

pissed off or don't understand, you got to remember, I'm a dude who did not grow up in this system called church. Right. I do know Jesus and for someone to even try to remotely try to disagree with me in that statement that you got to go to church. No, Jesus is like you telling me I got to go to church to know Jesus like you telling me I got to go to Hooters to have wings. That's an interesting metaphor. Nobody goes to Hooters to get wings. Their wings suck. But there's other things there for you to... If Hooters was ever going to be one of our sponsors, we just lost them.

All right. So first of all, I get it. And it's a really good reminder to all of our listeners. If you have the temerity, the courage and the desire and the passion to enter into a place like Portland, Kentucky or New Chicago and Memphis, or any of these other thousands of areas that need our help. You got to understand the reason they're in that shape is because there's all kinds of trauma and disaster there.

And it is not as easy as just showing up smiling and open the doors to a basketball court and everything's gonna be okay. It is if you want to do two hours and roll out. Yeah. Oh, that's, but that's, I lived it. That doesn't do any good. Yeah.

And even if you wanna do two hours and roll out, it's still gonna come with a set of challenges. I have six former football players who are no longer on this earth. I have three that are incarcerated, despite all of everything I tried to do. But it's not the failures. It's the successes that would have never happened had that community center never been opened up. Had you not ever sold the first $5 fish sandwich. I mean, you have a my age who just graduated from a college in Nashville, who at the top of her class, who used to fight in the gym every day and literally

beat some girl to a pulp, uh, like where her mom came and we had to pay hospital expenses because, and then, but she just graduated when all those headaches were going on, did you ever look at each other and say, should we just shut this thing down? No, you said I know. I know the answer. I want you to to tell our listeners the hard to our conversations you had about are we really doing the right thing here? I know you had to have.

Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I do. And in the very beginning, when it was just so much turmoil and so much craziness, there's like a little lot next door to the building. And I literally wore a circle and I mean, just walking and just screaming. Why do you have me here? I don't understand. You have me here. I don't understand. And I remember there was a turn where he literally,

audibly said to me, will you quit on me like the rest of them did? Will you quit on me? And I remember just falling on my knees and pulling up my big boy pants and saying. No matter how hard it gets. We're going to fight through this. Yeah.

Ingo, have you ever felt unsafe? You know, I've never felt unsafe. Um, like Sean, don't let her do everything. No, I don't do everything. He does. But I remember there was one time where Sean got asked to help lead a trip to Israel. So he was gone for like a week and I was home and I was running the gym and we had a couple of like 21 year old volunteers, guys that were there with me. like 21 year old volunteers, guys that were there with me. And a couple of a couple of known like gang bangers came in and it was getting a little rowdy and it's getting a little crazy. And I was like, OK, we're going to we're going to shut down.

Because we used to do that. You know, like we didn't have to stay open. Like if it got crazy, we just be like, OK, we'll try again tomorrow. They were fighting and nuts and crazy. And the community is in time out for acting bad. Oh, I was just walk over to the light switch and shut them all off. And they knew once I did that back then, we had enough old light bulbs. Don't have 30 minutes to come back out.

And once they saw the lights go out, they would be like, oh, man, we're done. So in this particular occasion, I tried to do the same thing. So I was like, okay, we're done. We're going to come back tomorrow. And so I went to shut the lights off and it had the opposite effect and they went more crazy. And so then it took 30 minutes to get the lights back on. And so the guys, they finally helped me finally get everybody out.

And there was this one kid that was still there and he was like getting all up in my face and like, you know, trying to like intimidate me and everything. And I was like, you got it. You just gotta go. Like you just gotta go. And so that's really the only, I didn't, but I didn't feel unsafe. Like I didn't, I don't know if it's naiveness. Do other people in the community, knowing you're doing what

you're doing now stand up in the face of that on your behalf. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's the interesting transformation that happens. Four years ago at the end of our six year jaunt of like battling and fighting and that was the love city. Then the love city now is a total different. So let's that's a great segue. Today, I will say back in that old love city. When you were asking.

We were having a basketball tournament and. I had to tell one of the kids, he had got soup. You know how it meant anger. It's just like they, they're so emotionally controlled. They have no idea how to manage any of that. And I get it, I get it. There's very little filter for anger. Yeah.

For people, can we stop for just a second? Yeah. I want our listeners to hear. Yeah, I'm gonna say this. I had a Manassas football player once tell me how angry he was. And I kept asking him why, and he could not articulate why, he just was.

And it was in my first year. Over the course of the next three years, I started to understand that trauma makes you angry. And trauma will make you angry, and you angry, and me angry, and anybody listens to it now. If you are traumatized over and over on a daily and weekly basis for your entire life, you know what you get? You get pissed. And the minute anything happens to piss you off, that's the only emotion you have to rely on. And it's explosive. It does not make

them bad people. What it makes them is traumatized. And we have to get our arms around that there's no difference in that trauma and the trauma a veteran experiences when he comes back from Iraq. Or an abused woman experiences when she's been beaten by a man. Or a rape victim. It's different types of trauma, but the level of trauma and what it does

to the human psyche is not that much difference. And so we got to quit asking ourselves why people from the hood or people from disadvantaged areas or people from poor areas who have experienced nothing but their lives in trauma. Why they're so angry all the time and why they might fight and lash out or why they may smoke a little weed because to self-medicate self-medicate because they can't afford to have them it is not excusing any of these antisocial behaviors yeah it is explaining where they come from and until we understand where they come from and why they happen and until we quit demonizing the result of the trauma and start understanding where the trauma comes from and addressing it, all we're doing is demonizing the most

vulnerable among us. And that's where I would say that's the difference between empathy and compassion. So are we gonna do something about it or we're just gonna keep talking about it? Well, the Open Gym program is now, I cannot believe I'm saying this, a K through 8 community school called Mighty Oaks Academy. So what we've got here is your ridiculous screwed-up life finding yourself at 45 on a beach in Miami talking to a homeless dude, boiling an egg on a can.

Yeah. And a former CIA black ops person who get married in two weeks in Rome, who find themselves in Portland, Kentucky, getting a free home, but having to buy a community place that they don't even know what they're doing with, who fights for six to ten years open thing, and you now have a school?

Yeah, I think what happened with, we continue to grow, right? It doesn't stop. So we end up buying the Catholic church called St. Cecilia, which is extremely beautiful on the inside. And then we moved the fish fry over to there. Why not?

It's a Catholic church, that's where fish fries are supposed to happen. That's where they did, that's where they had it. For centuries. Well, the gym used to be owned by the same church. By the same church, yeah. I get it. And so.

You basically reconstituted the original property back together. I keep trying to say we're not doing anything extraordinary. original property back together. I keep trying to say we're not doing anything extra ordinary. The community, I think, Catholicism's way of creating community is beautiful. Do I think that they also put too many strings without a lot of Jesus in it? Yeah, probably.

But I'm not going to throw stones at that. Go ahead. I want to be careful here, but the corporate church environment, despite what I think is a lot of well-intentioned stuff, who to this day still does an amazing amount for our communities, has in some respects chased people from the church. And it is important, I think, that we understand church membership and church attendance and faith can be the same thing, but they are not always the same thing.

And I think the American church is waking up to the fact that we have work to do to reteach ourselves that faith precedes church, not church precedes faith. And the words I would use is I would say we're wakening up to teach people that you don't have to be a churchgoer, but a Jesus follower. But the thing happens is if you're a Jesus follower, you end up wanting to go to church to be around people like you anyway. But why? Why can't you just do it all the time in life?

I'm not saying you can't. I'm just saying often times if you're a Jesus follower, you wanna go to church and hang out with other Jesus followers. It's a cool place to commune. I thought so too. But man, they tried to destroy me. Yeah, but you have a church. I have a church guy, a guy that taught my new members class when I was 13 years old,

has a guy named Craig Strickland here in Memphis, who started, who left a big Presbyterian church and he started Hope Presbyterian church. And he started a church in Memphis. And he started a church in Memphis. And he started a church in Memphis. And he started a church in Memphis. And he started a church in Memphis. And he started a church in Memphis. And he startedland here in Memphis, who started, who left a big Presbyterian church and he started Hope Presbyterian Church out of a restaurant and bar and it grew into one of our county's largest churches now called Hope Church and his

whole deal was I'm starting a church for the unchurched. It was back when everybody wore a tie. He encouraged jeans and t-shirts and coffee and hanging out, and he didn't have a choir. He had a band, which was one of the first people to do that, and he created a church for the unchurched, for the very people who were interested in faith, but were put off by the corporate church traditional thing because they'd had a bad experience or freaked them out or made them uncomfortable or they didn't feel welcome.

So all I'm saying to you is I hear you, I feel you, and I agree. Faith precedes everything. Because when you agree, and you're talking about a dude who's only been doing this for 11 years who fell in love with Jesus didn't know anything about that. Right. So a lot of my questions always comes from the child likeness in me not a fence towards something an institution. It never does that but because I have so many like childlike questions like well meaning if I were to get married, I was like, are we supposed to go to this church thing? And she was like, I don't know if you want to. We can. And I Googled it one day. She was at work in our zip code and there was 52 churches.

So it started like tripping me out. Somebody who don't know anything about any of that stuff is like tripping my forehead out. When she comes home, I got like 100 questions waiting on her because she's grew up in this thing. And I'm like, why do they do that? And why do they call themselves different names? And why is there a Baptist, a First Baptist,

a Second Baptist, a Third Baptist? And here's another good question. Why is Sunday the most segregated day in America? It should be the least segregated day. We could go into a whole podcast on how even Sunday got started the most segregated day in America. It should be the least segregated day. Here's another thing Alex often asks. Why when there are how many thousands? There's 150,000 kids in the United States foster care system. Their parental rights have been terminated. They could be adopted today. Right. And there's 400,000 houses of worship in the country.

If one of three, if one of three had one person to adopt a child, there would be no foster care system in the United States. There would be no orphans in America. Or homeless. Or people who need food. Or people who... why do we have to have a food bank? Tell us to come here and give it. If you really love your neighbor, why aren't you just doing it? That these are all the questions I have. These are all the like crazy childlike question. How does 80 89% there was a pupil taken and you can look it

up online and you could Google it and it was a real pupil wasn't just something made up and it was a real pupil wasn't just something made up. And it was about Christianity in Kentucky. 89% of the people in the state of Kentucky 18 and above that they polled said that they believe in Jesus and God. And why we have so many problems? Cause it's not real. We're not creating Jesus followers, we're creating church goers. And then you-

And there's a lot of people who call themselves Christians because their grandmother went to church. Yeah. It's easy to put a fish sticker on the back of your car. We'll be right back. right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron.

But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What I think the most beautiful part about that is in the 11 years that I've been doing this there is a great awakening going on across America where you say army of ordinary people,

but I would say people who have been anointed and appointed and they don't have to be in that building, but you do got to love your neighbor and man, it's so different than being pulling in here and you saying, man, I don't know about staying at that courtyard, but I met some chick there last night. That man is the most beautiful person in the city of Memphis that like told me her whole dream and like, man, how she wants to change the world. This morning, they told me I don't get free breakfast

over at this courtyard, okay. So me and you decided to ride down here to the Starbucks. I don't even know where we just ended up there. And we pull in and we're about ready to leave and we meet this lady in their name, Ebony, young lady who is vibrant on fire. So much joy. And she's telling us about this story, about how she talked, her and her manager talked Starbucks

corporate world into making this a community Starbucks. And that they have like every Friday, the kids from the neighborhood come in there and was they play games, play games. They gave out like thousands of backpacks all from the Starbucks that they built relationships with the target. I was like, that's what corporate America should be doing. We shouldn't be just like building these silos. It's all biblical, man. You're building these silos, putting all your profits in it,

but you ain't helping your neighbor. So the re how we got to the school. I know I'm I know I'm getting a little fired up because you get fired up. I don't care. I love it is bull crap. I mean, that's the whole point is right. We need to say It is bull crap. I mean,

that's the whole point is right. We need to say this is bull crap. When you got, well, you're on the show that does it and you got 52 church buildings in this one zip code in Louisville, Kentucky on a very wealthy side of town. 52. 52 mortgages, 52 light bills, 52 plumbing bills, 52 pastor bills. It's ridiculous. But my kids on the other side of town can't get an education or are killing each other because they can't read by the time they get to the 12th grade and we're pushing them through saying this is okay.

They're old enough. Advance them. It's bull crap. It is bull crap. It is total bull crap. So what's mighty oak Academy doing about it? So what we did was during COVID, you know, we what happened with the the open gym was and the community center was COVID shut me down.

Me and hanging down. They said you can't have kids in there. You can't gather. You can't be a part of this. And we also had a preschool at the same time going. So they shut that down. They shut down everything that we could do to get together. But we started doing open air gathering out on the front

porch during COVID. You got to remember, man, where we come from. Just a few blocks away. We had this thing during COVID that happened with the Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. Not far from us. Not far from us. And it brought a heap of mess. Man, people were downtown in the middle of Portland, busting windows,

robbing our neighbors. Nobody ever touched one thing at Love City. People said, Shawn, man, how come you ain't going to board up the windows? So, man, I'm not going to live in fear. On the night that the guy got killed at the barbecue stand on Broadway, the National Guard's person, when they brought him in, shot a dude and killed him. The Lord woke me up in the middle of the night and he said,

tomorrow we party. And I was like, what do you mean? He said, you start loving deeper and harder. I need you to awaken this community. And man, I woke up the next morning. I told Anger, we're just gonna have a big party. Right out here. We're not supposed to.

We're not supposed to gather. We're not supposed to be together. We're just gonna do it out here on the on the front porch and on the street. And man, we just started doing it every Tuesday night called parties on the porch and the neighborhood awakened. And then we'd have three, 400 people show up every Thursday night and we had carry a whole key. We had ice cream truck. We had you name it, man. But we weren't going to pay

attention to that spirit because it's not real that didn't want us to love one another. Man, that's the thing about like, a lot of people don't understand impoverished people. I grew up in it. I grew up on welfare. I grew up on food stamps. I get all that.

Man, we're a whole lot more tight knit than people can even imagine. Impoverished people, man, got each other's backs. They have to. And they don't care about whether you're white or you're black. Man, we just see each other like, man, we got to love one another. We got to hold on to each other. We got to make it through this together.

That's how it works when you're growing up in that nobody cares about man, you talk about people in my neighborhood or about 50 50 and I can tell you I never hear racism like people try to proclaim. It's like none. That's real. And that's real when you poor trying to just survive I've lived that I understand that it's hard for people to Gather that

That is just a thing that's really doesn't exist in those communities much just study It's not real. It's just really. I hate most of that stuff comes from rich folk on the other side. I was going to say a lot of it. Yeah, but I don't. That's all another thing. Please tell me about the school.

Yeah, so I can. So the school, you know, what we did was during COVID when the preschool shut down, we were trying to figure out like, man, what's going to happen to the kids because they're not going to go to school. We know our kids, they're not going to go to school. So before, I don't know about here in Memphis, they started opening up some churches and buildings and stuff and they would pay them the school system did to have like laptops,

but they wouldn't open up the school buildings. So before that, we created something called the bridge and we were just trying to get kids to come. And we had about a hundred kids every day show up and we would log them into Chromebooks. They had Chromebooks are given to them. We would help them because just like I saw no parents, no fathers, no mother. Can you imagine handing an 80 year old grandma a Chromebook and say, man. No kidding. Help your kindergartner get online for school.

Granddaughter needs to sign in. Huh? Right. That's what they would say, Ms. Shaw, come on. Will you be, I don't know how to do any of that. Not only that, but I don't have internet. Right. of that. Not only that, but I don't have internet. Right. Yeah, they don't have internet at home.

I don't have internet. So, we started assessing kids on our own. We had a doctor who was on our team at the time with a PhD and she had early childhood education and we came up with a assessment system to assess these kids just to see where they were. They were coming. I bet you were devastated.

Devastated wasn't the word. Our brain was just like, no wonder we have so many problems. When the valedictorian of a high school makes a 19 on their ACT and when the world history exam the questions are what's the Tennessee State bird your seniors in high school are not graduating ready to do anything other than maybe possibly man the friar at McDonald's it's with no devastating with no dreams. None. I remember when we very first got in the community, I would ask the kids, what's your dreams? For you to be like, huh?

Right. And you know what? They would. Someone would say who were older ones. My dream is to get a check. It took me a long time to figure out what they were talking about. But then I realized they were just trying to get a government check in the system. They wanted to stay in the system that they were brought up in.

The school today. The school today. So we started assessing kids, we're devastated. We couldn't believe that we had ninth graders that couldn't read, Jill ran up the hill. Right. Like, bro, you talking about your forehead. Should be shocking to most 95% of people listening to us. It's not to me because I lived it,

but I know exactly what you're saying. It floored me. So it's October 2000 to that 2020. And we're all down in the basement and Dr. Stovall is going over it all out the demographics and what she had found. And she's balling. She's a. African-American or black man.

Today's world, I don't know what just black. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Black and white. Yeah. Just fine. I think she's sitting there and she's laying it all out and I hope I didn't offend you with that. Yeah. I just don't see that stuff. I'm sorry.

Yeah. She's laying it all out and I'm like, man, this is crazy. She's balling and she says, I don't know what we're going to do. And man, as soon as she said it, I said, we're going to start school. And she is like, come on, man. We mean, start school. We're in the middle of COVID shot. I mean, and that could be a plan down the road.

But what do you talk about? Start school. I said, we're going to start school. And she said, when I said, we're going start school. And she said, when? I said, we're gonna open January the 4th. And she was like, we don't have education, we don't have anything, Sean. I don't even know how to comprehend what you're saying. I said, man, the Lord will provide.

And January the 4th in 2021, we opened a school. And now it's K through eight nine K through nine. How many kids in school about 70? That is unbelievable. How do you fund the school when I read that? I know that I know that the folks going to this is it a private school or charter school. It's a private school because in the state of Kentucky, we don't have charter system. So it's a private school voted against it because

the teacher union is so strong in the state of Kentucky. It shut it down. I got it. And nobody wants to hear. But now, man, I'm telling you right now, you're talking about people who voted no for it. And, and on that amendment to at least an amendment was just to like investigate what was best for the child for the future. Yeah, what it could look like, but I'm going to tell you right now, man. If if what I can see is true for the future, man, if you don't conform, they're going to cut off your funding on this

re on this overall of education. If it's true that we're going to really shut down the education system at the top, and we're going to and if you don't conform, man, and you shut then man. It's your fault that you didn't vote for at least to investigate it. You know what Aristotle what Plato said about the you know Plato said, the penalty for not involving yourself in politics is right. Plato's Plato. Plato. Yeah, I was a while back.

He was hanging out close to where y'all got engaged. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the penalty for not involving yourself in politics is you end up being governed by your inferiors. Yeah. Yeah. So you better pay attention. And I kept trying to say at least open it up for some kind of thought process, you know, and people, man, they're strong to their beliefs.

So it's a private school. I can't imagine your students have a whole lot of money to pay. How does this thing get funded? Private. Yeah, private government, no big sponsorships. So you have people funding this for you and your students? Just like, this is, I can tell you, this is the very first time I've been on any, I haven't done any interviews in a long time just because I said no to all of them. Well, I appreciate you being here.

I was supposed to be here and I think that I'm supposed to bring awareness to what is going on there because I think it's not just there, but it's I want to make sure that's a microcosm of places all over. Yeah, I want to make sure I encourage other people. Yeah, I want to make sure I encourage other people. The school is privately funded by a bunch of people who believe in not what Sean and thing is doing there, but what God's doing there. And I could tell you in three years, we have seen some miracles that you probably wouldn't even believe.

Are you planning on going through 12th? Yeah, that's our our plan is to have. So a few years ago, we bought another Catholic church right down the road that was abandoned. And that's a crazy story in itself. And that will be our preschool. And that will be for the little acorns, what we call it. And our thing is keeping with the oak

oak acorns to oaks. That's our tag is acorns to oaks. We want diapers to graduation. I get it. So we down here, the preschool, we're in the middle of doing a capital campaign for it because we need to raise about $1.5 million to renovate this building so that it can conform to the Kentucky standards for daycares,

but it will be a preschool and then we can use four C's to help fund that because people in our community, they need a place for their kids to be able to go the baby so that they can get to work and they get off these systems. You know people don't get married in our community. It's not because they don't want to. No, it's because if you're a woman with children, if you get married, what the government gives you

cuts you off. So, how crazy is that? Well, hold it, hold it. How hypocritical is it? We have a government, we have a government who on one hand will say say we must have the nuclear family return in order to help children in our communities and then they actually talk down to people who aren't married. They actually pay you not to do it. In a very paternalistic way. Then on the other side, we

incent people to not be married. So the one thing, we say one thing as a government and then we incent people another way. Talking outside of your neck. That's hypocrisy in its finest. It is the most, one of my arguments is that the government, although many of these things that are there have developed over the last 40, 50 years, and I do believe most of the things that were put in place at one point

Another were well intentioned. But what has evolved is this horrifically? paternalistic system that keeps people exactly where they are I'm going no, I think we should quickly take through like what else you guys have? I'm getting there hang on So way over we are and I gotta go but so me too the point is the point is You're trying with the school to break that cycle. Yeah, I think that if you don't It'll never change What will always be menace? If you don't, it'll never change.

What will always be an asset? So you understand because at all school, we don't just address academics. We have trauma based learning. We have trauma based people there that will help them with that trauma. They've been inflicted with, you know, one time I took last year, I was at worked with the eighth graders a lot and a volunteer there, you know, because I don't get paid. It loves city and I took the eighth graders. I love going out and doing contemplation teaching them to

be able to listen. I take them up to this place called Mount Saint Francis and up at Mount Saint Francis. We're them up to this place called Mount St. Francis and up at Mount St. Francis, we're sitting up there. And one of the little girls who I just deeply adore, she just starts bawling. I said, man, Gracie, you okay? She said, no, I'm not. And I said, why, man, beautiful? It was just me and her. Isn't it beautiful. The rest of them were taking hikes and stuff She said this is the first time in my life. I've ever heard silence What's wrong man

Inga yeah, what's next for love city? Oh well So like Sean mentioned we've got a capital campaign. We got to build out of high school Yeah, what's next for love city? Oh Well So like Sean mentioned we got a capital campaign. We got a build out of high school We got a build out of preschool. We got to build a middle school building How much money is all that gonna cost? Six million. Is that all? That ain't much Do you feel like that's much? Six million dollars.

It's a whole bunch. Rebuilt a man back in the day. Six million dollars. Six million dollars. It's a whole lot of money for some. It's nothing for others. So yeah, I'm like, so if we're called, man, we've been doing this for nine years. I ain't never begged anybody for a penny and I'm not going to and I'm not going to pimp poverty.

I'm not going to take pictures of little black and white kids and tell everybody how poor they are. And man, can you do this for for me? But we should be loving our neighbor. But we should be loving our neighbor. It's not a...I think for me, especially what just destroys my forehead and my heart, and this thing that we call Christianity. And I would not say that I'm a Christian, but I would say I'm a follower of Jesus. You know, it's not an ask when he says, you're supposed to love God with all your heart, mind and soul.

And you're supposed to love others as you love yourself. It's not an ask. It's a mandate. I often say, people always say, it's so nice what you did at Manassas and all that. And I try to tell people and I don't think I think people think it's some all shucks false humility sometimes, but I didn't do it to be nice. I did it because I felt required. Yeah. Like when I was talking to Alex one before we came here to do this, he said he wanted me and Nega to come on here to have a chat with you.

And he used the word radical. You guys are so radical in what you do. I'm going to tell you, man, me and Inga, we don't see ourselves any other way than just some people who fell in love with Jesus. Christ was radical But what if it's just normal? We could argue that forever tell me how people find love city So we have websites driving to Portland, Kentucky and looking around. Yeah, how do they find it virtually?

So we have a website you You can go to lovesidying.org. Okay. And that will connect you to all of, so everything that we do has its own brand. So like Mighty Oak has its own website. The barbecue restaurant has its own website, et cetera. But you can get to all of that through lovesidying.org. Which is amazing.

And we create sustainability. When you were asking how we get funded, we have a thrift store. We have a restaurant. We have a thrift store called Mermet Thrift. People can donate to that clothes. We we resell it in our community. We believe you no more handouts, but some hand ups. And then we got to charge you a quarter for a T-shirt

for you to be able to be a part of the community, man, let's do it. And then we have a restaurant where people can come and man, you can work for an hour and you can eat for free. I mean, it's community. The restaurant is a lot like, we highlighted a place in Jackson, Tennessee called Community Cafe, Com Unity Cafe.

And the menu is what the menu is. And if you can afford 20 bucks pay in it, if you can't afford anything, eat and wash dishes for 30 minutes. And you will have bankers and attorneys sitting next to homeless people at community tables, eating food together. You see the same thing.

So that's what it sounds like, that's what your restaurant is that helps support all of this. Yeah. And I love and we can end on that. What you just brought up the word community because we're uneducated people who go to this building on Sunday. The word community actually is derived from the word ecclesia which means the church there's one God there's one Jesus there's one Holy Spirit

there's one kingdom and there's only one community that the Lord owns and operates in. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. I'm sitting across from two people who come from amazingly vastly different backgrounds that in two weeks formed a union and that unions turned into love city and the community that you just so beautifully explained is I am I am so inspired by your stories I'm so enthralled by your stories and Alex is right I could sit here and talk to you guys for another five hours but I don't think our listeners but maybe when you get to high school, you come back and join us and we catch back up.

Yeah. Yeah. Take a little trip back down to Memphis one time. Or maybe you come up. Or maybe I come up. We set this up. I love it. Yeah. Inga, Sean, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate it. for Joyce. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. And thank you for joining us this week. If Sean or Inga Arvin or other guests have inspired you in general or better yet to take action by loving your neighbors more, starting something like Love City in your own neighborhood, donated to them or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at billatnormalfolks.us and I swear to you, I will respond.

If you enjoyed this episode, guys, please share it with friends. Share it on social. Subscribe to our podcast. Rate it. Review it. Join the Army at NormalFolks.us. Consider becoming a premium member there.

Do any and all of these things that will help us grow an Army of Normal Folks. The more of you there are, the more impact we can have. Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, let's do what we can. The Indicator is a podcast where daily economic news is about what matters to you. And we're guessing most days, that's money. Workers have been feeling the sting of inflation.

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