We're still learning a lot of things,

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but as the Lord leads us and we're learning,

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if we stick with His word,

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we're gonna get there eventually.

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And I mean, we're never gonna totally arrive

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until we get to heaven, but you know,

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the Lord is good and brings us,

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starts with where we are and just takes us along.

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Charlette, welcome to the podcast.

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Thanks for being willing to come on

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and share your story today.

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Thank you.

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So let's start at the beginning.

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And I know there's a lot of different angles

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and pieces to your story and layers

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and all kinds of stuff we're gonna get into,

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but let's rewind and

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start with where were you born

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and were you raised in a religious family?

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Tell me a little bit about your upbringing years.

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I was born in Oklahoma.

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My parents had been married several years

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before they had me and they were

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kind of a jack of all trades.

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So they left me with my grandmother

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while they figured out

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what they wanted to do in life

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until I was about four.

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And she was a very godly lady.

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She took me to church every Sunday

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and all of the relatives were nearby.

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And so we had Sunday dinners with everybody

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and she gave me a lot of good Bible teaching

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and I heard a lot.

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But then when my parents had decided

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what they were gonna do, we moved to Texas

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and I never got to church again until I guess

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when we would visit my grandmother

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or until probably we moved to Arkansas

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and I would ask somebody

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would invite me to their church.

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And I was in junior high in high school

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and I would go with them.

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And my mother was good about taking me

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and dropping me off and Mother's Day and Easter,

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she would go to church with me.

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But other than that, it wasn't really much.

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And so I was always seeking

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how to come closer to the Lord

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because I'd heard about him

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but there was more head

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knowledge than heart knowledge.

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Just wanted to know this Jesus.

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And so I was always kind of

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listening to what everybody,

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I mean, at one time I even had a Jewish friend.

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She took me to the synagogue.

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I said, "If Jesus was a Jew,

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then I should become a Jew."

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But when the rabbi asked me questions

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and I said that Jesus was a Savior,

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I kind of, he said, "That's not gonna work."

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Oh, that's interesting.

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What kind of church is it that your mother

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was taking you to, you said

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on Mother's Day and Easter?

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Was there a certain denomination?

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Mainly Baptist, because we were in the South.

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Oh, sure.

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And her mother was a

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independent conservative Baptist.

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So that was mainly where she would go.

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But I tried Methodist and

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Episcopalian and Presbyterian

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and Baptist, different kinds

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of Baptists and everything.

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So at some point in this

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story, though, you end up,

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if I'm getting this

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right, you end up in California

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and you meet your future husband,

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like how did you end up in California then?

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Cause you were in Texas and then was it school

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or something?

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Well, my husband, I mean, my father worked

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in the Titan missile silos.

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Really?

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Yeah.

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So just explain a bit of what that is,

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just for reference.

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It was some kind of a missile that would shoot up

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and go over, I guess, and

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bomb overseas or something.

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But they were very, very deep in the ground,

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had these really over a

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hundred foot, maybe 200 foot,

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I'm not sure, elevators.

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And my father was an

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engineer, aeronautical space engineer.

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And so he was working on

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this Titan missile in Arkansas

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for Jacksonville Air Force Base.

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And he was a civilian

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doing it, though, contractor.

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And he was in an elevator accident.

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And the elevator dropped several hundred feet

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with him in it.

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And he injured his back

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and was laid up for a while.

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And so he decided he had to

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find another place to work.

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And so he heard, you know, California,

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everybody goes to

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California to make a lot of money.

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And so we moved to California

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and I was in my second year in high school.

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So he started working for

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different aircraft companies

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out there and ended up

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working for Hughes Aircraft,

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which now is Raytheon.

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Okay, so this is, which part of California?

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Where are you living at this?

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Southern California, Los Angeles area.

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West Chester is where I went to school

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and where we lived, the suburb of Los Angeles,

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near the beach.

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What if you said this was

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a pretty patriotic family

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that you were a part of, you know,

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God and country kind of situation?

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It means your father's

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working on Titan missile systems.

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Or was it just, this is just kind of a job

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and this is just life?

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Well, he had even worked on

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one of the space shuttles,

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the Gemini space shuttle.

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So yeah, I would say he was somewhat patriotic.

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We said the pledge of allegiance stood up

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when the flag went by and all of that, but.

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That's fascinating.

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It's actually really fascinating.

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Yeah, space travel is something that intrigues me

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and airplanes, things like that,

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which segues nicely into

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this next part of your life

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where you meet your future husband.

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And well, yeah, just

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start talking us through that

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because that part of the story continues here.

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Well, I liked school.

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And so I had signed up for a summer school class

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in my high school.

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And this, it was a literature class.

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And that's where I met Vince.

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And it was not,

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I was actually had another boyfriend at the time.

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And Vince had said something to me

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as I was walking out a door,

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which I felt was inappropriate.

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So I didn't like him at all.

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And so that was the last time I saw him

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after that class was over until the next year

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when a friend of mine was visiting

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and her mother had said she could go out

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with her boyfriend that was from the area,

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but that I needed to go with them.

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And I had just broken up with somebody.

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And so I had no date.

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So it would have been a threesome.

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And I think that her boyfriend was like,

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he wasn't comfortable with that.

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And so he brought along a blind date

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and it turned out to be Vince.

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And when he walked in the door,

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I said to my mother, I'm not going.

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My mother said, yeah, you

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are, you gave your word.

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And so I thought, okay, I'll

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make it really rough on him.

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And so I didn't talk much.

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And I tried to order the most

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expensive thing on the menu.

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And he came back the next day

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and still was talking to me.

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So, and then a couple of days later,

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he asked me to go steady and

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I'm just like, I don't know.

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I wasn't really interested

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in having just one boyfriend

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at that time, but I

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thought, okay, we can do that.

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I was kind of dating other boyfriends

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because I didn't want to be

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in a relationship and get hurt.

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So, but he seemed like a nice guy.

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So I thought, okay.

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So that continues for a little while.

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Vince, your husband then

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had interest in the Air Force.

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And so that kind of brings us

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back around to the aeronautics

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and aviation side of things

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that we were just talking about.

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So when did you all get

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married then in this process?

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Was this before he joined the Air Force?

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Yes, well, it was, I was still in high school

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and he came to my senior prom and everything.

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And he was already in

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college and we got married in 1968

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and just in between his junior and senior year.

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And he had just came out of

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bootcamp for the Air Force,

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junior bootcamp or something.

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It wasn't full fledged bootcamp.

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I think it was ROTC bootcamp.

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And so they had shaved his

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head just before our wedding.

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And so in the pictures, see

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this guy with almost bald.

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So, but yeah, so then we got married

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and I worked full time

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and went to school part time

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and he would school full

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time and worked part time.

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So we had a very busy life.

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And then we found out we

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were gonna have our first child

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right away, which was a surprise.

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And he got out of the Air Force

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and we went to Phoenix,

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Arizona for pilot training,

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which was, and we only had one car.

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And so I got left home a lot.

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But it was a nice place to

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live and he worked very hard,

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learning a lot.

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But those must have been, you know,

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difficult times in a way.

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I mean, you know, if he's

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going through flight training,

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that's pretty rigorous,

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you know, in the Air Force

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and you're newly married, you've moved.

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Yeah, they just paint a bit of a picture.

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Like what was life like as a military wife?

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And yeah, what was life like for you?

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Well, the first year was very lonely

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because he was gone sometimes 12 hours.

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He would be, you know, grueling.

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And I knew it was hard on him,

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but I was also alone.

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I had no friends.

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My family wasn't there and I had a new baby.

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And since I was an only child,

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I didn't know how to take

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care of a baby very well.

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And so that was interesting,

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but and only having one car,

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so I could only go shopping,

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you know, every week or two,

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because the base was about a half an hour away.

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And so he needed the car to go to work every day.

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And so it was very, very

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lonely and very kind of sad

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from time to time, you know,

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that I didn't really have any,

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probably about six months

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in, we made some friends

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from some of the neighbors

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that were also in pilot training.

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So I knew their wives, but still, you know,

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some of the other wives didn't have babies yet,

276

00:11:20,179 --> 00:11:21,722

or they had more than one baby,

277

00:11:23,391 --> 00:11:24,725

or, you know, they were more experienced.

278

00:11:24,809 --> 00:11:27,937

And so we just kind of went day to day.

279

00:11:29,355 --> 00:11:32,775

Yeah, so this is probably one of those things

280

00:11:32,775 --> 00:11:33,859

where like marriage is

281

00:11:33,859 --> 00:11:36,445

difficult at this point, right?

282

00:11:36,487 --> 00:11:39,115

I mean, because again, like flight school,

283

00:11:40,199 --> 00:11:43,911

the Air Force, like these are big career things

284

00:11:44,578 --> 00:11:45,746

for your husband that I'm

285

00:11:45,746 --> 00:11:46,705

sure takes so much time.

286

00:11:47,081 --> 00:11:48,040

And then at some point in

287

00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:49,875

here, he's deployed as well.

288

00:11:50,418 --> 00:11:51,752

After he finished flight

289

00:11:51,752 --> 00:11:53,421

school, then he went overseas

290

00:11:53,421 --> 00:11:54,964

and I moved back to

291

00:11:54,964 --> 00:11:56,424

California to be near my parents

292

00:11:56,424 --> 00:11:59,510

so that I could get help with my daughter.

293

00:12:00,010 --> 00:12:02,012

And I thought I'd go back to school.

294

00:12:02,513 --> 00:12:06,100

So his mother had a daycare in her home.

295

00:12:06,100 --> 00:12:09,520

And so she watched our daughter during the day

296

00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:10,729

while I went back to school.

297

00:12:11,355 --> 00:12:18,195

And after a while I decided we had some bills

298

00:12:18,195 --> 00:12:20,156

and so I would go ahead and get a job.

299

00:12:20,364 --> 00:12:22,283

And then so I was working

300

00:12:22,283 --> 00:12:24,618

and trying to take care of her.

301

00:12:24,618 --> 00:12:26,620

And then in that time,

302

00:12:27,163 --> 00:12:29,373

she started having seizures.

303

00:12:29,373 --> 00:12:31,459

So that took a lot of my time and energy

304

00:12:32,460 --> 00:12:35,171

and trying to take care of

305

00:12:35,171 --> 00:12:36,464

why she was having seizures

306

00:12:36,714 --> 00:12:39,758

and making changes in our lifestyle and diet.

307

00:12:41,343 --> 00:12:42,303

And everything to try and

308

00:12:42,303 --> 00:12:44,096

figure out what was going on.

309

00:12:44,638 --> 00:12:46,891

And this is all while Vince is out of the country

310

00:12:47,641 --> 00:12:48,476

at war essentially.

311

00:12:49,059 --> 00:12:51,353

And so all of my attention then was on,

312

00:12:53,939 --> 00:12:55,691

just basically trying to

313

00:12:55,691 --> 00:12:57,359

take care of our daughter

314

00:12:58,068 --> 00:12:59,695

and see what was best for her.

315

00:12:59,904 --> 00:13:02,239

And also try to pay off our bills.

316

00:13:02,239 --> 00:13:07,161

We had a car payment and then because of,

317

00:13:08,078 --> 00:13:10,039

because my father was not as

318

00:13:10,039 --> 00:13:12,291

kind to me or to my daughter,

319

00:13:13,876 --> 00:13:15,211

I couldn't live at home with them.

320

00:13:16,212 --> 00:13:19,632

So I then had a rent payment to an apartment

321

00:13:20,424 --> 00:13:22,801

and then you have bills,

322

00:13:23,719 --> 00:13:24,887

electric bill, phone bill,

323

00:13:25,054 --> 00:13:25,596

all of that.

324

00:13:26,388 --> 00:13:30,017

So it was kind of a very

325

00:13:30,017 --> 00:13:31,060

busy time then for me too.

326

00:13:31,519 --> 00:13:36,857

So somewhere in this process,

327

00:13:37,816 --> 00:13:40,319

you're not quite sure about this marriage thing.

328

00:13:40,319 --> 00:13:41,362

Do you want to talk about that?

329

00:13:41,820 --> 00:13:43,322

Yeah, before he went overseas,

330

00:13:44,323 --> 00:13:45,741

because I'd felt so invisible

331

00:13:45,741 --> 00:13:47,409

when he was in pilot training,

332

00:13:47,409 --> 00:13:49,161

I just told him, I'm not sure about this.

333

00:13:49,537 --> 00:13:51,080

So let's kind of take a break.

334

00:13:51,872 --> 00:13:53,791

And so when he left and then

335

00:13:53,791 --> 00:13:55,125

I got busy with our daughter

336

00:13:55,125 --> 00:13:58,462

and all, I just kind of focused on that.

337

00:13:58,837 --> 00:14:03,884

And, but then probably a little more than halfway

338

00:14:04,051 --> 00:14:07,263

through that overseas tour that he had,

339

00:14:08,138 --> 00:14:09,932

they had something called RnR, a Rest

340

00:14:10,099 --> 00:14:13,978

and Relaxation, a Rest and Refreshment.

341

00:14:15,229 --> 00:14:16,689

They sent us to Hawaii,

342

00:14:17,398 --> 00:14:18,941

which is where we had had our honeymoon.

343

00:14:19,275 --> 00:14:20,985

And so I said, yeah, I'll

344

00:14:20,985 --> 00:14:22,528

go meet you there in Hawaii.

345

00:14:23,279 --> 00:14:24,572

And so we kind of rekindled

346

00:14:24,822 --> 00:14:26,615

because both of us were away from everything

347

00:14:26,991 --> 00:14:29,743

and it was relaxing.

348

00:14:30,494 --> 00:14:32,288

And so I thought, oh, okay,

349

00:14:32,288 --> 00:14:33,664

maybe we can make this work.

350

00:14:33,747 --> 00:14:35,916

So he came straight there from deployment.

351

00:14:36,166 --> 00:14:36,584

Right.

352

00:14:36,834 --> 00:14:39,795

So which that's a separate interview we did

353

00:14:39,795 --> 00:14:41,171

with your husband then

354

00:14:41,171 --> 00:14:43,299

how he was flying missions,

355

00:14:43,674 --> 00:14:45,634

surveillance missions based out of Thailand

356

00:14:45,634 --> 00:14:46,635

during the Vietnam war.

357

00:14:46,635 --> 00:14:48,220

So flying into Vietnam and things.

358

00:14:49,221 --> 00:14:50,514

Okay, so he comes straight from there.

359

00:14:51,056 --> 00:14:52,683

Y'all are in Hawaii now.

360

00:14:53,475 --> 00:14:54,768

Okay, so you got that part of life.

361

00:14:55,394 --> 00:14:56,895

And then I'm guessing at some point,

362

00:14:57,271 --> 00:14:59,106

military is like, okay, RnR is over.

363

00:14:59,315 --> 00:15:02,192

You're reassigned to somewhere else.

364

00:15:02,735 --> 00:15:04,153

No, he went back then overseas

365

00:15:04,153 --> 00:15:05,487

and I went back to California.

366

00:15:05,904 --> 00:15:08,365

And then at the end of that tour,

367

00:15:08,365 --> 00:15:11,619

then he was assigned to B-52s.

368

00:15:11,827 --> 00:15:15,080

And so he was, we went to Merced, California

369

00:15:15,748 --> 00:15:16,874

for his training there.

370

00:15:17,291 --> 00:15:19,668

And so I went with him to that.

371

00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:22,504

And then from there, he was

372

00:15:22,504 --> 00:15:24,340

assigned to upstate New York.

373

00:15:25,382 --> 00:15:27,635

And so I went with him to upstate New York.

374

00:15:27,718 --> 00:15:29,178

That's the whole way across the country.

375

00:15:29,219 --> 00:15:29,553

Yeah.

376

00:15:29,553 --> 00:15:30,179

It's a big move.

377

00:15:30,596 --> 00:15:31,347

Yeah. Yeah.

378

00:15:32,097 --> 00:15:36,560

And so we got up to New York and got settled in.

379

00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:39,271

And then he got busy again,

380

00:15:39,688 --> 00:15:41,899

being an Air Force officer and a pilot

381

00:15:42,024 --> 00:15:43,567

and learning a new plane

382

00:15:44,443 --> 00:15:47,404

and concentrating on being

383

00:15:47,404 --> 00:15:48,906

the best he could in his career.

384

00:15:49,907 --> 00:15:52,409

Very goal oriented and very career minded.

385

00:15:52,785 --> 00:15:56,246

And so in time again,

386

00:15:57,915 --> 00:15:59,792

I felt like he'd forgotten us.

387

00:16:00,459 --> 00:16:03,295

And then he started having assignments to Guam.

388

00:16:05,089 --> 00:16:09,968

And then we, I became a

389

00:16:09,968 --> 00:16:11,720

with child with our second child.

390

00:16:12,262 --> 00:16:16,433

And he was in Guam

391

00:16:17,393 --> 00:16:19,353

about the time that I was going to deliver.

392

00:16:20,020 --> 00:16:21,063

So I had flown back to

393

00:16:21,063 --> 00:16:22,439

California to be with my parents

394

00:16:22,690 --> 00:16:24,024

when I had the baby so

395

00:16:24,024 --> 00:16:25,776

that his mom could help out

396

00:16:25,776 --> 00:16:28,153

with our daughter and I could have our baby.

397

00:16:29,405 --> 00:16:33,158

And I remember having our second child

398

00:16:33,158 --> 00:16:35,077

and looking at the clock and realizing

399

00:16:35,285 --> 00:16:37,955

that my husband was in Cambodia,

400

00:16:38,789 --> 00:16:40,791

flying over Cambodia dropping bombs.

401

00:16:40,791 --> 00:16:42,584

And I'm in this nice clean hospital,

402

00:16:43,335 --> 00:16:44,670

giving birth to a baby.

403

00:16:47,047 --> 00:16:48,674

And somebody else could be,

404

00:16:49,299 --> 00:16:50,342

their babies could be dying.

405

00:16:52,219 --> 00:16:53,053

You thought that.

406

00:16:55,723 --> 00:16:58,559

And I think that's one of the pieces

407

00:16:58,976 --> 00:17:02,271

that is pretty easy for us

408

00:17:02,271 --> 00:17:03,397

to not really have our heads

409

00:17:03,480 --> 00:17:06,525

around is all the separation and just the,

410

00:17:07,693 --> 00:17:09,820

all the moving around too that's happening.

411

00:17:11,655 --> 00:17:13,824

And this must've been disorienting perhaps,

412

00:17:14,116 --> 00:17:15,784

or I don't even know the right word

413

00:17:15,784 --> 00:17:16,285

because I haven't

414

00:17:16,285 --> 00:17:17,494

experienced something like this.

415

00:17:18,245 --> 00:17:20,289

Since my parents moved around so much,

416

00:17:20,831 --> 00:17:21,832

to me it was just normal

417

00:17:21,832 --> 00:17:24,126

life moving from place to place.

418

00:17:24,126 --> 00:17:25,919

I know a lot of people ask me,

419

00:17:25,919 --> 00:17:27,004

how do you handle that?

420

00:17:27,546 --> 00:17:30,215

But it was like, that was the life

421

00:17:30,215 --> 00:17:32,342

I had already experienced growing up

422

00:17:32,342 --> 00:17:34,720

with my parents moving around so much.

423

00:17:36,180 --> 00:17:39,349

My dad was one time at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

424

00:17:39,349 --> 00:17:40,934

And by the time my mother and I got there

425

00:17:43,061 --> 00:17:44,813

and they had just had a new house,

426

00:17:44,813 --> 00:17:46,273

they moved into brand new built.

427

00:17:46,899 --> 00:17:47,816

We were there two months

428

00:17:47,816 --> 00:17:51,987

and he got transferred somewhere else.

429

00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:57,242

And so it was kind of disorienting

430

00:17:57,910 --> 00:17:59,745

going back to another place.

431

00:18:00,704 --> 00:18:01,997

Is a sense of like, you

432

00:18:01,997 --> 00:18:03,832

can't really settle necessarily.

433

00:18:04,041 --> 00:18:04,541

Right.

434

00:18:05,209 --> 00:18:08,212

So I just, I never lived anywhere until

435

00:18:09,296 --> 00:18:10,255

we moved back to Ohio.

436

00:18:10,923 --> 00:18:13,258

Well, when we moved to Ohio the first time,

437

00:18:13,717 --> 00:18:15,552

was the first time I had ever lived anywhere

438

00:18:15,928 --> 00:18:18,096

within a couple of years.

439

00:18:20,265 --> 00:18:22,768

So you're in California for a

440

00:18:22,768 --> 00:18:25,687

time with your second child.

441

00:18:26,438 --> 00:18:29,983

Again, your husband is flying combat missions

442

00:18:29,983 --> 00:18:31,360

in the Vietnam War again.

443

00:18:31,652 --> 00:18:33,487

So multiple, it sounds like he

444

00:18:33,487 --> 00:18:35,239

was over there multiple times.

445

00:18:35,697 --> 00:18:39,910

Yeah, for a couple months at a time

446

00:18:39,910 --> 00:18:40,911

or three months at a time.

447

00:18:41,203 --> 00:18:43,288

And so then I, after having that baby,

448

00:18:43,914 --> 00:18:45,624

I went back to New York,

449

00:18:46,041 --> 00:18:47,918

went back to the military lifestyle

450

00:18:48,126 --> 00:18:49,461

of just raising my children

451

00:18:49,461 --> 00:18:50,921

and paying attention to them

452

00:18:50,921 --> 00:18:53,048

because he was working so hard on his job.

453

00:18:53,757 --> 00:18:55,467

And this is, so he gets back

454

00:18:55,843 --> 00:18:57,469

and he'd be back at the

455

00:18:57,469 --> 00:18:58,887

same base there in New York.

456

00:18:58,929 --> 00:18:59,221

Right.

457

00:18:59,221 --> 00:18:59,805

Right, so.

458

00:19:00,097 --> 00:19:01,265

Yeah, in New York.

459

00:19:01,932 --> 00:19:03,684

How long did that last before it was,

460

00:19:04,226 --> 00:19:04,893

you started being like,

461

00:19:04,893 --> 00:19:05,978

"I'm not sure this is working."

462

00:19:07,980 --> 00:19:09,857

Probably about another year.

463

00:19:10,274 --> 00:19:11,900

And then I started thinking,

464

00:19:12,901 --> 00:19:14,319

"Something's got to change here."

465

00:19:15,070 --> 00:19:16,446

And so I started searching

466

00:19:16,446 --> 00:19:18,532

and talking to different people

467

00:19:18,532 --> 00:19:20,075

and asking questions and everything.

468

00:19:21,869 --> 00:19:23,704

And after about seven years of marriage,

469

00:19:23,704 --> 00:19:25,205

I went in, decided,

470

00:19:27,499 --> 00:19:27,875

I just,

471

00:19:30,502 --> 00:19:34,214

my dad was not an easy person to live with.

472

00:19:34,214 --> 00:19:36,258

And I always, growing up, always thought,

473

00:19:36,675 --> 00:19:38,218

"Why does my mother stay with him?

474

00:19:38,677 --> 00:19:41,179

He's abusive and why are we staying here?"

475

00:19:41,805 --> 00:19:43,932

And I thought, if I ever get married,

476

00:19:44,141 --> 00:19:48,186

I'm never gonna let this happen to my children.

477

00:19:49,396 --> 00:19:52,608

And so I was just, in the back of my mind,

478

00:19:52,608 --> 00:19:55,444

I was afraid that I would have a marriage

479

00:19:55,527 --> 00:19:56,778

similar to that someday.

480

00:19:57,779 --> 00:20:01,700

And so even though he was more ignoring us,

481

00:20:02,492 --> 00:20:04,703

not intentionally, it just came out that way.

482

00:20:05,537 --> 00:20:07,831

And I just thought, "I

483

00:20:07,831 --> 00:20:08,874

don't wanna live like this.

484

00:20:09,583 --> 00:20:10,918

I want somebody that,

485

00:20:12,044 --> 00:20:12,961

I picked him because I

486

00:20:12,961 --> 00:20:14,212

thought he would be a good father

487

00:20:14,922 --> 00:20:16,089

and a good provider," which

488

00:20:16,089 --> 00:20:17,424

he was an excellent provider,

489

00:20:17,633 --> 00:20:19,885

but he wasn't there as a

490

00:20:19,885 --> 00:20:21,470

husband or a father most of the time.

491

00:20:22,679 --> 00:20:24,723

And so I thought, "Okay, I

492

00:20:24,723 --> 00:20:26,183

think we need another separation."

493

00:20:26,183 --> 00:20:27,726

So I was going to a lawyer

494

00:20:27,726 --> 00:20:29,478

to get a legal separation

495

00:20:29,645 --> 00:20:30,479

and the lawyer explained,

496

00:20:30,479 --> 00:20:31,688

"It's cheaper to get a divorce."

497

00:20:32,648 --> 00:20:35,442

And I didn't wanna cost too much money

498

00:20:35,442 --> 00:20:38,236

and I didn't want to create a problem.

499

00:20:38,236 --> 00:20:39,279

So I said, "Okay, we'll

500

00:20:39,279 --> 00:20:40,572

just go for the divorce then."

501

00:20:41,698 --> 00:20:44,159

And so I did, I filed for divorce

502

00:20:44,284 --> 00:20:46,411

and I had to come up with 10 reasons

503

00:20:46,662 --> 00:20:47,871

at that time in New York.

504

00:20:48,455 --> 00:20:49,164

The lawyer said, "These

505

00:20:49,164 --> 00:20:50,540

are pretty flimsy reasons."

506

00:20:51,208 --> 00:20:52,125

And I said, "Well, I don't

507

00:20:52,125 --> 00:20:53,085

wanna hurt his reputation

508

00:20:53,377 --> 00:20:54,336

or I don't wanna make

509

00:20:54,336 --> 00:20:55,921

people think bad about him."

510

00:20:56,254 --> 00:20:59,216

And so he said, "Okay, we'll go with this."

511

00:20:59,216 --> 00:21:01,718

And so when we filed for divorce

512

00:21:02,010 --> 00:21:04,304

and I had him served with

513

00:21:04,304 --> 00:21:05,764

papers while he was on alert

514

00:21:06,682 --> 00:21:08,308

because I didn't know his reaction

515

00:21:08,392 --> 00:21:10,269

because my father was an angry person,

516

00:21:10,269 --> 00:21:12,020

but Vince wasn't, but I

517

00:21:12,020 --> 00:21:13,563

didn't know how he would react.

518

00:21:14,064 --> 00:21:15,315

When you say he was on alert,

519

00:21:15,649 --> 00:21:16,858

what does that mean exactly?

520

00:21:16,858 --> 00:21:18,652

That means that he was away from,

521

00:21:19,569 --> 00:21:20,946

he was in this facility

522

00:21:20,946 --> 00:21:22,614

underground there on the base.

523

00:21:22,614 --> 00:21:24,741

He could not go away from that facility

524

00:21:24,866 --> 00:21:27,828

except to the grocery store on

525

00:21:27,828 --> 00:21:30,664

base or to the store on base,

526

00:21:31,248 --> 00:21:33,375

but he couldn't come home for a week at a time.

527

00:21:34,459 --> 00:21:36,378

He had to stay there ready to,

528

00:21:36,712 --> 00:21:38,422

in case we had to go to nuclear war,

529

00:21:38,422 --> 00:21:40,173

he could jump in his plane and take off.

530

00:21:40,340 --> 00:21:40,799

Oh, wow.

531

00:21:41,216 --> 00:21:43,802

Okay, so he's locked, I mean,

532

00:21:43,969 --> 00:21:46,430

I guess the word like kind of locked in on base,

533

00:21:46,805 --> 00:21:49,766

like, "Okay, I'm on for seven full days."

534

00:21:50,308 --> 00:21:52,310

So, wow.

535

00:21:52,728 --> 00:21:56,982

So he's getting the papers for divorce there,

536

00:21:57,190 --> 00:21:58,108

like on base like that.

537

00:21:58,108 --> 00:21:59,026

Right. Wow.

538

00:22:00,152 --> 00:22:03,613

Yeah, and so he got the papers and he called me

539

00:22:04,031 --> 00:22:05,907

and he said, "I didn't know we had any problems."

540

00:22:06,533 --> 00:22:08,160

I'm just like, "Really?"

541

00:22:11,705 --> 00:22:15,292

But then the court case came and I just,

542

00:22:16,043 --> 00:22:18,295

it was as though something was pushing me

543

00:22:19,046 --> 00:22:21,923

once I made that decision to file for papers.

544

00:22:23,425 --> 00:22:25,927

It was like something

545

00:22:25,927 --> 00:22:27,679

just pushing me towards that

546

00:22:28,555 --> 00:22:32,434

and we even talked about it and he said,

547

00:22:32,434 --> 00:22:32,934

"You know, do you really

548

00:22:32,934 --> 00:22:33,685

have to do it at the time?"

549

00:22:33,685 --> 00:22:34,644

"Yeah, yeah."

550

00:22:34,936 --> 00:22:37,731

And so he didn't even show up at the court

551

00:22:40,192 --> 00:22:42,778

and the judge even looked at me and said,

552

00:22:42,778 --> 00:22:45,864

"Well, these are pretty soft reasons."

553

00:22:47,199 --> 00:22:48,700

And my lawyer said, "Well, yeah."

554

00:22:49,076 --> 00:22:50,368

And the judge just said,

555

00:22:51,328 --> 00:22:52,871

"She wants to take her

556

00:22:52,871 --> 00:22:54,414

children to go back to California."

557

00:22:54,414 --> 00:22:55,290

And my lawyer said, "Well,

558

00:22:55,290 --> 00:22:56,333

that's where her parents are.

559

00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,295

That's where she can- she has no friends or family here."

560

00:23:01,588 --> 00:23:02,506

And the judge said, "Is

561

00:23:02,506 --> 00:23:03,632

that okay with her husband?"

562

00:23:03,965 --> 00:23:05,384

And the lawyer said,

563

00:23:05,384 --> 00:23:08,553

"Yeah, he isn't contesting it."

564

00:23:08,929 --> 00:23:10,430

And so the judge said, "Okay."

565

00:23:10,430 --> 00:23:12,224

And he slams the gavel down.

566

00:23:13,642 --> 00:23:17,020

And it was like, kind of

567

00:23:17,020 --> 00:23:18,605

like an explosion in my ears.

568

00:23:19,439 --> 00:23:20,607

I thought, "That's it?"

569

00:23:20,607 --> 00:23:21,566

He said, "Grant it."

570

00:23:22,234 --> 00:23:25,112

And all of a sudden this pressure that was on me

571

00:23:25,237 --> 00:23:27,447

to get this done and you have to do this,

572

00:23:27,781 --> 00:23:30,283

it was gone and I was just confused.

573

00:23:30,534 --> 00:23:31,493

Then what have I done?

574

00:23:32,786 --> 00:23:34,538

And then as we were walking out,

575

00:23:35,247 --> 00:23:39,876

I said to my lawyer, "What do I have to do now?

576

00:23:40,669 --> 00:23:41,545

Is there a waiting period?"

577

00:23:42,045 --> 00:23:43,672

He said, "Nope, nope, it's all over.

578

00:23:43,672 --> 00:23:44,423

You can go down the hall

579

00:23:44,423 --> 00:23:45,549

and marry somebody else now."

580

00:23:46,007 --> 00:23:48,176

I thought, "How cold and how heartless?"

581

00:23:49,344 --> 00:23:52,430

And it just seemed strange.

582

00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:59,354

I was just like so vulnerable at that time

583

00:23:59,688 --> 00:24:00,897

that had Vince been there,

584

00:24:01,565 --> 00:24:02,607

I probably would have said,

585

00:24:02,774 --> 00:24:04,151

"Oh, let's call this whole thing off.

586

00:24:04,151 --> 00:24:05,235

This is silly."

587

00:24:05,944 --> 00:24:07,988

But he wasn't, he didn't know.

588

00:24:08,905 --> 00:24:12,993

And so then I went home and I was already

589

00:24:12,993 --> 00:24:14,536

in a separate bedroom and everything

590

00:24:14,703 --> 00:24:16,079

and just started getting

591

00:24:16,079 --> 00:24:18,999

ready to pack for movers to come

592

00:24:18,999 --> 00:24:20,417

to move me to California,

593

00:24:20,625 --> 00:24:22,586

which my father was gonna pay for.

594

00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:28,258

And Vince even appealed when the movers got there

595

00:24:28,592 --> 00:24:29,509

to me to stay.

596

00:24:29,843 --> 00:24:33,013

But once I had made this, called the movers

597

00:24:33,013 --> 00:24:34,181

and set everything up,

598

00:24:34,181 --> 00:24:35,807

there came that pressure again.

599

00:24:36,349 --> 00:24:37,100

You have to do this.

600

00:24:37,350 --> 00:24:38,643

You said, "You're gonna do this.

601

00:24:38,643 --> 00:24:39,561

You gotta go through with this."

602

00:24:39,811 --> 00:24:46,193

And it was as though, almost as though the enemy

603

00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:51,364

was just pushing me, like a demonic force on me

604

00:24:52,365 --> 00:24:53,450

to get this done.

605

00:24:54,075 --> 00:24:55,535

You need this.

606

00:24:56,453 --> 00:25:00,373

And so I don't think, if somebody had offered me

607

00:25:00,373 --> 00:25:02,459

a hundred thousand dollars even at that moment,

608

00:25:02,751 --> 00:25:04,794

there was this pressure, I had to do this.

609

00:25:05,795 --> 00:25:08,965

And so then driving in a little Mustang

610

00:25:08,965 --> 00:25:10,175

with two children in a

611

00:25:10,175 --> 00:25:12,135

car by myself to California.

612

00:25:12,928 --> 00:25:13,637

From New York.

613

00:25:14,179 --> 00:25:15,513

So that's like over what,

614

00:25:15,931 --> 00:25:16,723

2000 miles or something?

615

00:25:17,390 --> 00:25:18,600

Yeah, took me several days.

616

00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:20,227

Plus I had car trouble along the way.

617

00:25:20,769 --> 00:25:23,730

And everything, and on the way I'm just like,

618

00:25:24,147 --> 00:25:25,065

what have I done?

619

00:25:26,358 --> 00:25:28,401

Well, yeah, that's kind

620

00:25:28,401 --> 00:25:30,070

of what I'm wanting to dig

621

00:25:30,070 --> 00:25:31,279

into that a little actually.

622

00:25:31,279 --> 00:25:33,823

It's so- you've left your husband,

623

00:25:34,574 --> 00:25:36,660

you're moving like all the way across the country

624

00:25:36,660 --> 00:25:38,078

from New York all the way

625

00:25:38,078 --> 00:25:39,788

to, back to LA, I guess,

626

00:25:39,788 --> 00:25:40,163

Los Angeles.

627

00:25:40,580 --> 00:25:42,374

Right, that's where my parents were at the time.

628

00:25:42,749 --> 00:25:46,378

And you're essentially starting a new life.

629

00:25:47,796 --> 00:25:49,089

That must've been really difficult.

630

00:25:50,674 --> 00:25:52,425

Tell me, yeah, like talk to

631

00:25:52,425 --> 00:25:55,220

me about that new chapter,

632

00:25:55,220 --> 00:25:56,179

I guess, a new phase of

633

00:25:56,179 --> 00:25:57,806

your life going through that.

634

00:25:57,806 --> 00:25:58,723

My parents had a vacant

635

00:25:58,723 --> 00:26:00,850

house that they owned next door

636

00:26:00,850 --> 00:26:02,644

to them that hadn't been rented in years.

637

00:26:03,728 --> 00:26:04,854

And so my father said,

638

00:26:04,854 --> 00:26:06,273

I'll give you a reduced rent

639

00:26:06,564 --> 00:26:08,608

if you will clean it up,

640

00:26:09,025 --> 00:26:10,443

clean up the yard and everything.

641

00:26:10,443 --> 00:26:11,903

And so we moved in there.

642

00:26:12,988 --> 00:26:15,657

And then I decided I'll

643

00:26:15,657 --> 00:26:16,741

try and go back to school,

644

00:26:16,741 --> 00:26:19,202

but with that didn't last very long

645

00:26:19,369 --> 00:26:20,245

because I couldn't really

646

00:26:20,245 --> 00:26:22,414

afford food for the children

647

00:26:23,456 --> 00:26:27,252

or all of the utilities it took and pay him rent.

648

00:26:27,460 --> 00:26:29,170

And he was very firm on it.

649

00:26:30,005 --> 00:26:31,965

He says, I'm giving you reduced rent.

650

00:26:32,549 --> 00:26:33,341

You know what I'm thinking?

651

00:26:34,259 --> 00:26:39,848

So after a while, I just was on my way home

652

00:26:39,848 --> 00:26:40,807

from school one day.

653

00:26:41,766 --> 00:26:43,101

I thought, what am I gonna do?

654

00:26:43,101 --> 00:26:44,769

And I saw this bookstore and I went in

655

00:26:44,978 --> 00:26:47,188

and I had never heard of a

656

00:26:47,188 --> 00:26:48,440

Christian bookstore in my life.

657

00:26:49,024 --> 00:26:50,734

And evidently it was a Christian bookstore,

658

00:26:50,734 --> 00:26:52,527

but I didn't know that, I just saw books.

659

00:26:53,528 --> 00:26:56,406

And so I was looking on books about divorce

660

00:26:57,657 --> 00:27:00,035

and what do I do now and all that.

661

00:27:00,410 --> 00:27:02,704

And this young girl came up to me

662

00:27:02,704 --> 00:27:06,499

and she asked to help me and I said, no.

663

00:27:06,499 --> 00:27:09,210

And I tried to put down the book behind me

664

00:27:09,210 --> 00:27:10,712

so she couldn't see what I was looking at

665

00:27:10,712 --> 00:27:11,463

because I was embarrassed.

666

00:27:12,213 --> 00:27:14,299

And she said, "Well, you new in town?"

667

00:27:14,299 --> 00:27:17,344

And I said, "No, I went to high school here

668

00:27:17,844 --> 00:27:21,139

and, but kind of new back in town."

669

00:27:21,139 --> 00:27:22,766

And so she said, "Well, do you have a church?"

670

00:27:22,766 --> 00:27:25,643

And I thought, well, I had converted to Catholic

671

00:27:25,643 --> 00:27:26,978

to marry Vince.

672

00:27:28,188 --> 00:27:31,775

And so as a divorced, I could

673

00:27:31,775 --> 00:27:33,276

no longer take the sacraments.

674

00:27:34,402 --> 00:27:35,779

So I needed a new church.

675

00:27:37,113 --> 00:27:38,323

Okay, so that's, okay.

676

00:27:38,323 --> 00:27:40,450

So you would have been converted to Catholic

677

00:27:41,159 --> 00:27:43,870

and then since the divorce, that's like,

678

00:27:43,870 --> 00:27:44,579

this would have been-

679

00:27:44,704 --> 00:27:46,915

No, I converted to Catholic to marry him.

680

00:27:47,165 --> 00:27:49,417

To marry him. And then because of the divorce though,

681

00:27:49,417 --> 00:27:51,044

now you can't take the sacraments.

682

00:27:51,044 --> 00:27:53,129

You can't take the sacraments at church because-

683

00:27:53,171 --> 00:27:54,255

I didn't think of that.

684

00:27:54,798 --> 00:27:56,758

And so I thought, well, I need a new church.

685

00:27:57,801 --> 00:28:00,053

And so she says, Well, why

686

00:28:00,053 --> 00:28:01,096

don't you come to our church?"

687

00:28:01,096 --> 00:28:02,764

She jotted it down and gave me the card.

688

00:28:03,306 --> 00:28:05,517

And so I stuck it in my pocket and I said,

689

00:28:05,517 --> 00:28:06,893

well, I'll see, I'll think about it.

690

00:28:07,227 --> 00:28:08,019

And it took me a couple of

691

00:28:08,019 --> 00:28:09,229

weeks to get up enough nerve

692

00:28:09,229 --> 00:28:11,398

to go to visit their church by myself.

693

00:28:13,525 --> 00:28:14,818

And everybody was so nice

694

00:28:14,818 --> 00:28:16,986

and just kind of accepted me in

695

00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:19,155

everything and I thought, this is interesting.

696

00:28:19,989 --> 00:28:21,449

And so I went for a couple of weeks

697

00:28:22,575 --> 00:28:23,827

and then I took my children,

698

00:28:23,827 --> 00:28:24,744

which they thought were my

699

00:28:24,744 --> 00:28:25,745

little brother and sister.

700

00:28:26,830 --> 00:28:28,415

And I said, no, these are my children.

701

00:28:29,290 --> 00:28:30,625

And they put me in the youth group

702

00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:33,253

because I was still going to school.

703

00:28:33,711 --> 00:28:35,839

That was where I really needed to be

704

00:28:35,922 --> 00:28:38,800

because young people are honest.

705

00:28:39,843 --> 00:28:42,262

They don't pull punches with God or with others.

706

00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:45,181

If they see a problem, they tell you.

707

00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:47,600

If they believe something, they believe it

708

00:28:48,226 --> 00:28:49,352

or they question it.

709

00:28:49,853 --> 00:28:50,937

And so I'm hearing all

710

00:28:50,937 --> 00:28:52,605

these people talking about,

711

00:28:53,898 --> 00:28:56,317

they prayed about a test or they prayed about

712

00:28:57,068 --> 00:28:58,653

their relationship with their parents.

713

00:28:58,653 --> 00:28:59,487

And then they come back

714

00:28:59,487 --> 00:29:00,780

the next week to youth group.

715

00:29:01,114 --> 00:29:03,074

They say, all these answers they got.

716

00:29:03,450 --> 00:29:04,701

I'm thinking, God doesn't

717

00:29:04,701 --> 00:29:06,035

care about these little things.

718

00:29:06,035 --> 00:29:07,537

What do you, you know,

719

00:29:08,329 --> 00:29:10,707

grow up and just deal with it.

720

00:29:11,291 --> 00:29:14,627

But they, after a while, I thought, you know,

721

00:29:14,711 --> 00:29:16,129

I had a test in school too.

722

00:29:17,088 --> 00:29:18,506

So I thought, okay, I'll pray.

723

00:29:18,798 --> 00:29:20,133

And I did better on the test.

724

00:29:20,341 --> 00:29:21,634

I relaxed and everything.

725

00:29:21,885 --> 00:29:24,971

And then I thought, they have

726

00:29:24,971 --> 00:29:26,806

something I don't have though.

727

00:29:28,099 --> 00:29:29,809

Just because God answered one prayer,

728

00:29:30,518 --> 00:29:31,978

I still didn't know him.

729

00:29:33,062 --> 00:29:35,732

And they had asked me, are you a Christian?

730

00:29:35,732 --> 00:29:37,567

I said, well, I'm an American.

731

00:29:38,318 --> 00:29:40,069

Of course, I'm a Christian.

732

00:29:40,487 --> 00:29:42,197

Oh, what an interesting response.

733

00:29:43,031 --> 00:29:43,698

I live in America.

734

00:29:43,698 --> 00:29:44,282

Yeah, yeah.

735

00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,286

Because it's just like, you were raised with this

736

00:29:48,495 --> 00:29:50,246

and you kind of went to church sometimes.

737

00:29:50,246 --> 00:29:51,831

I just assumed I was a Christian

738

00:29:51,956 --> 00:29:53,666

because I knew who Jesus was.

739

00:29:53,666 --> 00:29:54,125

Yeah, yeah.

740

00:29:55,084 --> 00:29:59,172

But I didn't really know him like they did.

741

00:29:59,797 --> 00:30:01,716

And that became evident after a while.

742

00:30:02,175 --> 00:30:03,384

Like when you responded that way.

743

00:30:03,676 --> 00:30:05,053

I mean, yeah, like I'm an American.

744

00:30:05,094 --> 00:30:06,137

They just said, okay.

745

00:30:07,013 --> 00:30:08,473

You know, they were nice about it.

746

00:30:08,681 --> 00:30:10,391

Yeah, they were probably being like,

747

00:30:10,475 --> 00:30:12,852

we might need to talk about this again, right?

748

00:30:13,269 --> 00:30:15,104

So they just kind of let me go and they figured,

749

00:30:15,980 --> 00:30:16,940

she'll figure it out.

750

00:30:17,565 --> 00:30:21,110

Which I did as I saw the other young people

751

00:30:21,110 --> 00:30:23,363

were saying different things

752

00:30:23,363 --> 00:30:24,531

that the Lord had done for them.

753

00:30:24,531 --> 00:30:26,282

And I thought, I could really use some help

754

00:30:26,407 --> 00:30:28,451

because I was starting to,

755

00:30:28,451 --> 00:30:29,452

the rheumatoid arthritis

756

00:30:29,661 --> 00:30:32,956

that I'd gotten at 14 that had become dormant

757

00:30:32,956 --> 00:30:35,250

was starting to get bad again.

758

00:30:35,875 --> 00:30:38,545

And I couldn't pay my bills.

759

00:30:38,836 --> 00:30:41,839

And I thought, you know, if there's some way

760

00:30:42,006 --> 00:30:43,800

that I can get some help somewhere

761

00:30:44,342 --> 00:30:45,593

and I wasn't gonna tell anybody,

762

00:30:45,593 --> 00:30:47,762

I was too prideful to tell anybody

763

00:30:47,762 --> 00:30:49,222

about all the problems I was having.

764

00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,560

So I thought, well, you know, if God can help,

765

00:30:54,978 --> 00:30:55,687

I'll just ask.

766

00:30:56,729 --> 00:31:00,066

And so I heard them praying in ways

767

00:31:00,275 --> 00:31:02,110

that I hadn't thought of before.

768

00:31:02,110 --> 00:31:03,903

I mean, I talked to God all the time, I thought,

769

00:31:05,154 --> 00:31:06,990

but I didn't really expect an answer.

770

00:31:08,449 --> 00:31:09,033

Oh, interesting.

771

00:31:09,534 --> 00:31:11,953

And so I went to the youth pastor and said,

772

00:31:13,037 --> 00:31:14,956

I think they have something I don't have.

773

00:31:14,956 --> 00:31:16,249

And he said, well, tell me about it.

774

00:31:17,166 --> 00:31:19,377

And so I told him, I said, they pray with meaning

775

00:31:19,377 --> 00:31:21,129

and they expect answers.

776

00:31:22,130 --> 00:31:23,381

And he said, don't you?

777

00:31:25,717 --> 00:31:28,720

Well, yeah, sorta, but, you know.

778

00:31:29,387 --> 00:31:30,430

And so he said, well, let's

779

00:31:30,430 --> 00:31:31,514

take care of this right now.

780

00:31:31,764 --> 00:31:33,766

And he says, do you have Jesus

781

00:31:33,766 --> 00:31:35,226

as your personal Lord and Savior?

782

00:31:35,685 --> 00:31:36,978

I just kinda looked at him, I said,

783

00:31:38,438 --> 00:31:40,481

I don't know.

784

00:31:41,399 --> 00:31:43,610

And he said, then you may not.

785

00:31:44,694 --> 00:31:47,697

So anyway, he led me through the sinner's prayer

786

00:31:47,947 --> 00:31:51,868

and said, you know, now pray and see.

787

00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:53,578

And so it was different.

788

00:31:53,578 --> 00:31:55,705

I went home and I opened up the Bible

789

00:31:55,705 --> 00:31:58,499

and it was like a whole different book.

790

00:31:58,833 --> 00:31:59,667

It was as though the Lord

791

00:31:59,667 --> 00:32:03,004

gave me this extra feeling

792

00:32:03,004 --> 00:32:03,755

that I needed.

793

00:32:04,005 --> 00:32:05,256

And a few days later, they asked me

794

00:32:05,256 --> 00:32:06,299

if I wanted to be baptized.

795

00:32:06,966 --> 00:32:12,430

And so I said, "If- I've

796

00:32:12,430 --> 00:32:14,015

been baptized as a Catholic."

797

00:32:14,015 --> 00:32:17,435

and they said, "Well, you

798

00:32:17,435 --> 00:32:18,853

weren't really a Christian though."

799

00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:22,982

Okay, so then I agreed to

800

00:32:22,982 --> 00:32:24,400

be baptized the next Sunday.

801

00:32:25,985 --> 00:32:28,446

And so I did.

802

00:32:29,656 --> 00:32:33,534

That's quite the story of those people.

803

00:32:35,161 --> 00:32:37,121

I mean, I'm trying to think the right words here,

804

00:32:37,121 --> 00:32:39,999

but it's like they gave you a chance in a way

805

00:32:39,999 --> 00:32:42,460

or like welcomed you in without,

806

00:32:42,460 --> 00:32:43,127

it doesn't sound like there

807

00:32:43,127 --> 00:32:44,504

was just all this pressure

808

00:32:44,504 --> 00:32:47,340

of like, you need to get saved,

809

00:32:47,590 --> 00:32:49,258

but yet they lived out

810

00:32:49,258 --> 00:32:51,094

something that you could see,

811

00:32:51,302 --> 00:32:51,969

like, wait a minute,

812

00:32:52,553 --> 00:32:53,930

something's not lining up

813

00:32:53,930 --> 00:32:55,473

with what I thought I had.

814

00:32:55,932 --> 00:32:56,683

You know, what I thought

815

00:32:56,683 --> 00:32:57,934

I had actually isn't real.

816

00:32:58,184 --> 00:32:59,435

I'm seeing something here.

817

00:33:00,395 --> 00:33:02,021

Am I getting that about...?

818

00:33:02,397 --> 00:33:05,024

Yeah, they weren't trying to witness to me

819

00:33:05,483 --> 00:33:06,943

and knock me over with Scripture.

820

00:33:07,485 --> 00:33:09,779

They just lived it out in front of me.

821

00:33:12,740 --> 00:33:14,200

The other thing was when I came to them,

822

00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,370

I was wearing short dresses, tight dresses,

823

00:33:17,870 --> 00:33:19,789

and I noticed everybody around me,

824

00:33:19,997 --> 00:33:21,040

they weren't dressed that way.

825

00:33:21,332 --> 00:33:23,042

And so very quickly, I

826

00:33:23,042 --> 00:33:24,919

started sewing up different dresses,

827

00:33:25,461 --> 00:33:27,797

longer dresses, you know, looser dresses,

828

00:33:27,839 --> 00:33:29,799

and everything so that I would fit in.

829

00:33:30,550 --> 00:33:33,636

I wanted to be part of this group.

830

00:33:34,554 --> 00:33:38,641

And, but they, one thing was they had told me,

831

00:33:39,392 --> 00:33:42,353

well, they took me to a seminar for young people.

832

00:33:42,812 --> 00:33:45,481

And every one of those seminars,

833

00:33:45,481 --> 00:33:47,191

they say the exact same thing.

834

00:33:48,025 --> 00:33:48,609

You have the same

835

00:33:48,609 --> 00:33:50,069

notebook, they say the same thing.

836

00:33:50,069 --> 00:33:51,904

But the Lord uses different things

837

00:33:51,904 --> 00:33:53,948

as just as though you read a Scripture,

838

00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:55,700

and one day you read it and the

839

00:33:55,700 --> 00:33:56,993

Lord can speak to you this way

840

00:33:57,076 --> 00:33:57,869

and another day you read

841

00:33:57,869 --> 00:33:58,828

it and the Lord shows you

842

00:33:58,911 --> 00:34:00,580

something different from that same scripture.

843

00:34:01,330 --> 00:34:02,999

Well, that's what happened with this seminar.

844

00:34:03,207 --> 00:34:05,668

The first one I went to, they, all I got from it

845

00:34:05,668 --> 00:34:07,754

was forgiveness and honoring your parents.

846

00:34:08,796 --> 00:34:13,843

And I was like, Lord, you have no idea

847

00:34:13,843 --> 00:34:15,511

what my dad was like then.

848

00:34:15,595 --> 00:34:16,387

Remember, I'm a new

849

00:34:16,387 --> 00:34:17,847

Christian and I'm telling God,

850

00:34:17,847 --> 00:34:19,348

you don't know what my dad was like.

851

00:34:19,348 --> 00:34:21,225

You don't know what happened growing up.

852

00:34:21,225 --> 00:34:23,686

You have no idea what I went through.

853

00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,690

And, but I kept going, as

854

00:34:27,690 --> 00:34:28,608

I looked at the Scriptures,

855

00:34:28,608 --> 00:34:30,067

I kept coming to forgiveness.

856

00:34:31,444 --> 00:34:35,907

And so I, that, okay, he had been abusive

857

00:34:36,240 --> 00:34:37,992

towards both me and my children.

858

00:34:37,992 --> 00:34:39,327

We're living next door to him.

859

00:34:39,994 --> 00:34:41,120

And he had already been

860

00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:42,747

abusive since we'd been back.

861

00:34:42,747 --> 00:34:45,792

He had hurt my daughter and

862

00:34:45,792 --> 00:34:47,960

had belted her with belts,

863

00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,421

left stripes on her legs and everything.

864

00:34:50,713 --> 00:34:53,716

And so I mustered up

865

00:34:53,716 --> 00:34:56,427

enough strength to go next door

866

00:34:56,803 --> 00:34:59,430

and ask him for forgiveness

867

00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,308

from what I had been like growing up.

868

00:35:02,308 --> 00:35:03,851

I said, I don't think my

869

00:35:03,851 --> 00:35:05,103

attitude was always right.

870

00:35:05,937 --> 00:35:07,688

And I probably displayed rebellion.

871

00:35:08,606 --> 00:35:10,066

And I want to ask your forgiveness.

872

00:35:11,317 --> 00:35:12,944

And my dad just looked at me

873

00:35:12,944 --> 00:35:14,737

and I kind of stood between,

874

00:35:15,822 --> 00:35:18,324

there was a kind of opening between the kitchen

875

00:35:18,574 --> 00:35:20,076

and the living room.

876

00:35:20,493 --> 00:35:22,870

And I stood on the other side of the wall

877

00:35:23,204 --> 00:35:25,039

because I didn't know if he was going to punch me

878

00:35:25,039 --> 00:35:28,084

or get mad or slap me or throw

879

00:35:28,084 --> 00:35:29,627

his hot coffee at me or what.

880

00:35:30,086 --> 00:35:33,548

But he just looked at me and I waited.

881

00:35:34,382 --> 00:35:35,716

And finally he said, well, yeah,

882

00:35:38,386 --> 00:35:39,846

you were a little difficult raising.

883

00:35:41,430 --> 00:35:44,183

And I waited and then he says, yeah, okay.

884

00:35:44,642 --> 00:35:47,520

And turned around and went on about his business.

885

00:35:47,645 --> 00:35:48,479

And I thought, well, I'm

886

00:35:48,479 --> 00:35:49,730

going to leave before he gets mad

887

00:35:49,730 --> 00:35:51,023

or thinks of some reason

888

00:35:51,023 --> 00:35:52,483

that I've done something.

889

00:35:53,359 --> 00:35:54,610

But from that day on,

890

00:35:54,861 --> 00:35:57,530

he never bothered me or my children again.

891

00:35:59,240 --> 00:36:00,491

So I know that the Lord had

892

00:36:00,491 --> 00:36:02,076

something to do with that.

893

00:36:02,201 --> 00:36:02,702

Wow.

894

00:36:03,411 --> 00:36:08,207

I mean, that must have been incredibly difficult

895

00:36:08,541 --> 00:36:12,086

to ask forgiveness in a situation like that. It was

896

00:36:12,378 --> 00:36:13,671

more scary than anything

897

00:36:13,796 --> 00:36:15,464

because I didn't know how he was going to react

898

00:36:15,715 --> 00:36:18,843

if he was going to, my dad's lips,

899

00:36:19,427 --> 00:36:20,678

when he would get mad,

900

00:36:20,678 --> 00:36:23,973

would get real flat and quiver.

901

00:36:24,682 --> 00:36:27,059

And I just watched to see, is

902

00:36:27,059 --> 00:36:28,853

he going to get upset with me?

903

00:36:30,187 --> 00:36:35,026

And so I asked for forgiveness and then waited.

904

00:36:35,026 --> 00:36:36,819

And then I left as quickly as I could

905

00:36:36,819 --> 00:36:37,987

because I just didn't

906

00:36:37,987 --> 00:36:39,155

know what he was going to do.

907

00:36:40,615 --> 00:36:41,032

Wow.

908

00:36:41,157 --> 00:36:42,575

Like this is showing though,

909

00:36:43,576 --> 00:36:46,913

when you would have say first moved back,

910

00:36:46,913 --> 00:36:50,207

like from when you leave Vince, your ex-husband

911

00:36:50,207 --> 00:36:52,126

and you move back to California

912

00:36:52,335 --> 00:36:53,794

before you become a Christian,

913

00:36:54,962 --> 00:36:55,838

I'm guessing you would have

914

00:36:55,838 --> 00:36:57,006

never done something like that.

915

00:36:57,715 --> 00:37:00,885

No, because I was very bitter against him

916

00:37:00,927 --> 00:37:03,304

for the things that he had

917

00:37:03,304 --> 00:37:06,182

done to me and to my children.

918

00:37:08,184 --> 00:37:13,314

And he was continuing already to bother me

919

00:37:14,607 --> 00:37:15,858

and hurt my children.

920

00:37:16,359 --> 00:37:19,070

And so I was very afraid of him.

921

00:37:19,654 --> 00:37:20,821

He was a very big man.

922

00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:23,282

So I just didn't know how he would handle it.

923

00:37:24,325 --> 00:37:25,576

That's incredible.

924

00:37:26,327 --> 00:37:28,913

That took a lot of courage, I think.

925

00:37:29,747 --> 00:37:32,792

I think it was just the Lord was behind me.

926

00:37:33,876 --> 00:37:36,045

Is there more on this

927

00:37:36,045 --> 00:37:40,508

about restoring relationships?

928

00:37:41,175 --> 00:37:42,426

You know, after you come to Christ

929

00:37:42,426 --> 00:37:44,220

and learning some of these things

930

00:37:44,220 --> 00:37:46,305

about forgiveness and restoration.

931

00:37:47,139 --> 00:37:49,725

Yeah, is there more pieces to that, that you'd like to add into this?

932

00:37:49,725 --> 00:37:50,476

Well, the next seminar

933

00:37:50,476 --> 00:37:52,019

then about six months later,

934

00:37:52,687 --> 00:37:56,816

three months later, the same seminar,

935

00:37:57,441 --> 00:37:59,277

all I heard during that was

936

00:37:59,277 --> 00:38:00,486

about Christian marriages.

937

00:38:00,736 --> 00:38:03,739

And I thought, wow, that's really nice

938

00:38:03,739 --> 00:38:05,199

if people have a marriage like that,

939

00:38:05,199 --> 00:38:06,409

but mine wasn't like that.

940

00:38:06,784 --> 00:38:08,160

It can't be; I'm not married.

941

00:38:08,953 --> 00:38:12,873

Well, maybe if I got married to a Christian guy,

942

00:38:12,873 --> 00:38:13,708

it would be like that.

943

00:38:13,708 --> 00:38:15,126

So I'd talk to the youth by then.

944

00:38:15,126 --> 00:38:16,794

They said, oh yeah, you can get married.

945

00:38:17,128 --> 00:38:18,212

You came to us single.

946

00:38:18,754 --> 00:38:22,675

So in Corinthians, it talks about as you come in,

947

00:38:22,967 --> 00:38:23,884

that's how you are.

948

00:38:24,593 --> 00:38:25,845

I think it's 1 Corinthians

949

00:38:25,845 --> 00:38:28,806

7:19 or something like that.

950

00:38:29,432 --> 00:38:30,516

And I believed that.

951

00:38:31,225 --> 00:38:33,019

And I thought, well, that would be good.

952

00:38:33,477 --> 00:38:34,895

So I went home to look in my Bible,

953

00:38:35,229 --> 00:38:37,898

but everything I opened up to, it said,

954

00:38:39,483 --> 00:38:43,779

if you have been divorced, you either stay single

955

00:38:44,155 --> 00:38:45,156

or you get remarried.

956

00:38:45,614 --> 00:38:46,991

I'm like, I don't like that Scripture.

957

00:38:47,450 --> 00:38:48,951

You know, and I kept going

958

00:38:48,951 --> 00:38:50,036

back and forth, back and forth.

959

00:38:50,870 --> 00:38:52,538

And so that went on for several months.

960

00:38:53,039 --> 00:38:53,372

Oh, wow.

961

00:38:53,622 --> 00:38:56,125

Okay, so you wrestled with this one.

962

00:38:56,333 --> 00:38:59,420

Oh yeah, yeah, because I wanted my children

963

00:38:59,420 --> 00:39:00,337

to have a good life.

964

00:39:01,172 --> 00:39:05,384

I just wanted, I thought Christian marriage

965

00:39:05,384 --> 00:39:09,388

would be really nice, but how am I gonna do that?

966

00:39:10,306 --> 00:39:14,477

And so I finally got enough

967

00:39:14,477 --> 00:39:16,562

nerve to pray and ask God,

968

00:39:16,937 --> 00:39:19,774

if you want me to get remarried,

969

00:39:20,816 --> 00:39:22,318

then Vince needs to call me

970

00:39:22,318 --> 00:39:25,279

and ask me to remarry him.

971

00:39:26,822 --> 00:39:28,699

And the next night the phone rings.

972

00:39:29,700 --> 00:39:32,369

Just like, no, no, no, we can't do this.

973

00:39:33,537 --> 00:39:35,289

And I answered the phone and it's Vince.

974

00:39:35,581 --> 00:39:36,999

And he says,

975

00:39:37,375 --> 00:39:38,834

What do you think about getting remarried

976

00:39:38,834 --> 00:39:39,835

or something like that?

977

00:39:39,835 --> 00:39:40,961

I forget his exact words,

978

00:39:40,961 --> 00:39:43,089

but it was just factual.

979

00:39:43,714 --> 00:39:44,507

Just there.

980

00:39:45,674 --> 00:39:48,636

Just like, this is the same person.

981

00:39:48,844 --> 00:39:52,139

I said, well, call me back tomorrow night.

982

00:39:52,139 --> 00:39:54,558

Cause I just heard at youth group,

983

00:39:56,060 --> 00:39:58,104

Satan can appear as an angel of light.

984

00:39:58,896 --> 00:40:00,189

And I thought, this is a deception.

985

00:40:00,439 --> 00:40:02,608

He heard my prayer cause I had prayed out loud.

986

00:40:03,818 --> 00:40:08,823

And so then I sat down by the side of the bed

987

00:40:08,823 --> 00:40:10,282

and prayed this time I

988

00:40:10,282 --> 00:40:12,159

was quiet about my prayers.

989

00:40:12,409 --> 00:40:12,743

And I said--

990

00:40:12,743 --> 00:40:14,036

You want to make sure it doesn't get hijacked.

991

00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:14,745

-exactly.

992

00:40:15,246 --> 00:40:18,374

And so I said, okay, God, if this is really you,

993

00:40:19,208 --> 00:40:20,126

this time you have him

994

00:40:20,126 --> 00:40:22,169

call me back with soft words,

995

00:40:22,461 --> 00:40:25,840

emotion, something, talking in words

996

00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:27,550

that he normally doesn't say,

997

00:40:28,759 --> 00:40:30,344

and kind of woo me.

998

00:40:31,053 --> 00:40:32,847

Like, I want to feel like

999

00:40:32,847 --> 00:40:34,765

I'm really wanted for me,

00:40:34,765 --> 00:40:36,600

not just because he needs

00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:39,603

his next promotion or whatever.

00:40:40,813 --> 00:40:42,148

And so, okay.

00:40:42,815 --> 00:40:44,942

Cause he's never going to talk to me that way

00:40:46,068 --> 00:40:47,987

over the phone, just won't happen.

00:40:48,654 --> 00:40:49,780

Next night, phone rings

00:40:49,780 --> 00:40:51,282

and I thought, uh-huh, sure.

00:40:52,116 --> 00:40:54,160

And I answered the phone and I'm just like,

00:40:54,785 --> 00:40:56,245

who is this guy on the other hand?

00:40:57,079 --> 00:40:59,206

It didn't sound like him, his voice was soft

00:40:59,206 --> 00:41:00,124

and it was soothing.

00:41:00,833 --> 00:41:03,127

And he said, you know, I love you.

00:41:03,377 --> 00:41:05,838

And he was giving me all the good words.

00:41:07,423 --> 00:41:08,716

And I thought, wait a minute,

00:41:09,884 --> 00:41:11,510

Satan's probably somehow knew

00:41:11,510 --> 00:41:12,720

that I was going to do this.

00:41:13,387 --> 00:41:17,349

So I said, okay, I still need to think this over.

00:41:17,349 --> 00:41:18,475

So I'll call you back.

00:41:19,852 --> 00:41:22,229

So for five days I fasted.

00:41:22,605 --> 00:41:23,063

Oh, wow.

00:41:23,606 --> 00:41:25,316

Totally fast, water only.

00:41:26,275 --> 00:41:28,819

Because I just was sure that God-

00:41:29,862 --> 00:41:31,447

And I told God, I said, you

00:41:31,447 --> 00:41:32,531

don't know what I went through.

00:41:33,199 --> 00:41:35,367

I don't want a marriage like my parents.

00:41:35,701 --> 00:41:37,036

I want a good marriage.

00:41:37,036 --> 00:41:38,704

I want a Christian marriage like I heard about.

00:41:38,704 --> 00:41:40,331

I want this and I want that.

00:41:40,623 --> 00:41:42,208

And he smokes and he drinks.

00:41:42,875 --> 00:41:44,084

And there's all these other

00:41:44,084 --> 00:41:44,919

things that I kept telling,

00:41:45,461 --> 00:41:47,421

it's as though God didn't know all this already,

00:41:48,255 --> 00:41:49,215

but I'm a new Christian.

00:41:49,423 --> 00:41:51,675

And I thought, God oughta hear all this stuff

00:41:51,926 --> 00:41:52,801

that's bothering me.

00:41:53,469 --> 00:41:55,763

So was Vince a Christian at this point then?

00:41:57,097 --> 00:41:58,057

I'm sorry, yes.

00:41:58,432 --> 00:42:00,392

Actually he had come to visit us.

00:42:00,392 --> 00:42:02,561

I'm sorry, he had come to visit us

00:42:03,020 --> 00:42:06,523

and had attended church with us

00:42:06,523 --> 00:42:08,275

because our oldest daughter had asked

00:42:08,275 --> 00:42:09,443

that she wanted to show

00:42:09,443 --> 00:42:11,528

him to her Sunday School's

00:42:12,821 --> 00:42:15,783

And he had actually prayed a

00:42:15,783 --> 00:42:17,034

sinner's prayer with a deacon.

00:42:17,701 --> 00:42:19,620

And when he told me, I'm just like, uh-huh, sure.

00:42:20,913 --> 00:42:24,291

You're telling me a Catholic became a Christian

00:42:25,084 --> 00:42:28,712

because he was a dyed in the wool Catholic type.

00:42:29,922 --> 00:42:30,714

But it really sunk.

00:42:31,131 --> 00:42:32,424

And I gave him a Bible and he

00:42:32,424 --> 00:42:33,759

had been reading this Bible.

00:42:33,759 --> 00:42:34,593

And I'd been telling him

00:42:34,593 --> 00:42:36,762

about all of the miracles

00:42:37,054 --> 00:42:38,138

that God had been doing in

00:42:38,138 --> 00:42:40,766

our lives throughout the year.

00:42:42,476 --> 00:42:44,603

Somebody coming in and paying for the gas

00:42:44,603 --> 00:42:46,522

to be turned on in our house

00:42:47,022 --> 00:42:48,065

because I didn't have the money.

00:42:48,565 --> 00:42:49,817

Nobody owned up to it.

00:42:50,401 --> 00:42:51,360

We were out of food.

00:42:52,945 --> 00:42:54,530

And so I prayed with the children.

00:42:54,780 --> 00:42:56,365

And the next morning I opened

00:42:56,365 --> 00:42:57,616

the door to take them to school

00:42:58,576 --> 00:42:59,451

and take my daughter to school

00:42:59,451 --> 00:43:04,331

and my son to the sitter in major school.

00:43:04,748 --> 00:43:06,125

And there was four bags of

00:43:06,125 --> 00:43:08,210

groceries sitting on our front porch.

00:43:08,544 --> 00:43:10,629

Do you know how that happened?

00:43:10,713 --> 00:43:11,046

No.

00:43:11,547 --> 00:43:13,674

Oh, that's amazing. Nobody owned up to it.

00:43:13,882 --> 00:43:15,342

Wow, like what was this

00:43:15,342 --> 00:43:16,927

40 years ago or something?

00:43:17,344 --> 00:43:20,222

Somebody did that and they probably have no idea.

00:43:20,597 --> 00:43:22,057

I mean, they probably never found out

00:43:22,057 --> 00:43:25,060

like how big of an impact things like that have.

00:43:25,311 --> 00:43:26,020

Oh, that's incredible.

00:43:26,353 --> 00:43:29,315

But even, and I told Vince about it and he said,

00:43:29,315 --> 00:43:30,524

"Well, you probably told somebody

00:43:30,524 --> 00:43:31,734

that you were out of food."

00:43:31,734 --> 00:43:33,027

I said, "I don't think so.

00:43:34,153 --> 00:43:35,487

I may have said something,

00:43:35,487 --> 00:43:37,823

but I didn't detail what I needed."

00:43:39,575 --> 00:43:43,746

And Angela had said, "I want some chips.

00:43:43,746 --> 00:43:45,247

I want to make some cookies, mom."

00:43:45,331 --> 00:43:47,750

And I said, "Uh, we don't have any flour.

00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:49,335

We don't have any sugar right now.

00:43:50,127 --> 00:43:51,253

We just have the basics."

00:43:52,296 --> 00:43:55,341

And in the bag was flour, sugar, chocolate chips,

00:43:56,091 --> 00:44:01,305

potato chips, some cereal, all the things.

00:44:01,764 --> 00:44:02,806

So this is happening.

00:44:03,265 --> 00:44:04,141

Oh man, there's a lot of

00:44:04,141 --> 00:44:05,934

things coming together here

00:44:06,226 --> 00:44:08,228

where so much of your life

00:44:08,228 --> 00:44:09,897

as you're like starting a new life

00:44:10,397 --> 00:44:12,775

in Los Angeles and divorced

00:44:13,150 --> 00:44:15,444

and all these things and

00:44:15,444 --> 00:44:17,529

then finding Christianity.

00:44:18,697 --> 00:44:21,325

And then those moments where God answers prayer,

00:44:21,325 --> 00:44:23,535

like that must have been, I

00:44:23,535 --> 00:44:24,411

don't know, earth shattering

00:44:24,411 --> 00:44:25,537

is the word that comes to mind,

00:44:25,537 --> 00:44:27,456

but just like overwhelming of like,

00:44:27,539 --> 00:44:30,167

"Whoa, this is a new life."

00:44:30,167 --> 00:44:30,959

Or like, "This is a different

00:44:30,959 --> 00:44:31,919

life than what you expected."

00:44:32,628 --> 00:44:35,923

It showed me, for a new Christian,

00:44:35,923 --> 00:44:37,508

it showed me that prayer really works

00:44:38,092 --> 00:44:39,134

and that God really cares

00:44:39,134 --> 00:44:40,719

about our everyday things.

00:44:41,261 --> 00:44:43,180

So it was even more than the little tests

00:44:43,180 --> 00:44:44,473

that people were praying about.

00:44:44,723 --> 00:44:49,061

These were, to me, it meant food for my children

00:44:49,311 --> 00:44:53,649

and for me and warmth over the winter.

00:44:54,775 --> 00:44:56,777

And I had started Bible

00:44:56,777 --> 00:44:58,487

school there at the church.

00:44:59,279 --> 00:45:01,156

They had, several of the youth

00:45:01,156 --> 00:45:02,783

were going to Bible school at night.

00:45:03,117 --> 00:45:04,410

And so I thought, "I'll go too,

00:45:04,410 --> 00:45:06,036

because I need to learn more about the Bible."

00:45:06,787 --> 00:45:08,247

And we were studying the Pentateuch,

00:45:08,580 --> 00:45:09,957

the first five books of the Bible.

00:45:09,998 --> 00:45:13,001

And I saw in there about their eating habits.

00:45:14,503 --> 00:45:17,423

And I was very, very sore

00:45:17,423 --> 00:45:18,841

with rheumatoid arthritis

00:45:19,716 --> 00:45:21,760

and was told that I would be

00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,263

in a wheelchair by Thanksgiving

00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:28,600

and probably in the hospital by Christmas.

00:45:29,059 --> 00:45:31,353

And this was the end of September.

00:45:32,104 --> 00:45:33,063

And this would have been in like,

00:45:33,063 --> 00:45:35,441

in the mid 1970s or something.

00:45:36,108 --> 00:45:36,442

1975.

00:45:36,567 --> 00:45:39,319

Well, I saw you walking earlier today.

00:45:39,361 --> 00:45:40,821

So I'm assuming that didn't happen.

00:45:40,863 --> 00:45:41,280

Right.

00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,157

So you want to tell me about that?

00:45:43,323 --> 00:45:48,829

So I decided I would try as close as I could

00:45:49,246 --> 00:45:50,789

doing a diet more similar to

00:45:50,789 --> 00:45:52,416

what God had told the Israelites.

00:45:53,625 --> 00:45:54,877

This is my favorite foods

00:45:54,877 --> 00:45:56,837

since I was a southerner

00:45:56,837 --> 00:46:01,383

where cornbread and beans and you put ham in them

00:46:01,467 --> 00:46:06,430

and shrimp, crawfish, shrimp, catfish.

00:46:07,473 --> 00:46:09,016

And I had to cut all those out.

00:46:09,808 --> 00:46:12,603

I mean, I didn't have to, but I chose to do that

00:46:12,769 --> 00:46:13,812

to see if it would work.

00:46:14,438 --> 00:46:16,064

And so the next time I went to the doctor

00:46:17,566 --> 00:46:18,358

towards the end of

00:46:18,358 --> 00:46:19,735

October, beginning of November,

00:46:20,903 --> 00:46:23,238

I had been on this for over three weeks.

00:46:23,906 --> 00:46:28,160

And the doctor said, "You should have been

00:46:28,494 --> 00:46:29,620

hurting more by now."

00:46:29,828 --> 00:46:30,996

I said, "No, actually I'm

00:46:30,996 --> 00:46:32,456

really starting to feel better.

00:46:32,456 --> 00:46:33,540

I am in less pain."

00:46:34,041 --> 00:46:35,375

He says, "Well, it's getting colder.

00:46:35,375 --> 00:46:37,127

So you're going to get worse."

00:46:39,046 --> 00:46:40,339

But I didn't, I kept getting

00:46:40,339 --> 00:46:41,757

better and better and better.

00:46:42,549 --> 00:46:45,427

And Christmas time, I was down on the floor

00:46:45,427 --> 00:46:46,762

and up again with the children.

00:46:48,430 --> 00:46:51,975

To this day, I do not eat any catfish, shrimp,

00:46:52,726 --> 00:46:54,978

any shellfish, any pork products.

00:46:55,479 --> 00:46:57,981

And when I have accidentally gotten some pork,

00:46:58,774 --> 00:47:02,694

I do have some stiffness and pain in joints.

00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:04,196

That's wild.

00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:06,740

That is so wild.

00:47:07,783 --> 00:47:10,369

I'm guessing that the doctor was really confused.

00:47:11,370 --> 00:47:12,746

Yeah.

00:47:13,705 --> 00:47:16,124

Years later, my mother got arthritis

00:47:16,333 --> 00:47:19,127

and I told her, I said, "Go off of ham."

00:47:19,127 --> 00:47:21,213

And she's like, "I can't do that."

00:47:22,589 --> 00:47:23,632

I said, "Yeah, you can."

00:47:23,632 --> 00:47:25,425

And so we went to the doctor and the doctor said,

00:47:25,926 --> 00:47:27,469

"Okay, no more white

00:47:27,469 --> 00:47:31,557

flour, no white sugar, no pork,

00:47:32,349 --> 00:47:33,850

and reduce your red meat."

00:47:36,395 --> 00:47:38,564

And I think that there was something else.

00:47:38,939 --> 00:47:40,274

And my mother just looked at her and said,

00:47:40,691 --> 00:47:41,858

"What am I supposed to eat?"

00:47:44,653 --> 00:47:47,447

But when she would stay off of pork herself,

00:47:47,990 --> 00:47:49,408

she started feeling better too.

00:47:50,284 --> 00:47:51,785

It's different for different people,

00:47:51,785 --> 00:47:54,162

but it definitely worked for us.

00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:57,708

What's getting me here is, you're just reading,

00:47:58,709 --> 00:47:59,585

you're doing some Bible studies

00:47:59,585 --> 00:48:02,004

on the first five books of the Bible,

00:48:02,588 --> 00:48:06,925

like the Law, the Pentateuch, whatever Torah,

00:48:06,925 --> 00:48:07,801

whatever you wanna call it.

00:48:08,468 --> 00:48:09,177

And you're just picking

00:48:09,177 --> 00:48:11,138

that up as a new Christian

00:48:11,138 --> 00:48:14,266

and saying, "Oh, well, hey, let me try it."

00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,269

That simple faith or that

00:48:17,269 --> 00:48:18,729

just pretty straightforward of,

00:48:19,354 --> 00:48:22,232

I see this in scripture, maybe this would help.

00:48:22,733 --> 00:48:24,484

That's kind of, there's

00:48:24,484 --> 00:48:25,569

something pretty neat about that.

00:48:26,820 --> 00:48:29,031

So all this is going on,

00:48:29,531 --> 00:48:31,158

man, yeah, there's a lot here.

00:48:32,159 --> 00:48:34,202

And so Vince has come out and visited.

00:48:35,287 --> 00:48:38,040

You gave him a Bible, I think he said, right?

00:48:38,248 --> 00:48:39,041

You've been reading the Bible.

00:48:39,916 --> 00:48:43,211

So that gets us up to these phone calls

00:48:43,211 --> 00:48:45,547

that you're exchanging and then he's saying,

00:48:45,547 --> 00:48:48,675

"Well, should we get married again?" basically.

00:48:49,676 --> 00:48:51,094

So yeah, walk me through that now.

00:48:51,178 --> 00:48:56,683

So after five days of fasting, at the youth group,

00:48:57,893 --> 00:49:00,729

they talked about faith and they said,

00:49:01,647 --> 00:49:05,901

"Real faith is like walking past a pool

00:49:05,901 --> 00:49:08,070

and seeing there's water in it,

00:49:08,695 --> 00:49:10,030

climbing up to the high dive,

00:49:10,656 --> 00:49:12,282

getting out to the end of the diving board

00:49:12,282 --> 00:49:13,241

and looking down and

00:49:13,241 --> 00:49:14,368

there's no water in the pool,

00:49:15,118 --> 00:49:16,620

but God's told you to jump

00:49:18,580 --> 00:49:19,581

and he'll take care of it.

00:49:19,665 --> 00:49:20,957

When you get there, there'll be water."

00:49:22,501 --> 00:49:24,503

And I thought, that's what this feels like.

00:49:25,921 --> 00:49:29,466

And I felt like, okay, I'm

00:49:29,466 --> 00:49:30,759

going to have faith in God

00:49:31,218 --> 00:49:33,428

that he's behind all this.

00:49:33,762 --> 00:49:35,597

And so I called Vince back and I said,

00:49:35,597 --> 00:49:38,266

"Yeah, I guess I'll remarry you."

00:49:40,060 --> 00:49:43,063

And so he came out and I set

00:49:43,063 --> 00:49:45,357

up this wedding very quickly

00:49:45,732 --> 00:49:48,694

and it was a real time wedding

00:49:48,902 --> 00:49:51,154

compared to the first one, which was a big thing

00:49:51,738 --> 00:49:55,659

and asked my dad, well,

00:49:55,659 --> 00:49:57,119

Vince had actually called my dad

00:49:57,119 --> 00:49:58,787

this time and said, "I'd

00:49:58,787 --> 00:50:01,331

like to marry Charlette again."

00:50:01,957 --> 00:50:03,875

And my dad said, "You didn't ask the first time."

00:50:06,253 --> 00:50:07,671

And Vince said, "Well, I'm

00:50:07,671 --> 00:50:08,797

trying to do it right this time."

00:50:08,797 --> 00:50:10,090

My dad said, "Well, okay, but you're gonna have

00:50:10,090 --> 00:50:12,259

to pay me back what I spent

00:50:12,259 --> 00:50:13,343

bringing her out here."

00:50:13,343 --> 00:50:14,177

And Vince said, "Okay."

00:50:14,177 --> 00:50:15,887

And he had some money in the bank, so he did.

00:50:15,887 --> 00:50:16,888

He paid my dad back.

00:50:18,098 --> 00:50:20,767

And so I asked my dad to

00:50:20,767 --> 00:50:22,018

walk me down the aisle again

00:50:22,018 --> 00:50:22,936

and he said, "Okay."

00:50:24,104 --> 00:50:26,982

And so at the back of the church though,

00:50:27,441 --> 00:50:29,568

before we walked down the aisle, he says,

00:50:29,568 --> 00:50:30,819

"My car's just outside.

00:50:31,361 --> 00:50:32,863

I have the keys right here.

00:50:34,156 --> 00:50:35,699

You couldn't back out of the first one

00:50:35,699 --> 00:50:37,576

because he said I had too much money in it,

00:50:37,576 --> 00:50:39,077

but you can back out of this one.

00:50:39,077 --> 00:50:40,746

I'll pay you back if you want

00:50:40,746 --> 00:50:41,747

to back out of this wedding."

00:50:43,081 --> 00:50:46,084

I said, "No, this is what God wants me to do."

00:50:47,419 --> 00:50:49,796

And he wasn't too happy

00:50:49,796 --> 00:50:51,256

about that, but he said, "Okay."

00:50:52,424 --> 00:50:54,176

So we walked down the aisle.

00:50:56,261 --> 00:50:58,013

And even when I got up

00:50:58,013 --> 00:50:58,930

there and I looked at Vince,

00:50:58,930 --> 00:51:02,058

I thought, "Oh, am I really doing this again?

00:51:02,601 --> 00:51:04,269

Okay, God, you're gonna have to do something

00:51:04,436 --> 00:51:06,646

because I don't really feel love at this point.

00:51:07,355 --> 00:51:09,399

I don't hate him.

00:51:09,399 --> 00:51:10,233

I like him.

00:51:10,233 --> 00:51:12,694

He's a nice person, but I

00:51:12,694 --> 00:51:14,029

would like to have love."

00:51:15,405 --> 00:51:16,990

And so we said our vows.

00:51:17,240 --> 00:51:18,408

And when I said I do,

00:51:19,034 --> 00:51:21,703

it was as though God dropped this veil over me.

00:51:22,287 --> 00:51:25,540

And I just felt love beyond

00:51:25,540 --> 00:51:26,875

what I'd ever felt before.

00:51:28,376 --> 00:51:30,587

And I thought, "Wow, I got it. I got it."

00:51:30,796 --> 00:51:31,880

And we walked out and then

00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:33,715

we went to the same seminar,

00:51:33,715 --> 00:51:35,342

that I'd been to, for our honeymoon.

00:51:36,843 --> 00:51:40,555

And this veil of love only lasted three days

00:51:40,555 --> 00:51:41,473

and then it was gone.

00:51:41,473 --> 00:51:42,891

And I was like, "What happened?"

00:51:43,725 --> 00:51:46,436

But in the Bible we read that it says

00:51:46,436 --> 00:51:47,562

that the older women are

00:51:47,562 --> 00:51:49,564

to teach the younger women

00:51:49,898 --> 00:51:50,816

to love their husbands.

00:51:52,442 --> 00:51:54,653

So if it can be taught, it can be learned.

00:51:55,904 --> 00:51:58,532

And so as I read my Bible,

00:51:58,532 --> 00:52:01,409

I learned about God's love and how to apply it.

00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:04,579

And God is constantly teaching us

00:52:04,788 --> 00:52:06,039

and we're constantly learning.

00:52:06,748 --> 00:52:11,127

And so I learned through the Lord how to love.

00:52:12,254 --> 00:52:16,049

And so we have love now and God gave us the love.

00:52:16,883 --> 00:52:20,011

But at the seminar, Vince is sitting there

00:52:20,011 --> 00:52:22,973

with his arms crossed, like he's bored.

00:52:23,598 --> 00:52:24,641

He's kind of being nice

00:52:24,641 --> 00:52:25,892

about listening and everything,

00:52:26,768 --> 00:52:27,602

but just kind of bored.

00:52:28,645 --> 00:52:29,813

And on the fourth night, all

00:52:29,813 --> 00:52:30,730

of a sudden he leans forward

00:52:30,730 --> 00:52:32,524

and he goes, "You know what? This will work.

00:52:32,899 --> 00:52:34,442

This will work. This will really work."

00:52:34,442 --> 00:52:35,777

And I said, "What are you talking about?

00:52:35,777 --> 00:52:36,570

This is God's word."

00:52:36,570 --> 00:52:38,530

And he goes, "No, no, no. The Air Force uses it."

00:52:38,530 --> 00:52:40,156

And I'm like, "No, this is God's word."

00:52:40,824 --> 00:52:42,534

And he says, "No, no, this will work."

00:52:42,534 --> 00:52:43,952

He says, "This memorizing

00:52:43,952 --> 00:52:45,829

and putting it into action

00:52:46,288 --> 00:52:47,622

and knowing all of it."

00:52:47,622 --> 00:52:50,709

He says, "That's it. I've been looking for a plan

00:52:50,709 --> 00:52:52,335

and that's it. The Bible has

00:52:52,335 --> 00:52:54,170

a plan for us, for our lives."

00:52:54,170 --> 00:52:55,589

And I'm like, "Yeah."

00:52:57,215 --> 00:53:00,260

Forgetting that he never had a Bible growing up.

00:53:00,260 --> 00:53:03,221

I mean, I had Bibles and I read them

00:53:03,221 --> 00:53:05,181

and I memorized S cripture growing up,

00:53:05,432 --> 00:53:07,058

but it never meant anything to me.

00:53:07,058 --> 00:53:08,852

It was just there.

00:53:10,020 --> 00:53:12,022

And now we knew.

00:53:12,606 --> 00:53:14,316

And so he just got excited

00:53:14,316 --> 00:53:15,775

and just took off with it.

00:53:16,693 --> 00:53:18,320

You know, there's, I think

00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:19,738

there's some analogies here,

00:53:19,738 --> 00:53:22,866

you know, how in the Air Force,

00:53:22,866 --> 00:53:24,492

say I'm sure you'd have like those flight manuals

00:53:24,492 --> 00:53:25,076

or something.

00:53:25,076 --> 00:53:26,536

I wonder if there's some connections happening

00:53:26,536 --> 00:53:27,287

in the brain for him.

00:53:27,287 --> 00:53:27,621

That's what he said.

00:53:27,621 --> 00:53:27,996

Oh really?

00:53:27,996 --> 00:53:28,997

Yeah, that's what he said.

00:53:28,997 --> 00:53:30,206

It's just like the Air Force.

00:53:30,498 --> 00:53:33,752

Yeah, this is the flight manual that like,

00:53:34,002 --> 00:53:36,296

instead of a flight manual, it's a life manual.

00:53:36,379 --> 00:53:36,922

How about that?

00:53:37,172 --> 00:53:41,259

He just caught on and just ran with it.

00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:43,219

He's always been the kind that,

00:53:43,219 --> 00:53:44,763

when he catches on something,

00:53:45,347 --> 00:53:47,015

he locks on and it's over.

00:53:47,515 --> 00:53:48,099

He just goes.

00:53:48,934 --> 00:53:49,809

This is incredible.

00:53:50,101 --> 00:53:53,313

You know, if, say in the weeks leading up to you

00:53:53,313 --> 00:53:55,106

filing that divorce paperwork,

00:53:55,690 --> 00:53:56,733

if you could have seen

00:53:56,733 --> 00:53:58,443

like all the different things

00:53:58,443 --> 00:53:59,319

that were gonna happen in

00:53:59,319 --> 00:54:00,487

your life in the coming years,

00:54:00,904 --> 00:54:01,696

because a lot of this,

00:54:02,113 --> 00:54:03,198

this all happens in a

00:54:03,198 --> 00:54:04,783

relatively short period of time,

00:54:04,783 --> 00:54:05,241

does it not?

00:54:05,825 --> 00:54:06,534

Couple years.

00:54:06,576 --> 00:54:06,826

Yeah.

00:54:07,661 --> 00:54:09,371

You know, that's just incredible.

00:54:09,621 --> 00:54:11,539

Like how much transformation,

00:54:12,624 --> 00:54:14,042

reconciliation is the big

00:54:14,042 --> 00:54:15,961

word that's coming to my mind.

00:54:15,961 --> 00:54:18,296

The forgiveness that you were describing earlier,

00:54:18,964 --> 00:54:21,007

the restoring of relationships,

00:54:21,925 --> 00:54:24,135

has some, that's potent stuff right there.

00:54:25,261 --> 00:54:27,639

So you would have moved back then with him

00:54:28,098 --> 00:54:28,974

back to New York then?

00:54:28,974 --> 00:54:29,432

Right.

00:54:32,060 --> 00:54:33,186

So tell me about,

00:54:34,479 --> 00:54:35,855

you're back in New York,

00:54:37,732 --> 00:54:39,234

your husband continues on as

00:54:39,234 --> 00:54:40,443

an officer in the Air Force,

00:54:40,819 --> 00:54:42,612

but now things are a little different, right?

00:54:42,612 --> 00:54:46,032

I mean, this Christian thing is real now.

00:54:46,866 --> 00:54:48,576

I'm guessing there were a

00:54:48,576 --> 00:54:51,538

lot of lifestyle things,

00:54:51,538 --> 00:54:53,999

habits, ways you did stuff

00:54:53,999 --> 00:54:54,749

that like, wait a minute,

00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:56,459

maybe we should make some changes here.

00:54:56,835 --> 00:54:57,794

Tell me about some of those.

00:54:58,503 --> 00:54:59,754

Well, he was used to going

00:54:59,754 --> 00:55:00,964

to the bar on Friday nights

00:55:01,798 --> 00:55:05,552

and debriefing, they sometimes called it,

00:55:05,552 --> 00:55:08,638

but drinking and getting with all the guys

00:55:08,638 --> 00:55:09,764

and talking and everything.

00:55:10,932 --> 00:55:13,268

And so he asked me,

00:55:14,644 --> 00:55:15,603

I want you to go with me.

00:55:15,603 --> 00:55:16,229

And I'm just like,

00:55:16,521 --> 00:55:18,940

this is not where a Christian woman should be.

00:55:19,399 --> 00:55:20,316

And I prayed about it.

00:55:20,316 --> 00:55:22,360

I just felt like the Lord saying, just go,

00:55:23,319 --> 00:55:24,237

support your husband.

00:55:25,030 --> 00:55:26,156

So we set up to the bar,

00:55:26,781 --> 00:55:28,033

on bar stools up to the bar,

00:55:28,033 --> 00:55:29,659

and somebody would come and say,

00:55:29,743 --> 00:55:31,745

oh, I haven't seen you in ages.

00:55:31,995 --> 00:55:32,579

Where have you been?

00:55:32,579 --> 00:55:33,455

And I said, oh, well,

00:55:33,663 --> 00:55:34,706

this is what happened to me.

00:55:34,706 --> 00:55:36,499

And I started telling them about getting saved.

00:55:36,499 --> 00:55:37,667

And I said, do you know the Lord?

00:55:39,002 --> 00:55:40,837

And they very quickly said,

00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:43,590

oh, I think I need to do something else.

00:55:43,590 --> 00:55:44,257

And they would leave.

00:55:44,883 --> 00:55:46,259

And this happened two or three,

00:55:46,801 --> 00:55:48,178

maybe four weeks that we

00:55:48,178 --> 00:55:49,345

would go on Friday night.

00:55:49,345 --> 00:55:50,430

And I had told him about a

00:55:50,430 --> 00:55:51,681

Bible study on Friday night.

00:55:51,681 --> 00:55:52,682

And he said, but we can't go

00:55:52,766 --> 00:55:54,392

because we go to the bar on Friday night.

00:55:55,727 --> 00:55:58,104

But one night he says, you know what?

00:55:58,563 --> 00:56:00,815

Nobody seems to talk to us at the bar anymore.

00:56:01,441 --> 00:56:02,442

I said, well, I don't know.

00:56:02,442 --> 00:56:04,694

I talk to anybody that comes up and talks to me.

00:56:06,362 --> 00:56:07,947

I didn't tell him what I was saying.

00:56:09,074 --> 00:56:10,992

But he said, so why don't

00:56:10,992 --> 00:56:12,160

we try that Bible study?

00:56:12,786 --> 00:56:13,161

Oh, really?

00:56:13,536 --> 00:56:16,623

So that's, wow, what a change there.

00:56:16,623 --> 00:56:18,166

And so he says, but

00:56:18,166 --> 00:56:19,584

there's fighter pilots at that.

00:56:19,584 --> 00:56:21,419

And he says, bomber pilots and fighter pilots

00:56:21,544 --> 00:56:22,962

don't necessarily get along.

00:56:22,962 --> 00:56:23,671

And I said, well, you know,

00:56:23,671 --> 00:56:24,964

as Christians, maybe they do.

00:56:26,049 --> 00:56:28,760

So we went and he just really,

00:56:29,385 --> 00:56:31,221

they just took us in like we

00:56:31,221 --> 00:56:33,181

were on the same level as them.

00:56:33,681 --> 00:56:35,600

There wasn't any animosity,

00:56:36,142 --> 00:56:38,520

fighter/bomber animosity.

00:56:38,770 --> 00:56:39,521

And there were farmers

00:56:39,521 --> 00:56:41,106

there too, you know, which-

00:56:41,773 --> 00:56:42,232

How about that?

00:56:42,690 --> 00:56:45,068

It was just, everybody was on the same level.

00:56:45,068 --> 00:56:47,779

We were all fairly new

00:56:47,779 --> 00:56:49,572

Christians and seeking the word

00:56:49,739 --> 00:56:51,866

and just having a Bible study,

00:56:51,866 --> 00:56:53,785

learning what God was showing us.

00:56:54,911 --> 00:56:57,914

And he just, again,

00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:00,959

enjoyed it and took off with it.

00:57:03,169 --> 00:57:05,130

Yeah, were there other things that you changed

00:57:05,797 --> 00:57:06,798

as the years go by?

00:57:06,798 --> 00:57:07,632

I'm sure not everything

00:57:07,632 --> 00:57:09,134

just magically poof, you know,

00:57:09,134 --> 00:57:10,802

gets fixed all in one fell swoop.

00:57:11,010 --> 00:57:13,680

You know, I'm sure this is a process here.

00:57:13,888 --> 00:57:16,307

Well, then he, like the

00:57:16,307 --> 00:57:19,853

majority of non-Christian men

00:57:20,436 --> 00:57:22,939

had a stack of pornography underneath the bed

00:57:23,273 --> 00:57:25,692

and it was still there when we got remarried.

00:57:26,067 --> 00:57:27,986

And so every time I made the bed,

00:57:27,986 --> 00:57:29,070

I just slipped my hand

00:57:29,070 --> 00:57:30,655

down there and touched and said,

00:57:30,697 --> 00:57:32,031

Lord, you know, this shouldn't be here,

00:57:32,532 --> 00:57:33,700

but I'm not gonna tell him,

00:57:34,409 --> 00:57:37,120

I want you to work with him on this

00:57:37,829 --> 00:57:39,706

because I'd been reading books on,

00:57:40,915 --> 00:57:43,710

"Put your husband first and to be submissive

00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:47,172

and to be kind and not to

00:57:47,172 --> 00:57:48,756

try to preach to the husband."

00:57:49,465 --> 00:57:52,802

You know, and so I thought, okay, Lord,

00:57:53,178 --> 00:57:54,888

you've got this and so,

00:57:55,930 --> 00:57:58,391

and then I'd walk by the liquor cabinet

00:57:58,391 --> 00:57:59,767

and put my hand up there and say,

00:57:59,767 --> 00:58:01,853

Lord, this needs to be gone too.

00:58:02,270 --> 00:58:03,688

You know, this is not what I

00:58:03,688 --> 00:58:05,148

expect in a Christian home.

00:58:06,858 --> 00:58:08,610

And so I came home from the commissary,

00:58:08,610 --> 00:58:10,653

which is a grocery store on base one day

00:58:10,820 --> 00:58:13,156

and he's out in the backyard with barbecue

00:58:13,531 --> 00:58:14,157

and he's got these

00:58:14,157 --> 00:58:15,617

magazines and he's burning them.

00:58:17,285 --> 00:58:19,704

And I waited till the very last one was on fire

00:58:19,704 --> 00:58:21,164

and I went out there and I said, what you doing?

00:58:22,749 --> 00:58:25,501

He goes, well, I just had this feeling

00:58:25,501 --> 00:58:27,837

that God didn't want me to have these around.

00:58:28,713 --> 00:58:29,505

Like, really?

00:58:29,923 --> 00:58:32,258

Okay, that's really good.

00:58:32,258 --> 00:58:33,468

That's really, really good.

00:58:34,302 --> 00:58:38,139

And so a few weeks later, again, I came home

00:58:39,015 --> 00:58:39,682

and he's in the kitchen

00:58:39,682 --> 00:58:41,601

pouring out the bottles of liquor

00:58:41,893 --> 00:58:44,729

into the sink and I again waited

00:58:45,104 --> 00:58:46,564

until the last drop was

00:58:46,564 --> 00:58:47,899

poured out of the last bottle.

00:58:48,566 --> 00:58:49,484

And I walked over and I said,

00:58:50,193 --> 00:58:51,694

we have a crew party Friday night.

00:58:51,736 --> 00:58:52,862

I'll just make some punch.

00:58:52,862 --> 00:58:54,864

And he just, the look on his face,

00:58:54,864 --> 00:58:56,699

he looked at me like, oh my goodness,

00:58:57,492 --> 00:58:58,493

what are we gonna do?

00:58:58,826 --> 00:59:00,245

I said, now, you know,

00:59:00,620 --> 00:59:02,205

you're the aircraft commander.

00:59:02,664 --> 00:59:04,123

You're the head guy.

00:59:04,707 --> 00:59:05,959

Nobody's gonna question you.

00:59:05,959 --> 00:59:09,087

And he's like, umm... and I said, no, no,

00:59:09,087 --> 00:59:09,837

let's try it.

00:59:09,837 --> 00:59:12,799

And so we had this table and had some punch on it

00:59:12,799 --> 00:59:14,175

and all the goodies out there.

00:59:14,175 --> 00:59:16,803

And you saw people looking at their drink,

00:59:16,803 --> 00:59:18,596

at their punch and kind of sniffing it

00:59:18,596 --> 00:59:21,015

and going to where they knew the liquor was kept,

00:59:21,057 --> 00:59:23,935

opening the cabinet, it was empty, going back,

00:59:23,935 --> 00:59:25,186

but nobody ever said a word.

00:59:26,104 --> 00:59:27,855

So this was like a, just like

00:59:27,855 --> 00:59:29,107

you had the flight crew over.

00:59:29,357 --> 00:59:30,066

So this is the guys he

00:59:30,066 --> 00:59:31,526

flies with basically, right?

00:59:31,859 --> 00:59:34,028

For the B-52, that he commanded.

00:59:34,028 --> 00:59:36,239

The six guys that flew under- with him.

00:59:36,823 --> 00:59:38,241

Yeah, okay, so.

00:59:38,658 --> 00:59:39,200

And their wives.

00:59:39,659 --> 00:59:43,579

That must have been hard in a way though, right?

00:59:43,579 --> 00:59:44,872

Cause you're kind of going out on a limb

00:59:45,707 --> 00:59:49,252

with these people that you work with, you know,

00:59:49,335 --> 00:59:51,796

and I don't know, I can imagine that,

00:59:51,796 --> 00:59:53,006

but that would have been a little hard, right?

00:59:53,464 --> 00:59:55,800

He was more worried than I was.

00:59:55,800 --> 00:59:57,802

I was just like, we're gonna do this.

00:59:58,094 --> 00:59:59,679

You know, God's gonna take care of it.

00:59:59,971 --> 01:00:01,472

That's funny, that's funny.

01:00:01,472 --> 01:00:03,057

Cause they're just like, why is there,

01:00:03,057 --> 01:00:05,184

there's no alcohol in this punch?

01:00:05,184 --> 01:00:06,519

It was more courage for him

01:00:06,519 --> 01:00:07,812

than it was for me, you know,

01:00:07,812 --> 01:00:10,565

because he's the big macho guy

01:00:10,732 --> 01:00:12,692

and the aircraft commander and.

01:00:14,027 --> 01:00:14,986

And the aircraft commander is

01:00:14,986 --> 01:00:16,446

not serving, you know, alcohol.

01:00:16,696 --> 01:00:18,448

Yeah, is he gonna look wimpy or something?

01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:20,616

Wow, but that's, there's

01:00:20,616 --> 01:00:21,576

something to that though,

01:00:21,784 --> 01:00:24,495

where it's not just, you say a prayer

01:00:24,495 --> 01:00:25,580

and move on with your life.

01:00:25,580 --> 01:00:28,041

Like there's things that have to change here.

01:00:30,626 --> 01:00:32,420

And I can imagine, again, I'm guessing

01:00:32,420 --> 01:00:34,088

this is a long process, right?

01:00:34,297 --> 01:00:36,049

You know, this doesn't happen right away.

01:00:36,049 --> 01:00:39,010

It was over weeks, but it was in the first year

01:00:39,218 --> 01:00:40,303

that we were remarried.

01:00:40,303 --> 01:00:41,888

It was in the first year, but

01:00:41,888 --> 01:00:44,223

it didn't all happen at once.

01:00:44,223 --> 01:00:46,142

It was several weeks in between,

01:00:46,642 --> 01:00:48,311

but the Lord was working

01:00:49,187 --> 01:00:50,730

and just bringing us along

01:00:51,564 --> 01:00:54,150

at the speed that the Lord

01:00:54,150 --> 01:00:55,318

knew that we could handle,

01:00:56,069 --> 01:00:57,862

as if we'd known in the beginning,

01:00:57,987 --> 01:00:59,405

everything we were gonna go through.

01:00:59,405 --> 01:01:01,991

I don't know that we would have signed on.

01:01:02,241 --> 01:01:03,743

It's too much too quick,

01:01:03,743 --> 01:01:04,619

you know, it's almost done.

01:01:05,453 --> 01:01:06,079

Yeah, yeah.

01:01:06,454 --> 01:01:09,665

So that gets us a little closer to today,

01:01:09,665 --> 01:01:10,875

but we're not quite there yet.

01:01:11,417 --> 01:01:12,585

Somewhere in that process,

01:01:13,252 --> 01:01:17,423

you go from being a military wife, you know,

01:01:17,423 --> 01:01:20,301

you're very, obviously the Air Force

01:01:20,510 --> 01:01:23,346

is your husband's career.

01:01:23,346 --> 01:01:24,972

I mean, that's his world, you know,

01:01:25,181 --> 01:01:29,477

for so much of y'all's marriage.

01:01:29,977 --> 01:01:32,146

Well, yeah, basically up to this point,

01:01:32,146 --> 01:01:33,439

that was what you all knew.

01:01:34,941 --> 01:01:36,567

Where does that change start happening?

01:01:37,151 --> 01:01:40,488

Because you're clearly, some

01:01:40,488 --> 01:01:41,906

things have changed since then.

01:01:42,365 --> 01:01:43,616

Talk me through that process.

01:01:44,617 --> 01:01:46,452

We started trying to go to churches

01:01:46,452 --> 01:01:48,454

that we felt like really knew the Lord.

01:01:48,663 --> 01:01:50,456

We actually went through the Charismatic Church

01:01:50,832 --> 01:01:55,545

and realized through a stillbirth that I had

01:01:55,545 --> 01:01:57,672

that that was all emotion,

01:01:58,047 --> 01:01:59,715

not real caring of people

01:01:59,715 --> 01:02:03,177

and not, they were disrespectful to God.

01:02:03,177 --> 01:02:04,345

I felt like after I

01:02:04,345 --> 01:02:05,888

looked back on it at the time,

01:02:06,514 --> 01:02:08,724

we felt like it was the way to go,

01:02:08,850 --> 01:02:11,769

but there's people seeking in every denomination

01:02:12,061 --> 01:02:12,812

that we went through.

01:02:13,479 --> 01:02:15,940

There are true seekers that are really trying

01:02:15,940 --> 01:02:17,150

to serve the Lord.

01:02:17,150 --> 01:02:18,568

And then we went through other churches,

01:02:18,901 --> 01:02:21,070

each time getting a little bit more conservative,

01:02:21,779 --> 01:02:23,573

thinking these people are gonna be

01:02:24,699 --> 01:02:25,950

really trying to serve the Lord.

01:02:26,909 --> 01:02:28,744

And there were some in each church,

01:02:29,579 --> 01:02:31,330

but probably not as a whole

01:02:31,330 --> 01:02:32,915

as much as what we wanted.

01:02:33,207 --> 01:02:35,168

And so we kept looking and looking.

01:02:35,793 --> 01:02:39,714

And I was teaching bread classes.

01:02:40,339 --> 01:02:42,467

We had moved back to Ohio the second time

01:02:42,675 --> 01:02:45,678

and I had started teaching bread classes

01:02:45,887 --> 01:02:47,972

and I didn't advertise

01:02:47,972 --> 01:02:49,682

it, but I got a call one day

01:02:50,099 --> 01:02:53,394

from German Baptist ladies

01:02:53,728 --> 01:02:55,521

and they wanted to come and do a bread class.

01:02:55,980 --> 01:02:56,522

And I said, sure.

01:02:56,731 --> 01:03:00,026

So they came over and I noticed,

01:03:00,276 --> 01:03:01,194

I think the first time they

01:03:01,194 --> 01:03:02,445

came there was four of them.

01:03:03,112 --> 01:03:05,281

And then they said, this is pretty good.

01:03:05,490 --> 01:03:06,991

We're gonna come back, bring

01:03:06,991 --> 01:03:08,493

our sisters, other sisters.

01:03:08,951 --> 01:03:10,578

I thought, how big is their family?

01:03:10,953 --> 01:03:12,997

I just assumed, they meant sister sisters.

01:03:13,664 --> 01:03:14,916

And so they came back and they said,

01:03:14,916 --> 01:03:16,250

well, how many can we bring?

01:03:16,250 --> 01:03:17,919

And I said, well, if you bring your own chairs,

01:03:17,919 --> 01:03:20,880

you could probably fit 30 or 40 ladies in here,

01:03:21,088 --> 01:03:24,759

but however many, we only have so much seating.

01:03:25,009 --> 01:03:27,386

And so they came back with, I don't know,

01:03:27,386 --> 01:03:30,056

at least 15 ladies, maybe more.

01:03:31,265 --> 01:03:32,266

And they were all dressed

01:03:32,266 --> 01:03:34,644

in the same style of dress,

01:03:35,436 --> 01:03:38,314

different colors, same style of cap.

01:03:38,648 --> 01:03:41,859

And they all had glowing faces and they acted

01:03:41,859 --> 01:03:44,362

like they were just happy as could be

01:03:44,362 --> 01:03:45,696

and they talked with each other.

01:03:46,030 --> 01:03:48,032

And the feeling of

01:03:50,034 --> 01:03:52,995

camaraderie or family was so strong

01:03:53,162 --> 01:03:57,166

and they just seemed like they knew

01:03:57,166 --> 01:03:58,501

where they were going and everything.

01:03:59,001 --> 01:04:02,630

And so I said to one of them,

01:04:04,131 --> 01:04:05,883

I think I'm gonna be one of you someday.

01:04:07,093 --> 01:04:08,302

This was probably the

01:04:08,302 --> 01:04:10,429

staunchest lady in the whole group.

01:04:10,429 --> 01:04:13,391

And she just looked at me and Vince was just off

01:04:13,391 --> 01:04:15,059

of active duty, but still working

01:04:15,059 --> 01:04:16,435

for the government at that time.

01:04:16,435 --> 01:04:17,270

And she just looked at me and

01:04:17,270 --> 01:04:18,771

she said, well, that's nice.

01:04:19,480 --> 01:04:21,524

She didn't say no, can't do it,

01:04:21,816 --> 01:04:23,359

but she just said, that's nice.

01:04:24,277 --> 01:04:25,820

And then about a month later,

01:04:27,071 --> 01:04:28,656

some of the Millers had come to me.

01:04:28,656 --> 01:04:32,702

They had a bakery in town, not too far from us

01:04:32,785 --> 01:04:35,413

and asked me if I would bake for the store

01:04:35,496 --> 01:04:39,417

because I ground my own wheat and did wheat bread

01:04:39,875 --> 01:04:43,296

and rolls and everything.

01:04:43,838 --> 01:04:46,215

And they said, can you come

01:04:46,215 --> 01:04:48,134

and bring your wheat bread in

01:04:48,134 --> 01:04:50,303

because we don't have any brown wheat bread.

01:04:51,429 --> 01:04:54,515

So I did and I started asking questions

01:04:54,890 --> 01:04:57,101

because they're all German Baptist in there.

01:04:57,685 --> 01:04:59,061

Started asking pointed questions.

01:04:59,270 --> 01:05:01,439

And finally I said, can I visit sometime?

01:05:01,731 --> 01:05:03,190

And so Vince said, yeah, you

01:05:03,190 --> 01:05:04,483

can visit when I'm out of town.

01:05:05,359 --> 01:05:06,193

So I did, I started

01:05:06,193 --> 01:05:09,322

visiting and that was back in 1993.

01:05:11,157 --> 01:05:14,869

And so I visited from time to time all the way up

01:05:14,910 --> 01:05:18,164

until 2010, we had been

01:05:18,164 --> 01:05:20,374

going to another Baptist church

01:05:20,374 --> 01:05:21,959

that we thought was even more conservative

01:05:21,959 --> 01:05:24,462

for about four years, but it was turning out

01:05:24,462 --> 01:05:26,589

it wasn't really where we wanted to be.

01:05:27,882 --> 01:05:29,800

And I suggested to Vince,

01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:30,843

why don't you come with me

01:05:30,843 --> 01:05:32,386

to visit the German Baptist?

01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:34,889

And he's like, ah, you

01:05:34,889 --> 01:05:36,891

know, it's kind of different.

01:05:38,434 --> 01:05:40,227

And he said, well, all right, I'll try.

01:05:40,603 --> 01:05:41,771

And so he went and he says,

01:05:42,980 --> 01:05:44,023

they had a dinner afterwards

01:05:44,023 --> 01:05:45,066

and he looked around and he said,

01:05:45,066 --> 01:05:46,942

I can see why you like these people.

01:05:46,942 --> 01:05:48,235

They're just so welcoming and

01:05:48,235 --> 01:05:49,612

everybody's just so friendly

01:05:49,820 --> 01:05:53,366

and kind and so then we started going one Sunday

01:05:53,491 --> 01:05:55,576

to the Baptist church and another Sunday

01:05:55,743 --> 01:05:56,869

to the German Baptist and

01:05:56,869 --> 01:05:58,079

after a while Vince said,

01:05:58,079 --> 01:05:59,497

we have to make a decision here.

01:06:00,247 --> 01:06:01,165

What are we gonna do?

01:06:02,625 --> 01:06:05,252

And so he said, I said, well, he says,

01:06:05,252 --> 01:06:07,505

I can't handle the non-resistance thing though

01:06:07,922 --> 01:06:10,466

because we'd gone to a baptism and up until then

01:06:10,466 --> 01:06:12,176

he was doing fine and then when he heard

01:06:12,176 --> 01:06:13,552

they were non-resistant, he goes,

01:06:15,846 --> 01:06:17,431

did you know they were non-resistant?

01:06:18,057 --> 01:06:19,350

Did you know? Yeah.

01:06:19,350 --> 01:06:21,602

You did, okay. And I said, yes,

01:06:21,852 --> 01:06:23,020

I understand it.

01:06:24,188 --> 01:06:25,815

Because I couldn't say I agree

01:06:26,440 --> 01:06:28,484

because that would be usurping his authority.

01:06:28,734 --> 01:06:30,611

So I just said, I understand it.

01:06:31,153 --> 01:06:33,739

And he said like, well, how's that gonna work?

01:06:34,699 --> 01:06:35,991

Because at this point, y'all had,

01:06:37,410 --> 01:06:38,244

let's see, y'all had been in

01:06:38,244 --> 01:06:41,163

the military for like 24 years.

01:06:41,580 --> 01:06:43,416

And he was working back as a

01:06:43,416 --> 01:06:44,792

contractor for the military.

01:06:45,418 --> 01:06:46,544

Yeah, so you've been in

01:06:46,544 --> 01:06:48,003

this world for a long time.

01:06:48,003 --> 01:06:50,423

Like I can imagine this isn't just like a little,

01:06:50,589 --> 01:06:54,385

you know, mental exercise of

01:06:54,385 --> 01:06:56,095

thinking through non-resistance.

01:06:56,095 --> 01:06:59,140

This is pretty significant for your lifestyle.

01:06:59,140 --> 01:07:00,433

So I gave him books on non-resistance.

01:07:00,433 --> 01:07:02,977

I gave him CDs on non-resistance.

01:07:02,977 --> 01:07:05,229

He listened to all of them, but you know,

01:07:05,563 --> 01:07:07,022

he's a very strong thinker.

01:07:07,440 --> 01:07:09,066

And so he could pick out things and say,

01:07:09,066 --> 01:07:09,483

well, you know, this

01:07:09,483 --> 01:07:11,819

didn't quite answer the question

01:07:12,236 --> 01:07:13,654

or this sidesteps this or that,

01:07:13,863 --> 01:07:15,364

and he wasn't quite convinced.

01:07:15,364 --> 01:07:16,824

And so I said, make your list.

01:07:16,824 --> 01:07:18,826

And so he made a list of questions that he had

01:07:19,535 --> 01:07:22,788

and they invited us to their annual conference.

01:07:23,581 --> 01:07:25,207

So he went to the annual conference and he said,

01:07:25,207 --> 01:07:26,500

you know, I'm tired of this.

01:07:26,500 --> 01:07:27,835

We've got to get some answers.

01:07:28,210 --> 01:07:30,629

And so he set it up that we were going to talk

01:07:30,629 --> 01:07:32,798

to one of the ministers and he wasn't available.

01:07:33,090 --> 01:07:35,134

So we talked to Todd Boone

01:07:36,260 --> 01:07:38,387

and Todd sat on one side of the table

01:07:38,387 --> 01:07:39,722

and we sat on the other side

01:07:39,722 --> 01:07:41,390

and we were at Cedarville University

01:07:41,682 --> 01:07:43,642

and behind Todd was this big pool.

01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:47,688

And so as Todd opened the scriptures to Vince,

01:07:48,147 --> 01:07:49,732

instead of hitting non-resistance,

01:07:50,524 --> 01:07:52,568

he talked to him about two kingdoms.

01:07:53,110 --> 01:07:54,904

We had never heard about two kingdoms.

01:07:56,363 --> 01:07:57,531

We'd never heard that concept.

01:07:57,907 --> 01:08:00,451

And so I watched Vince and as

01:08:00,451 --> 01:08:02,995

he gathered the understanding,

01:08:03,662 --> 01:08:05,831

it's just as though his face started gleaming.

01:08:05,831 --> 01:08:07,833

And all of a sudden he said, I get it now.

01:08:08,209 --> 01:08:09,418

There's water, let's go.

01:08:09,668 --> 01:08:13,422

And Todd's like, no, you know,

01:08:13,964 --> 01:08:15,716

there's some things we got to talk over first.

01:08:16,342 --> 01:08:19,345

And so, because I'd been telling them all along,

01:08:19,345 --> 01:08:21,806

if he catches it, he's going to run with it.

01:08:21,806 --> 01:08:23,599

And everybody's saying, I don't know.

01:08:23,933 --> 01:08:25,392

He's, you know, he seems

01:08:25,392 --> 01:08:26,811

like a hard cookie to crack.

01:08:28,229 --> 01:08:30,272

And I'm just like, no, I'm telling you, you know,

01:08:30,606 --> 01:08:31,982

once he catches something and

01:08:31,982 --> 01:08:34,819

he knows truth when he sees it.

01:08:34,819 --> 01:08:37,321

And when he hears truth and he catches it,

01:08:37,780 --> 01:08:38,739

he goes with it.

01:08:39,698 --> 01:08:40,491

So he was ready.

01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:43,911

And so then Cedarville

01:08:43,911 --> 01:08:45,371

wouldn't let us be baptized there.

01:08:45,412 --> 01:08:47,039

So the next Sunday we were baptized

01:08:47,373 --> 01:08:50,543

into the German Baptist Church.

01:08:51,293 --> 01:08:52,336

And that was in...

01:08:53,796 --> 01:08:54,296

2011.

01:08:56,465 --> 01:08:56,674

Yeah.

01:08:56,799 --> 01:08:57,383

Oh, wow.

01:08:57,633 --> 01:08:59,927

Like what a story, you know,

01:08:59,927 --> 01:09:01,971

there's been so many

01:09:01,971 --> 01:09:03,389

different points along the way

01:09:03,389 --> 01:09:05,891

leading up to where we sit right now.

01:09:05,891 --> 01:09:07,601

And it's just kind of hard to even imagine

01:09:07,601 --> 01:09:10,521

like all the dominoes in the chain, so to speak,

01:09:10,521 --> 01:09:11,647

to get us here.

01:09:11,897 --> 01:09:12,565

God is good.

01:09:12,940 --> 01:09:14,191

Yeah, wow, isn't that something?

01:09:14,692 --> 01:09:15,818

I'm still thinking back to

01:09:15,818 --> 01:09:17,403

that doctor in, you know,

01:09:17,570 --> 01:09:18,904

1975 or whatever that says,

01:09:18,904 --> 01:09:19,446

you're gonna be in a

01:09:19,446 --> 01:09:20,906

wheelchair by Christmas, you know?

01:09:21,740 --> 01:09:25,202

And those people who took you in, you know,

01:09:25,202 --> 01:09:26,912

in LA back then and

01:09:26,912 --> 01:09:28,831

welcomed you into their church.

01:09:28,831 --> 01:09:30,499

And then all these other

01:09:30,499 --> 01:09:31,750

little points along the way

01:09:31,750 --> 01:09:33,669

and the story that gets us here,

01:09:33,961 --> 01:09:36,213

that's pretty incredible when you stop and think

01:09:36,589 --> 01:09:37,882

all of that in one piece.

01:09:37,882 --> 01:09:38,382

It's like, wow.

01:09:39,300 --> 01:09:40,467

That just kind of proves if

01:09:40,467 --> 01:09:42,219

we're really seeking the Lord

01:09:42,761 --> 01:09:43,804

and we're reading His word

01:09:44,597 --> 01:09:47,349

and we're listening to the word more so sometimes

01:09:47,892 --> 01:09:49,435

than what people are telling us.

01:09:49,977 --> 01:09:51,520

Because everybody has an opinion.

01:09:52,479 --> 01:09:54,398

And sometimes, I mean, we're

01:09:54,398 --> 01:09:56,150

learning still many things.

01:09:56,859 --> 01:09:58,777

We don't have everything all together yet.

01:09:59,445 --> 01:10:00,946

We're still learning a lot of things.

01:10:01,989 --> 01:10:04,783

But as the Lord leads us and we're learning,

01:10:05,367 --> 01:10:07,661

if we stick with His word,

01:10:08,162 --> 01:10:10,414

we're gonna get there eventually.

01:10:11,540 --> 01:10:13,542

And I mean, we're never gonna totally arrive

01:10:13,709 --> 01:10:14,460

until we get to heaven.

01:10:15,127 --> 01:10:18,839

But the Lord is good and brings us,

01:10:19,256 --> 01:10:21,592

starts with where we are and just takes us along.

01:10:23,594 --> 01:10:24,803

So there's probably a lot

01:10:24,803 --> 01:10:26,221

of people listening to this

01:10:26,764 --> 01:10:28,849

that are maybe struggling with what they feel

01:10:29,350 --> 01:10:32,311

Christ is calling them to in their own lives.

01:10:32,728 --> 01:10:34,772

And in your life, you've

01:10:34,772 --> 01:10:36,398

been describing a lot of changes

01:10:36,690 --> 01:10:38,776

and restoration and forgiveness

01:10:39,026 --> 01:10:42,363

and yeah, a lot of different pieces there.

01:10:42,905 --> 01:10:45,574

As you sought out, what is Christ calling you to.

01:10:46,367 --> 01:10:48,619

So as we bring all this to a close,

01:10:48,619 --> 01:10:49,578

the story to a close,

01:10:49,578 --> 01:10:51,372

what would you say to encourage those people

01:10:51,747 --> 01:10:53,832

that may be going through a similar situation

01:10:53,832 --> 01:10:56,001

or going through challenging times right now?

01:10:56,543 --> 01:11:00,464

You need to just keep searching Scripture

01:11:01,423 --> 01:11:04,677

and comparing your life to the Scripture

01:11:04,677 --> 01:11:05,719

and listening to the Lord

01:11:06,303 --> 01:11:09,807

and seeking wisdom from those around.

01:11:10,349 --> 01:11:13,394