EP 52: Pursuing imPOSSIBILITY with David's Table

We like to story tell because stories are important.

They're super important. Jesus used that to teach, to

keep, to write on our minds. And those stories are important.

That's that's how we connect and how the connection I want them

to see is not David's table. I want them to see that the Lord

is doing these things in their life, that the people of David's

table are the same as them. In fact, if I can get them them

to understand that we are don't have it together, don't have

super capes on and aren't doing don't have any kind of

superpower, it's easier than to talk to them about trying church

again. Well, hey everyone, welcome back

to the Grace Church members podcast on your host Whitney

Manus here with Scott. How are you, Scott?

Hey, Whitney. Good morning.

Good morning. Good to see you.

And our guest today is one of those names that I'd heard

around our church, it seems like dozens of times.

And then finally got to make the connection with her recently,

Katie Mitchell. Katie, thanks for being here

with us. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely, and I'll have you introduce yourself here in a

minute, but I'll try to set you up.

You are executive director of David's Table, and we will get

to talk a lot about that here in a minute as well.

But you're also a member at Grace at our Pelham campus.

How long have you been at Grace? Tom and I argue about that, but

I think it's about 12 years that we've been there and I want to

say maybe 11 years as members. OK, that's awesome.

So you're you're familiar. She is a listener of our

podcast, so we're grateful for that.

And now she finally gets to participate as well.

So, Katie, tell us a little bit about your family, about your

background, and just how you entered into this role in the

world that you're working in now.

OK, well, let me go back a few years.

A lot of people who know me know that I'm retired from the Navy.

I was a chief hospital corpsman in the Navy.

My dad was also in the Navy. And I actually came here from

Virginia many years ago with my three children, then three

children, and moved to my dad's hometown of Piedmont.

And Becca, who a lot of people at Grace know, if you've been at

the Pelham campus and seen her driving around in her power

wheelchair, hugging everybody, you've met Becca.

But came came to be closer to family and get connected.

And now my family looks very different.

I spent some time as a single mom after going through divorce,

which impacts families with disability disproportionately.

To most families, it's still pretty high period, but it

really hits families impacted by disability pretty hard.

And I spent a good amount of time where it was just Becca and

I, and I experienced a lot of things.

And one of the greatest things I experienced was just as Becca

was entering high school, I met Skeeter Powell.

Like a great thing in of itself, isn't it that?

And Becca met him too. And I will tell you, Skeeter is

one of the most welcoming people on the planet.

I don't know that you could find someone who has a more open and

welcoming heart. And so he really disarmed me

with his welcome and welcomed not only me, but Becca

completely, exactly how we were. And I was pretty rough around

the edges. He also was critical and getting

me involved in Young Life. And that's really how the whole

journey towards David's table started was in Young Life.

I ended up joining Young Life Capernaum, which is where I met

Tom, who I would later marry, and Skeeter would marry us and

we blended our families together.

And now all throughout Young Life, as a leader, working with

Skeeter, getting to know families, connecting with a lot

of other families in similar circumstances, we got to be a

pretty tight knit community. David's Table was in existence

then, but it was more of a come alongside Young Life so that

Skeeter could lend some additional resources to

strengthen the Capernaum community.

And Capernaum is just the part of Young Life that serves high

schoolers with disabilities. And so skaters started that.

David Sable, How long ago? It's been 15 years. 15 years. 15

years ago and it's it's just amazing to see what God has done

through his faithfulness. I'll tell you that's the key

when it comes to anything. We know that through the way God

shows up for us in all seasons. Skeeter really models that and

today that's still really what David's table is about is

faithfulness to show up in the lives of our families and our

friends consistently to be counted on so many things in the

world let you down and and so it his faithfulness to continue

showing up even today. And it's amazing at 82 or he's

going to be 82. I think this just in a couple

weeks. Yeah, really outing him on this

podcast. Oh, I'm so sorry.

He's going to be mad that I So if you don't know, I believe

it's October 13th is Skeeter's birthday.

It's all wisdom now that that's what the age represents.

It's just wisdom and. I don't know.

People will say that. You know what I say, it's

experience on how not to do it. It's what was stumbling.

That's right. It's still effective, that's for

sure. Yeah, that's great, Katie.

And and your feeling has grown a little bit since then and you

are now. How did you end up as executive

director of David's Table? Take us the rest of the way.

Well, during COVID, which everybody remembers COVID, we

ended up connecting on Zoom. There was this fear that our

already isolated community would completely fall apart.

So we began Zooming every Monday night using the Bible Project

videos through the Gospels as a point of connection to replace

our Monday night meetings that we would have with Capernaum and

David's table. And it was highly effective.

We doubled in size. We ended up having a virtual

camp. David Merritt Anderson was our

speaker. We had breakout rooms for small

community groups. We had a whole weekend.

Grace was a big part of that. We did.

We did hygiene kits for prisoners that we worked with as

a mission serving opportunity with Grace.

Our campers did 200 of them and I'm going to brag without any

mistakes. We're perfect.

That's awesome. It was just amazing.

And out of that, we gathered together at Tomomise home in

Greer, about 15 or 20 of us and said, God, what, what do you

want us to do? David's table was there, but it

wasn't really any had didn't really have any structure or

substance. So a beautiful donor said if you

can match this money and figure out how to sustain that pass

Skeeter and create a more structure to come alongside

these families, I'll give you $20,000.

The matching the money was really, really easy.

Believe it or not, that was not the hard part.

The hard part was getting consensus on who are we, what do

we see? God's plan for us in the world

and serving these families and loving them, and that really

took a long time to decide more of what we were not than what we

are. So were you coalescing a mission

statement at that point? That was the hardest thing we

did was come up with a mission statement.

And I love our mission statement.

What is it? It is to demonstrate the love of

Jesus. I'll give you the rest of it,

but demonstrating the love of Jesus.

And we do that by creating community, connecting to

resources, and making disciples. So those are three of the ways

we do that. But under everything we

demonstrate the love of Jesus, and that can be hard.

Yeah, absolutely. So before we go any further,

first of all say that David's Table is one of our local

partners with Grace, which is why we're talking about it here

on our podcast. And I would love for you to also

tell us just where did the name David's Table come from?

Because I I love that. Mesaba, chef, see if you could

say that several times. But second Samuel 9.

So King Saul and his son Jonathan, they're dead and gone.

David is has taken the throne and he is secure in power and he

asks if there are any living relatives left in the family.

Now, normally under that context, the expectation would

be execution because that would be typical for the culture of

that time. But if we go back, we remember

her, that David and Jonathan had a very, very special

relationship and they had made promises to each other and they

loved each other dearly. It is a a beautiful brotherly

love that existed in their relationship.

So the Seba chef is found and brought before King David and he

is mortified that him with disability, he had been dropped,

his nurse was running away fleeing the attackers and he was

dropped and he was crippled in both feet.

So the stigma not only of being one of the surviving members of

the deposed ruling family, but also having a disability, his

shame would have been significant.

And David not only restores his life and and is such a picture,

such a picture of what Jesus does for us, but restores and

redeems his life. He invites him to do to have all

his meals at his table at the King's table.

So David's table is the same. That's the the picture that

we're offering our families. We're saying let go of your

shame. We see you, we love you.

We see you with your brokenness outward and inward.

And you are welcome. You're very, very welcome.

Yeah, which is just so beautiful and like you said, such a

picture of the gospel, but along with your mission statement

really does show us the heart of what David's table is after.

Another thing I'd love to clarify, I think in our context

we have Mosaic and we talked about those with special needs

and disabilities, and I think David's table sometimes gets

lumped in, but those are separate entities.

Tell us a little bit about how David's table works with Mosaic

and is partnered with Grace, but then how it is also not Mosaic

and it's different? I love Mosaic, my daughter's

which I hadn't even mentioned Dakota, but Dakota is a new

addition to our family in the last three years and God blessed

2 old people with a his mind and ours and it's a beautiful thing.

But Dakota and Becca are a part of Mosaic.

They are part of Group Life Mosaic at Pelham and they are

members at Pelham. They also attend the Mosaic

Inspire and they work at Inspire Coffee House.

So we are a Mosaic family. We are also a David Staple

family and my girls go to E 210 and many of the other David's

table activities as well that are outside or between the

Sundays. We're big about being between

the Sundays on Sundays because there's a lot of life outside of

Sundays. And I know Grace is big about

being between the Sundays as well.

That's right. So the way we come alongside

Mosaic, a biggest way and that would it, it would look like on

a Sunday, is transportation. We help to get many Mosaic

adults to worship. We help to provide that support

and transporting Front Porch residents to Pelham for worship.

We help with volunteers or anything, pretty much anything

Joe Clary asked me that he needs, I'm willing to do him

Merit Yvette, Dana Humphrey, all of them are, believe it or not,

David's table volunteers as well as mosaic staff and and and

people. So there's a lot of, I call it

cross pollinating, but but there's a lot of mixture, which

is beautiful and it's great. That's helpful.

But David's table is 1. Grace Church is 1 church that we

partner with. We have about 12 to 16 churches,

which I can't list them all. Our goal is is actually to

partner with churches to get families in their church.

Grace has a great onboarding with Mosaic, but many churches

do not have a disability ministry.

And I'll be honest with you, you don't have to have a disability

ministry to be welcoming to families with disabilities.

So we love to bridge that gap and help our families find a

church home. Katie, if I could interrupt, is

that is that one of the reasons why COVID and Zoom was so

effective is because it created a new paradigm for some families

that knew other families to start spreading the word that

may not be connected to a local church?

Yes, very much so. The parents were as eager to be

on the call as their adults. If you would have said here,

let's go on a technology none of us know how to use and have

intimate fellowship and discipleship over 18 months.

It was crazy. It was all of us were rushing to

be together. If everyone can remember how

that was, then God. God showed us for the first time

possibility and we've never really looked back.

We haven't been afraid to try whatever aligns with connecting

folks, even if it seems ridiculous like Camp David.

Think about it. We went in 2021 during COVID.

Yeah, tell us about Camp David. So Camp David Merrick gets 100%

credit. We had a virtual camp in 2020

where we wanted to give our adults an opportunity to connect

in some way that would be super fun, have a chance to have a

larger visibility and connection outside of Zoom.

So we used Rocky Creek Church. We had a parade which we all

dressed up in superhero costumes.

My mom got her wish and got it. Has pictures of me in a Wonder

Woman costume and A and A and a mask.

And like Amy Romasca who a lot of you all will know too, she's

been apart from way back. We all dressed up and they came

through in their cars, didn't get out of their cars and picked

up their camp kit. Went back and stayed with us for

a Friday night. We had a karaoke and fun on Zoom

Friday night and then we had teaching all day Saturday that

Merritt taught in two blocks, had small groups and we did a

serving project which we turned in on Sunday at Grace Church and

gave them a T-shirt and a bag lunch.

And we just thought that was the greatest though.

And then Merritt said, hey, next year let's do it in person and

invite the whole family. That statement changed the

course of David's table completely changed the course

because we had only like Young Life just really thought about

the adult and many ministries that you'll find across the

country focus solely on the adult and he broaden our

perspective and I am so, so glad that he did.

So in 2021, not having any clue what we're doing using Skeeter's

relational collateral, we got Carolina point to let us come on

the weekend after Labor Day in the middle of COVID.

I find difficulty telling this story without crying, but I'm

going to do my best. So a couple days leading up to

Camp David with all the planning that we had, never really having

any idea what we were going to do, we lost over a third of our

volunteers to COVID. The ones we didn't lose to COVID

before we got there, we lost more.

When we arrived, we found out most of our volunteers weren't

going to be able to come. So Friday night, I'm standing up

with a microphone looking at a dining room about half full of

parents and adults who took a chance on us and came up in the

middle of COVID. And I'm going to have to tell

them that that we have to go home because we don't have

enough people to serve unless they're willing to serve.

And so I asked the parents, would you be willing?

And every parent in the room stood up and dads went in the

kitchen to serve. And mom stayed with their

daughters. And moms went in the kitchen to

serve and dad stayed with their sons.

And we had camp and the camp crew joined us.

And I, if I tell you all that people just came out of the

woodwork to come and serve and love our families that week, we

had 181 people who ended up being there.

And it has forever ever changed how I look at my own

relationship with the Lord and and just his faithfulness as

such a depth and breath for me that I can't I can't explain

outside of what happened that weekend.

Yeah, we really could spend. I mean, you have so many stories

like that and we could spend such a long time on them, but

it's so powerful. And what as you're talking, what

I hear you describing is really this idea of God making the

upside down Kingdom the the reverse economy, because we

think of COVID and we think of impossibility.

We think of that was not fun. We do not want to do that again.

But you were talking about how God used that to do great

things, good things, brought so much life and fruit from

something that seemed very hopeless and unfortunate.

And but that's just the business that he's in, isn't it?

You know, he's, he's always taking those things that don't

seem like they will bear fruit. And he is bringing gardens out

of ashes. And you know, to use all of the

analogies. Or out of a stump, right?

That's right. I mean, you could just see it's

the redemption story over and over again.

It's the prodigal son. It's so many.

So you could use, there's so many metaphors, but it is a

story ultimately of redemption. And now, so 2025, we just did

Camp David again. Give us a little update.

How did that go this year? Well, we have now a clarity of

purpose and knowing as God has LED us as we've grown up and

learned all the ways to do it wrong.

And we I will say that we will never.

Our goal is not performance. We feel that our messiness is a

picture of being authentic and real and it makes us

approachable. So we never ever want it to be

perfect. But we did have 412 people at at

camp and over 100 more people stayed the whole weekend this

year versus last year. We have beautiful volunteers

that keep showing up year after year.

But the clarity that we have now is the purpose of campus is is

very intentional and focused on our parents.

We go to camp to provide on site respite.

Yeah, where we're breaking the whole family out of their

comfort zone, putting them in a different environment and

connecting them to one another so that they can get real and

vulnerable, hear from each other, share their wounds, bind

each other up, encourage each other.

And we pray the Holy Spirit comes in such mighty power on

camp and just there's this huge bubble of protection.

But that they will hear from him.

That is our deepest hope. A lot of times it's just the

beauty of connecting with others who'd get you that start the

conversation, but give us that that leverage to then continue

pursuing these people for the gospel.

Right. And if if you all heard our last

episode with Davis Craig, he was talking about how we do student

retreats. But that idea of getting outside

of our norm, you know, maybe we put our phones away a little bit

more than we normally would, but we're in space with other

people. And we asked the Holy Spirit to

come with us. And then it's amazing what

happens, you know, when you really create that space,

especially life is busy. And especially for families of

those with disabilities, like it can be chaotic.

And so just here's a little Oasis where you get to be with

your family, you get cared for. You don't have to worry about

dinner, you know, and so you can really just fellowship with one

another. It's beautiful.

So take us into what these parents are, are feeling and why

a weekend like this is so special because a lot of folks

when we, if we see an individual, whether it be a

child or an adult with disability, that's, that tends

to be all that we see. Yes.

So we don't see the family. So tell us, tell us, take us

into the window of the family and why this movement from the

individual to the family has been so catalytic and so

defining for David's table. Those are good questions.

So the, the, the main thing to understand is that it is

caregiving, whether it is in the context of a family with a, with

a disabled adult or child, or if you're caring for an aging

parent or if you're caring for a spouse with chronic illness.

There is it, there's the never ending and there's, it can be

very difficult to see in your daily circumstances anything

beyond the work or the next thing that needs to happen that

it's hard to, to connect to joy. It's hard to connect to any, any

thought that you don't see an end to it.

It, it and you love the person. It's not that you don't love the

person, but there is, there is a lot to that.

And and Becca requires total care.

She's completely dependent. She's very independent in a lot

of ways, but but requires a lot. And it's physically demanding on

people who are aging. I have a mom who's in her 80s

who has twin boys in their 50s. Camp for her is fun for them,

but also fun for her. It's a chance to truly have fun

and be a part to to really cast those burdens down to go to the

well to get that refreshment. It is an opportunity to be

connected to joy and then hopefully connected to.

I don't want our families to be connected to 200 other people.

I want in my prayer that we pray as a team over and I pray

specifically over is that the Holy Spirit will connect a

couple of these women to each other so that they can continue

fellowshipping well beyond camp to breathe life into each other.

So that when you had a day like for me, when Becca said mom

probably 150 times in 10 minutes, I have another mom

whose daughter does the same thing and we'll just talk and

she totally gets it. So, so campus is kind of what

Whitney said, why it's so important is it is greenhousing,

it's, it's bringing everybody together in an environment and

fighting the Holy Spirit and to work in and amongst everyone

who's there to develop and create relationships and

connections. We, we're just throwing

fertilizer and water on it. We're we're not.

He is ultimately making that happen, but they have to be

there for it to happen. So.

Well, and because the like you said, the life, the caregiving,

it's, it's so all consuming that there's not a lot of margin or

space to go find these relationships.

So then some of the more difficult parts of the

caregiving get magnified, some of the loneliness and

frustration and and the joy seems to be further and further

away. So you're bringing like minded

folks together, but you're also doing it with this

encouragement, gospel focus, ultimately pointing to this,

this greatest hope. So it's not just, it's not just

commiserating. Right, exactly.

It is not despair in any way. It's so joy was our theme this

year. I would hazard a guess that

there'd be very few people who, if we just plopped them in the

middle on a Saturday at Camp David, who wouldn't get that.

It's all about the joy. And it's sometimes difficult to

reconcile joy with the circumstances of the individuals

that you'll see having a blast. All of them.

The parents walk in like way down.

You can't see me. So I'm trying to model what you

can't see. Sure, but they walk in bent over

and they leave just so much light and and do we want to

connect them to Christ? Yes, we do.

But have you ever heard people say sometimes that people are

are inviting you into Christ, but they look like they've been

run over and they're not very compelling, right?

That's. Right.

It's like, come with me, life is great, but you're not, you're

not really believing them, right?

And so we're saying, yes, your circumstances are hard.

We are not in any way not recognizing that.

So we can relate. But we're saying you can have

joy now. It's not just in heaven.

It is now too. He invites us to joy now.

Well, it goes back to your mission statement of

demonstrating. Yeah, not not just telling, yes,

and and trying to convince you with my sad face of some kind of

intellectual truth, but I'm demonstrating and living in that

joy that can only come through community, God's hope, the Holy

Spirit, all of that. But but that for someone who is

outside, maybe outside the faith or outside of really living in

that fruit, like they're not going to understand all those

steps. They just need to see it.

Right, right. It's a visible representation of

what we that's why it's important.

And and we didn't know that when it started.

We took a step of obedience. That that is our mantra is that

we have no idea what we're doing.

We're trying to take the next step of obedience.

We're we're trying to stay missionally aligned and focused.

That is my ultimate role as executive director.

I had no idea being a mom of a very autistic daughter and a

Navy chief would make you good at doing that kind of focus.

Because I say no to stuff a lot that all seem like good things.

Like do we care that our folks get Social Security benefits,

have housing? All of those things are

important. So connecting to resources is

making sure we have relationships with those

agencies. But we don't do it.

You know, we we put you, we try to develop relationships that

have fruit that will help you in that situation, provide that

practical, tangible what you need in the moment, but but

remind you that's that's not where your hope is.

Whether all the problems with housing, it's, you know, solved.

I love front porch housing. That's a beautiful picture of

that. Housing is important.

A lot of things are important, but they're not the most

important. And and looking at our

circumstances and judging God's goodness for us is definitely

not the way to go. No.

And in any given moment, that's a shifting thing anyway.

Yeah. And I love how you talked about

just expanding this view of caregiving and helping even our

audience say, Oh yeah, if I've cared for someone with a chronic

illness or if I'm in that night, maybe I'm the one with a chronic

illness. Elderly parents, so many of us

connect with that like that. That's a that's a theme that

isn't is easily seen across what we're talking about this.

Morning. Yes, very much so.

And especially that idea, I think what David's table with

Mosaic, what our community and families of those with special

needs do so well is holding the joy and the sorrow intention

because the rest of us are like, we have to choose.

We have to pick one. We can only do one at one time.

We're very like monolithic in that way, but it's really

exactly what you were talking about and it's the picture that

Scripture offers us that there is real joy to be had now

because of what Christ has done for us.

All of that is very real, and the pain and the sorrow is still

also real. And both of those things can be

true at the same time. And another thing that you have

told me that I loved is just that idea of possibility versus

impossibility. Will you talk a little bit more

about that and just what that means to you?

Well, there is a lot of in the world that I live in and and our

families live in about, you know, what can happen and what

can't happen, right? And so I love that God is a God

of impossibility. And so we, we try to connect

folks to see beyond what they're dealing with now to where they

would like to be and, and, and challenge them to, for example,

get connected. Now that might seem like a super

thing, easy thing for most people.

You're thinking, well, there's opportunities and I get

connected. It can be scary when your hope

is in your circumstances to try to get connected.

It seems you'll say there's no way these people are going to

accept me. There's no way they're going to

be able to provide for me and my child who has these 50 million

things they're afraid of. There's no way we're going to be

able to get into church. There's no way we're going to

have a better life or be smiling and laughing and and that he

will have friends and then I could have people that can

relate to me. There's no way that that that

whole language of that it can't happen is all born out of all

the trauma and experiences they've had in the past.

And you do have to get through that.

You can't to say, well, just believe.

It doesn't matter. But what what you do have to do

is you have to keep inviting and you have to keep.

You can't give up. You have to be persistent.

You have to continue to push and say it is possible and and build

on when you are able to make those connections.

Really celebrate that. Hey, you guys came.

It's great that you came. Let me introduce you to a few

people, follow up, reconnect, get them to come to something,

then enjoy. Call it out.

I love to call it out on people. When I see people who told me

they couldn't do something or that their child would never do

or whatever, I love walking up and saying, hey, they're doing

it now, you know? Is to help them remember and

celebrate and not just move on to the next impossibility.

Yeah, right. And, and we need and we point

constantly about how God has provided we like to story tell

because stories are important. They're super important.

Jesus used that to teach, to keep, to write on our minds.

And those stories are important. That's that's how we connect and

how the connection I want them to see is I want them to see

that the Lord is doing these things in their life, that the

people of David's table are the same as them.

In fact, if I can get them to understand that we are don't

have it together, don't have super capes on and aren't doing,

don't have any kind of superpower, it's easier than to

talk to them about trying church again.

Because a lot of our families, church is just a place they just

do not feel they can be at. That's a big impossibility and.

I know that's a little bit of part of your story and like you

were saying that that is it's based on real experiences and

good people, simple people trying their best to have just

failed to take care of this community.

You know, And I think what's interesting is you're really

talking about long term relationships, Like we're not

solving anything really. We cannot fix disability, but

you're holding out relationship and that this really happens on

a weekly basis. So we've talked about camp dated

real quickly. Will you mention just some of

the other things that happen on a weekly basis that data's table

is doing? So I said faithfulness was.

Important. That's who Skeeter is.

That's who David's table is. Our adults come out of high

school with very little opportunity to connect after

that. Most of them don't go on to

jobs. Most of them don't drive.

They don't launch. They're still at him, so they

have very empty calendars and limited opportunities to

connect. So we have 48 weeks a year.

We have 9 to 11 hours of free programming every week.

Monday nights is our discipleship ministry, E 210 for

Ephesians 210. We are God's masterpiece,

created in you, in Christ Jesus, to do the good work city planned

for us long ago and so that our adults see themselves as

uniquely created and powerful to and created for good works for,

on purpose, for a purpose. We have now 4 campuses.

We still have a virtual campus that we kept through COVID and

had 22 on last night. Rocky Creek is our Greenville

campus. I'm pretty sure they had over 65

last night. Piedmont, which is our newest

campus, we had Anderson. We started at Grace Powdersville

in January of 20-3 and then moved in September of last year

after camp to Kaleo Church in Piedmont where a family wanted

to anchor us and and breathe into us more.

We came there with about 18 to 20 a week at Powdersville and

when we moved 6 miles South and this family jumped in all the

way, we had 52 people last night in the room.

And so we're we, that's our big night and a lot of our adults

are connected to that. And we have parents groups that

are meeting in conjunction with that thriving moms group that

meets at Rocky Creek, a parent group at Kaleo that's very well

connected on Tuesdays. We probably not today with the

rain, but I don't know, they might be out there.

We have adaptive tennis at McPherson Park.

We have a tennis instructor that we has been a part of the

ministry for a long time, followed up by lunch at the

mall. So that's about a 2 hour block.

On Monday nights are two hours and then on Thursdays at

Fairview Baptist they host our art in ukulele 2 hour session

and we have an art project that we do.

And yes, we have a ukulele band called Fret not Eucharist.

And so fret not for don't worry about anything.

Be anxious, you know, but and said pray but also fret because

fretting is you have to be able to hold and a lot of our friends

can only strum. And yes, anyone can play

ukulele. So do you play?

I do not, not regularly anyway, but it's a joyful noise.

And they're on, they're on Facebook on Thursdays live so

other folks can join in. We have a, a beautiful orphan

ministry in Peru that's connected to us, that connected

to us on Facebook and they special needs orphans and per.

But it is just amazing how God does that.

That's right. And then we do, we try at least

once a month something like Mosaic Supper Club, very similar

to Mosaic Supper Club. We have host churches that will

host respite events for us. So once a month we have a 2 hour

respite night, which will be from 6 to 8.

It's a drop off event. We feed and have some kind of

activity. Bingo, karaoke.

Greenville First is one of our churches.

Elevation is one of our churches.

As I said, Fairview Baptist has done a lot rare place of God.

That church is doing a first time event.

City View Church, First Presbyterian, You know, we try

to have one every month so that parents could have a date night

trying to feed those marriages so they don't fall apart or the

all the single moms can get together and have a mom's night

out but but they can count on it.

So again, that faithfulness, the pattern of just continuously

looking to see that we have something some way to keep them

connected, something to look forward to.

Yeah. And what a picture do?

Exactly what you said, Sunday to Sunday, in between Sundays, that

is where church is happening. You know, it's not just limited

to the one day, but David's table is busy.

Everyone, if you don't take anything else away, they are

getting it done out here. Well, Katie, as we're kind of

wrapping up here a little bit, I mean, I really love, I mean, you

just have a beautiful heart for this community.

Your story is so connected. I mean, I just have to recognize

the ways that the Lord has shaped your life to what you

were saying, your family, but then also your experience in the

Navy and how all of that builds into what you're doing right

now, just how he has orchestrated all of that.

And I'd really just love to give you an opportunity to share with

your church. Just what would you like for us

to know? How can we be praying for

David's table? How can we continue to partner

and support with y'all? Well, first of all I want to.

Say thank you because a good many of you do.

You do support us, you volunteer, you show up.

There's several of you that are attending those E2 tens on

Monday night and helping to disciple and lead people to a

deeper relationship with Jesus. So thank you for that.

Many of you come to Camp David year after year and give the

weekend away to love our families and I thank you for

that. But as we grow, I told you we

have very full rooms. So we're I'm going to Belton.

I planted in Anderson two years ago.

Now I'm going further South to Belton to do to a very small

church to Cola church to start another E 210 would appreciate

your prayers for us as we try to steward the resources we have

against the needs that were being that are in front of us

that that is probably the hardest part.

There are so many places where tomorrow we could multiply, but

we really don't have the resources to do that in a way

that would honor COD. So just pray for us that we

would have discernment about where to go when in obedience

when he opens doors to us and and pray for that.

Also, if you have ever thought that you would enjoy on a Monday

night coming. To help us it is I promise you

that you will walk away having received so much more than you

might think and it will truly become your joy to enter into a

deep relationship with our our friends and to get to see and

know some of our families, our needs.

Our greatest need is Monday night to grow Monday night,

which is what God is growing our Monday night discipleship in

several locations. We need more, more people who

have good theology. And I am a member of our church,

so I know the equipping and the teaching that we get.

We need folks who are very solid and unshakable in their faith

and are willing to share. We need folks who are

vulnerable. We're willing to be vulnerable

and share their lives as a way to encourage, and I'm not sexist

in any way, but we need men. The biggest missing component in

our room is the men. We need more men to show up for

these families. And if you could just say a

word. About correcting maybe some of

the wrong attitudes, like if someone says they might not say

it but if you can sense it that they feel sorry.

Or the families talk a little bit about pity and compassion.

I'd be glad to. If you want to make a mom of a

disabled adult or child angry, offer her pity.

She doesn't need her want your pity to see her, to see her

child, to see her adult or any parent really, to see them as

created exactly as God planned. Much like John 9, like you know,

the blind man, as Jesus so eloquently said, you know it's

not a curse, it wasn't a punishment, but to to see and

receive just as you would anyone else, to to, to just love them

as they are. Don't try to fix them, don't try

to change them. Pity.

Pity is a negative emotion, and it can create shame.

And shame is something we have to fight against all the time.

Shame is the greatest enemy, I would say of anyone who's going

through any kind of suffering is that it's so easy for the

accuser to help us believe that it's our fault.

And so when you pity me, you are saying that you're agreeing with

that, and that is not helpful, right?

And what do you? Need instead.

Compassion, Compassion. Compassion is a willingness to

sit beside, to listen, to offer what help you have.

Don't offer what you don't have. It's OK and and often we're not

seeking anything other than the same thing you would for anyone

else that you met. Just conversation, friendship

and and to be to be treated the same.

Which is exactly how Jesus. Interacted with everyone that he

met. He did not offer pity.

He offered compassion. And he saw sheep without a

shepherd in his heart. Bled out for people who just

need to be loved and seen right and known.

It's just beautiful. Katie, we're, we're so grateful

that you took the time to be with us today.

It's just a good word on love, on possibility, on joy, which

are things that we are ready as believers to go practice in our

daily lives with everyone. But it is amazing how God is

teaching us to do that through this community who is just aware

of their weakness in a way that the rest of us should be but

aren't. But it challenges us to go love

the way that Christ did, and they certainly are just adding

so much value to our church and make us love Christ more because

of the way that we see him embodied in them.

Would you? Just pray for these families and

just pray for our church family and anybody else that may be

listening that they would just feel that joy that gets up and

drives you every day, even in the midst of the challenges.

But if you could do that for us, I would love.

I would love that. Thank you.

Father, you're a good, good father, a good, good father to

us all. I pray first and foremost that

we never, ever forget that. We never forget that you're

faithful. You're so, so faithful.

Faithful to show us your love by sending us your son.

Let that be what drives us to you, to celebrate the victories

of the day, to see Your goodness and the little things, and to be

anticipating You to be looking for You.

Let us not have our eyes down to the ground, God, let us look up

and rejoice. There is so much goodness if we

only open our eyes to see it and not aware of Your very presence

with us. Always, always I pray today,

first and foremost, that everyone who hears this looks

for you, looks for you in their day, because I know you will be

found and if they find you, they will find the joy, the peace,

all that you offer us just by anticipating and looking for it

in Jesus name, Amen.