EP 50: Toxic Stress and Childhood - Ascend Camp Recap

What we're doing at a SIM camp is, you know, if we could narrow

it down, we're giving them skills, we're trying to give

them skills emotionally, how to express them in a healthy way,

how to go to the ward with them, how to talk to the parents about

them. But if if we only accomplished 2

things we consider a success, and that's one that they're not

alone and that they have a God who cares.

And if they leave with those two things, we, we have done our

job. Well, welcome back to the Grace

Church Members Podcast. My name is Scott and I'm your

host today and we have two guests in our studio.

One, our podcast producer, Whitney Maynus is sitting in as

Co lead and guests. So you're wearing a couple

different hats. So welcome, Whitney.

Thanks, Scott. Good to be here.

And then we have Melissa Ramirez.

I think it's your first time in. So yes, thanks for being here.

You are serving on our care and recovery team and you

specifically work with kids and teens and we're grateful for

your time. One thing we want to talk about

is we want to use a recent camp, summer camp that we've done

called Ascend Camp, to really highlight some of the ministry

that we've had the privilege to grow and develop and just be a

champion, you, Melissa, primarily.

And so, but before we do that, tell us a little bit about your

background, how you got to Grace Church.

OK, so well I am a certified child life specialist.

I have been for We don't need to do the math a long time.

So before I got to Grace in 2016, I had worked at a

Children's Hospital in Wichita, KS as a child life specialist

there. And I've been there for 10 years

working with kids of all ages in crisis and mainly in Pediatrics,

all departments of Pediatrics, but also an adult and adults as

well. Whenever it involved children,

if there was a death or a crisis of any kind within a family is.

So we moved here in 2016 to be close to family because we have

a son who was born with kidney failure, chronic illness, and

then also a cerebral palsy diagnosis, had a kidney

transplant. And once his doctors gave us the

go ahead, we moved here. But it put us when we came here

and we came to Grace Church. I will say that we kind of came

in need of a church that could handle us, you know, because we

had to church separately for three years until we got to

Grace and found Grace almost immediately and just found a

place for our son to be able to be.

And not just for him to be able to be, but for us to be able to

church together and then also value a serving as well.

And then not just be like, you're going to get here on

Sunday morning and we're going to watch your kid for an hour,

but we're also going to pour into you.

Yeah, so so you move here to to be in your family after this

life changing event and you just start like so many people have

all right, for different reasons moving to the Upstate.

So you just come to Grace as a member?

Yes, came to Grace as a member in 2016 and then tried to get a

job in the hospital, almost went that route.

But again, with our son, it was just going to be impossible for

me to work those hours that they were asking.

And to make a very Long story short, somebody said, well, why

don't you apply for a job at the church?

And I was like, I don't know that you guys could use me for

anything. I don't know I'd be good at

anything here. But I sent my resume to HR like

I was requested to. And next thing I knew in a

couple months later, I was on staff with care and recovery.

And I've been doing child life here at Grace so.

Yeah, that's great. So just for those that that

might be a new term, I know you kind of were able to explain it,

but just real quickly, child life specialist in a couple of

sentences is what? Sure, so child development

expert who has an emphasis of understanding what trauma in

crisis does to the children and families.

OK, awesome. So several different things

you've been able to to be a part of working on over the last

almost 10 years. But specifically we want to talk

about Ascend camp. What?

What is Ascend camp? It is a camp for children and

teens, so it ages about 7 to 18 or 7 until senior year until

just graduated that have been through crisis of any kind.

Right now we offer it for kids who have had the lost, the death

of a loved one, the divorce of the parents or have a sibling

with disabilities, chronic illness or special needs.

But we are constantly talking about how to expand that because

those are not the only hard things that children go through.

So we are trying to expand curriculum.

We're trying to look for new things, things that we can do to

open it up to more kids. But right now it's Greece,

grief, divorce and siblings of kids with disabilities and

special needs. OK.

And let's talk about the scope. I know this summer we had two

different offerings, correct? One at our Powdersville campus,

one in our Pelham campus. Tell us just roughly about how

many kids participated and how many leaders were able to serve

those kids. Oh goodness.

OK. So in Powdersville we had 23

kids and Pelham we had 72 kids and that's across ages.

So it varies every year how many kids we have in each of those

groups. One year we're really heavy

grief, the next year we're really heavy divorced and like

this year we were really, really heavy for siblings.

I'm just needing a lot of help for siblings with kids with

special needs and disabilities. So it it varies which group on

both campuses and I could not give you an exact number for

that. Same thing with ages.

One year we're heavy teens and the next year we're heavy

younger kids. So this year it was kind of

spread out across the board pretty much with Powdersville,

we had younger kids and then tell them it was spread out a

good amount. Leaders probably at Powdersville

we had somewhere between 10 and 15 and then at Pelham around

2025. And we always need more.

I mean, you were scrounging that last week.

Like who can we get? And God provided, He always

provides. Since we're talking a little bit

of details and then we'll zoom back out because this is

multiple days. It's 5 days.

Five days, Whitney, how did you get involved?

Like what's your connection here?

Yeah, so when I was a Kairos intern five years ago, my boss

said, hey, you're going to go help Melissa Ramirez with ascend

camp. And I also feel like we should

say it sounds like we're saying ascend camp, right?

It is a SCEND ascend like ascending going up.

Just to clarify for anyone who is spank wonder.

They're listening on 1 1/2 speed, which you should be.

We definitely don't want you to get confused.

That's right. And I was like, OK, so I'll just

go. I'll show up and ended up

leading a group that year and it was just really fun.

It was really sweet. It was me and a few other

interns and we had less than 10 kids.

And we had that very first year, we had six kids.

Well. Yeah, yeah.

So very small and we're still learning.

We're like still a little bit in the COVID era.

So, you know, dealing with all of that A.

Little bit, very much. So the kids weren't allowed to

go inside in July. We had to stay outside the whole

time, someone just said. So that kind of that helps

people kind of know this is relatively new, I mean, even

though that was what, five years ago.

Yeah. And then since then, for the

past four of those five years, I think I let another group.

And then I have also served as a coach both at Pottersville and

Pelham, which has been fine just to see both sides of it.

No, that's great. When you say 100 kids, I mean, I

always think in terms our kids are grown now, but when they

were in elementary school, you know, they would have 25 kids to

a class. So that's like 4 full classroom

of elementary kids. That's a lot of kids.

Now. I know this is all the way up

through age 18, but just just so you know, like 100 kids, that's

quite an undertaking representing let's just say 100

families. And so, but Melissa, tell us

like, why So I know you mentioned grief, divorce,

siblings, but really, why do we want to put this kind of energy

into a five day camp for 100 kids?

Well, first of all, I mean, let's just talk about the heart

of Christ, right? I'm not being cheesy there.

I mean, let's like seriously talk about the heart of Christ

and how much he cares about children.

I mean, he says I will. I will be close to the broken

hearted come to me. He will carry heavy burdens.

I mean, he he has a heart for those who are in tough places.

So if we're looking at that alone, I mean, we're just we're

called to as Christ's followers to care the care for those who

are hurting. And he also cares for the least

of these. He calls children the least of

these. You know that our, our children,

whether they're a teenager or whether they are newborn, they

don't have fully developed bodies, they don't have fully

developed brains, which puts them at a place of vulnerability

and it puts them at a place of, of need and help anyway, when

you don't put crisis on top of that.

But when you put these type of experiences on them, when they,

they have been dealt these cards in life, they need help.

They need desperate help. And, and Jesus calls us to help

them. And I, I give this one of the

things that sticks out to me, stories that sticks out to me in

the Bible is when the disciples are trying to keep the children

away from Jesus. And it's one of my favorite

things to mention because in that moment he shows, no, I

mean, I care about these little humans.

They matter. They are not to be shooed away.

They are not to be kept, you know, seen and not heard.

They are, they deserve to be heard and they they deserve to

be known and they deserve to be loved.

So, I mean, if we're just getting down to basics, I mean,

that's our main reason. But another thing that, you

know, we get out with all this is, you know, the fact that

crisis really effects humans long term, especially when they

happen when they're children. So let's talk about adverse

childhood experiences for a second.

That's a scientific term. Some people might know what that

is, some people might not know what that is.

But basically that is any experience that a child may

experience that that happens to a child in childhood that is

chronic, that it can't affect them long term.

So, so this could be anything from having their own chronic

illness to having a family member with chronic illness or a

disability. I mean, we're going to think

about our mosaic families that is considered an adverse

childhood experience, the death of a loved one, especially when

it's, you know, in your, your family of origin within your

home that can now any death of a loved 1 is a big deal for a

child or anybody else, whether it be a grandparent, a friend,

or in the home. It all has an effect.

So these adverse childhood experiences on top of just the

developmental aspect of just being a child, it creates a

situation where there is a need. So are we going to?

We're saying that there's a big gap in that.

And what? We're trying to do is we're

trying to move into the gap. Why do we think the gap exists?

And is it, does it have to do something with how we our lack

of understanding of developmental stages?

Does it have to do with the way we think about children?

Just in your mind's eye, when you see this issue through the

lens of the specialist, why is there a gap?

So when it comes down to it, I mean, there, there's a million

reasons for the gap. But if we're really, if we can

pinpoint one thing, it would probably be that they just can't

advocate for themselves. They're in a place of

vulnerability. They don't have the language,

they don't have the brain development, they don't even

understand their own emotions to know how to say, hey, I'm

hurting. So historically, what we see and

really kind of what got me into this line of work in the 1st

place. I took a child development class

when I was, you know, many moons ago in college.

And one of the first things that I heard is that children who are

grieving or neglected, often neglected because their grief

goes unnoticed. And it just because they don't

know how to express it, it's often interpreted as bad

behavior or is interpreted as they're OK Because most times,

especially younger children, you know, you can say, hey, your dad

just died. And they say, OK, can I go jump

on the trampoline now? And so that's interpreted as,

oh, they're, they're fine. They're doing OK.

But really, as you said, the gap of understanding child

development is just not there across the board.

And then also, I just think culturally, we, we care from,

you know, the oldest to the youngest and they're forgotten.

They're just that children are often forgotten.

Yeah, and I think something that I've even seen in myself, and I

haven't really lived long enough to see like a ton of children

grow up. I'm starting to see their

development overtime more and more.

But I think I separate this idea of like here's a child and

here's an adult. And those are two different

things. And it's almost like I can

forget that the child, the five year old will be a 30 year old

or a 50 year old. Like they will vote one day,

they will drive one day, they will have a job and

responsibilities in their own families.

So as Melissa's talking about this idea of like chronicness,

that these things that they're experiencing will affect them

for the rest of their lives. But we can forget that because

they, they went and played on the trampoline.

So we're like, they're, they're funny, right?

They're OK. And what we forget, yes, you

know, childhood is this very short period of time in a

human's life, right? But it has the most impact on a

human's life. What happens in your childhood

directly effects what's going to happen in your adulthood.

What you experience in your childhood will affect what you

believe about God, about others, and about yourself.

Because we've even talked about region on this podcast, and a

lot of that is you go back and you look at your childhood and

then see how those things are impacting the way that you think

about yourself and you think about God now.

And a lot of times, the needs that stem from crisis, it's not

just one, There's often overlapping needs in some of

these families. Is that correct?

Yes. So I would say most of the time

kids are coming with more than one thing.

It's very rarely just, you know, I'm coming because my parents

didn't get along and they got divorced.

No, it usually is something more than that.

You know, a parent cheated or a parent was an addict of some

kind or financial troubles are involved.

I had to move one of the kids at the camp.

I, I sat in, in one of the groups and they were talking

about the hardest things about divorce.

And one kid was talking about the change of having to leave

his home and how hard that was for him.

He's having to move. That was his hardest thing.

It was dominating his thoughts. Several of our kids, we think,

well, do we put them in the grief group?

Do we put them in the divorce group or do we put them in the

sibling group? They could literally go to any

of them because one of those chronic needs can affect the

other chronic needs. So it's, I don't know the exact

stat anymore. It's probably gone up.

But I do know that if there is a sit, if there is a child with

disabilities or special needs, parents are 50% more likely to

get divorced. And then if you add in the death

of a child, parents are 50% more likely to get divorced.

And I, I, I will say, you know, my family, you know, I mentioned

earlier that I have a son with chronic illness and special

needs. I also have a daughter that died

seven years ago. So my daughter has actually been

through both groups at Ascent and several of our kids come

back year after year because this year they're they're really

struggling with their parents divorce in the next year,

they're really struggling with their siblings disability and a

lot of them overlap. Yeah.

So, OK, then how do you begin to go about the, the discovery of

the emotions and ultimately the, the healing knowing that it's

just five days, right? So, but you know, things are

very intentional. We recruit leaders intentionally

curriculum just kind of walk us through like, what are we, what

are we really trying to accomplish with these different

groups, right? Because.

We are not fixing what is going on with your child in five days.

And for most of them, we just couldn't if we yeah, five years,

we had 20 years. We just.

These are things that and. We have to understand that's the

Lord's work. That's the Holy Spirit's work,

you know? But what we're doing is, again,

most of our kids who have experienced these things are

feeling like they live in isolation, even though they

don't live in isolation. Even though we know that the

divorce rate it is extremely high and that we have a

gazillion families, a mosaic families in this church and that

ever other kids have lost loved ones.

For a child who again is not at had does not have the capability

yet to express that can often feel very alone.

And let mean let's not just limit up to children.

Adults go through that too, you know, but again, for a child

that those feelings are intensified.

So what we're doing at a sin camp is, you know, if we could

narrow it down, we're giving them skills.

We're trying to give them skills emotionally, how to express them

in a healthy way, how to go to the ward with them, how to talk

to the parents about them. But if if we only accomplished 2

things we consider a success, and that's one that they're not

alone and that they have a God who cares.

And if they leave with those two things, we, we have done our

job. Now more than that, again, we

know that the thing that is going to help a child more than

anything is what is happening within the home.

So we're doing a lot of work on the front end and we're doing a

lot of work on the back end to make sure parents have a voice

and that they're getting equipped.

So once kids sign up, we're calling parents and we're asking

for history. What has happened within your

family? Give us a little bit an idea of

how your child is dealing with this and how can we support you.

And are most parents receptive? Most parents are very receptive.

I mean, most parents express thankfulness that there is

something like this because they're trying to get their

child help and they don't. The only thing that's out there

is counseling and. To your point previously, it's

it's not like the parents have mastered all of their emotions

and their theories around any of these adverse conditions.

Yeah, and often times parents are so consumed with their own

grief that they don't even know how to help another.

Which is why advocacy is an issue.

Yes, which is why advocacy is an issue.

Good way to put that. So we're calling them

beforehand. We're getting information

parents, we're put in a position to really help and support

parents at the same time because it's not uncommon for parents to

start crying on the phone. And in that moment, we're able

to connect them to, you know, pastors within the church.

We're able to connect them to more ministries to help get them

support, answer any questions that they might have beforehand.

At the same time, we're not leading the kids with that

information. You know, we're, we're telling

the leaders, hey, let the kids tell you what what they see.

Just because some parents don't have it completely accurate, you

know, but it does give us a starting point.

And then at the end, we do a debrief with parents after to

make sure that they have questions answered, that they

know what other resources are out there.

And sometimes that ends in doing a shepherding meeting because

they we realize how much more help parents need.

But one of the most beautiful things that I've seen as parents

be able to talk to each other and support one another in the

midst of that and say, hey, like, see in a room, hey,

there's fifty other families here.

I'm not alone. That's right.

Yeah. So when you paint a picture for

for listeners of a day, you know you've got groups of kids.

What does it look like? Yeah, there another element that

I love to talk about. You know, Melissa did a great

job of talking about those two goals that we have.

I think a third one right underneath those is just fun and

play. Every single year we have

parents who come at the end of the week and they tell us like I

have not seen my kid have fun or laugh or play, which is such a

critical. I mean, Melissa, we, we talk all

the time how important play is even for adults, but especially

for children. And it is healing.

It's important and. It's one of the only activities

where you use your entire brain. So it builds.

Yeah. So it builds connection between

people, It breaks down barriers, it builds trust, and it actually

has healing powers. I mean, it's play is and we

forget the older we get, we get how to play, you know, but it's

so important. But I mean, just think about a

time that you've laughed so hard your belly hurts and how good

that feels, right? I mean, that's what we're doing

for children when they come. We are providing probably more

play experiences than we are. We are providing more play

experiences than we are providing time in a room because

kids, when they're grieving and when they're going to crisis,

will forget how to play. Right.

Because even I've set with a counselor for a little bit and

afterwards, like you're walking to your car in the parking lot

and you're like, you know, like you just have all this nervous

energy that you need to get out. And so, so to answer your

question, kids get there, they arrive, they check in with their

leaders and for each group, they will have time to play outside

with a structured game. We have incredible volunteers

that put a lot of time and energy into creating activities

and games specifically to help the kids connect with each

other, to connect with their leaders, and just to have fun.

Maybe they're solving a problem together, but they do one

session of that outside and then they do another session inside

and then they have less in time. And that's that happens in the

morning and then it happens again in the afternoon.

Duplicate that. Right.

And then when, you know, lunch in between, we do feed the kids.

But I think that it we really see just as they're processing

difficult things, as you know, they're sharing emotions for

maybe the first time. Like it's so important.

And again, it does just make them feel like they're not

alone, like they're going, We see this with our student

ministry. If we go do a fun activity with

like the girls in my forge group, then they're going to be

so much more likely to share something in Group.

It builds trust with people, like Melissa said.

So I mean, a lot of the day is really built around fun and

play. And that way we will jokingly

say that the perception of a sin camp is that it's sad.

Good VBS, you know, and hate that term.

So we're like, that's, that's not what this is.

And we really are trying to combat that where our kids are

walking in the first day, they're super nervous and

they're like, this is light counseling or like, we're going

to have to talk about hard things.

And then after the first day, they don't think that anymore.

Summer camp. It's summer camp on Friday.

We have a big water slide. We have a slip in slide.

We have a bouncy castle. We have cotton candy.

We fill them up with sugar, you know, like we just have all of

these fun elements. So that and every year they want

to come back like that's. What we hear, they have a lot of

repeaters. Yeah, they want to keep doing

this and that's how impactful it is.

Yeah, that's great, Whitney. That gives us a really solid

picture of the week. And Melissa, while you're here,

you had mentioned just the the things that happened to us in

our childhood have a direct correlation to our adulthood.

And that sounds great, but how does that actually work in some

some tangible ways? Can you just put your child life

specialist hat on and just kind of educate us a little bit more

about the development of children into adolescence, into

adulthood? Yeah.

So, you know, let's kind of go back to what we talked about

about adverse childhood experiences and how these are

chronic experiences in a in childhood.

It can be, it can sometimes be a one time event, but that is so

stressful that it has lifelong experiences like a sexual

assault, something like that. But when we're thinking about

those experiences, really what we're, we're labeling them as is

trauma. Like a lot of people hear that

word now and just kind of minimize it.

I prefer to use the term or the phrase toxic stress because

isn't it is an enormous, we've all been under stress, right?

And we all know how that feels. So we're talking about the types

of experiences that create an overwhelming amount of of stress

that actually affect what we call the 5B's.

And I'll get to that in a second.

But the best way that I can describe this is describe the

brain. And so I am going to go into the

hand model of the brain, which if you've spent any time with

me, you know, Whitney smiling at me right now because I probably

yes, OK, but you can. So if anybody's listening to me

right now, they can actually do this.

All right. So if you put your hand up like

a four, OK, All right, with your fingers together, and then you

take those four fingers and put it over your thumb, OK.

So you're like a four and you put it over your thumb.

All right. This is what we call the the

hand model of the brain. This is not my own.

It came from Doctor Dan Siegel and his work.

He's a great child development specialist expert.

He's amazing. OK, if you look at the base of

your hand, like it right around the wrist, that's considered the

downstairs brain, which is in the brain stem right in the back

of your head. That is our primitive brain.

It is the part of our brain that keeps us alive, all right?

It makes our lungs breathe, it makes our heartbeat, it makes

our blood pump. It is also known as our fight,

flight, freeze response. So it is our primitive brain or

our lizard brain is the thing that keeps us alive, OK,

especially in dangerous situation.

Now, hand still in a fist, the fingers at the top when your

fist is closed is considered the upstairs brain, OK, That is your

thinking brain, which is right here and like right in front of

your head, your prefrontal cortex.

OK, so that is where your thinking brain, that is

executive functioning. That is, I'm able to think

through a problem and problem solve.

I'm able to have a conversation with somebody else and see from

their point of view. I'm able to think through

beginning to end with everything.

It is my my calm brain. OK, now open your fingers back

up and make a four again. The middle of your hand is your

midbrain, but we're going to focus on the thumb, which is the

amygdala. So the amygdala is your safety

scanner. It's constantly scanning your

environment. It's going safe, not safe, safe,

not safe. Your brain right now is scanning

your environment about every 4 seconds, deciding whether or not

you are in a safe place right now.

OK, so put your fingers back over.

Now pretend like you are walking down Bump rabbit.

OK? And you're just going on a run

or going for a walk and next thing you know, a bear crosses

your path. All right, what are you going to

do? You're going to do what we call

flip your lid. That amygdala, it's sees that

bear as a threat. I'm not safe.

It sends a message to the downstairs brain and makes that

thinking brain come offline. So if you're listening, your

fingers go straight up and that means you are not thinking with

your thinking brain anymore. You're thinking with your

downstairs brain, your fight flight, freeze brain.

OK, so now you're just thinking I just need to fight, I need to

fly or I need to freeze or I need to fawn.

I need to keep myself safe, which we want that to happen,

right? We don't need to try and talk to

the bear. We don't need to reason with the

bear. We don't need to try and feed

the bear. We need to get away from the

bear and keep ourselves safe. OK, so when a child or any

person really, but we're talking about children right now, has

been through any one of these experiences, death of a loved

one, divorce and sibling with a disability, it is like living

with a bear. It is not like I've just seen a

bear. I'm living with that bear.

So what's happening is my brain, their child's brain is

constantly flipping constantly. So what also is happening when

you flip your lid is your body is being flooded with stress

hormones, you're being flooded with adrenaline, you're being

flooded with cortisol. And again, these are all

God-given things to help keep us safe.

But what ends up happening is it's toxic to their system.

And what that can do is it can have an effect on what we call

the five BS. So God created us with this

amazing brain, different parts, and particularly with instincts

to just to survive, right? We don't really think about that

as much because we don't live in primitive times, but think about

living in primitive times. Survival was a major part of

life, but this, particularly this midbrain, this, this

amygdala, when we're exposed to certain stresses, it's like

you're saying we can't, we can't really get that stress out of

our brains thinking, so the lid just stays flipped.

Or it flips easily. Flips.

Flips more. Easily, yeah, because the the

amygdala is often. Hence if we were to do an MRI of

a child who's been through a lot of these experiences, their

amygdala can be up to two times larger, Larger.

So it's going to go off a lot quicker.

So God created us a certain way. We have brokenness that enters

in just difficulty. Whatever is the stress.

Is that like the way you're phrasing that?

And it just exposes the children to something that now is working

adversely against the way God created the brain.

OK, obviously we're back to advocacy.

They can't explain that. They don't know that the parents

living through their own toxic stress, right, didn't say

trauma. So OK, so with that as the

situation then where what have they?

What are these bees that are the downline applications of this

toxic stress that's happening in the midbrain?

Right. OK.

So first it has an effect on the brain.

Neurologically, things are gonna be working differently.

Again, like I said, that amygdala is can be up to two

times larger and the neural pathways can change.

So that's one. And it's just a simple way for

me to put that biology changes. So because of the cortisol and

the adrenaline that's constantly being released and it's more

likely to just stay up because the body is used to it staying

up, that has a toxic effect on the body system.

So more likely to have as they get older and go into adulthood,

more likely to have diabetes, more likely to have heart

disease. I'm just an array of other

health problems. OK, Body just can constantly

feel tense or insecure. So the 4th 1 is behavior, which

is the one that most people notice in children and adults.

But again, we're talking about children because they are more

likely to flip their lid a lot quicker and they're living in

survival mode most of the time. They can either shut down

completely when they feel unsafe and it could be a situation like

there's no reason for you to feel unsafe.

We're having fun right now. But their body recognizes that

high amount of adrenaline as unsafe.

So they may shut down completely or they may accidentally hit a

friend not thinking, or they may lose their mind and throw a

temper tantrum at age 12. So that's kind of what what we

notice most of the time and people in general will interpret

as bad behavior. And it's not that it doesn't

need to be corrected, but we're also needing to keep in mind

that their behavior is affected due to their experiences.

And the the last one and the big one that I really want to talk

about is their belief system. Belief system about self, belief

system about others and belief system about God.

So these things that they have that that children have

experienced can affect the way that they view themselves.

Am I worthy and I'm am I worth being loved?

Am I worth being seen? Does anybody see me their belief

system about what other people think about them or what they

think about others? People aren't trustworthy.

So why should I enter into a relationship or how do I enter

into a relationship in a healthy way?

Because nobody has proven themselves as trustworthy.

And the other one is, you know, long term, like what is their

belief about God is a God a being that doesn't care, that

just stands off and watches me in pain.

And so when we talk about ascend, these are things that

we're trying to combat. You know, we're not going to fix

the five BS again in a week, But one of the big things that we

can help begin to retell for them is that God sees them as

worthwhile. God sees them as worthy.

He sees them as seen he knows them.

He's he's in their story. So then we're back to the

beginning, which is where we started, which is which is why

we need to do this because we have a God who sees a God who

knows, a God who cares that that story, that belief system is

ultimately the the greatest source of hope, encouragement

and identity. But it doesn't happen apart from

the body, the biology, the brain, like it's all working

together. And I think that that's why it's

so helpful because, you know, we can like as church people, we

can be like, yes, we are. We're good on belief system.

Like we major in belief system. That's who we are.

And then we get tripped up when we see behavior and we can't

quite understand it or interpret it.

So then if we don't have some of these other bees, you know, like

you're talking about biology, body, brain, which I understand,

it's complicated. What you just described to me,

you just put it in the most simple terms and people are

driving down the road going, what did she just talk about?

Which is it was why God gifts different people to the church.

But like that kind of summarizes why we want to be in this space.

And I wanted to ask you, it seems like this is a missing

space for a lot of churches. Would you agree with that?

Yes. Very much so.

Because I think you said earlier that we developed most of the

most of the curriculum and this is not a great church is so

awesome Pat on the back. I mean, this is just God's favor

leading us. You already heard Melissa's

story in that but so why do you think most churches or kind of

struggling to be in the space? What I have noticed in the

church is that the older a person gets and there's cap,

once they hit really elderly, we kind of, we hit vulnerable

again, you know, but we, we tend to care from the top down, which

means we care from, I mean really the parent down and we

tend to assume that the parents have got it.

Gotcha. So assumption is a part of.

It yeah, assumption is a part of.

It it's the parents responsibility and they got it

and if they don't they should be able to ask for help.

Yes, and but often times they don't have it, you know, they

they're trying to be discipled themselves, let alone learn how

to disciple their child and look outside behavior to what is

going on deeper in their hearts. Into what you said earlier too,

like I think so many of the parents and kids that we get at

a sin camp, you've already said this.

Like they don't know what else to do.

Like they're desperate. They're like, I don't know where

else to go. And so I'm willing to try this.

Yeah. And then so one, I mean, I what

I have learned when I, when we first started doing care and

recovery for kids and teens, when I first came on staff,

looking for curriculum is like looking for a needle in a

haystack. There is, you know, every single

time I looked for something, it was just regular children's

ministry curriculum, regular student ministry curriculum,

like there was nothing out there for the hard in life and so.

But there's a lot of secular. Resources.

There's a lot of secular resources.

Yes, there is. But often times they can talk

about things that maybe we're not ready to talk to our

children about yet or more so they're just leaving out this

piece of that. They have a savior that cares.

Yeah, that belief who God is, what he went to the send his son

Jesus. And it's good curriculum.

The secular curriculum is good curriculum.

But we also want them to know that they, again, they have a

savior that cares. And so and that's just not out

there. And so that's where we've just

had to make our own curriculum. Yeah, No.

No, no, it does take resources. And a lot of churches, they

don't, they don't have the resources.

And so thankful that that grace has the resources.

We've said this related to our Mosaic ministry that, you know,

God just put us in a unique position to be able to to rally

to serve families in our community.

So, and that's really what we're trying to do on this podcast is

just shine a light on some of the work that God has done shown

his favor. And really, if you're out there

and you're hearing this maybe for the first time and you're

like, wow, that's really amazing.

You know, praise God. If you're interested in getting

involved, Melissa's got some ways, but let's just kind of

wrap with both of you saying anything that we haven't said

yet. Specifically, what would you

want someone who's listening to just think and feel towards

these children and teens that are, you know, dealing with this

kind of adverse conditions, toxic stress?

I think one thing that I will say that I've heard Melissa say

for the past five years, one of the other things that we are

communicating to children that the church is a safe place to

talk about your messiness. And I think that is something

that we do well of. We're not hiding from the tough,

the hard. We're willing to go there.

We're willing to engage in. We don't always know the

answers. And again, we're not fixing

anything. Like the world is broken and we

live in it and God is in it with us.

But I think there's also something for these kids that

later on in their life, you know, whatever they endure,

wherever they find themselves, that hopefully they will

remember. Like in that really difficult

situation in my childhood, who showed up for me?

The church did that. Oh, I went to this really fun

camp and we talked about God. And I think those are people who

want to help and who care. And so again, not that we're

trying to boast in Grace Church specifically, but just that God

has created his church for the purpose of caring for the

vulnerable and that that in some way would continue to draw them

back to his people. And that group of people didn't

have answers as much as they just had presents.

Yeah, we just played and went down a water slide, but they

cared about me. Yeah, I'm not alone.

They embody a God who cares. Taught me about a God who cares.

And we had a good time. That's true.

Yeah. Well, So what say you?

If somebody wants to be involved, I mean, they can just

e-mail your campus, let your campus know that you want to get

involved. But I do want to just bring, you

know, on that topic, bring up our leaders because we have

people who take vacation time to do this.

We have people who are serving out of their own stories, which

is hard. It every year we have some

leaders that really need help being cared for by the end of

the week. And we try to set things up.

You know, we do debriefs every day to make sure people are

cared for. But I mean, people are, are

telling kids their own stories or kids will mention something

and they're like, Oh my gosh, I never dealt with that as a kid.

And now it's coming up for me. But they still come back year

after year. They see that what we're doing

is really worthwhile. And kids who come in also who

are just scared to death and think they're going to be

sitting in a room crying all day, come in and I hear stories

from the leaders about how they've opened up about

something for the first time. One of my my favorite stories,

we we piloted one group and we did a lament jar and one of our

siblings groups and one of our teenage boys, maybe I don't

know, 13 did started putting his limit, writing his limit down,

putting it in the jar. And at the end he goes, oh, that

felt so good. A 13 year old boy like that

doesn't happen. You know, to to Whitney's point

where we're showing them at the church cares about their messy

and they don't have to have it all together.

Back to what we kind of talked about before with kids.

Sometimes, inadvertently, we end up communicating to kids that

they've got to shape themselves up before they come because we

want their behavior to get in line.

And we're kind of giving them the opposite of this.

We're like, bring your messy in. We're ready for it.

God's big enough to handle it. These kids are like you said,

they are precious and we want to do our best, give our best

effort to honor them in the way that God sees them and wants to

care for them. So thank you ladies for being

here today and hope you enjoyed listening and learning.

I know I learned a lot. Reach out to your care and

recovery team. Tell them you appreciate what

they're doing. See how you can get involved in

the life of the church. So thanks, ladies.

Thanks, Scott. Thank you.