Rising Above with Becky Davidson

Join Kosta and his guest:  Becky Davidson, Co-Founder and President of Rising Above Ministries, a multi-dimensional outreach to families impacted by special needs. In addition to her work as a community leader and special needs advocate, Becky is the host of the Rising Above Podcast, Author, Speaker, and Activist.

In This Episode: The day in the life of a special needs parent, Becky's inspirational story leading to the creation of Rising Above Ministries, and how we can help families of special needs children and adults. 

Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.

Find out more about  Becky Davidson and Rising Above Ministries:
https://www.risingaboveministries.org/

Listen to Rising Above Podcast:
https://www.risingaboveministries.org/podcast

Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/

Transcript

Becky Davidson: 0:01

We knew how we were struggling, but that we were starting to kind of come out of that and have some hope. And so we wanted to create a space for other families to join together to not be isolated and not be alone. And to start also seeing it you can have some joy on this journey.

Morgan Franklin: 0:16

Welcome to better together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 0:36

Hey, y'all. This is Kosta. And today, I'm here with my guest, Becky Davidson, co founder and president of rising above ministries, a multi dimensional outreach to families impacted by special needs. In addition to her work as a community leader, and special needs advocate. Becky is the host of the rising above podcast. She's also an author, a speaker, and an activist. So Becky, for anyone that doesn't know the legacy of rising above was born in 1997, with the birth of your son, John Alex, from there, how did rising above take shape? And what was your journey into ministry and service?

Becky Davidson: 1:14

Well, when our son was born in 1997, you know, we had dreams and visions of what we thought our life was going to look like, you know, we were going to live the dream, we were going to have these amazing kids and live in, you know, suburbia, and all the things. Then when our son was born, we started realizing, after the first few months, it's like, you know, he's not reaching milestones, he's not able to do what the books say he's supposed to do. And so we started this journey, when he was about a year old of getting our first few diagnoses and realizing, okay, our life is not going to look like what we thought it was going to look like, and started down that journey. Then in 2005, after we've been special needs parents at that point, for about eight years, we began to cope, we are so isolated. We don't see any other families in Putnam County like ours, we know they're here, but we don't see them. Just this sense of all of these dreams that we had, you're grieving, not our child, but grieving the loss of those dreams. And we knew how we were struggling, but that we were starting to kind of come out of that and have some hope. And so we wanted to create a space for other families to join together to not be isolated and not be alone. And to start also seen it you can have some joy on this journey. So 2005, we got together with some friends, and we're like, hey, let's start a nonprofit for Special Needs family. Amazing. And that's how it started.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:36

How difficult was it to make that pivot? Like you're saying, you know, you had your life kind of going in one direction. And I don't want to make this sound strange, but did it consume every aspect of your life?

Becky Davidson: 2:42

Totally. I mean, because, you know, our friends would be taking their kids on playdates or going on to doing fun adventures, we were doing therapy. You know, I had a therapist in our home at that point, pretty much every day, occupational therapy, physical therapy, vision therapy. So our life was consumed with therapy and doctor's appointments and go into specialist where everybody in our social circle, their kids who were born at the same age, they're going in a totally different direction. So absolutely, it was just all consuming. And then just dealing with that reality that our life is not going to be what we thought, you know, I've got four kids, and I've been married for almost 11 years now, to people who are married and have a special needs child. What's that? Like? You know, it's tough. It is tough on a marriage, because you go without sleep. I can't tell you, you know, like with our son, even he's 25 Now, and we still I never know how many hours of sleep I'm going to get a night. You know, we just you don't ever know. So when John Alex was younger, oh my goodness, the sleep issues that we dealt with. So you're just exhausted and you're weary and you're worn out. And then what we see is and what we experienced ourselves. So for me, moms, what happens when you get a diagnosis, mom's turned to Dr. Google, and they're researching and they're trying to find therapies and they're trying to find anything to do to help their child a lot of times with the dads what we see is they can't fix it. And so they turn to what they're good at. So like for my husband, he turned to his job, he could not fix our son but boy, he was a salesman and a half. So he turned to that because he could excel at that help provide to help provide well but also he threw himself into that because it was too much to to look at our life at that point. Wow. Okay, yeah. So I mean, there would be nights that that the time his office was in the basement of our home and I would be getting John Alex ready for bed and I'd call downstairs and I'd be Hey, I'm getting ready to put John Alex in bed. Would you like to come up and tell him good night, you know, and that lasted for a little bit. But then we shifted and honestly, we came to this place of going now this is really God's plan a for us. This is really part of ourstory. And when we got to a place where we could embrace that the whole narrative shifted for us.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:05

When did you make that transition into ministry into incorporating that as a touchstone in your life?

Becky Davidson: 5:13

You know, I can't look and say it was there was this great aha moment, it was just kind of when we got to this place of, of surrender and going, Okay, this is our life, we're not going to fight against it. There's nothing we can do, we can either fight against this and wish this wasn't our story, that this isn't what our life look like, or we could embrace it and go, No, this is our son, we're going to keep doing life, we're going to keep moving forward. And so we did that we just kept going forward with that. And God just kept refining our hearts and shifting how we saw things. Now there was a point where we felt called out of the corporate world, I mean, there when rising above For start, at the very beginning, Jeff was working full time in the corporate world, I basically was running rising above just out of, you know, out of our home and planning events and things like that. But there was a moment where he actually got asked to go on staff at the River Community Church. So we did that. And then there was a point at which the three years after that, where I remember, he was just like, it's time and I'm like, What do you mean, it's time and he said, we're supposed to be doing rising above full time. And so we left where he left the careers to do this. Yeah.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 6:21

Wow. Yeah. And John, Alex, your son, like, you can obviously explain his diagnosis if you'd like to, but I am curious, are you having to like feed him and bathe him and dress him? And what about like, when he goes to school? I guess my question is, is give me like a general understanding in the audience as well, of what average day is like for you caring for someone with special needs? Yeah.

Becky Davidson: 6:47

How about like discipline, it sometimes is, you know, you look at your life. And the typical things you have to do day in and day out. So you know, you work, you do your job, you get groceries, you pay bills, you pay taxes, all of those things. So for Special Needs families, we do all those things. But then you add on top of that, so forth for John Alex, he has cerebral palsy, autism, and epilepsy. Oh, so he's full on care. Yeah, he's, he's 24/7 care. Just for example, this morning, like, I never know what time we're going to get up. So like, I can't, in my mind, go, Okay, I'm gonna get up early for me and do whatever. Because as soon as I do, he wakes up, you know. So up at 515 this morning. And from that point on, it's taking care of every need that he has. So changing his clothes, getting him dressed, getting him cleaned up for the day. The hardest part for me literally is shaving him. 25 year old, he does not want anything around his face. And so true. And he smiles all the time, which you would think Oh, that's beautiful. It is. But when you're trying to shave a mustache on somebody who smiles all the time, that's really hard. Wow. So I mean, but things like that. So yes, helping him with his meals, he we feed him, or I like to say instead of feeding, we help him with his meals, because that's more meaning. Yeah, I mean, that's painful for him. But he gets around using a wheelchair. And so every every personal care that you can think of for yourself that you do yourself, I or one of his caregivers does have

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:11

How do you have the time to do all that?

Becky Davidson: 8:13

I have the help, which is great during the week, so that I can go to work, but on the weekends, it's just me. And so you know, I again, I've had to look at my life, I can look at our friends on Facebook, actually, I've just kind of gotten off social media, because it's too much for me, it's better for me, for my soul care to not see what everybody else is doing. But if I try to compare my life to other people's lives, then I can go to the pit really quickly. But if I can be grateful in my life and where I am, then I'm good. So I don't have time to go to the spa or go on vacation. We don't go on vacations, we don't go there's weed that's just not part of our story. And I can be upset and mad about that. Or I can go oh, you know what, we just kind of hang out at home and not have to be in the rat race. And this is okay. And so there's not much time but that's okay.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 9:02

Yeah, for sure. So what do you wish people knew about the parents and loved ones of those with special needs?

Becky Davidson: 9:10

You know, special needs parents are some of the most resilient, selfless people you'll ever meet. But they're also some of the most tired and weary and lonely and isolated people that you'll ever meet. You know, so many families who are impacted by disability, they feel so isolated. And that's that's one of the biggest things that we see is the isolation that these families face and so that's why we come alongside that's one of the things that we want to do is to provide opportunities for them to be in community with other people.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 9:40

What do you think they need the most?

Becky Davidson: 9:42

Well, if you had asked me that a year ago, I would have given you a totally different answer okay. You think there there are things they need their things in the physical that they need, you know, help with meals or help with those are all great would that would that have been your answer a year ago? My answer a year ago would have been community which I still say that community is so important. But honestly, they need to know how to do soul care. They need the tools to know how to when the crisis hits, when the day in day out stress comes, how to manage that. And so that's kind of been the journey I've been on this past year is learning how to put things into practice to have these tools and practices that when the chaos hits, then I'm able to just kind of smoothly go through it instead of going into that anxiety spiral.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 10:30

Yeah. How long did it take you to get to that point?

Becky Davidson: 10:34

Well, I started this journey about a year ago in October over a year ago. And I what had happened was I you know, my husband passed away, he had been very sick. So for years, I had been the caregiver for John Alex and the caregiver for my husband, he was still able to work and do all those things. But his physical you know, there are a lot of things I took care of was on dialysis. I mean, we were full on Yeah, care. In fact, his care was probably more involved than John Alex's care there towards the end of his life. And I lived in such a pressure cooker. I think that's another thing. People don't realize the stress that our families face, we would get up in mornings and not know, okay, are we going to end up at the hospital today? What's our debt? You just don't know. And so you live in this high stress

Kosta Yepifantsev: 11:15

when you were younger? And like, you know, growing up, you know, college get married? Were you a person that enjoyed a routine?

Becky Davidson: 11:24

Yeah, I mean, I kind of was fun loving. Let's go and let's do it. Yeah. So

Kosta Yepifantsev: 11:29

it wasn't as huge of a transition. Because the reason that I ask is like, as you're describing your day, like, to me, that would create a lot of anxiety. And so when you talk to parents that were like, you know, I'm this way, and now they have a child with special needs, like, I'm sure that probably you only contributes more to their anxiety and stuff. Totally. Yeah. So you've grown kind of an incredible community for families, those with special needs and resources for anyone that wants to help. What do special needs families need most today?

Becky Davidson: 12:00

Well, again, I go back to the soul care, because I feel like you know, we can provide resources, you know, we can we can provide a fun night for our families, which we do. That's important. That's important. But if our families don't know the day in and day outs of how to calm that stress down, so for me, it started last year, and I started going to counseling that was huge to start counseling, you know, and for that therapist, to walk me through those things. But then to cultivate a heart of gratitude, I cannot begin to tell you what a difference that makes when I can wake up in the morning. So my routine in the morning, as crazy as this sounds, I get up, I open up my blinds and you know, we don't get to go on vacations. I don't go we don't go to the beach we have and I'm not saying we haven't ever been to St. That's not part of our I can't go oh, we get to go to the beach and a few months. I've got to do in the here today, what's going to do it. But I'll open up lines. And I'll look and like this morning because we're up at the crack of dark. You know, at this. I watch the sunrise a lot of times and just seeing that and seeing that that feeds my

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:01

How do you get like respite or like relief? I know you said you went to counseling. Yeah. How do you get calmness and

Becky Davidson: 13:09

There's an amazing app that I use every day. And it's called The One Minute pause app. And it's by John Eldridge. And I will do that. And the thing that's so amazing is I do that with my son as well. And we'll play it. And it has totally changed the atmosphere in our home where it was just calm and peaceful. If you come into our home, you're going to experience and feel calm and pieces. We're not chaotic. We are not running all the time. Our home is peaceful. And so I read a book by John Eldridge called Get your life back, which that in Brazil, his book resilient totally changed my course this past year. Yeah, practices that I could put into place, the heart of gratitude, learning to take my thoughts captive, when I start spiraling to go, oh, wait a minute. No, that's not true. And I'll put on the the pause app and remind myself of truth. That is how I've been able to do that over this past year. And what's been amazing is to see the change, not only in our home, but in our office at rising above. You know, when I as a leader, I am doing what I need to do to take care of my heart and take care of you know, make sure that I'm in a calm and peaceful place. It just pours out to everyone you encounter,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 14:18

was it more or less difficult when John Alex was going to school like has life become more or less complicated, actually,

Becky Davidson: 14:27

it's easier when he was in school, his dad was alive still and, and I didn't have other caregivers. I didn't have any other help. Basically, him going to school was the only bit of respite that I got. But now that he's an adult, we do have in home care in he can kind of set his own routine and do what he wants to do and not having that stress. If we got we've got to be up, be out the door by 730. You know, be at school and all the IEPs and all those things. We lead a very Simple calm life. And so it's for us actually, we prefer it this way.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 15:04

How do parents who don't have those resources that have to literally work a full time job sometimes even like more than one job just to make ends meet? How do they navigate this, this environment, you

Becky Davidson: 15:18

know, it is so hard. And I have so many families who are in that very boat, there's no resources available for them, or very few resources and things like that we have friends in different states. And so you know, each state has different levels of care and what's available for their families. But that's where we need the community to come alongside, we need our families to be in community, you know, I can't imagine all the times that my husband was sick, you think about that he would be sick, and I would have my son who needs for lawn care. Yeah. And I had to have people rally around us and come in and help. So you know, if you know a family who has a child with special needs for you to get to know that family, and to be invested in that family so that you can come alongside you can offer them a little bit of respite, or to run errands for them. As simple as that sounds, you know, for me, I'm a solo parent, I never knew that term until I became one but single parent, it's co parenting with someone to sell appearance, you know, I don't have I'm not co parenting with anyone, but I have had friends come alongside. And if I need errands run, if John Alex is sick, I have a team, I have amazing tribe of friends who come alongside and our families need that, for me and my personality, that's easier than it is for some people, you know, for a lot of our families, it's harder for them to be in community. And so that's why that is so important. So if you know a family who has a child with special needs, just get in there and get to know them, let them feel comfortable with you. And then you'll find ways that you can come alongside and help them.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 16:41

Do you think that it's that sense of community and building that quote unquote, infrastructure of supporting families, whether you have a special needs child or not. Was that sort of the catalyst that created rising above ministries? Yeah, you

Becky Davidson: 16:55

know, we just wanted families to know they weren't alone. The isolation, like upset is so real. And so we wanted them to know you are saying you are loved, you are valued. And so then to have the community come alongside, you know, the beautiful thing about Cookeville in this area, is that I mean, if when we do an event, people come out of the woodwork wanting to be a part of what we're doing. And so that part of it, yes, it's so important for our families with special needs to be in community with other families who get and understand their life, but then to also have people outside the special needs community who can be a part of this journey with you. So yes, it's bringing those two together to do life together.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 17:32

Sure. Is Rising above a Cookeville thing. Is it national? I think you mentioned something about Lebanon having families. Yeah, talk a little bit about the footprint that you've created with rising above. It's

Becky Davidson: 17:47

crazy. Well, you know, when we started, we thought we would just be here in the upper Cumberland. We're like, we'll do some events here in the upper Cumberland. And it has grown in ways like when I look back to 2005, I could never in my wildest dreams, believe I would be doing this full time and that we would be literally around the world. It's amazing. So because of honestly COVID COVID opened up our doors, because we took our events that we were doing in person and we put them online, we started doing them virtually, we host a retreat for moms every year, we would do that in person here in Cookeville, we would have about 150 moms who would come from all across the southeast to be here. When COVID Hit 2020. We went online, we did it live from Cookeville. Creative and did it live out to the world. We had over 500 Moms literally from around the world who joined in for that weekend. And then that just opened up the door for them to come be part of all these other things that we're doing as your membership

Kosta Yepifantsev: 18:42

grown, since they're like,

Becky Davidson: 18:43

oh my goodness, it's unreal.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 18:45

What was it like during the pandemic? Because you had mentioned that when you were mom like and John Alex was in school. That was really the only time that you had a break. Yeah, what was it like when schools shut down? And literally like there was no more breaks? Yeah. How did families and moms I mean, how hard was that?

Becky Davidson: 19:06

It was hard. And I will tell you I have a sweet friend who lives in she lives in Boston. Okay, single mom, she's got a son with autism and then she has a typical sign and I would talk to her throughout all you know all that was going on so she's trying to do two different zooms you know with her little you know, preschool kid plus her someone with autism she has zero break zero help nothing in your just honestly you did. I think Special Needs families. What we're really good at is you just you just keep going you don't have an option. So you just keep going. So that is why now it's kind of this collateral damage of families who've you've just gone and gone and gone and that's why again, I go back to the soul care. It's like if we can teach you and that's part of what we're doing. It's part of our mission at rising above his teaching like okay, when you're in that high stress situation, here's some things you can do. Some tools you can pull out so yeah, it was so challenging for families who got zero help,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 20:03

as you're teaching families sole care? Yeah. What do you feel like is the biggest impediment? Do you feel like maybe sometimes family members have like a shame or guilt that they Oh, I can't care for myself, because I have to, you know, provide, literally give everything my entire being Yeah, to taking care of my kids

Becky Davidson: 20:23

totally. And I was I was there up until a year ago, like, I don't have time to take care of myself. I don't have time to, you know, for all those years of caring for both Jeff and John Alex. I mean, there wasn't time I was four years. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, that's in 24 years. And so just that taking the time for us to go, it's really okay. But to make it simple, like the things that I've put in place in practice in my life, it's simple. I haven't really added anything big in other than, you know, I go to counseling, but the things that I've put into practice, it's not like, Oh, I've got to sit down for an hour a day and totally not the case. It's just little practices that I've put into place. And

Kosta Yepifantsev: 21:03

I mean, if you could go back to 1997, do you feel like there are enough resources available? Whether it's through state, federal, local? Do you feel like we're doing a good job of supporting the community with special needs?

Becky Davidson: 21:20

I would say, honestly, what what we experienced for us, we did not get anything. I mean, there were a few little grants that week. I mean, like, 500, maybe we got$1,000 grant overall, from the time our son was born. We were not on TennCare. We were paying for insurance. We were paying for therapies, you know, co pays all those things because of our income. So for families who are who are not on TennCare, who are not? Yeah, I mean, you're out of pocket a lot. I get this, a lot of you make ends meet and do the best you can you go without you don't go do other things that typical families do. Because you're paying for therapies, you're paying for pull ups, you're paying for, you know, supplements or medications. I'm hoping it's changing. You know, when when John Alex turned 18, our whole world shifted, because he got things covered at that point. But I hear that from so many families who were in the same financial position we were in at that time, I had a call last week from somebody just like, what do we do? Where do we go? And so what do you tell I tell them to go to Family Voices, okay. Family Voices is an is an agency all I think all around, but there's Family Voices of Tennessee. And so that's where I recommend people to go, they can help you know, what's available to you based on your income and what you have.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 22:35

So if you're not on TennCare, there is a program now called the Katy back and waiver. Yeah, but the thing about Katie Beckett, and I know, this is a little technical for our audience. But if you know somebody with special needs, this waiver is important. It only pays I think, like $3,000 a year. It's a very, very small amount. And so even with TennCare, if you're not 18 years old, there's really not any type of care that you can receive from the government. So I mean, it's just like an uphill battle. Yeah, it's

Becky Davidson: 23:06

all uphill. So you're adding all that on top of the stress that you're dealing with every day of like, then how are we going to get what we need, so then you don't get a break? A husband and wife can't get a break, because there's no one to care for their child. So then you start seeing marriage issues, and you start seeing, you know, different things that come along, or divorce rates? Total? Yes. Very much higher. Okay. Very.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 23:29

One of those statistics, actually, yesterday that I was talking in a meeting was that not only are we seeing an increase in the elderly population with the baby boomer aging, but also there is a significant increase in individuals who have a diagnosis that is, you know, IDD specific. What do you see the future of individuals with special needs? And the system as a whole?

Becky Davidson: 23:53

You know, honestly, I have not given that a whole lot of thought our focus has been more on ministerial side of things. And actually, I don't know much about that. And so I really can't speak into that.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 24:03

It's kind of like this macro perspective. I'm always thinking on like, a macro level. So I know, I always throw people

Becky Davidson: 24:10

like I really don't know much about that. You know, I know what we get for John Alex. And we are so I'm so so grateful for that because it enables me to be able to do rising above and that but I know the need is great. I know. And if that were to go away, I don't know what, you know, I'd have to we'd regroup but that's what we do. We regroup and go on.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 24:31

So I want to talk about the rising above podcasts, which is currently in the top 5% of podcasts on Apple podcasts and has over 100 episodes. Tell us more about the mission of the podcast and how your online presence is expanding.

Becky Davidson: 24:48

Well, I have to tell you, that was news to us. So thank you for finding that out. Thank you. Yeah. But you know, it's so funny because I was thinking back the other day, I was like, how did we even start a podcast? I don't even Don't remember how we got started. But I think it was just like, hey, let's just, you know, people were doing podcasts, let's do a podcast. And so what we do with the rising of a podcast is we share family stories. That's our heart. That's our track. You know, there are other podcasts who share, you know, here's some resources here where you can go, here's where you can go for this or that. But that's not what we do. We want to share family stories, we want other people to see themselves represented in someone else. So for the mom who's just gotten a diagnosis of autism, to hear from another mom who's further down the path, and who is surviving and thriving and doing it. Well, what we hear is that so encouraging for that young mom to go, Okay, there's somebody who's doing it, I'm going to be okay, it's going to be alright. And so on our show we have, I mean, I have people who have just gotten a diagnosis all the way up to I call myself a veteran, because I've been doing this for so long, you know, and just sharing stories, sharing how we've made it through, and just some of the success stories, but the hard part, too, I mean, we don't just look at, oh, it's so great. Yes, we want to look at that. But there's also it's hard, we want people to have that opportunity. There's, you know, stories are so powerful. When I can know someone's story, I can have such a better understanding as to why they respond the way they do, why they act the way they do. And it's just important. And so we just kind of started, but it's growing in ways that we didn't even

Kosta Yepifantsev: 26:19

top 5% That's great. So and I know that you guys have this international presence as we as we were talking, but like, is Cookeville doing a good job supporting families with special needs. You know,

Becky Davidson: 26:33

I I think we live in one of the most amazing spots because we have just seen businesses come alongside especially since you know, the exceptional being CG and Michael and what they're doing. I mean, like, I love them. So CG serves on our board of directors and just love their heart and love what they're doing structured athletics for challenged children, which is another organization that provides sporting events, sporting activities for individuals with special needs. Our community is so blessed with organizations that love and serve special needs families, and we can't do what we do without the community. So I think really, I think Cookeville does an amazing job loving our families.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 27:12

And so you talked a little bit about the resources, two things, one, could you give the website to your organization, and then also what type of resources are available online.

Becky Davidson: 27:24

So our website is rising above ministries.org. What we do now is we have an amazing app, where you can go to our app, and that houses all of our resources. And so just go to wherever you get your apps, and you'll just do rising ministries, you'll find the app there. And on our app, we have something called you have been talking about soul care and how important that is, well, we created something called respite for your mind. Because so many of our families, you know, you're not going to be able to get respite, you're going into a doctor's appointment, your child's having a meltdown, and you need something to just like focus you back into Okay, I'm going to going to be okay, we have these audio clips that you can listen to that just to help you refocus back on truth. So we got it respite for your mind. So that's available there. We're adding more and more and more to that we have videos just encouraging videos, encouraging resources we take in a lot. We have small group curriculum, we're such big believers in community that we have small group curriculum. So we have this now translated into Arabic because we have families in Arab speaking countries. In Spanish, you know, I lead a community group, we have community groups that meet via zoom all throughout the week, lots of different groups for moms, for dads, different groups. I'll lead a group on Wednesdays in my group, I have moms literally from coast to coast. I had moms in my group yesterday, one from New Jersey, one from California, then spat, you know, scattered all about the US. I had a mom from Stockholm, Sweden, and three moms from Beirut, Lebanon, in my group, why? And we sat down, we looked at each other because we were like, We all come from different cultures. We all come from different backgrounds. I mean, our friends in Beirut, their struggles are, are we going to have electricity today? I mean, that's the legit for them. But we sat there and we were looking at each other yesterday on this screen just going, you know, our lives are so different. But yet, they're all the same too. And we can come together and just share and it's amazing. So those are all those things that you can find on our website. We provide community, there are online community groups, we have retreat experiences. So when we do a retreat, like our dads are getting together this weekend for a retreat, we record everything. We love our friends at Cookeville creative so shout out to Luke and Casey at Google Creative because they are amazing. And so they do all of our recording for us than we have it available on our website. So if you can't come to Cookeville or come to one of our events, no problem. You can see the content through our websites or through the app.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 29:42

You know, this may be a technical question and kind of complicated. So if you don't know the answer, it's not a big deal. But companies like pacesetters like community options, there's like tons Yeah, you know, there's Hilltoppers and Crossville there's quality or access program in Jamestown. How was rising above different And