Love Fort Wayne Podcast
The Love Fort Wayne podcast amplifies the stories of everyday people who are loving and leading in Northeast Indiana to spark imagination, root inspiration, and ignite transformation.
Love Fort Wayne Podcast
Thriving in Family and Work with Jonathan and Sarah Baldwin
Ever wondered how to balance personal growth with family dynamics? Join us as we chat with Jonathan and Sarah Baldwin from Storyhouse Ministries, whose journey began in their childhood church. They share the heartwarming story of their lives with four lively kids and offer a fresh perspective on parenting and family life. Discover how Jonathan’s experience from a large family and Sarah’s approach as a gentler disciplinarian shape their unique parenting styles. Their candid conversation provides an inspiring look at nurturing a thriving family while pursuing personal aspirations.
Curious about venturing into entrepreneurship in the mental health field? The Baldwins recount their experiences of pursuing careers in counseling amid the rising demand for mental health services post-COVID-19. They reveal the challenges and triumphs of starting their private practice, Storyhouse Ministries, driven by an entrepreneurial spirit and a supportive partnership. Listen to their reflections on the significance of creating safe spaces for healing and transformation, and learn from their stories of mentorship and personal growth.
What does it take to maintain a strong marriage while working together in ministry and business? We explore this question and more with Jonathan and Sarah. They discuss Jonathan's new role at Storyhouse, the balancing act of personal life and ministry work, and their initiative empowering high school senior girls. With anecdotes of humor and love, the Baldwins demonstrate the importance of understanding each other’s strengths, setting boundaries, and cherishing personal time. Tune in for an episode brimming with insights, laughter, and encouragement as we uncover the harmonious blend of life, love, and ministry.
Welcome to season five of the Love Fort Wayne podcast. The Love Fort Wayne podcast amplifies the stories of everyday people who are loving and leading in Northeast Indiana to spark imagination, root inspiration and ignite transformation in our community and beyond. At Love Fort Wayne, we believe the pillars of a flourishing city are its leaders, pastors, schools, families and prayer community and in Season 5, we're excited to learn from and be encouraged by people who not only lead but love our city in these areas each day. Before we dive in, we want to say thank you for tuning in and we also want to extend a thank you to our partners at Remedy Live and Dream On Studios for making today's podcast possible.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Mitch and welcome to this month's version of Love Fort Wayne, our podcast. It's March and spring is right around the corner, and my guests today are Jonathan and Sarah Baldwin of Storyhouse Ministries and JB, as you'll be referred to as the rest of the world.
Speaker 3:Yes, most people do call me JB.
Speaker 2:I want to hear first about your love story.
Speaker 3:Ooh Well, we met when we were like third and fourth grade. We started going to the same church.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:Yep. So my family found a new church to go to and Sarah was there and we lived happily ever after it now.
Speaker 1:So you proposed in fourth grade.
Speaker 3:No, but we, uh, we we just got real involved. My family did and um. Eventually my mom came on staff and um. So, like I was at the church all the time, she was very involved at the church all the time and um. So when we were getting towards high school we were involved in youth group and going on mission trips and church camp and all that stuff and we started flirting a little bit and and then started dating and you know, as most high school relationships go, there was a breakup or two or three or four.
Speaker 2:It happened Something like that.
Speaker 3:So and then when we I mean you're older. So when I graduated high school, I headed off to college and we struggled through that distance thing for for the first year, and then um. And then we got engaged during her freshman year of college and got married very early, while we were both still in school and um made it work and you know, had been doing ministry and um, you know, building our family since since then. How many children do you have? We have four. Yeah, we have three boys and a girl.
Speaker 2:That's never a dull moment.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's always busy. We have four with big personalities too.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 4:It's always entertaining.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I had four daughters and my first grandchild. Okay, so I had four daughters and my first grandchild is a girl. Since then we've had three boys. How in the world do you harness that energy and, if I might ask, bring discipline to?
Speaker 4:the boys. That's a great question. If you're going to ask discipline, we probably need to talk to Jonathan about that one I am the softy. I'm like your face is so cute, so and they are, they're fun and they're energetic and they're boys, so you don't want to over parent but you also need to to really hold your own with them. So I have had to learn that little. I've had more of a learning curve with that than he has.
Speaker 3:I grew up in a family with a lot of boys, so I had three younger brothers, and so we were it was it's just normal. Like there's some things that like have happened and Sarah's like what the heck is going on, and I'm like this is how it is, they're boys. Like this is normal.
Speaker 3:Um, so our, our, our boys are very involved in sports, so I think that helps like you know, we'll be at the baseball diamonds all day and they'll come home and be playing wiffle ball in the backyard. You just played for six hours. Like how are you still playing baseball? Um, but so that's. That's a big part of it. We have a basement, which is a huge help.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm very thankful for that. Yeah, especially like cooking dinner. It's like just go downstairs.
Speaker 1:I will call you when it's time.
Speaker 4:So, but they had all this training to raise boys and then we had our baby girl and she is so different and it's wonderful, but it's also like, okay, I need to go back to school to figure out how to raise girls.
Speaker 2:So how does she get along with the boys? She's in charge, she loves them and they love her, but she's very much in charge, so she doesn't get banged up too badly, or anything like that. No she holds her own. That's really really cool, she's good.
Speaker 4:I was actually trying to teach our third son how to say no to his brothers. He's our softer natured one. He's quiet.
Speaker 3:He's the only one that's close to an introvert. So yeah, he's quiet, but just in the context of our household, like right in regular life, he's not quiet so I was trying I think this was last night I was trying to teach him to say no.
Speaker 4:So I'm like, just practice with me and he's like no, and he can't really do it. And then, bright, our daughter comes in and she's like no, I was like not a big deal. She's like let me, let me show you, you know, and she's three and he's seven, so it's just cute.
Speaker 2:That is adorable. Well, we're here to talk about Storyhouse Ministries, and they're, uh, as appropriately named. They're incredible stories that come out of that. Can you share with us, uh, what you do, how you got started and what it looks like?
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. Story House Ministries is a professional counseling ministry, so our heart is to help people just tell their story, to heal and then transform it. That's really important to me, that it's not just about reducing symptoms, but how can we help people thrive and live their dreams and enjoy their lives. So that's really the mission of it and it's all in the foundation, as Christ is the ultimate healer. Sometimes in counseling we can learn all these tricks and think, oh, we can really help people heal and we get to be agents in that and we get to be a part of it. But we know that Christ is truly the one who heals. So that's what we're building this ministry off of, so it's very faith forward.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:When did you know or have an inkling that you might want to be a counselor someday?
Speaker 4:Oh, that's a great question. We actually did a spiritual gifts assessment in youth ministry in sixth grade and counselor was one of them, and so I kind of had thought about maybe doing counseling as a way to express my spiritual gift of that. And when I got to college I went to an admissions counselor and he said, well, if you do psychology, you're probably going to need to do grad school. And I said, okay, let's switch to marketing.
Speaker 2:Right in that meeting.
Speaker 4:I did not think twice. I was like, I am not doing school for a second longer.
Speaker 3:We had big plans to get married young, and so grad school for her was just she was going to get through and support so that I could be a doctor, which you know didn't happen.
Speaker 4:That was the financial plan that my dad so my dad before he said yes to his daughter getting married at 20, he said I want a financial plan in place for you guys. I love your dad.
Speaker 2:I did something similar. My number three, son-in-law slid the red folder across the paper, across the table so I could see how he had the budget plan while they were going to be starving to death. That's awesome, it's so important.
Speaker 4:My parents got married young, so I think my dad knew what was ahead. And so our plan was for me to finish school quickly and then he would do school part-time and work part-time and then we kind of trade off. Was the plan initially?
Speaker 2:So he was kind of agreeing to be a doctor at that point. Yeah, yeah, I always joke that.
Speaker 4:I said yes when we got engaged to a pre-med student not a youth ministry student.
Speaker 2:Well, the income's about the same.
Speaker 3:Yeah, med student, not a youth ministry student. Well, the income's about the same we, yeah, we, uh, we.
Speaker 4:I think we both kind of knew, and I think even her dad knew, like yeah this is probably not where this is headed, but yeah, ministry's always been like true for for jonathan in a young age, so that was what he'd be doing yeah, so how'd you go from marketing to uh psychology and then your master's in counseling?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I went from marketing to HR, so that was a little bit more of the psychology mixing with business and that's what I finished my degree in. And then, just a few months after I graduated, I got the big job and started working. And then I had a very distinctive call into ministry about three or four months into that and so we talked and decided, yeah, we need to honor that. And so I quit my job and did volunteer ministry with Jonathan, with Campus Life, for a year, and actually a year to the day of that call. I got a call that I got accepted into the Huntington grad program and the reason why I was interested in it is in that volunteer time I was meeting with women or the students one-on-one at coffee shops and I realized that that's where the ministry is.
Speaker 2:Yes, a hundred percent.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, I love speaking to a live audience and I, and in fact I would probably say the larger the audience the better but I have discovered, looking in the rear view mirror, all those moments in restaurant booths and just sitting across from one other person, Denny Howard, who we both know well, I think, calls it sometimes leading from behind. It's incredible. That's where transformation happens. How did you know you had that calling? Like, what were the markers that you thought, oh, I'm getting called into ministry?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I had been already volunteering with Jonathan, with Campus Life, and I had some girls that I had met with a lot, and there was one student who had grown up in the church but did not know Jesus. She would say all the right things but she just truly didn't know the love of Christ. And we took her on this campus life spring break trip and I really felt like, oh, she's so prepped to give her life to christ. Well, we got on the trip and she was not interested. She was flirting with boys and doing all the things but did not want to talk about jesus. And so one night I was praying on the beach and we were all out there. It was like a beach night ceremony. What do you call?
Speaker 3:that it was like a prayer walk. You just go out to the beach and spend some time and have some time with the Lord and it was kind of the normal every year on that night thing.
Speaker 4:So I was just out on the beach, which I think the beach is holy.
Speaker 2:Oh, I do too.
Speaker 4:I think God speaks to me at the beach, so I was praying to him and just saying Lord, if she comes to know you tonight as her personal savior, I will quit my job and go into ministry.
Speaker 2:You actually toss that out there like that Now listen, I was young, so I did not know.
Speaker 3:And I wasn't in this conversation. We've had a couple of these instances in our marriage where we prayed things and didn't tell the other person and got answered and yeah.
Speaker 4:We've joked that that you know how couples have, that you can't spend more than this without discussing it with each other so now we have a prayer limit that you can't yeah, can't pray for certain things without
Speaker 4:discussing first awesome so, but I, I was praying that and it wasn't long before she walked up with tears in her eyes and said sarah, I want to give my life to christ. And so, um, I was able to walk through that with her and we got home and and took the big leap and we took my parents out to eat at a Mexican restaurant to tell them, because we knew that would be the last time that we paid for their dinner and we said dad, we're we're busting up the financial plan, but this is what we need to do, and they've been our number one supporters since then?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they didn't even blink at it. It was cool Wow.
Speaker 2:That's just incredible. When you were going through your master's in counseling, was it all the way through that you knew this was just made for you? This is right. Or were there times where you thought well, maybe I shouldn't do this.
Speaker 4:Maybe I should do it a different way and not go through all this education run. Yeah, that's a great question. I think there were times because we were still doing ministry, I was working part-time at our church. We had children during that. So I was actually. I had our first son two weeks before I started grad school, was pregnant in practicum and had my second baby during practicum and then graduated and was pregnant with our third.
Speaker 4:So not smart. I wouldn't advise that. But there were times where we had to make decisions of does this still feel worth it? Do I need to slow down? And there were some times where I just did one class at a time so I could still be mom and do the things I needed to do. So it was a struggle. Struggle. I wouldn't say that it was like, oh, super easy and I just knew I think I had a lot of wrestling of is this worth it? But whenever I was in the room with with people and hearing their stories, like there's just this, um, this holiness to it, this spiritual reference of, I think, when you're meeting with someone in that deep of a place, and you're able to usher the light in.
Speaker 4:it's a wonderful way to live your life, like. I get to do that for my job and I love that, so that's always felt really, really true. But there were some times where I was like, is this worth it?
Speaker 2:Can you both address the need in our community and in our world for counseling?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, like she talked when Storyhouse first started, it was February of 2020. We had just moved back from out of state and she was going to start this counseling practice not knowing that in a month everything would shut down and it would usher in the biggest mental health crisis we've experienced. Um and so, like, really like, since that time, it was just, you know, a flood like I mean, we, we, she would get calls from people hey, I need my kid to see a counselor, or I need to see a counselor. I've called three other, four other places and they're on three-month wait lists and like that's been the consistent story for almost five years now. Yeah, um and so it's just it's never slowed down, like we always, we always like get to summer and it's like summer's usually when it slows down, and we're going to be going on summer six I of Storyhouse in existence next summer and like it hasn't slowed down any summer since it started, so I think that speaks to just the need, like it's just consistently been there.
Speaker 2:I look back on my own story and a Youth for Christ guy at DeKalb High School used to come talk to me during my AV lab and I realized that it was in that moment. This is now looking back on it. I probably didn't think about it much at the time. I was sharing with him anything that was going on inside me and after about a decade in the marketplace I realized I wasn't doing that with anybody. And I had an uncle who was a theologian, an attorney, and he became a mentor and a counselor of mine where I would just go. I'd travel all over the world and I was usually home on Wednesdays and I'd go buy him lunch on Wednesdays in his unfinished storage room above his law office and just lay things out there. And it began this thirst in me for the scriptures that ended up transforming God, used to transform my life in a mighty way and I wanted to be a carrier of that message.
Speaker 2:But that safe place to be able to lay things out for somebody else who puts flesh on God is so powerful. How did you know, sarah, that you wanted to start something new, as opposed to be a counselor on staff at a good firm somewhere?
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, the counseling center that I was at, I was with Denny before we moved out of state and when we came back that counseling center wasn't practicing anymore, and so I kind of just took a step back and thought, okay, what do I want to do? And I had interviewed at a few places and there was part of me that was like I kind of want to see what I can do of building something on my own. And our church was gracious to let me have a space to start it, and so it felt very easy, it felt like an open door to do that and it would have been silly to say no.
Speaker 2:That's incredible, and I assume you're supportive of that. You weren't saying, hey, go get a steady income. I mean, I didn't go to med school, so on the way, here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he can't really argue.
Speaker 3:On the way here, I was like I want to share the story from 2016. So back when she was like right towards the end of grad school or just graduated, we were in our house and a hand-me-down futon and like our back little like four seasons room or whatever. And I remember looking at her and saying I think you need to start your own practice and she about hit me because she's like there's no shot. I'm doing that or I want to do that, or you know any of those things.
Speaker 4:I was mad at him. I was so angry when he said that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that was about four years before Storyhouse happened, and there's a lot, of, a lot of things that happened in our story between that moment and when Storyhouse launched for the first time.
Speaker 2:But, um, how did you know that? Like what were you sensing?
Speaker 3:I mean one, I, I, I've, I heard her, you know stories of what she was experiencing in the room, um, and just seeing her and who she is, and um, she's got an entrepreneurial spirit and so like she can build things up and just absolutely explode them and make them good, and so and I was able to see that in youth ministry firsthand, like these students that are coming up through our ministry, and just rock star, you know, following Jesus and doing all the things, and you know she was the I would say, primary aside from their parents faith influencer in their life, and so I don't know, there's like multiple factors and we're always up for a challenge too.
Speaker 4:He likes the. I feel like I can sometimes like come up with some methods and ideas, but he loves to be the fuel, like he has been the most dangerous and the best thing for me, because I'm not naturally one that would just do this. But with his support he's like yeah, why wouldn't you do that idea? That's awesome. Where, like if I was with someone else, I just imagined them being like please don't. And he's like go. And so I think that's a big reason why Storyhouse is the way that it is.
Speaker 2:How's that make you feel to have that risk taker? Feel so confident in you. What's that like on the inside of you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's so good. So I have three questions. I ask my girls students. So youth ministry students are in counseling. When they say hey, there's a boy, I'm like okay, is he nice to you, does he love Jesus and does he support your dreams? So for me, jonathan, supporting my dreams, no matter what it is or what lane it is, has been so life giving to me and brought so much happiness to me, and so I would not do what I do if it wasn't because he was like, yeah, go, let's do it. Because he was like, yeah, go, let's do it.
Speaker 2:That's really really cool. I imagine every counseling session, every client, is different. Can you give me some common ideas and principles on how you diagnose and learn what's going on in that person's life and then how you lead them to steps toward healing?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question. I think for me everything is through the lens of story. I think that's how our brains are wired. I think that's what God's doing in the world, and so I love when different counseling theories attach and you can hear the gospel in some of them and see oh, god's doing all of this in the world right now. What he wants is attachment. He wants connection between his people and with him, and he went out and in desperation, made connection with us through Jesus Christ. And so what we're doing is we're just being surrogates in the room to make connection with someone else's story, to be safe enough to listen and not judge, and then kind of help them find what they want.
Speaker 4:So I don't give a lot of advice, but I do push a lot and I ask hard questions. But I really want to know what God's doing in their story and I even want to know why he connected this person with my story at this time. It's kind of cool sometimes where I see that he's intersecting those two, and so we really see it through a story frame framework. So when a client comes in for the first time, we just ask them can you tell us your story and can you tell us why it brought you in today? And they'll just go and then we can do some of our own assessment behind the scenes. It's a little more of a fluid approach and then, together with the client, we decide what feels right, what feels like the next step, what type of treatment should we try together and experiment with to see if it works for you to bring healing, so that they can go and live their story, to honor God and to thrive? So that's really how I look at it.
Speaker 2:Leonard sweet this is powerful says what you said is powerful. What I'm going to say is just going to put a template on what you just said. Leonard Sweet says that a story is epic. It's experiential, so it's like I'm living it. It's participatory. I might think about, well, if I were in that story, what am I doing? It's image-based. It turns our ears into eyes and it's connective. It connects with the heart in a mighty way, and even in the East they teach through stories and I just think it's the way, like you said, our brains are wired. Can either one of you share a story, without naming names or given too many details to give it away, of someone who has experienced healing uh, maybe a young person even? Uh, through stories?
Speaker 4:Yeah, my mind is just going through so many right now. Um, there's one that that comes to mind for me who is just very actively breaking generational sin in her family and so saying it's going to stop with me, I'm not going to pass this on to my kids, and so kind of the work that we do is she goes back and she writes out a traumatic story from her experience and then she comes in and we read through it and we do a lot of somatic work in that, because the body responds to those stories like it's actively happening, and so we work through it piece by piece. It's a very, very slow process, but just watching her grow and heal and then not only impact her own life and her own story, but she's also not passing down stuff to her kids, and that feels really beautiful to me.
Speaker 2:That's incredible man, thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Jb, talk about your role at Storyhouse Ministries and how all that's unfolding and what you see as the need in our community.
Speaker 3:So about a year ago I came on as a very part-time coach. I'd been pastoring in the local church for about 15 years and Fridays typically a pastor's day off and so we're like, well, there's some space there. And so, with the church's blessing, I started doing some mental health coaching, some life coaching, um and so just seeing some clients on a very, you know, minimal basis, um, and so started doing that, but behind the scenes, you know, I was the maintenance guy and the IT guy and the bring coffee to staff meeting guy.
Speaker 4:You know that kind of stuff, A lot of furniture, he is put together furniture assembler.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, yeah. And so then, towards the end of 2024, there were some changes going on in the church, and so I was exiting a position there, and we had been in conversations in our home, the two of us, on what would it look like for me to at some point, come on to story house in either a part-time role or a full-time role. Um, what I? We didn't really know what that looked like, um, and so some of it came down to okay, what are the things that you're doing that like you shouldn't be doing or don't want to do? And then, what are the new territories that need to be pursued? And so then we started compiling Sarah started compiling a job description.
Speaker 4:I pretty much made him a work honey to do list, which is great. Oh, nice yeah, all these things.
Speaker 3:And so then, from that kind of created a job to where I can take over you know kind of the business side to where um I can take over, you know kind of the business side, the community relations, uh, church relations, stuff like that, just building connections in the community and um continuing to further the um, the impact that story house can have, um, whether it's connections with churches or corporations and um, and then doing some other newer initiatives like uh podcasts that we've um hopefully, by the time this is this is airing, it will have launched and um, and so just different things to to continue to get the story out of story house and of mental health and uh be able to help people get resources, um, so having our professional, experienced counselors share their story and you know different um nuggets and tips and tricks and things like that, so that people can just listen to on a podcast and get some good, some good help while they're on the treadmill or mowing the yard or whatever. That's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3:So, I don't know if there's probably some other. I mean she's, she's like getting those bullet points on that list for me for sure.
Speaker 4:I'm having a good time because I'm actually a month before we realized we were going to have this transition come pretty quick. We were like talking with the team and I said, hey, I realize I'm the bottleneck here. I realize that Storyhouse is really growing and I'm trying to maintain really healthy limits because I got four kids at home that are really important to me, so I'm not going to give this more than I can. And God and I've had that agreement from the get go like I'll give you what I can, and he knows my season of life, and yet he's still decided to open these doors, and so I trust that he knows that my limits are still sustainable, that they're going to.
Speaker 4:The story house is going to be okay, even at my capacity, and so I don't need to over-worry about the ministry or give it too much of me.
Speaker 4:But so I'm having this conversation with our team and just saying I'm the bottleneck, I'm slowing things down, I feel that and we're going to have to restructure, I need more help as a leader, and so I just asked him to pray about it, and so it's just funny to me because it just feels like God was like OK here, here is what Jonathan's going to be doing is our CEO role.
Speaker 4:So the time this airs he'll be up and running and I'm super relieved that I'm going to have the help that I need to keep this ministry healthy. And Jonathan and I have done ministry since we got married, so he started his first campus life role a month before we got married and so we only know ministry together and so doing this together is a huge relief to me. I'm excited about it and I do have a list for him for his first hundred days in office, and it is ever growing. It's almost a joke at the office now. I'm like something will come up and I'm like I'm putting it on the list Like we need help with this, so it's going to be a really great season for us.
Speaker 2:I think it will be. My pastor of 21 years said for every no, god's got a better yes, and I really feel like that's what you're going to experience and what you have experienced with your entire life. Got a burning question how do you navigate ministry and work together in marriage? Do you find yourself having a counseling session with this guy? How does all that unfold?
Speaker 3:I told her one time do not counsel me.
Speaker 4:Sometimes I get my counselor voice and I'll ask the question, just that right way. And he's like uh-uh, and I'm like fine, fine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think for us we've always kind of approached marriage as being fun. It is hard work but there's a lot of fun to it. And ministry brings its challenges too. So some of the hardest things we've experienced have been related to ministry. We've moved away from everything we know to a different state, got to move back and even moving back. As exciting as that is, that's hard.
Speaker 3:It's hard to just pick up everything and move, and our kids have experienced a lot of transition in it, and so, I think, making the time, you know, intentionally like having time together, um, we still have fairly younger kids so, um, you know, we can get them to bed and have some time together, even if it's watching shows or you know, whatever we're doing, like, um, things like that are really important.
Speaker 3:Um, we're not the like have a date night every week, or, you know, it's not like that's, I think, on unrealistic for most people, but, uh, I think those things are huge. Um, like those are like practical, um, just making sure that you're keeping your relationship healthy and communicating well. Um, I don't like shutting it off, leaving work at work, um, which I think the way we do ministry is hard, like't know, like shutting it off, leaving work at work which I think the way we do ministry is hard, like you know, because we enjoy it and we like it, and so, Whether it's creating a graphic or planning an event, and we're brainstorming and talking about it and it's fun, it's enjoyable, but there's times where one of us has to just take the lead and be like, hey, I don't want to do that tonight.
Speaker 1:I just want to watch a movie or a game or whatever.
Speaker 3:And so feeling the freedom and the permission to be able to do that and shut it down and the other person not being offended, or even the permission to say hey, I know you're excited about this thing tonight I'm not, so I'm going to go watch a football game and you can do your thing, and she's not.
Speaker 2:And get permission for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think we one just growing up together has helped a lot. So we know each other really well and there's a lot of respect and we can hold our own, like we can disagree, and there's times where I will yield or he'll, he'll yield and we'll be able to get to a resolution. And so he's been around the the team at Storyhouse and they'll hear us kind of bicker about certain things and it's all in in good fun and feel safe. And so some people have shared with me. I could never work with my spouse and I well I know I could never share an office with my spouse, so we learned that back in the day because he has something that he calls my business face, so I can kind of switch into business mode and I really want to hyper-focus and get things done, and so then when he's asking me questions or things, I'm like uh-uh, no.
Speaker 4:So, we learned that when we were working at a church together and in the same office, so we will not be sharing an office space, but we hold really different roles and I'm good at certain things and he's better at certain things, and so we were able to blend that. Somebody even shared with me last night. I just feel like there's such a great flow between the two of you when you're doing something together. It just seems to work.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 4:I think that's a blessing that God has given us.
Speaker 2:It's priceless. Talk about your initiative entitled my High School.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we started this last year and it's called my High School Story and what it is. It's for high school senior girls and it's a group for them to called my high school story and what it is. It's for high school senior girls and it's a group for them to process their high school experience so they're prepared for their next chapter, whatever that might be.
Speaker 4:High school goes by so quickly for them and we know that transition is so hard, and so what they do is they journal through their freshman year and then they come to group and and talk through it and they even do a timeline what were some major events during that year, what did I learn about myself, all of that and then through it and they even do a timeline what were some major events during that year, what did I learn about myself, all of that and then they discuss it and they do that for each school year until they get up to the senior year, and then they do a session where it's just about their future and what they're hoping for. So it's a really cool thing that we're doing, and so we're going to have another round of it starting in January. So if there's any young ladies who are seniors in high school that would want to do something like that. They could sign up on our groups page on our website.
Speaker 2:That's incredible. That's wonderful. Oh yeah, I think that is outstanding. Um, if someone's listening or watching today and they're carrying something and fear has stopped them from reaching out to somebody a potential counselor what would you say to them?
Speaker 4:I would say that I get it. I think reaching out and actually just seeing your story is really hard. We have so many things in our world to numb us out and have us focus on other things, and so to stop and say, okay, I need to focus on what I'm going through and I need help, is a really hard thing to do. It's actually countercultural to kind of pause and say, hey, okay, I need to do this now and really start living, and so I would just say I get it. I don't really love going to counseling. Sometimes I text or text Jonathan and I'm like I do not want to go in right now and I'm like, wait, does everybody feel that way when they come to see me?
Speaker 2:You have your own counselor.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my own counseling. There's times where it's hard to walk in the door and I haven't done it in a while, I need to get back to it. But it can be really intimidated and I'm a counselor and I know the stuff and yet it's so hard for me. So I'd say I get it. I would also say it's really important to try it out once. Just tell yourself hey, I just need to do the brave thing and just go. If it's horrible, if I hate it, I don't have to go back, but to just try it one time. And then I would tell people that you get to be picky about your counselor If they're not the right fit. Counselors are trained to help you find the right fit, so you can just say to them hey, I don't know if this is going to work. Do you know anyone who maybe has this skill or maybe more of this personality? And we love to help people find the right fit.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Jb, you made a great decision when you decided to marry Sarah. Yes, I did. Thank you so much. Thank you for your unique watermark in our community and thank you for loving Greater Fort Wayne. We love you to pieces and the impact that you're having is just amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you Thanks for having us and thank you for listening and join us next month for love fort wayne podcast. Thank you so much for joining us this month. We drop a new episode the first monday of every month. Love fort wayne has some amazing episodes coming up. You don't want to miss a single one, so subscribe today, wherever you are listening. If If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share and leave a review. We want to share your thoughts and comments with listeners on future episodes. Thanks again for joining us today. Join us next time, as we hear from leaders that don't just lead but love our city.
