Episode Transcript
Speaker 2 00:00:06 Welcome to that makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis, Boetti a Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every, every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes eludes us that makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
Speaker 0 00:00:38 All right, everybody, I am pumped be here today with Franklin. Um, she and I connected over social media as we do these days. And then, um, as a fuller student, I was perusing one of the recent, um, magazine articles that came out from the seminary and saw this beautiful face that I recognized from Instagram. And so UMES, I'm so glad to have you here today and to hear more of your story, this, uh, article kind of wet my appetite, uh, just to hear more about, uh, the thing I kept thinking was of how God has been, um, just so generous in your life over these decades. So welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 00:01:24 Thank you, Alexis. It's a joy to be here and, um, yeah, how awesome it is that we can connect through all these wonderful mediums. So great to be here.
Speaker 0 00:01:32 I love it. So just a little bit about you before and, and forgive me because all of the, the kind of titles and organizations, I kind of wanna save those and kind of talk about those a little bit later, because I really want, um, for us just to get a sense of who we're talking to and where God has brought you through, um, these decades of your life. Um, but you haven't M D from fuller. Yes. And so that was, uh, that was one of our, I love that. I love, well, we'll get to this later. I know, but seeing, um, a Latina pastor and teacher come out with, from the same program from the same seminary as me, is just really personally meaningful. So, um, so I just wanna say that up front, that's really beautiful. Um, but you're teaching pastor at, uh, Mariner's church in California, and you also have an, uh, online ministry, uh, trophy that is, um, focuses on Bible teaching and, um, and resourcing, I guess, maybe is that how you might phrase that? Yes.
Speaker 3 00:02:40 Yes. We're trying to resource leaders to live their faith and their life out biblically, obviously. Um, so yes.
Speaker 0 00:02:49 Awesome. Thank you so much. So I do wanna get to those places and I'll link all of those in the notes, as well as the article, but, um, this place where you are right now is not like from when you were a little girl, you just saw, I just, I'm just gonna be a pastor. Right. I, so <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:03:09 Very true.
Speaker 0 00:03:10 So can you kind of take us through, um, a little bit of that story and how you came and how you came to that in your life?
Speaker 3 00:03:18 Well, here's the fun thing you, you shared how God has been generous. God is unbelievably generous. And my story is a good picture of that. So I hope that those who are listening will be encouraged as they hear God's story, uh, because it's pretty remarkable what God is done, what God can do. Um, so I was born and raised in not on Heto Puerto Rico. It's if some people don't know where Puerto Rico is, it's in the Caribbean, it's a small island. I literally grew up in the jungle in the middle of the island, up in the mountains. Uh, one of seven kids, I was number six of seven, which is really a problem, cuz you're not the oldest, you're not the youngest, you're not even the middle child. You have like zero to anything. So being number six, uh, of a single mom who raised us pretty much, my father left when I was not quite a year old, uh, meant that I kind of had to figure out a lot on my own.
Speaker 3 00:04:13 Um, and so, and, and my mom had a lot of support thankfully, and one of her best supports was her mom, my, my grandmother. And one of the things that Mya took on as her responsibility was our spiritual growth. And so she took us all to church while the ones who were willing, um, to go to church as often as possible. And she was the one who actually even chose my name, which is so cool. I, I obviously took, it took years for me to understand the significance of that. Um, but she chose my name. Inez is, um, it's a name for a Catholic Roman Catholic Saint, and she represents purity. And there's a whole long story about Santa Inez. Uh, there's an Italian version, a Latin version. I mean, there's all kind versions, but basically she stands for purity and then Soo, which is my middle name.
Speaker 3 00:05:07 It means help. And it is another name or an extension of a name for the Virgin Mary in Spanish, uh, meaning she is the, uh, the perpetual helper. Um, and so, um, my name pure, uh, was I think my grandmother's dream for me and prayers for me now. I, she, I'm not special. She prayed for all of us. She cared about all of us. I think she had a desire for all of us to have a, a spiritual grounding. And in, in my name, she poured that even deeper and she prayed for me a lot. So she took me to CA uh, she was the one who took us there. And man, I got in trouble immediately, class one, and I was a scrappy kid, super ADHD. Couldn't sit still. And we're sitting on the pews in the front of the church, trying to listen to this nun, teach us about the Bible about God.
Speaker 3 00:05:58 And the first thing she did is to tell me that, uh, God created everything, that everything that was here was created by God. There was nothing before he created it. And my inquisitive mind immediately shot up my arm and said, wait a second. If there was nothing before God created it, what was he standing? Which I thought was a perfectly reasonable question to ask totally valid, right? And everyone started giggling and there was a little bit of gasping going on because the nun got very upset. And she told me I had no faith that I should not question God. And I was sent to the back of the chapel to pray our fathers and Mary, a hail Mary's. I think it's called in English and pray for forgiveness. Well, the next class, well, I went in shame, obviously at the end of that day, I went home kind of pretty bummed.
Speaker 3 00:06:44 And I asked my mom and my siblings, the question, and they all thought it was funny. But, um, the next class, the Nu told us that, um, that there was a place called heaven that this world in all the suffering, all the justice of this world, uh, would one day end for us. And then we would be in a place of peace and wholeness and no more tears and sorrow. And that sounded amazing to me. And again, I'm seven years old or so, and I have questions. And so I wanted to ask so badly then why are we here? Why don't we go to heaven? Now what's the point of waiting. So, but of course that was not acceptable. So I did not, um, ask the question instead. I determined you guys can stay on earth. I'm going to heaven today. And I went home.
Speaker 3 00:07:30 I walked home, cuz this is how we did it. And climbed to the roof of our home, got to the edge of the roof, lifted up my hand and I told God, I'm coming to heaven today. I am not waiting. So I, I went to do this and I looked down and there was a lot of debris below I thought, and I might harm my body. There was a pretty big ravine where I went. So I decided to go to the other corner of the house. And our, the roofs in Puerto Rico are flat by the way, concrete, flat houses. And so I went to the other corner, the ground was flat. This is a good place to jump. So I raised up my arms again and in Spanish, I told God, here I come, you know, a key angle, you know? So I raised up my hands and I heard this very loud Baja, which means get down.
Speaker 3 00:08:14 And it was loud. It was very powerful. And I immediately knew somebody saw me on the, the roof. It would, would be easy. We'd live in the mountain. So I immediately got off that spot, went down and hid, um, thinking that I was gonna get a good beating. That's what happened in our house, whatever my mom had handy. That's what came at us. And then I, nobody came and I thought was that my mom was that my brother was that my sibling was that a neighbor? Wait a second. Was that a man or a woman's voice? And the moment I had that thought, I instantly knew it was God. I just knew it in my soul. And I sensed these things. The only audible voice I heard was Baja beyond that. It was all happening in my head. And this is what I sense that I was hearing from God as a child, I felt like I heard this from God. You don't get to choose when you go to heaven. That's my choice alone. But it's not fair. Life is hard. My brother kick me. You know, I have all cause I had to sleep with my sister. Why can't I sleep with my other sister? You know, my shoes have a whole, I'm complaining everything. Uh, you must endure. I have a purpose. I will be with you.
Speaker 3 00:09:30 And I remember thinking, I do not like you, God, this makes no sense to me. Why would you leave me here? I don't care that you have a purpose and what you're gonna be with me everywhere. I can't even choose to run away from you. And at seven years old, that was my picture of God. And I heard, uh, years, years, years later, that children are the best, uh, recorders of information. But they're the worst interpreters. And because I had that terrible experience, I shared that with no one, no one. I mean who, who would believe me? I was sure someone would think I went crazy thinking. I heard from God and I had no theological basis for does God speak to people? I had knew none of that. So from that point forward in my life, I here having this name, having these expectations from IITA, um, having this experience two classes in catechism and having this experience with God, I just felt like I could not connect with this.
Speaker 3 00:10:37 God. And I turned off my brain as far as God was concerned. I don't remember a single other lesson or church experience after that. It's like blank in my head. And I did go to church a few. Obviously I finished catechism. I got to do my first communion. I don't remember any of that. I only know I did because I have a picture of it. And um, when I was 16, my mom moved from, um, Puerto Rico to California. And when we did, I wasn't, uh, anymore around my Aita. So I didn't have to go to church with her. And as, as I got older and she got older, it was harder for us to take us all the time anyway. So we were going very south them and my mom didn't go to church. And so I stopped going to church and I went on my life doing life my way.
Speaker 3 00:11:26 And so I grew up extremely poor with so little, so much, so many challenges that I decided I was gonna be successful. Now that I lived in California with all the movie stars and all the very special people and learned English as quickly as I could. And I went to SC to college to be, become a businesswoman and become rich. That was my life goal. And I, um, met a Jewish young man and he, um, he and I got married at 19 years old, very quickly, cuz I moved out of my home at 18 and our marriage was a disaster, total disaster. We had a son and that was the one wonderful redeeming and all the lessons I learned, I will never, you know, those are still worth gold. Uh, and, but in four years we ended up in a divorce and then I thought, okay, you know, and I'm writing letters to Mya Beita and she's writing letters to me, she's praying for me to know Jesus and I'm not even anywhere close.
Speaker 3 00:12:27 And uh, and of course she was upset that I got married too young and I got married to a Jewish guy. Who's not gonna bring words, Jesus. Right. And so when I got divorced, she was sad, but she was like, okay, now please do look for someone who loves Jesus. And so I thought Mulligan I'm 23. I can redo life and be okay. I will find someone else. And um, a couple years later I did and he was a Roman Catholic raised young. My grandmother, my will was super happy. I was gonna say that made her happy. Yes <laugh> and we got, we got married and we were married for 15 years, had two daughters in our marriage and I was growing in business. I was, I became a business manager. I, I was developing and I increasing my, my wealth and my influence and feeling like I'm accomplishing all of my goals except for the last five years of our 15 year marriage were really hard and we had a lot of struggles.
Speaker 3 00:13:28 Um, and I don't want to, uh, necessarily share what some of my husband's struggles were at the time. But eventually I realized I had to do something different. And so I quit my job and decided to focus on our marriage for those last five years. And after three years of working really hard at it, I, it, I couldn't save it. We couldn't save it. And so I ended up in divorce, number two. And uh, when we got divorced, my son who was 16 at the time who had now is going through a second divorce, right? His first, his dad and I, and now his stepdad who he loved and still loves and is very close to. And he went off in a deep, deep drug addiction season. So my life was really now starting to stink and I'm starting, you know, I'm 37 years old and I'm thinking, man, okay.
Speaker 3 00:14:17 I, I now I'm the common denominator. I need to change something. And so I went back to work and I went back to work with the man who I used to work for before I quit my job to save my marriage. And my girlfriend said, do not do that. Don't go back there. You guys really get along. You worked really well together. You're now divorce woman. And I just have the sense that you could end up in a relationship. And I was so insulted by her insinuation. I, I went back to her for, to prove her wrong. I felt like, okay, I know I've made some big mistakes. I've been divorced twice. My son is struggling with drug addiction. I look like a total loser, but that's a line I would never cross. And so I went back to work and of course he wanted to know what happened.
Speaker 3 00:14:58 And he, you know, he's a good friend. I'd known him for many, many years. And we did start spending a lot of time together. And sure enough, within a year she was right. He immediately showed interest towards me. His marriage was in a deep struggle and here we were spending way too much time together. And we ended up having an affair. And when that happened and we were open about it, we did not. The minute we knew something was up, he told his wife, 24 years of marriage, total of disastrous. You can imagine there was not hidden. We didn't go on months or anything like that. But we, he decided right away, he knew he was going to divorce her. And this relationship, our relationship kind of was the catalyst to that. And so it was on my knees season where I realized I had done the very everything I never imagined I would do.
Speaker 3 00:15:54 And certainly I was no pure help. I was no nothing. I wasn't pure. And I wasn't helpful. I was making a destruction everywhere. I went. And so in, in the midst of that struggle, he said to me, one day, Hey, we should probably go to church. Okay, let's go to church. I I've made a mess in my life. Maybe I should go to church. And we came to a bunch of churches every Sunday, a different church, trying to find a church that would fit. And on October 20th, 2002 at 10, 15:00 AM. As a matter of fact, we walked into Mariners' church and the pastor was teaching about John chapter four, a woman who met G Jesus at the well, who had been divorced many times before and was living with a man who was not her husband. And that was me. Isn't it like, God,
Speaker 3 00:16:48 I can't believe it. I still can't believe it. I have the outline of that message cuz I look back and I was now 40 years old and God was always with me all this time when I was running from him, he was with me and he was calling me back to himself, am my Aita who prayed for me for 40 years. Thankfully got to see me come to the Lord before she passed away, which is so cool. Right? I mean, we should never stop praying for the, in our lives who are lost. This could be, um, cuz you never know when God will call him again. And my life started over at 40 years old. I was born again.
Speaker 0 00:17:31 I know. So I wanna, I wanna interrupt you for just a minute. Um, thank you for sharing. Um, the first thing I I thought is, as you were sharing, I thought this feels a little bit like reading through some of the Kings, you know, where you've kind of kind of whipped through this story and um, superficially, you know, we kind of imagine it and think, um, oh dear, but it's, it's kind of so quick and for time allotted it, you know, it needs to be in this space, but um, but sometimes it's hard to slow down with the biblical characters or, or people that we encounter and really empathize with what, um, those struggles must have felt like at the time, um, you know, kind of easier to step back from this point and say, oh, that was in 2002, it's been 20 years and you know, but, um, but to just pause for a moment and, and just kind of like acknowledge, um, I don't know, like the, the reality, you know, that these were years and years of your life, that you, um, that you've been so generous to share with us and, and, and, and, and skip through, but those were some really low lows, um, that you've described.
Speaker 0 00:18:53 The other thing that came to my mind, I think maybe one of the reasons that I was particularly drawn to your story, besides the fact, I know you're getting to seminary just a minute, but besides the fact that I'm a 40 year old seminar, um, Latino woman, um, but is that, um, John for, for years, probably, maybe going on four years or something like that, this, um, story just keeps, keeps coming up. I keep meditating on it. It resonates with me. And the question, the, the rhetorical question that I have of the Lord in that story is, um, what kind of love was that <laugh> because even in your story sharing, just now you started, um, kind of with the shame that you felt in that first class, right? Having asked this question and, and left in, you know, feeling this shame. And when I read the story of the woman in the well in John for when I insert myself into her place, and this may not be where, what, where everyone goes or what everyone feels when they enter into that story.
Speaker 0 00:20:09 But when I put myself in her shoes, I feel shame <affirmative> because I think if Jesus told me everything I had ever done, if I heard someone say out loud, that's what the scripture says. Right. He told her everything she'd ever done. Right. And, and instead of feeling shame, that was her evangelistic invitation to her village. Come see a man who told me everything I've ever done. Yeah. And that's my question for the Lord is what kind of love is that? That for me, it doesn't feel like an invitation to share. It feels like an invitation to sh to shame. Um, and so anyway, I don't really have a question associated with, can, can
Speaker 3 00:21:04 I speak into that though?
Speaker 0 00:21:05 Yeah. Yeah. Except for, that's just kind of been the place where I've been mulling over this, um, for quite a few years. So I would love for you to, to speak into that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:21:14 Well, and the reason for that is because, you know, the part of that story that bothered me more than anything was after she shares her testimony, they come and meet Jesus. They get to know Jesus. They say to her, we believe in him. We don't need your testimony. Like we're okay, thanks for that. But now, now we know him. Um, they used to bug me, but, but now between that and what you shared, I wanna say something about that story that so connects with my own when I felt seen by God. Well, as a child first seen by God one way and then seen by God in let's sort it this way, the first time maybe seen by God in some level of purity, okay. Seven year olds are not pure. I don't mean to say that cuz you know, but, but there's some level of, in a sense, let, let's put it that way. Yeah. And then seen again by God at 40 years old, no innocence, But still seen by the creator of the universe.
Speaker 3 00:22:18 That is, to me, the, the line I draw for this woman who came to the well, if you read scripture, it was in the middle of the day. And the heat of the day was women normally would not go to draw water meant that she was sort of isolated in some way. We don't know if her divorces were her fault or something she did or something that happened to her. We don't know the reason, but culturally speaking it would've been a shameful story to tell even today when I share my story, whether it's in the us, I've done it in India, in Kenya, in Latin America and China. It's a shameful story to tell. We don't like these stories. They, they, they just tell a lot of failure. So I could see that she went to that well with shame indeed. But when Jesus sees her and still is with her, that's where I sense his love.
Speaker 3 00:23:13 I sense for myself, God, who said, I know your story and I still love you. I you've, your losses could be you've you've been trying to find your way on your own, but I still love you. I'm going outta my way to meet you. That is so powerful to me. And then what's insane is that then from that point, he has called me to share my story. You know, I'm sharing it with you today, 20 years later with a little bit more like, I don't know, maybe clarity and I'm not sobbing. Although I am crying right now, you guys can see me and my eyes are wet. No question about it. I can never say it without tears. Um, but, but I used to not be able even talk. It would choke me up so badly. And then I would just get so full of sorrow for the story. And to think that God has said, no, I want you to tell your story. Just like the women. Well, she just said, he told here's what he told me, everything about me. I'm telling you everything about me so that you can know him. And that's the same thing he's calling me to do. It's just truly remarkable what God does with that.
Speaker 0 00:24:16 Yeah. Thank you so much. Um, so that was kind of a new beginning
Speaker 3 00:24:22 Yes. For you. Yes. A new beginning.
Speaker 0 00:24:25 So share with
Speaker 3 00:24:26 What happened. Yeah. So I started reading the Bible for the first time. I'd never read it before. And uh, in 2003 is when I started reading the Bible and I became convicted of my sin big time. I mean, it was reading the 10 commandments and realizing I had broken. Every one of them was just like crushing. So I went, I went from being seen, being loved back to shame and then receiving the grace of Jesus. Took me later in the year when I finally got to the new Testament. Um, and um, two years later I felt called by the Lord. I was writing prayers. Uh, every day I was writing a prayer. Someone encouraged me to do you this as a practice, they told me not to edit my prayers, just write whatever was coming out. And I was doing that. And two years later I wrote this prayer about writing and, and teaching.
Speaker 3 00:25:18 Um, and I was writing a prayer that didn't exactly spell it out that way. But as I was writing it, I was having this sense of like, God's telling me, you're gonna tell the story. You're gonna teach my word. And, and he gave me these topics. It was like a download. And so I wrote them down. I wrote the topics down and I, after I wrote them, I looked at 'em. I thought this is ridiculous. And I moved on to the next day and I kept writing prayers, but this one would not go away. And so I realized, okay, okay. If you really are wanting me to teach, I need to know your word better. So I joined a Bible study, a women's Bible study because I, I didn't know the Bible. I was just reading it for the first time. Um, right now, maybe the second time, although I skipped a few minor profits, uh, but um, I thought I gotta learn it quick.
Speaker 3 00:26:01 So I joined a Bible study and the women wouldn't do their homework. Uh, so at least the class I took I'm, I'm sure there's those who do, but that a class didn't and they were only studying one book of the Bible a year, way too slow. I'm 40, 66 books do the math, right? This isn't gonna work. I'm never gonna teach buzzword. So I was complaining to a friend who happened to be a fuller. I didn't know that at the time, but I was complaining to him about my, my struggle. And he said, you should apply to seminar. And I thought, oh, that's a crazy idea. I'm I, I'm now 42. I have a daughter who's in high school, one who's in college. I are you crazy? That time sound crazy. But he encouraged me. He connected me with fuller and I ended up, um, meeting with the director there and I decided to apply.
Speaker 3 00:26:50 It took me two years to get in because I didn't have an undergraduate. And there's a lot of hoops. You have to jump over in order to get accepted in the seminary as an someone who didn't finish, um, the basic education. And so I finally got in and the first class that I took, I left that class sobbing thinking. I lost my mind, like, what am I doing? I'm in school. I have to write papers and take tests. And I'm in my forties and I have a family and I have a busy life and I have lost my mind <affirmative> and a really sweet woman saw me in the parking lot crying. And she came and gave me a hug. And she said, I cried on my first day too. <laugh> wow. And so I went into seminary learning to learn about God and learn about the Bible and try to, you know, understand my faith and, uh, two years into it.
Speaker 3 00:27:43 Um, I got invited to evaluate the services at Mariners, by the gal who would run the weekend experiences. And I, I thought, okay, I took one preaching class, I guess I can. I learned how they evaluate I'll evaluate. I started doing that. And then they invited me to be part of the teaching meetings and said, okay, I'll do that. Because she thought maybe if you listen to the teach team meetings before the sermons, you know, what's coming and you can give better feedback. Sounds good. And about another year into that, uh, she said, um, Hey, would you be willing to teach? And so on November 11th, 2011. Yep, exactly. Right. Um, I got invited to teach at the chapel me church and I thought they are very desperate. They, they don't have anybody to teach that Sunday. Now, just for the folks who don't know Mariners, Mariners is megachurch.
Speaker 3 00:28:33 They have a 3,500 seat auditorium where they do the Sunday services, but right next to it, they have a chapel. And that chapel seat's about 300 people and they were doing services there that were more reflective. Uh, obviously more intimate in a more, um, liturgical space with liturgical responses, communion every Sunday, et cetera. And they had teachers there doing it and they needed someone. And so I taught it was a terrible sermon on the resurrection and I still have it because it's good. It was all about God's word, but it was not, I taught to terrible, but they asked me to do it again. And, uh, a few weeks later I taught again and then they said, could you teach once a month? Okay. And my answer at that time was God called me to write God, called me to teach anytime I get invited to do those things, I will say yes.
Speaker 3 00:29:22 And so that was always my answer, even though I was terrified. And of course I did not feel well trained for it. I was still learning and I felt I was the last person on earth. Now think about this for a moment. We started out talking about my Aita, who took me to a chapel in Puerto Rico, Roman Catholic chapel. And here, God puts me to teach his word in a chapel, very liturgical with communion every Sunday at an evangelical church in California. That's not a coincidence. And I remember thinking this is so wild. I mean, I have, I have a, a messy story. You know, they don't have any women teaching, you know, but okay. I'm just gonna be obedient. And, um, when I graduated from fuller, the senior pastor said, Hey, now you're gonna teach twice a month. That's how he said it to me.
Speaker 3 00:30:15 He didn't ask me. He just said, now you're gonna teach twice a month. Okay. I'll teach twice a month. And it's been, it was like that. And a couple years later they asked me to be the pastor of that space. So then I actually became the leader of that congregation and that, um, took me on an amazing journey, how to love God's people. He, he was teaching me how to love his people during those three years. And in 2019, he called me out of that assignment. The Lord did nobody, just the Lord called me out of that assignment. And hi. Okay. It's time. Those are the words I heard in 2019 it's time, uh, for me to put this story in writing. And so I've been working on my book now, which I hope to publish this year next year, cuz I'm working on it now, um, that just tell the story of God's goodness and his gen generosity.
Speaker 0 00:31:03 Amazing. Amazing. Um, I wanna hang out there for a minute. Um, there's a lot, I think one of the places that I'm, I kind of wanna explore with you is, um, is the writing of your prayers and that practice? Um, I would say I grew up in a tradition that it's, it's kind of funny because it was a tradition that really kind of baed at disciplines and liturgy and that kind of thing. And then, and kind of, as we know, generally when traditions kind of B at those, because they kind of already have their own, they just don't call them those things. Right. So we would, you know, sing, sing three hymns and someone would say the same operatory prayer every week. And you know, all of that liturgy, you know, it was a liturgy, but it was not written, uh, in the book, uh, anywhere.
Speaker 0 00:31:58 But, um, I would say fuller was the place where I was most intentionally introduced to practices like that. Right. Um, like writing your prayers or, or centering prayer or Lectio Divina or any of those things. Um, I had kind of, I joke in, in my college years, I kind of El and went to an Episcopalian church, which was like to do just wild, you know, for my Bible belt, uh, family to, uh, to get on board with, but I enjoyed the, the liturgy and I enjoyed the communion every week. But, um, I wonder if as a, as a teacher and a pastor and someone who's kind of been in those spaces for a while, I imagine that part of it was new to you as well when you started kind of exploring God in that way. But, um, besides what you just told us about the prayer, about writing and teaching, can you just talk through for people who some of the disciplines may be unfamiliar to them? Like some things that you've seen in your life or in the lives of your, uh, people in your community that, um, that, that spiritual, some of those spiritual disciplines have really impacted them and their, and their walk with God.
Speaker 3 00:33:16 Yes. Uh, like you, I was exposed to the spiritual disciplines, um, and at fuller, uh, reading the mystics and reading so many of the history of the church and all the rich tradition that we stand upon, I church history was the most like mind blowing reading. There's like one book I have, I love this book cuz it has a whole church history on their it's amazing. And I think we throw away, you know, our modern thinking throws away our traditions. And, and I did, I personally did. I did not understand communion. I did not understand Ash Wednesday. I did not understand so many of the rituals that I watched as I was a little girl coming to a Catholic church. And it was funny as I can walk into a Catholic church and understand a lot more now than I did then. And so, so yeah, spiritual practices and or the liturgy that we do, these are ways in which we can experience in our own physicalness and our own world experience.
Speaker 3 00:34:15 Um, things about the heaven realm that, that are a little harder to express in words or right. We can, we get to live them out. So act them out. So, you know, prayer, for example is a conversation with God. We have conversations with each other. Well, prayer is the way we converse with the Lord. I believe that's a spiritual practice. Some of the more, um, I would say organized spiritual practices of the church in years was, well, we take prayer and you, you add other ways to pray. Like you might, you might do prayers in writing, right? Where you write out what you're thinking, whatever's coming into mind. So it's again, it's going back to that conversation with God, but now we do it in writing. We do this every day, right? We type emails, right. We type texts. So it's the same thing. We're just writing it out.
Speaker 3 00:35:02 Um, the lecture Divina practice. So that one's about being in God's word and letting God's word really go sink deep in our hearts. Love that practice cuz it, it forces you to read, read again, read again or listen. Right? You can have someone, you can listen to it, listen to it again, listen to it again, let it sink in, go deeper, deeper into it. Pick something out, reflect upon that. So, oh, what an amazing thing to do. It's it's kind of taking, um, to me, every one of those practices at the chapel, let me back up again at the chapel, we had communion every Sunday, um, which we get to re communion is a beautiful picture of Easter and it's a beautiful picture of Christmas. So the, the bread and the copper represent both the bread, the presence of God in a on earth, Jesus coming as a child, the cup, the sacrifice of Jesus in the cross, in a new life, right?
Speaker 3 00:36:02 The, the cleansing of our sin every Sunday, when we take communion, we celebrate Christmas and Easter all over again. And so I just never do that. And now communion has a totally different feel to me, right? We had candles that we let cha lit when I was a little girl at the chapel and lighting a candle, this beautiful picture of remembering a physical expression of remembering that Jesus is the light that now we are made called to be the light. That light is a picture of hope of cleansing a purifying. Um, there's so many symbolism that goes with that. So I feel like all these spiritual PR this is our ways in which we get to act out, um, the truth of, of the gospel, the truth of God's word. Yeah. I hope that well,
Speaker 0 00:36:46 That's, that's beautiful. Thank you so much. And the other place, um, that I'm kind of dying to go with you is as you, you know, as you shared that story again, I'm kind of envisioning, you know, those little, like kind of small steps that, you know, you didn't know it at the time, but were taking you into a position where you were teaching and pastoring, um, at Mariners. But Tell us about like when you kind of realized, um, oh, I'm like the only woman doing this, or one of the only women doing this, or, oh, I'm the only woman of color. Um, who's doing this.
Speaker 3 00:37:27 Oh, well into my teaching journey, I got invited to teach a mother's day and the main worship center. Remember I was teaching in the chapel, uh, which it first, it had about 60 people and it grew, uh, there were two services every Sunday, uh, about 60 people each and it grew to about 300 people. So our congregation at the chapel was about 600, but you have 3,500 people meeting just next door. So I got invited to teach a mother's day with the senior pastor a message. And this is again where I look back and I just can't believe it. You just have to say yes to God and not try to overthink it because you won't understand it until later the pastor who always wrote his own messages told me you write the message and you give me a part of it. So I wrote the message and, and this is what God put in my, he wa it was called beautiful and brave.
Speaker 3 00:38:23 So I decided, I decided to talk about, um, in Genesis where a woman is called a helper, um, which is an AER. Uh, and then I talked about proverb 31, where she is called a noble woman hae. And so AZA ha and I taught about, um, women and how we are, um, this powerful partner to men. Um, and that we, I want us to call the women that you are beautiful because God said so, but more importantly, you are brave because God created you that way. Um, it's not, so me, you have to get put on. You already are. So I wrote this message and he took on beautiful. I took on brave and there I was talking about the women in creation before the fall. I couldn't believe I did that. Anyway. I did boldly and called women to be AZA high yields and to, uh, step up to the calling that God has called them a warrior, really a warrior to, to serve alongside men, people, several people left the church.
Speaker 3 00:39:31 And I did not know for two weeks. So two weeks later in our teaching meeting, the senior pastor sort of mentions two people left the church because I preached in main sanctuary. And that was the first time I realized that me being a female teacher was a thing you can't remember. I kind of knew that from my Catholic upbringing, but now when an evangelical church. So, I mean, they asked me to teach. So obviously it must be okay, you know, but that's when I, I re I started bawling. I started bawling in the meeting and he asked everyone in the room to leave. And he said, Enes, are you telling me that the minute you're gonna have some opposition or objection, you're gonna run because my, my first thought was, I'll never do that again. I'll never teach again. That's okay. Ill teaching the chapel.
Speaker 3 00:40:18 I don't have to do that. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, you cannot. You cannot just run. And he challenged me and reminded me of the calling that I put in my life and encouraged me to stay the course. And, um, I think that was the beginning of me realizing that. Yeah. And I course I did more research and tried to understand the objections. And I went crying to my professors. I, they gave me books to read. I listened to podcasts. I went down a really long rabbit hole to understand the objection of women, um, called to teach because I felt called to teach by God. So I wasn't, you know, um, to clearly I was reading the scriptures from the lens of the, of the times, not necessarily today, but some people read it as today. And so I went down the journey to try to understand that.
Speaker 3 00:41:09 And so shortly after that, I would say within a year I had some people reach out to me because they saw me as a female teacher at man's church, Tina, and they had lunch with me and the, the gal at the lunch, she was telling me how I am a woman of color. She was actually referring to me that way. So you, as a woman of color, I'm like, I have never saw myself that way. I have never looked at myself in the mirror and said, I'm a woman of color. I, I don't know that I can own that. That seems very strange way to talk about myself, but I didn't understand it either truly. Um, and so it's been a journey for me to embrace this. Uh, I can tell you this at senior pastor who's now, um, is he on emeritus senior pastor?
Speaker 3 00:41:53 I have a new senior pastor Meredith church. Um, he has always encouraged me and he told me recently, maybe about a year ago, he said, you know, you're blazing a trail, you're blazing a trail, and you need to know that the responsibility that you're holding and I, I was holding it before I understood I was holding it. And I, and I'll finish with this when I went to seminary and I started crying that my goodness, I am learning Hebrew words and Greek words, you know, what am I doing? I'm, I'm memorizing a whole bunch of Charles. And I'm trying to figure out which is which, and what year they were born. I mean, I was having such a hard time studying and memorizing things and thinking I lost my mind. God gave me a picture that he was giving me. He was shopping in an ax and it came from a quote.
Speaker 3 00:42:36 I read that, um, someone said, give me six hours to chop down a tree. I will use four sharpening my ax. I know it was someone famous. I can't remember right now, but I thought, okay, God, you're sharpening an ax for something. When I finished seminary, I thought I have an ax. I'm gonna go cut down a tree. This is perfect. I'm ready. God, where are we going? And I felt like God said, no, no, no, no. Actually now I'm giving you a machete and a machete. Is this really long knife that Latinos use, uh, to cut down weeds. And the picture that God gave me is no, no, no. Here's how a machete is used. Sometimes you swinging in front of you. Most of the time you bend down to the ground and you're cutting down weeds at the bottom. And it is a hard job.
Speaker 3 00:43:18 Nobody sees you because you're buried in the weeds and you're down there at the bottom, creating a path for others recently, literally, uh, just a few weeks ago, I was in Texas and a woman, uh, at an event and a woman walked out to me and she gave me this picture. She said, you know, um, I, I just felt God was trying to tell you something. If you feel like you're being pulled back, like you got pulled out. Somehow the picture I got was an arrow, uh, as it gets pulled back before it gets released, why do I say that? I started with this idea that I went to seminary to do something remarkable for the Lord. And the Lord said, no, you're gonna serve people. You're gonna serve my people. You're gonna love my people. Um, you're not gonna necessarily be seen and that's okay.
Speaker 3 00:44:03 You might be, you might be invisible to the world, but you're not invisible to me. And then ultimately, now what he's saying to me is you're in my hands. I will be the one to send you where I need to, where you need to go. So yes, I'm the only female teacher Mariners has ever had. Now, Christine Kane is part of our team. Um, but <inaudible>, I'm it in the 50 year history of Mariners, actually almost 16 now. Um, I'm the only Latina teacher, although there is a young woman named Gloria who has, who saw me years ago and felt like the Lord said to her, Hey, you can do this. And now she's also learning to teach, um, and has had opportunities to teach four or five times a year. So I'm coaching her and helping her and encouraging her. Um, so I know, oh, the God is doing something amazing, but I wanna be like the arrow that's fully submitted to the Lord to send wherever he sends me and not think that I'm gonna go save the world, but he is so, wow.
Speaker 0 00:45:03 Thank you. I know you just said in, you know, we'll close with this, but I wanna, I wanna take that and just give you opportunity. Um, as you talk about having that machete to, to clear the path, I wanna give you just a, a opportunity and I will, I will link it, but, um, tell us about that path ministry that we mentioned at the beginning that, um, that trophy.
Speaker 3 00:45:24 Yes. So TRAC means path it's Greek word in Hebrews, uh, chapter 11, verse 12, where it says, make level the path through your feet so that the lane may be healed. Um, and this idea of us living our journey of faith faithfully, so that not only do we experience healing, but others will as well. And so the Greek word is used only once this particular word trachea sounds like trachea, but TRO and I thought it was a fascinating word. So I used it as my ministry name. And so I started this ministry in 2010, not having a clue, what I was doing. I was in the middle of seminary. I thought I'm learning so many stuff I'm supposed to teach, so I don't have any places to teach. So I'll just write blogs and put the stuff out there. And I started with that and I ended up with other writers and, uh, other voices that join me. And that effort we're actually relaunching the website here pretty soon, uh, which will be even clear what we're trying to do. Um, but really I just wanna mentor, you know, the next generation to live a life of faithfulness. I feel like my story is a picture of how God is with us in the good times. And in the not when we're doing it right, we're not doing it right. And he doesn't waste a single thing and I wanna encourage the next generation to trust him.
Speaker 0 00:46:39 Amazing. Where can we find the ministry and where can people connect with you, um, on the web?
Speaker 3 00:46:47 So the, uh, the two websites, so T O C H I a.org. Um, it's one of my websites. That's where multiple voices, not just my voice is heard. It's about to get relaunch here pretty soon. And then Enes franklin.com. And that's where you connect specifically with the things I write or my work. And of course, uh, all the various social media, Instagram, I'm actually on TikTok two, not, not a whole lot of dancing <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:47:14 But I'm there. Uh, and, um, obviously Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, all of them are Enes Franklin. I started this long ago, so I don't have any dots or dashes, which is kind of cool. And, um, yeah, follow me there. And you know, I'm just trying to share and teach. Wherever is wherever I can. Years ago, I heard Christine Kane say this. She said, listen, when she felt called to teach, she would be willing to teach a tree. If that's, if that's the only place where she can teach, she would teach a tree. And I was like, amen, sister, that's me. I will, I will exercise this gift anywhere I can, any opportunity God calls me to. And so if you're listening and you're feeling tapped by God and you're making excuses or you're disqualifying yourself, sister, brother, I just want you to know the Lord. Doesn't put these crazy ideas on us for nothing. I mean, when you find yourself doing something, you think, what am I doing? What am I I doing here? Trust the Lord. Um, and say, yes, say yes,
Speaker 0 00:48:15 That's a good word in this. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story and your time with us.
Speaker 3 00:48:21 Thank you. God bless you.
Speaker 2 00:48:25 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show, notes, music, and, and podcast production by Seth. Boetti be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app, you can also visit us at that. Makes total sense.com.
