EP261: An Aussie Discovers American Wings and Using Welding To Change Lives

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That's ouramericanstories.com. Our next story is a story from a listener from Australia of all places and how he came to fall in love with a food that is uniquely American, the buffalo wing. My name is Colin Beddles. I'm 50 years old and currently I live in Sydney, Australia which is on the other side of the country about 4,000 kilometers or two and a half thousand miles away from where I grew up in Perth. At age 20 in 1990 I set off from Perth for a working holiday in the United Kingdom. I found my way to be working in a bar in the London suburb of Kensington where I worked in between playing cricket for the London Theatres Cricket Club among others and in that bar we mingled with students from all over the world and you know we gained a different tuition on on each other's worlds over a few beverages at the bar of course and during this time I made some very good friends so I didn't have any great conviction about where I was going to travel to while I was on my working holiday and so I decided to go to the US and visit some of these friends that I'd made while working in the bar and my first stop was to stay with a guy named James who I'd met who was attending a place called Colgate University in a small college town called Hamilton in upstate New York.

James lived across the road from a place called the Old Pizza Pub. Now my very first night that I stayed they treated me to buffalo wings from there and I'd never had them before in my life in fact I'd never even heard of them before and they didn't have to do much to convince me to to try them and as they say it was love at first bite. I was hooked on this new taste sensation straight away. What I remember most about that first time experience was the tenderness of the chicken that fell off the bone. It didn't require or virtually required no chewing of the chicken meat and of course the tangy hot flavour sensation that exploded in my mouth and the blue cheese dip I always remember just how smooth and creamy that was and how it complemented the hotness of the wings and enhanced the flavour and basically that's where my love affair with buffalo wings started and it continues to this day. My most memorable experience with a wing well as they say there's nothing like the first time so I think that first night with James and his college buddies eating wings for the first time for the first time at the farmhouse remains my greatest and most lasting memory but I also have another strong memory that always brings a smile to my face and that's actually an evening spent out with some of those Colgate Uni friends James and Jeff Charles and Fran in New York City in 1992 for my 22nd birthday and we stumbled upon a place by accident I can't recall its name in fact there's quite a bit about the evening I can't recall but this was a typical New York City dive bar and while it was a dive bar the upside was that they serve these wings and these wings were ranked on a scale according to their degree of hotness let's call it the chilli factor and the serving at the top of this heat list was called the Chernobyl wing and it was a huge sized wing and they only allowed them to be served one at a time now this serving restriction I may guess was a requirement that was applied to the bar by the local fire department or a nearby health facility now common sense would tell you to avoid this sort of danger but as they say making mistakes is all just part of growing up and down they went it seemed like a fun idea at the time to dare each other to eat these ferociously hot wings that had more punch than the closing scenes of a Rocky movie and to wash them down with one or two polite beverages but we definitely had a few regrets the next morning and they lingered long into the next afternoon have I ever met a wing I don't like well the answer is yes one of my pet hates is when the wings are served whole and they haven't been cut up into flats and drum pieces and the tips haven't been cut off and thrown away and this tells me that there's a lazy and unsophisticated method behind these wings that they've probably been pre-cooked and frozen which means that the flavour is substandard and pretty bland really this is generally backed up by serving ranch sauce with the wings rather than authentic blue cheese dip or lord forbid mayonnaise or aioli sauce wings that are heavily baked in breadcrumbs are also just poor substitutes for the real thing and call me a wing snob if you like but if they're not authentic and if they're not genuine and if they're not the real deal and made with a bit of love and a bit of time and care then you're better off doing your taste buds a favour and going without is there an american food and do i think that food is the buffalo wing well the answer is quite simply yes some people might look at the hot dog and the deep pan pizza in chicago but at the end of the day they're just hybrids and they don't compare to the buffalo wing which was born and raised in the usa the backstory to how the wing was invented on that famous friday night at the anchor bar in 1964 proves that this great dish is purely american as it originated at the anchor bar didn't originate in germany or italy or even australia it was in upstate new york at the anchor bar and it goes a bit like this that dominic bellissimo was tending bar late that evening and a group of his friends arrived with a big appetite and he asked his mother tereza to prepare something for his friends to eat now she had some chicken wings which were normally preserved for soup in the kitchen of the anchor bar and she deep fried them and flavored them with a secret sauce and of course they became an instant hit and regular on the menu not just at the anchor bar but all over the us and throughout the world and even in australia now they're very popular and becoming more and more popular and you've been listening to colin bettles and he's from australia he listens to our show in australia too and by the way america imports so many fine things around the world our ingenuity in every endeavor including of course food when we come back more with colin bettles here on our american stories folks if you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of america's rich past know that all of our stories about american history from war to politics to innovation culture and faith are brought to us by the great folks at hillsdale college a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life and if you can't get to hillsdale hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses go to hillsdale.edu to learn more and we return to our american stories and to an australian listener of this show the colin bettles the story of the buffalo wing and of course this australian's obsession with it in the early 90s colin headed back to london from his trip to america and started work back at the builders arms bar in kensington let's pick up the story from there now after my first trip to us i returned to live in london and i still had a strong craving for buffalo wings but there was no wing scene in london in the early 1990s and so it was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack and i had to go without which of course wasn't easy and i hadn't thought of the idea at that stage of cooking them myself anyway after a period of time a couple of my fellow bartenders and workmates at builders arms tim who is from new zealand and deckland and patrick believe it or not who are from ireland um they'd learned about a u.s style bar and restaurant called tgi friday's opening in coven garden and they duly informed me that tgi's served wings this was a major breakthrough in my life at that age and this new tgi friday's became a regular haunt for me and i'd often drag tim and deckland and patrick along there and anyone else who wanted to join me in a wing fest they weren't the best wings i've ever had at tgi's but they were certainly good and they certainly satisfied my appetite and i'd often dine by myself at tgi's just to get a plate of wings now about the age of 24 not that long after returning from living overseas in london i decided to go into business for myself and i bought a fish and chip shop now this youthful stab at capitalism was underscored by of course placing buffalo wings on the menu at north beach seafoods and this kept my wing dream slightly alive shall we say but in a modest way it was just great to be serving wings at my own business even if it was a fish and chip shop now one of the things that happened at that time was my marketing for the buffalo wings included a having a dedicated advertising board that my mate benny morgan did for me and he was a sign writer and on that advertising board he drew a picture of a buffalo with the price which i'd say was probably about five dollars for a serve of 12 wings with blue cheese dip and customers would often come into the shop and look at the sign and go i didn't know buffaloes had wings anyway then obviously i would just be able to give them an education on buffalo wings and they would put a hand in their pocket and buy some hopefully these chicken wings though they weren't cooked in corn or peanut oil uh let's just say um there was a slight oceanic texture to the final flavor and the chicken meat also had to be frozen because there wasn't a large number of orders on a daily basis so i had to defrost the chicken first and this meant that uh took a lot longer to cook the orders about 40 minutes so we lost sales but this didn't put everyone off buying them and we had some good loyal customers who got into the habit of phoning there were orders ahead which is what you do with a fish and chip shop anyway and so trying to train them up to buy buffalo wings and getting used to the slight delay and well there was i was never going to retire on buffalo wings alone from the fish and chip shop it was certainly a great experience and i can always say that uh i you know i came home and i tried to follow through on my buffalo wing dream and i i did sell them to australians for a while anyway i sold the shop after a couple years and i went to university where i studied theater and drama and english and comparative literature and creative writing eventually i got into a career in rural and political journalism which included working in the cambra press gallery for several years now the reason why it's probably important to talk about how i went from owning a fish and chip shop to going to university and then becoming a journalist is because my journalism career has opened up the door to some amazing opportunities and of course part of that is storytelling and in more recent years it has enabled me to be able to return to the us on a journalist visa and write stories about rural issues and farming issues and political issues and on one of these trips i was able to visit the anchor bar in buffalo new york where buffalo wings originated now i was aware of that fact because it was mentioned in the introduction to that original wing wing recipe from that recipe book that i'd used in 1993 now the intro to that recipe says this american classic originated at the anchor bar in buffalo new york where it is still a favorite with locals and tourists alike now little did i know that one day i'd end up being one of those same tourists some 17 years later visiting that famous bar at 1047 main street in buffalo anyway when i arrived at the anchor bar of course i sat at the bar and was soaking up the atmosphere and taking my time eating a great plate of incredible original buffalo wings i eventually worked up the courage to ask the anchor bars executive chef ivano toscani if he would agree to do a story for me and that i'd travel all the way from australia to capture the story of where and how buffalo wings originated anyway ivano generously agreed and he took me out the back into the anchor bars kitchen which is obviously the engine room of the business and it's where all the magic happens and i asked him some questions and he gave me some great answers which obviously had been well rehearsed over the years i would say and that allowed me to write a great story about the history and origins of this american classic and to be able to share that with readers down under now just a quick summary of the story that i wrote and what ivano told me and he said that the original recipe and cooking method used by teresa balasimo on the night she invented buffalo wings in 1964 is still being practiced at the anchor bar ivano said that well uh teresa didn't expect her wings to become an american legend they now rank alongside the hot dog james dean and elvis for american icon status and if you go to a fancy restaurant or if you sit at a bar and have a bar menu you will most likely find buffalo wings ivano also said that the anchor bar served 2000 pounds which is 907 kilograms of chicken wings every single day and their famous hot sauce is also exported to italy japan france and germany and they also ship fresh buffalo wings to just about anywhere in the country but just like london there was no way of buying them anywhere in perth so the only way to solve that problem was to start making them myself myself so i started cooking my own wings at home and like most great inventions the evolution of my recipe was born out of necessity and it certainly involved a great deal of trial and error let's say the focus was on the errors at that time but i started off by purchasing a recipe book that had the recipes for 365 different snacks and appetizers and i've still got the book today among the recipes was one for buffalo chicken wings and another one for blue cheese dip so this was at the time was a bit like discovering a map to hidden treasure or a golden ticket to willy wonka's chocolate factory originally i followed this recipe very closely and cooked the chicken wings using hot corn oil or peanut oil boiling in a pot heated on an electric stove and an old electric stove at that now needless to say this somewhat primitive cooking method proved somewhat problematic and there were some consequences that came with it such as setting fire to the kitchen and the curtains on more than one occasion definitely overcooking the wings on more than one occasion resulting in complaints from neighbors due to smoke inhalation and other catastrophes including splattering chili sauce and melted butter on the walls but i was determined to get the recipe right however i learned from my mistakes and maintain a steadfast focus on continuous improvement and despite the misfired attempts and the burnt curtains i eventually found a groove and settled into a consistent way of making a decent batch of buffalo wings still cooking buffalo wings and and while i enjoy cooking wings for family and friends there's certainly more time between wing hits now than they used to be in my 20s and in fact now i'm probably just as happy having the carrots and the celery alone and great job on that piece by amanti and a beautiful piece of storytelling by colin bettles and he discovered this well this common food group here in the united states when he was a kid when he was a college kid and the next thing you know this becomes his life's obsession the story of the chicken wing and an Aussie listener of our american stories colin bettles here on our american stories soon millions will make medicare coverage decisions for next year and united healthcare can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible medicare annual enrollment runs from october 15th through december 7th if you're working past age 65 you might be able to delay medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage it can seem confusing but it doesn't have to be visit uhc medicare health plans.com to learn more united healthcare helping people live healthier lives i know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop but for small business insurance i need my state farm agent they make sure my business stays piping hot and i stay cool and confident see they're small business owners too so they know how to help you best state farm is in your corner and on it like a good neighbor state farm is there call your local state farm agent for a quote today doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done i mean that can be overwhelming for anyone so if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life try all free clear mega packs all free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry all free clear mega packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs which my family we definitely have sensitive skin so the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes just know that all free clear mega packs they have your back purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types and we continue with our american stories the show where america is the star and the american people the american people up next we have a story from steve bunyard steve is the president of reignite hope a non-profit organization based in los angeles california reignite hope trains students for a career in welding gets them certified in the welding trade and then assists them with job placement here's steve with a story reignite hope started about 11 years ago upon skid row in los angeles skid row is um and i guess they call it that because that's kind of where you hit the skids i guess it's huge here in los angeles in la county numbers are as high as 70 000 people a night sleep on the streets it's really an incredible plague epidemic whatever you want to call it way back in the day when when i was younger and growing up homeless usually just meant men now it's families you know it's women it's children you see them sleeping on a sidewalk in a little tent overnight they don't have a way to support themselves life is somehow going upside down for them every story is different every story is unique i was a pastor at a local church at the time i've been on staff there for a lot of years and our church was doing what a lot of churches what a lot of churches do up on skid row coming up there and bringing food and blankets and hygiene kits and things like that and we were working with a pretty famous homeless mission up there called the fred jordan mission and we would go up there and and do our best to help the homeless each time we went up there we'd go every couple months one thing that jumped out at me is i kept seeing the same people same people in line i'd go up there and wow they're still here and then two months later they're still here and two months later they're still here nothing was changing except the line was getting longer and i know we call them homeless to me they looked hopeless that's what they looked and one day the matriarch willie jordan came up to me and she said pastor steve what can we do what can we do so that we're not feeding the same people all the time so she solved the same problem and i said gosh willie i said i i don't know i think they need i think they need jobs i don't know how you get out of skid row without a job but i said i don't know what to tell you about that our church doesn't do job training but i said i'll pray about it so i did i started praying about it and gosh just this crazy thing kept staying in my head of the idea of teaching people to weld i had learned to weld when i was young uh way before i became a pastor i knew that that's something that i could probably teach somebody and they could get a job and it would pay well so i just kept praying and kind of almost hoping that idea would go away because i just thought how in the world would i do it i mean where would we do it can you really teach homeless people to weld can i even teach people to well i i know how to weld but i've never taught it but it wouldn't leave me alone so i finally thought you know what i'm going to go back to willie and just give her this crazy idea she's like 80 and she'll hate it i think right and i'll get my life back so i go and i tell her and she loves the idea and uh i figure she's going to be afraid of welding and all that and she says are you kidding she says let's we'll give you a space inside the mission we'll we'll select some homeless people for you to start with let's do it let's get started and i thought oh my gosh you know what have i gotten into here but we did we jumped in we started with five homeless men that they had picked for us and it changed their lives and then everybody started hearing about it and wanting in the program to date we've had sometimes where we've had as many as 500 people on our waiting list wanting to get in and it just started growing and growing took off like a rocket we we outgrew our space in the fred jordan mission then the los angeles police department helped us get a building two blocks away that was bigger before long we outgrew that and we were just having to say no to too many people then we moved into by god's providing a large building here in the city of gardena california which really increased the number of lives we could come alongside and we started operating out of here we were doing over 200 students a year but now we maxed this out and so we got the idea the idea came into my heart and head one day of what about doing this mobile we had all these cities by now that wanted us to come not only cities locally here in southern california but cities all over america calling us up they're hearing about it atlanta chicago dallas san francisco and and i'm thinking gosh we can't get buildings in all these cities that's too expensive and um even the local cities here that want us to come i thought about what about doing training inside a big rig a big 18-wheeler doing it inside the trailer then we could take the trailer wherever we wanted to go keep our main facility here in gardena and i and i guess that idea came to me because when i was young i was into race cars i raced a lot and sometimes we would repair our cars inside the trailer we would weld on them something would break and we'd weld on them i never saw that as being something i would use to help other people and i was pretty self-centered at that part of my life anyway and i wasn't a person of faith i didn't believe in god i just was living for myself and my own personal happiness and my own personal goals and the thought of helping people on skid row would not have appealed to me for one second back in that part of my life but then god deeply changed my life took away that self-centeredness and made me care a lot more about other people than i care about myself and that really turned my heart around for all of this stuff here that we're talking about and and to see these lives change to see to see people rough and tattooed and looking real mean and and and with tears in their eyes as they're holding up their diploma having been become a certified welder i wasn't a certified welder back when i was doing all the welding the places i worked in require it but when i started reignite hope i thought just for the credibility of our program because i would sometimes get people come up to me and go so wait a minute you're you're a pastor and you're teaching people how to weld are you are you even allowed to do that and do you do you know how to do that and i thought okay i better just go get some credentials to put people's mind at ease so i became a certified welder myself i even went further and became a certified welding educator and a certified welding inspector and then this whole thing does allow us to to certify students through our program but i didn't want that to appear to be biased at all so what we do on certification day which is at the end of each class each semester i bring in an outside inspector to test them i don't want them to feel like you know pastor steve certified me because he loves me and and i didn't want to feel that tension either because of course i would want them all to pass so i bring in a completely unbiased third-party inspector from the american welding society who comes in and tests the students and they have to pass or or they don't get certified so it's a real legitimate deal and it's the best certification around it's it's recognized worldwide actually the american welding society and this thing really works we're able in one month to take a person who knows nothing about welding and train them give them 120 hours of training get them certified by the american welding society and help them find their first job and there is a nationwide shortage of welders and it's a very well-paying career you won't start off real high right out of school but gosh in four five six years this is a six-figure job that completely changes the direction of you and your family forever and you're listening to steve bunyard tell the story of reignite hope and how it started and it started quite simply visiting intending to the homeless 70 000 just in la county a staggering number and he kept seeing the same people again and again and he said those aren't homeless people i'm saying it's hopeless people when we come back more of steve bunyard's story and a story of so many faith-based institutions doing great work around this country here on our american story soon millions will make medicare coverage decisions for next year and united health care can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible medicare annual enrollment runs from october 15th through December 20th to the end of this year runs from october 15th through december 7th if you're working past age 65 you might be able to delay medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage it can seem confusing but it doesn't have to be visit uhc medicare health plans.com to learn more united health care helping people live healthier lives i know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop but for small business insurance i need my state farm agent they make sure my business stays piping hot and i stay cool and confident see they're small business owners too so they know how to help you best state farm is in your corner and on it like a good neighbor state farm is there call your local state farm agent for a quote today doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done i mean that can be overwhelming for anyone so if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life try all free clear mega packs all free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry all free clear mega packs are also 100 free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs which my family we definitely have sensitive skin so the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes just know that all free clear mega packs they have your back purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types and we return to our american stories and the story of reignite hope and its president steve bunyard reignite hope is a non-profit organization that began on skid row in la with the goal to help homeless people get jobs back to steve with the rest of the story you know they say that to to live without hope is to cease to live and again that's what we saw up on skid row of course now our program's expanded to all all walks of life we've been doing training at a high school out in san bernardino they identified some kids out there that they were begging us to come that they called vulnerable because they knew these kids were not college material and and they said boy if they get out of high school without a job skill they're going to get in trouble we have a lot of folks coming out of prison that hear about us kids wanting to get out of gangs and want to turn their life around and come to reignite hope people that are just trapped in poverty gosh i get letters from inmates around the country saying hey i've heard about your program i'm about to get out can i get into the program we just had in our last class that graduated just a few weeks ago here a young man who got out of prison in texas heard about reignite hope decided to move him and his wife and and their their kid here to california just to take the class they came they took the class went back to texas and he texted me two days ago saying hey pastor steve i just want to let you know how thankful i am for what you and the team did for me he says i'm back here in texas i just got hired as a welder thanks to you guys i found god and now i found a job and i just wanted to say thanks so that story just happens over and over and over again when this started it was it was uh yeah a little intimidating you know could we do this could i do this could i find the time to do this do i know how to do this all those fears and doubts come up and then i'd never really worked with the homeless before uh like with gang members i gosh i'd never worked with gang members and so when we had our first gang member it was like oh my gosh i don't even know what to do here with with this i've never even talked to a gang member before and gosh now we've trained hundreds of them most all of our students come in here a little skeptical because you know we tell them the program's free we vet people coming in we want to make sure they're serious and motivated to do this but it's free but most of them have been ripped off here and there like we all have from time to time and they don't really completely believe that there's not a catch here somewhere and so the first couple weeks they're they're kind of on guard and kind of kind of keep them to themselves a little bit but once they really believe and come to understand that wow these people just really love me and really care for me and there are no strings attached here they really open up and you can just get into some amazing one-on-one conversations with them we get a chance then to speak into their lives and coach them and pray for them and and it really breaks down the barriers because i think love breaks down any barrier there is out there and it's really fun to even see the barriers break down between the different gang members because normally out there on the street they would kill one another and here they start to love one another and become lifelong friends and all those barriers go away and it is just fascinating to to watch how different they are from the first day with us to the last day with us they literally become new people we had over 600 people at our last graduation but man the moms are crying the grandmothers are crying i mean the students are coming on stage and getting their diplomas and and in many cases it's the first diploma they've ever had in their life because they dropped out high school got in trouble all that stuff gosh i got moms that call me and yeah out there at the high school and just tell me they've never seen their kid this excited about anything in their life and thank you guys for coming out there and doing it and the principal out there with tears in her eyes just seeing how motivated these kids got when they realized that here's a here's an opportunity that could really turn their life around and and it's and it's something being given to them and and it's so much more fun than sitting in a classroom doing whatever they normally do in a high school classroom right sometimes we we do things for other places like we used to build bicycle ambulances for africa so it's these ambulances that you can lay a person in hook it up to a motorcycle or a bicycle and they can carry a sick person to the nearest clinic because normally in the parts of africa where we're donating these things there is no 911 there is no ambulance they put you in a wheelbarrow and try to push you 10 miles and you don't make it and so these things were saving one life a week in africa and so we were sending hundreds of these hundreds of these things to africa and our students were building them and it would be so touching to see them with tears in their eyes as they're building these ambulances realizing they can now help somebody else instead of them one the one always needing help i had great faith when i came into this but now even greater faith i just see god opening doors that i couldn't have opened if i wanted to um you know the the country singer alan jackson i love him and he when he was asked about the song that he wrote about 911 and he said how did he come up with that and he said i didn't come up with it he said you know god wrote the story i just held the pencil and i feel that same way here god wrote this story i couldn't have done this i couldn't even have begun to come up with this i think also i've really felt such a greater love developing me for these people that are on the margins of society and you know i used to kind of have a critical attitude toward people and gangs and and all this kind of stuff and but you know you learn so much of the time now that they were forced into the gang they live in a neighborhood where you get beat up every day until you join the gang and you get forced to have these tattoos on you marking you which gang you belong into i used to think the tattoos were such a stupid thing to do but now i realize they're forced to do that and it brands them it's basically a brand is what it is i feel so sorry for them but they had no choice it's a matter of survival so that's really turned my heart around in a big way you got to learn to have a heart for everyone because you're not in their shoes and their shoes if you were in them you'd see it's a lot different than you thought this isn't just about welding we keep reminding ourselves this is about people and so we might be in a welding booth with them beside them coaching them on how to weld but then that's a great opportunity to just ask them you know hey how how things going at home how's that thing going with your girlfriend we prayed about last week how's that thing going with your aunt she was in the hospital and we prayed for her how's that going and boy they they just really open up but sometimes they'll come and just say hey pastor steve can i sit down and talk with you and we'll sit down and talk and they'll do that with the other staff members as well we've got a little box at the front of our classroom here where they can fill out a three by five card and drop the card in there with a prayer request and oh my gosh reading those is just heart-wrenching to read the things that are going on in their life me and one of our key volunteers here jim sometimes talk about this and we we tell each other if if we would live 10 lives we wouldn't have gone through what these people have already gone through it's just unbelievable what has happened in their lives and not only are we teaching welding every day but every day after lunch we gather them all together and we open the bible and we talk about god we talk about life we talk about choices and it's really interesting at the end of our program when we ask the students what does the program meant to you they talk more about that time after lunch each day than they do the welding they love the welding they're excited about the welding and all that but they'll talk about what really impacted them the most was the time after lunch and the bible promises us and it promises everyone that it'll change your life if you let it and we we just see that happen with them over and over again we have free bibles up at the front of the classroom they're there for them to take and it's just so fun to see those bibles disappear week by week by week the bible's disappearing so we're we've just been blessed to see this change lives over and over and over again i could tell you so many stories about changed lives one of them we have a big poster here in our classroom of a photo that we blew up from one of our former graduates named rudy rudy came to us right out of prison heard about reignite hope went through our program got his life right with god got certified became a union welder and then he sends us this photo of him up on top of the new ram stadium here in los angeles helping build the stadium with his welding machine up there and he just wanted to send us the picture and just show us how much his life had changed so and a great job on the production and the editing by robbie and faith and a special thanks to steve bunyard for sharing his story with us and my goodness what a story about what faith can do not just in one person's life but in the end it sounds like thousands and so many communities so many families we talk about god about life about choices with these men and these women and it's their favorite time that time after lunch and that's what families do and the breakdown of the american family has a lot to do with this problem we love to tell these stories these faith based stories especially steve bunyard's story the president of reignite hope here on our american t-mobile for business knows companies want more than a one-size-fits-all approach to support i want the world so we provide 360 support customized to your business from discovery through post deployment you'll get a dedicated account team and expertise from solutions engineers and industry advisors already right now i want it now 360 support that's customized for your success that's unconventional thinking from t-mobile for business soon millions will make medicare coverage decisions for next year and united health care can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible medicare annual enrollment runs from october 15th through december 7th if you're working past age 65 you might be able to delay medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage it can seem confusing but it doesn't have to be visit uhc medicare health plans.com to learn more united health care helping people live healthier lives what up it's dramas you may know me from the recap on latv now i've got my own podcast life as a gringo coming to you every tuesday and thursday we'll be talking real and unapologetic about all things life latin culture and everything in between from someone who's never quite fit 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