When the world is just too much, turn it off and turn on positive, encouraging K-Love. I'm gonna praise. World of reason. Caleb on. Kayla is sunshine for my soul.
I love Caleb! Yeah. Listen now on your radio, online, or on the free K-Love app. K-Love makes me feel so good. Life audio.
Hi from the Salvation Army. You're listening to Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. Hey, welcome back to Words of Life.
Over the past several months, our team has been spending a lot of time discussing the idea of biblical justice. What does it mean for followers of Christ to engage with the challenges facing our communities? How does our faith shape the way we respond to suffering, vulnerability, and human need?
So beginning today, we're joined by a panel of ministry leaders who serve on the front lines of some of society's most complex and pressing issues. Joining me around the table are Dr. Ian Mudge, Major Sandra Pawar, Sheena Evans, and Hilary DeJarnet. Together, we'll explore topics such as mental health, addiction recovery, refugee care, anti-human trafficking efforts, and homelessness. These conversations won't be focused on politics or opinions.
Instead, we'll examine these realities through the lens of Scripture, seeking to better understand God's heart for people and our calling as His followers. Our hope is that these discussions will inform, challenge, and encourage you as we consider what it looks like to live out our faith with compassion, wisdom, and conviction. Throughout this series, you'll find links in the show notes to resources mentioned in each episode. And, as always, we'd love to hear from you if you have any questions for us or any of our guests, or if there's just a way we can be praying for you. Please reach out.
You can email us at hello at wordsoflifepodcast.org. Thank you to our whole team that's joining me for this series. And we're just going to go around the table and learn who everyone is. And I'll start to my left, Ian. Who are you?
And a little bit of your faith background, your education, how you got into what you do today. I'm Dr. Ian Munch, psychologist. I get to work with pastors. That's kind of what God has called me to do.
I love working with pastors and working with denominations and helping pastors' lives get better. I was born and raised in the church. My parents are pastors, and so I've been fortunate enough to have had a relationship with God my whole life.
Next we have Hillary. Hi, I'm Hilary de Jarnett, and I am the Territorial Pathway of Hope Director for the Salvation Army. And a little bit about My faith background, similar to Ian, actually, I have grown up in the church. My parents were also in ministry and pastors, and so I've walked with The Lord, my whole life. Really, because of that, I learned about trafficking and exploitation when I was in high school.
At a camp and immediately just knew that was something the Lord was calling me to fight trafficking and to see what I could do to be a part of solutions for that. When I went to college, I went to the University of Georgia in Athens and started learning more about trafficking and volunteering. And I got my undergrad in child and family development and my master's in nonprofit administration. And then after that, Was able to actually with Sandra here start a ministry in Atlanta for women coming out of exploitation and trafficking. We helped to start a drop-in center.
So that's kind of where I got started in this work. And anti-trafficking work is a passion of mine. And also, what I do today with Pathway of Hope is working with families and breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty. That's what I'm passionate about and grateful to be here to talk about these important issues today. Hey, you're listening to the Salvation Army's Words of Life.
We're gonna take a quick bad break and we'll be right back. Hey, friends, it's Catherine from Christian Parent Crazy World. I wanted to tell you about a recent episode with Christy Graham from Samaritan's Purse called Stepping Outside the American Bubble to See God at Work. Christy and I talked about raising kids with a bigger, faith-filled perspective and share incredible stories from around the world. I truly believe this episode is going to encourage you, stretch your faith, and help you see God at work in ways you may never have imagined.
So be sure to check out this recent episode of Christian Parent Crazy World. You will know this voice, Sandra. She's been on the show. This is your third time, at least, now. I think so.
Yeah, so I'm Sandra Pawar. Born and bred into the Saves Nami, parents of Sa Vaishnami pastas, and have kind of just. Growing up around the Salvation Army my whole life. My current position is mission, evangelism, and cultural ministries secretary. And I kind of love it because I love mission, I love evangelism, and I love the nations and other cultures.
So I feel like I'm in a sweet spot at the moment. My name actually means defender of mankind. And so I feel like it was a bit of a prophetic name for me because. As long as I can remember, I've been a person that really has a heart towards justice and gets very upset about injustice. And so kind of my whole life I've just been drawn to issues of justice and injustice.
And how I could be someone that is able to speak life into those situations and hope. My degree is in social work, and then I did a master's in international development, international community development. And then I just finished an education specialist in community care and counseling. And I kind of feel like all those things just really wrap well together in caring for people and posturing them and looking at injustices around the world and locally. And so yeah, that's kind of where I come from.
And I Somehow wherever I've been appointed with the Salvation Army, I've either started some trafficking work or working with refugees, or I'm kind of always in the mix and super grateful that we get to talk about something that is very close to my heart today.
So thank you. And I I don't know you've been on Words of Life before. I have never been here. Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah, it's my first time.
And we're welcoming our friend Sheena. Hello. Thank you for having me. I was not born into the Salvation Army. I started here in 2022 as a territorial services coordinator against human trafficking.
I also grew up in church, but you know, much like you can sit in a garage but not be a car is how I grew up in church.
So I sat in church. I had no idea, though, who God really was until I walked into my young adulthood and had to figure it out myself. Yeah, I grew up in church. My mom was a minister and But unfortunately, it wasn't the best situation. There was a lot of toxic.
things happening in church and I think growing up around that and seeing how broken we are as humans. shaped why I'm passionate about what I do now when it comes to what people come with. Backgrounds, trauma, complex trauma, things that we don't really talk about in church spaces. Really helps me understand why building trauma-informed organizations really matter in this work when it comes to working in human trafficking response. I mean, my job is a lot.
So, not only prevention for youth and young adults, but we work interdepartmentally.
So, I'm Also getting to work with our ARCs and our EDS and Helping everyone understand why exploitation happens. And it's been a privilege. I'm really grateful for this work. It is heart work, I heard someone say at a summit I was at yesterday. Um it's heart work.
It's hard, but it's It has to be from the heart.
So I'm grateful to be able to walk alongside everyone and do this work together. We pray that you're enjoying and being blessed by this conversation. We're gonna take one more ad break and we'll be right back. Hey friends, it's Catherine from Christian Parent Crazy World. I just had to tell you how excited I am about an upcoming episode dropping May 11th with Christy Graham from Samaritans Purse.
We talk about what it looks like to raise kids with a global, faith-filled perspective in a world that can feel so small and so self-focused. Christy shares powerful stories from the front lines: children receiving life-saving heart surgery, women in traumatic situations rebuilding their lives through Christ, and even incredible testimonies of faith in the middle of war and persecution. And I'll be honest, some of these stories had me on the edge of my seat. They reminded me that God is moving in big, bold ways all over the world. And it challenged me as a mom to think differently about how I'm discipling my own kids.
I truly believe this episode will encourage you, stretch you, and give you a bigger vision of your family's faith.
So, mark your calendar for May 11th. You don't want to miss this special episode of Christian Parent Crazy World. That's a great transition to what I was going to ask next, which is. How has your relationship with Christ shaped the way that you see the people that you help? I think for me, um I've just really learned that God loves everybody that He created, and I'm really grateful for the experiences that I've had of living overseas in different places and meeting people from different cultures and different nations and even different religions, and learning about their stories and learning about who they are.
And so, I think that the Lord has placed that desire in me to hear people's stories, to get to know them. He just has given me a heart. for those that he has created. I just know that he loves them so deeply, and he cares so deeply about the things that. They go through.
And so. I just know that I need to do the same. You know Coming into young adulthood and Understanding who God is in your young adulthood years, I feel like. Understanding that really coincides with Understanding that I was made in the image of God. We can forget that in this work, specifically when it comes to working with survivors who may not.
see that they might have heard it before But they may not see that for themselves because of all of the, honestly, the hell that they've been through. They're hearing it, but it's not until I think it's demonstrated in a way. Where it's more of a partnership, walking alongside, journeying alongside people. I think the root word of compassion. is to journey with.
And it's in the dark, deep places that people need to walk hand in hand with people. That means walking in the dark places alongside people to help them understand and like demonstrate, no, we're in this together. I mean, that's why our testimonies are so vital. I mean, especially for those people who, you know, you say are walking into a church body of people who are all proclaiming the goodness of God and they're like, I don't see that because I've been through this. And you don't know that half that body of church has also been through hell.
And so that's why it is important for us to share is just for that sake alone. No, that's really good. That In my walk with the Lord, just in growing up in the church and serving with homeless shelters and just the work that my parents did, I just always felt drawn to that part of who Jesus was. He was someone who wasn't afraid to enter into challenging places and to go where people were hurting and to be on the margins. I love the book.
It's actually called Compassion by Henry Nowen, and it's a quote I come back to a lot in this work. But it says, compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. And I think that the the conversations we're going to have around Homelessness and trafficking and refugees and mental health are all entering into those hard places, but it's really important. And I think Jesus leads the way in that.
Why I feel called into this because that's who he was. And I think. For those of us in the church, that's where we need to be. We need to be people who aren't afraid to enter into those hard places and to have those kind of conversations. When I was first thinking about getting into psychology.
I talked to a psychologist friend. I said to him, I want to be a psychologist He said, That's fantastic. I've got a question for you. Why are you so messed up? that you want to work with other people.
I thought it was a fantastic question. And as a psychologist, I still feel like I'm pondering that question. But to tie it back to our faith. God gives our suffering meaning. I don't believe that any of us suffers without purpose.
And for me, being able to go back and go out and help other people and to be with them in those dark places and to walk with them through the most difficult times. It also gives my suffering meaning. You know, it g it gives the struggles that I've been through purpose. I've been through those things and I've seen God work through those things. And that gives me the power.
to then reach a hand out to somebody else and say, you're not alone in this. I'm here with you. And... God's here with you. And we all know that conceptually, but internalizing that.
Being able to show it to people, particularly when they're in their worst, darkest place, saying, There is love here. God does love you. There's no more powerful message that we can deliver, because, as great as Ian's love is, it doesn't even touch God's love. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army.
Visit SalvationArmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit SalvationArmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. These are the words. These are the words of life.
These are the words. These are the words. These are the words of life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life. We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show.
Visit lifeaudio.com, where you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They have shows about prayer, Bible studying, parenting, and more. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. In a world where relationships are easily broken and often discarded, the Rebuilding Us Marriage Podcast is your lighthouse, guiding the way to hope, restoration, and transformation in Christ.
I'm your host and marriage coach, Dana Shea. Join me as we discuss the necessary tools for rebuilding marriages from adversity, betrayal, and disconnection. It's time to reignite love as we rebuild marriages from the ground up. Listen to the Rebuilding Us Marriage podcast on lifeaudio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mark Vinette, host of the Historical Jesus Podcast, which presents the new series, Miracles, focusing on biblical miracles from the Old and New Testament.
Join me on the Historical Jesus Podcast as I explore the interesting, compelling, intriguing, and wonderful miracle stories of the Bible and the many great miraculous events inspired by the words and deeds of Jesus Christ.
