what does it even mean to live a legacy often we think a legacy in terms of what people might think of us when we're dead but then we're dead we're going to instead explore a living Legacy this is your host Danielle Strickland this is the right side up Podcast and this is a partnership Venture with World Vision strong women strong world this is going to be challenging and inspiring as we interview people from all over the world in all kinds of different sectors living a life now that will matter
later a living Legacy buckle up this is sure to be challenging and inspiring and uh I'm glad you're here hey welcome to the right side up uh living a legacy I just finished this episode and so I'm I'm doing the introductions now and I'm I'm I'm overwhelmed with gratitude that I got to meet this beautiful pair so this is a mom and son this is Lisa and Caleb Chong uh lisel and Vin her husband uh Chong grew up in ar ar saw and we High School sweethearts he was born in Vietnam so uh Lisa's husband
which she'll share on this episode has this Epic Journey there's a book about his life um and then uh Lisa herself has an Epic Journey and comes from another from a a Korean family and um and there's a book you know the where the wind leads which is about Vin's life and then uh Lisa's life is described in the the movie manari which was directed by her her little brother so um they both met each other in unlikely circumstances and then went on to um to build a beautiful life together a wonderful
family a thriving business and then really took specific measures to to live a legacy that they were given which is that their life mattered and that they that other people mattered and so they began to to really move towards Phil philanthropic uh thropic e e efforts in their their own business and um it's amazing actually you can you can watch that movie and have a bit of empathy towards the family story or you can read this book and and uh see the Legacy really even of World Vision in their wi
llingness to take great risks and uh attend to people and see people as human and worthy of dignity and love and and saving in physical ways and that how that just keeps going and keeps giving and giving and giving as those people catch that and then what's really cool about this episode as we get to hear from Caleb who's a freshman at Harvard and um in about his advocacy which started when he was 10 and he's part of a a group called NextGen with World Vision and really also giving his life to t
hings that matter and um and so he gives some challenges and best advice for his generation we talk a little bit about parenting we talk about business these are exceptional humans who are living their legacy now and it's a great joy to have them on I know you're going to love this so uh welcome uh the the chunks well a great big welcome to the right side up Podcast to lisel and Caleb Chung we are so glad you both are here this is a mother and son and you guys have the Chung family has a phenome
nal history um I was saying I didn't get a chance to read the whole book but there's like a whole book about your husband father's life and then also you're featured you know I've read all these magazine articles about your family and I know that you're really meaningful Partners to World Vision as well so I think it might where we might want to start I think or at least I'm curious about um Lisa can you give us a little bit of an up update on sort of how you got here how you got to be a family
that is like giving so naturally what is your family's background and and how do we get here absolutely and Danielle what a pleasure to be here with you today and thank you so much just to give you a little bit of background you referenced my husband Vin and so I'll start with his story Vin is a refugee from Vietnam and so he was born very shortly after the fall of Saigon and when he was about 3 years old his parents made a decision to take him and his siblings and to get on a boat and to flee V
ietnam and so they were among the boat people who had fled the country in the late 1970s and during that Journey they had made it to a ref made it to the shores of Malaysia but then they were towed back out to sea and so they were at sea without food without water and then it was a ship from World Vision that ended up rescuing his family and so there's this very long um history with our family and with World Vision because our family would not exist had it not been for that World Vision ship tha
t picked up my husband wow and then on my side of the family I was born in South Korea I immigrated to the us as a child along with my parents parents and then my father decided that he would move our family to rural Arkansas and so we ended up in this small farming Community my parents worked in the chicken industry uh and then he my dad moved us to this single wide trailer in the middle of nowhere on some Farmland so that we could farm and sometimes when I tell that story people say oh that so
unds so familiar isn't there a movie about that and I say yes there is the movie manari that was written and directed by my younger brother based on my family story and so for both my husband and me uh we ended up growing up in Arkansas uh both of us our last name is Chong I was a Korean Chong he's a Vietnamese Chinese Chong and what are the odds that we would end up in Arkansas and that's where we met and the two of us we have been so incredibly blessed by many opportunities throughout our life
and so I think because of that we have developed this passion for really help helping children reach the full potential of who God intends for them to be and so because of that our family has really jumped in and partnered with organizations like World Vision to help kids who have a lack of Basics like clean water or a lack of Education or kids who are subjected to violence and trafficking and so that's really what our family has stepped into so wow that's a an incredibly concise uh explanation
of what is an incredibly complex I'm sure and difficult and challenging and also amazing journey so thanks for that that was incredible and I have seen that movie so I kind of I feel like I have seen the movie of your life is that weird to have a movie about your your life oh it is it is very odd my brother recreated some scenes for instance that trailer house when I started watching I thought I can't believe he replicated just what it looked like and so but it was just really special to see it
as well too cuz I think my brother did it in a way that really honored the sacrifices that my parents made and that my grandmother made uh during the early years that we were in this country you know I had this question about that that movie which I guess is about your life but it's that really great portrayal of the crazy Christian guy you know where you keep expecting so when I was watching the movie I kept expecting that crazy Christian guy who was you know a little on the edge of like uh me
ntal illness or something but I kept expecting him to turn bad if you know what I mean like all the characters of those types of Christians always kind of turn bad in movies and they end up being these like very terrible people underneath and stuff but it just I felt like there was such a great and maybe this is about your brother's own faith journey I don't know but I felt like holding that you know there's a Brokenness here and there's like a weirdness here but there's a goodness here at the s
ame time and I felt like holding that was so intentional it felt yes well the character in the movie his name is Paul that was not his name in real life he is actually based on a character who was a big part of our Lives when we were growing up and um and uh I I'll keep referring him to I'll I'll refer to him as Paul which is the fictional name and Paul really did um have this deep deep faith in Jesus so he had grown up as uh he had grown up under rough circumstances he was a member of a gang he
ended up in jail and that's where he met Jesus and when he got out of jail he was just so deep in his faith to the point of uh even bearing a cross and carrying carrying it around town and um Paul ended up becoming really good friends with my dad and so here here you have my dad who uh is this immigrant from Korea he loved to read uh he had been a soldier in the Korean army fighting alongside Americans um and and then here you had Paul who was also a veteran but then a former gang member and th
en now a proud cross dragging Jesus follower and these two men could not be more different from each other but they became such close friends and I think that story really tells you that that more than what draws us apart there's a lot of common Humanity that brings us together it's beautiful yeah and just the the power that faith can play in the way that we see others differently absolutely and when I was growing up Paul would always tell me that God had big things in store for me and so he spo
ke that into my life throughout my childhood wow wow that's amazing Caleb you are next Generation here so I kind kind of feel a little bit of resonance with you already even though we haven't met yet except for this podcast and it's that you know my parents were both rescued from poverty by uh the church really by by Christians and so I have had this deep like if people will say to me because I've done a lot of social justice advocacy in my life and and stuff like that and people will go like ho
w did where did that come from and I'll go like well kind of have to start by telling you the story of my parents and I I don't know do you feel that way too like is this just something like you grew up at this ethos or what's your story like how because you're part of uh the NextGen Grove bet World Vision you're you've already you know been really active in philanthropic activities you've raised a bunch of money you're really involved in overseas Global poverty how how did what's your story and
how does it you know how is it specific to you yeah um so certainly as you mentioned my story is really framed in the broader story of my family um so I think it's impossible to really think about the work that I've done and understand it without understanding where I come from I come from parents who you know were benefactors of legacy of generosity and who chose to step into it because of that and I come from a family that has a deep faith and because of that we view service and philanthropy
as just a natural extension of who we are and so um certainly the broader narrative is important uh for me specifically I got involved at a young age when I learned about the Clean Water Crisis and so I learned about the hundreds of millions of children who have to walk to fetch water that isn't even clean then even though I was young there's something that really resonated with me about that and so I decided to start fundraising and running races um actually ran a half marathon when I was 10 ye
ars old to begin to raise money for this and gradually that that just grew into bigger things um so as you mentioned I'm pretty involved with World Vision now I'm part of a group called The NextGen Network which is a group of students who care about global issues and I think through all of it um the biggest thing that I see is that it's part of this idea of generosity and giving back that started even before me right the people who helped my family and then the sacrifices made by those in my fam
ily who came before me um I'll never fully understand them but I do know that my life is a large product of that and so in the same way it's now my turn to begin investing in the future um for once again stories that I may never see and may never know but but that are certainly woven in that's beautiful Caleb talk to me so you're 10 years old and you're Runing half a marathon that's fun uh I can I have an 11-year-old and that's never happening so um tell me a little bit about like if you remembe
r and maybe uh maybe your mom can fill in the blanks here too but like so you're by 10 you're already active like you're already like we got to do something about this do you remember as a kid like what provoked you like you heard about this issue did it did you go to sleep at night thinking about it did you like were you disrupted by it like how did that how did that process work yeah um so one thing it certainly wasn't fun um I I was not a runner and I still am not but I I think disrupted is a
good word to use uh it it was certainly um I think it was that I struggled to imagine the idea that in the same world there were children might age who are growing up in remarkably different circumstances right like to to grow up where I am I've been so blessed to have this life where you know clean water that's just to give it um it's just a basic necessity and yet for so many people they struggled even just to get that and so at the time I didn't really understand the entire issue um I didn't
know much about extreme poverty or exactly how it worked but what I did know is that there was a problem that there was something I could do to help fix it now Caleb did you did you see a video did you hear about it did you go on a trip like what was the Catalyst yeah so the so the Catalyst if I had to pick one I actually think it was a video um so there's this video that World Vision shows it's of a young girl named Violet and it describes Violet's just walk for water and what her daily life l
ooks like she Rises early she walks for kilometers to fetch water um and I I think seeing that video it was just impossible for me to imagine myself or any of my peers in the same situation and so just the fact that it was was so different um and it really it stuck with me and I I felt like I had to do something how did that work with your peers talk to me about how that went with other 10-year-olds and what they thought and what what was that reaction like yeah so I I think one thing as I look
back is you'd be surprised at how many 10-year-olds genuinely do care about these issues and so when it came to my first half marathon um I actually told a lot of my close friends about it and I wasn't the only one who who ended up running and raising money and so um there's actually a team of us around six or seven um all of us in middle school and and Elementary School and we decided to run this race together to raise money for clean water um so yeah many many of my peers joined me that's amaz
ing that's so good and if I were to add to this story Danielle um so my husband and I we were running races with Team World Vision so he was running half marathons and full marathons to raise money for clean water and so we had done maybe one or two races uh prior to that and so Caleb had seen us talk about this U we were doing this with our neighbors and so our neighborhood was doing it and when Caleb was 10 and sorry Caleb I'm not to embarrass you here but he was this unathletic chubby 10-year
-old who just wanted to play with his Legos uh and so we were shocked when he came to us at age 10 and said he wanted to run a half marathon my gut re reaction and this is what I told him as I said Caleb that's wonderful but you're only 10 so you can't do this you have to wait till you're older and so I thought that was the end of it but then Caleb came back now with another buddy and then the two of them made their case about why they felt like they should be able to run this and what he ended
up saying is is he said I I know I'm 10 but along this entire route they're going to have water for us which means I'm going to be better off than these kids who have to go the same distance and they're doing it for water that isn't even clean and so when he said that I mean what do you do as a mom you can't say not to that and so at that point we said okay you can do this and we'll we'll train with you and so we ended up doing this with him and I think um as parents Vin and I had we weren't doi
ng this because we thought this is going to influence our kids we were doing this because we felt like this is something that we ourselves are really passionate about and so we're going to jump in and and support this cause of clean water whether it's running these races or giving as a family but somehow through this our kids saw it and then came along and so then Caleb at age 10 then his brother who around the same age started doing this as well and then now his younger sister and so this is th
is has been the unexpected blessing for our family to see that what Vin and I have been passionate about that our kids have seen this and then stepped in even uh even at age 10 when I think Caleb would have rather played with his Legos than go out and train for half marathon I you know I'm so glad you you you pitched in because I was thinking from a parent point of view like when we're talking about Legacy much of legacy is future right we're thinking about like well in what way am I living now
that might impact the future and this is in a family this is true too you know like and so I was wondering you know I love that you explained that like you were like oh that's nice honey but like and then he came back back you know I'd love that tenacity Caleb well done but also I think as a like I guess as a parent maybe you could speak to this you know you weren't intentionally trying you're not trying to manipulate your kids but you are passionate about these things these things matter to you
like how do you help your kids really get involved like not just applaud your efforts and say that's really nice because you were the first generation that can really remember the impact of poverty and exclusion and you know limitations like that so you have this like felt I know what this feels like I feel like that's such a driver for people we have you know that empathy is so huge but then that next Generation who doesn't know what that's like how do you as a mother as a parent instill this
in your in your kids or or pass this on well I I'll be interested to get Caleb's thoughts on this but I feel like so much of it is not even what you say but it's what you do cuz I think if it is something that you do and your kids see that um then that's really what ends up inspiring them and I I will say even though I say it's not what we said um for for Caleb when he started training for these uh half marathons the other blessing that I received as a mom is I ended up being his running partner
and so he's 10 years old and we would go and we would do these Long training runs together and to keep his mind off of the run I would talk the entire time and so I would talk about all kinds of things I'd talk about church history and Faith or I'd talk about um politics or or just all these different issues I told them about the reformation and uh and so these ended up becoming really special moments for me as a mom to be able to spend with my son as he's doing this and so I think um role mode
ling and then I think looking for these opportunities where you can step into what they're passionate about and encouraging them uh is what I would say but I'd actually love to hear Caleb's thoughts on that on what you think has been um has been influential for you yeah um I do think a lot of it is role modeling um you know growing up the first place that you look is to your parents on how you ought to live and what you ought to do I think a lot of it is also this idea of Legacy um now we think
about Legacy as you know what comes after but there's also the importance of understanding what comes before and so growing up my parents were you know they were always very intentional about making sure that we understood where our family came from and you know everything that that happened along the way and so because of that much of my understanding of the world was you know it was just natural for me to think about things in in the context of the bigger picture so that's say that was really
important for um the development of philanthropy um yeah at at the time it it really didn't seem that unusual to be uh you know we learning about these Global issues and um stepping in and now looking back is really when I realized it was really my parents that were very intentional about making sure that it didn't feel unusual for me but that's just what you did this episode has been really inspiring I hope you've been enjoying learning and being inspired by people who are making a real differe
nce one of the things we want to highlight is the uh Beyond Access program and the Beyond ACC uh Access program exists because of strong women strong world focus on women's and girlss empowerment centered interventions that are integrated and sequenced in a new way so basically they really want to understand what's working well and what is not so that they can capture best practices that can be applied in future programs this is innovative uh it's iterative learning approach you know and this is
a really cutting edge ways of making development the very best thing it can be so beyond access a learning approach and research part Partnerships uh if this is up your alley in terms of really not just giving generally but giving very strategically this is what this is about and we'd love for you to be part of it so the show the the place to access this is strong women strong World Beyond access we'll put the link in the show notes all right let's keep hearing from the chunks Caleb I'm interes
ted and I want to come back to you lisel to talk about business and sort of philanthropy as a business owner and operator and things like that but Caleb can I ask you a little bit I'm fascinated you know by your generation particularly and and really like fascinated in a way that also like I'm I'm a little bit like sorry that you're facing things that it seems like you're facing and I don't know how you feel about this in terms of your peers but it feels like a a deep existential dread on your g
eneration you know just like it it it feels like a bit of a despair at least statistically and then antidotal what what do you what what tell me about what that's like and what you see on your generation and how this might might speak to that somehow or how you're trying to uh be a light there to there is a sense of dread among my generation there's many issues in this world that are that are difficult um and especially in the modern day with all the access to information a lot of information se
nsationalized like it's natural that my generation would grow up fearing the future at the same time though I I think on the flip side there's also this deep uh Yearning For Change um so in my generation like you see a lot of people who they face these issues but they also care very deeply about them now a lot of times because we're youth we don't necessarily know how to get involved or what to do about it um you know often times we'll turn to to social media and to vent our opinions or you know
show up to to different activist events but I I think there is cause for Hope and that yes by generation like we see all these issues and we have tread and worry about it but at the same time there is also this understanding that you know it's it the end isn't over that you know we can still make a difference and so for me in particular a lot of what I see is this need for youth to understand how they can make a difference and get plugged in with real avenues for Change and that's one of the th
ings that I love about World Vision you know we've learned about these Global issues and the problems going on but then we're also equipped with ways to go and combat them and to bring about positive change so I'd say yes there is dread but there's also a lot of opportunity here Caleb how's actually advocating for these you know against Global poverty and water projects and things connect you in a way that uh represents Faith to your generation as well so I think there's also been some studies t
hat have come out lately that are like your generation is more open to Faith then you know for years and years and a long time people have been pretty close especially to Christianity do you find that as a a means by which you can express your faith like how how open are the people around you to that yeah so the I think the two are are definitely interwoven you know one of the interesting things about recent studies is that my generation they're less likely to call themselves religious and yet m
any of them resonate with the basic values of religion and in the areas of overlap and so even if they're less likely to call themselves a Christian or to attend church they do care about you know biblical Notions of Justice or things like love and compassion and so when it comes to philanthropy and giving back and activism I think a lot of it is being able to connect with my other peers on on that basic level because even for my peers who aren't Christian you know many of them agree that these
humanitarian crises are a problem that we need to combat and so it's actually an avenue for Christian witness because first you can connect with them on this basic level level these basic values that you agree on and then from there you can really under together you can work together and understand you know where these values come from and how they fit into the Christian world view yeah it's good it's good tool um lisel tell me you're very successful business both of you in in business um tell m
e from a business perspective how does this inform the way you do business how does this um you know from a business angle talk to me that sure I'm happy to well my husband and I we have a medical practice here in Southern Colorado my husband he's a physician he's a dermatologist a mo surgeon who specializes in diagnosis and treatment of skin cancer and then my background is in business and he and I we both graduated from grad school on the same day so he graduated from medical school I graduate
d on Business from business school and never did we think that the two of us would ever work together uh but then we ended up coming to Colorado Springs and he started a medical practice and I told him I would help him out for six months so that was that was the deal six months and here we are almost 15 years later and we're still working together and so we have medical uh offices throughout Southern Colorado uh we are Dermatology and plastic surgery and we really specialize in the diagnosis and
treatment of skin cancer so that's what we have built our reputation on and I would say in terms of just um our organization I I feel like there are really three phases that we went through so in the early days when we were starting this up it was oh I hope this can be successful so that we can actually pay the bills and support our family then there's the next phase where we got really uh passionate about different causes and so we felt like we're running this business in order to give but I t
hink we're really in a different place now which is we find so much joy in our work and so there is the aspect of we do this and therefore we can generate finances to give but then I think we really feel like we are doing God's work in the service of others and that's taking care of our patients and also just taking care of our people and um and I think it's when we found this joy that we've also been able to bring others along in this journey and I I'll say a big part of this has been um has be
en our own personal Journey so when we first started our medical practice we very much wanted to tithe not only personally but also out of the company and that was just something that had been ingrained in Us by our by our own parents and when we did this we ended up choosing to sponsor a child protection project in Cambodia initially we thought we were going to do something in healthare but then World Vision came to us and said if you want to do Healthcare absolutely but we just want you to kno
w about this issue we're dealing with in Cambodia around women and children who are being trafficked and the more we heard about it the more we felt like we couldn't walk away and so that was year two of our Medical Practice when we knew okay we've actually got funds to give but it wasn't until a couple of years later that we actually made a trip and we went and saw the work and I think that's when just everything changed for us it was a really hard trip um as Caleb mentioned our family we do in
clean water which is always wonderful to go see but when you're dealing with the issue of trafficking and the rescue of children and Rehabilitation that's a completely different issue and it ended up breaking our hearts so um my husband he was playing uh volleyball with some Street kids and he was a football player and he'd never gotten hurt but playing volleyball with these Street kids he tore his ACL so he ended up just hobbling around throughout most of our trip and then for me spending time
at a trauma Recovery Center with um kids as young as 6 years old who had been rescued it was just life-changing for me so we came back from that trip we were emotionally broken uh he was literally physically broken and we felt like we had to live our lives in a different way and so that really started our journey and really started to integrate the things that we're passionate about with the work that we do here in Colorado Springs I love that shift of like I mean I love those phases too that's
so helpful because people are at different spots you know and if you're just trying to pay the bills it's like you're not really quite like ah I don't know but this idea that you pay the bills then you get a little bit of ability then and capacity then to be able to give but now you're shifting to like the whole thing is gift the whole thing is about raising people to inviting people in to this different way of uh you know this is not defining in you this is a beautiful way of creating capacity
to give in everything um I love that just even a posture of like all of this is gift all of these people are part of a legacy of a story that they're all invited into something bigger than ourselves yes and I actually think there is a hunger for that I think regardless of what your faith background is I think there is a real hunger where people want to be able to do something and I do think as Caleb talked about with his Generation Um there's this desire to see change and I think when we ended
up making that shift and saying in our work we want to bring other people along in this so so in terms of what that looks like um just to make this tangible uh so for instance we have an aesthetic division it's called Clara we named this after our daughter because we knew that if we did that we would stay Mission true and so at Clara we end up donating all of our profits to help uh Women and Children Here in around the world and so our team members can actually sit on Grant committees and decide
which Charities are going to receive these grants and then to be able to go out when it's local and deliver these Grant checks and just be a part of this generosity that they have helped to create within the organization and then we've taken teams with us and so we've taken teams to go serve in Haiti um there's a team that's going to be going to Honduras and so they're able to see that the work that they do here links in not only with taking care of here but then also transforming communities i
n place in other places as well and uh over the last three to four years we've consistently been named one of the best places to work in Colorado Springs as well as the state of Colorado and I say that not because I think it's anything we've done but I think it's once we've just opened this up to say everybody can go with us on this journey uh I think that's what's attracted people and has made this a transformative workplace for them them that's amazing I love it and just that bigger purpose ri
ght like you're invited into work but your work actually can have an impact that's even Beyond you know getting a paycheck and having enough I love that so much absolutely and I think that's what people are really looking for because at the end of the day you are spending most of your waking hours in the workplace and one way to do that is to say well I just want to be at a workplace where um where it's going to help me live the rest of my life but then you can be at a workplace that integrates
with what you actually want for your life then then that's a completely different way to live your life yeah and that's much of you know much of the work I feel like of faith in our lives is getting ourselves at the center of every single thing so that's you're you're inviting people to get themselves out of the center of of their lives so that they can get into something bigger it's beautiful thank you for doing that and for sharing that what would be for both of you I'll ask this question what
are your greatest challenges in this regard like how do you stay with this as it like how do you you stay passionate and excited and hopeful what are the challenges that face you that kind of tempt you maybe to give up I I think one of the big things is that there's a lot of distractions you know when when you care about issues and you're initially very passionate like that feels like that's all there is but then of course life um life has a way of getting in the way um so I think for me one of
the big challenges particularly um at a like this I'm in a transition period just recently started college this past year and so there's just so much going on and there's a lot of chaos um and so I think the big struggle is just remembering what matters at the end and trying to align yourself with that because really at the end of the day the things that matter um for God and the things that matter in the context of Eternity are very different than the things that matter you know in the day-to-
day or even in the context of just your own life and so a lot of is just trying to reframe myself and um to focus on the things that truly matter the most Caleb do you have tips on how you do that how do you keep what matters most Center yeah I think a big thing is um keeping my faith at the center and so even in daily life just making sure that you know I always prioritize faith in my schedule um the things that I do and once you do that once you begin to align yourself with you know faith and
God's will I think the rest just unfolds um as as it ought to that's great really good and for you what what are the challenges that face you that kind of that that would prevent you from living in this way and then how do you meet them yeah well Danielle I think as Caleb talked about just there's a lot of noise I mean that's definitely true so I uh run a medical practice I uh am also a mom with four kids and then there are all these other activities that I'm really I that I um throw myself into
and so with all of that there's just a lot of busyness that happens so I think that's one Challenge and I think anyone out there who is a mom who's running a business I mean they can understand what that is the second challenge is is sometimes as you do this work you think does it really matter I mean like when you're in the thick of trying to Wrangle your kids and then you know they're fighting or whatever it is you think does this really matter or when you're running your company and trying t
o do the best you can uh then you think does this really matter and I think in moments like that the story that I love is this story that I heard about Mother Teresa where someone visited her and the need is just so overwhelming and she's just going from person to person but there's just so much poverty and she was asked um what you're doing how can you just keep going and she was being asked that question cuz the person's wondering the need is so overwhelming are you even making a dent and her
response to that was that God does not call us to go do big things he just calls us to be faithful with all the little things and I love that story because I remind myself of that all the time when I just think okay is this does this matter is it working out I just remember God calls us to be faithful in all of those little things in our life yeah makes a difference to this one right so like also keeping your eyes on what God has asked you to do is so beautiful yeah are there any other um advice
or tips or things that you want to say for people who are contemplating now and thinking about their own lives and the way that they're living now that might make a difference later any other things that come to your mind tips um Caleb to your generation is there anything you'd like to say to sort of either parents that are like walking alongside their kids or you know young people that might be listening um things that you could you could advise them yeah so I I'll say a couple of things so um
the first is is people have asked me how did you end up where you are with your business and the work that you do and I say obedience comes really just one step at a time it's not that we create this grand plan of what our organization looks like or this project we're launching we just go one step at a time and uh and and it's kind of like when Caleb and I train for those half marathons we just put one foot in front of the other and so I I think obedience comes one step at a time and then when
you look back you realize that you've come such a long way and so that's what I would say for the folks who are just starting out and they think how am I going to create this big Legacy that isn't it it's just that one step the the second piece of advice and this advice is going to be for actually just um maybe all the young people out there because this is something that I tell my kids and so this is going to sound very familiar to Caleb and what I tell Caleb and my other kids is that there is
nothing that you can do that is going to make me love you any less and then I say but there is also nothing that you can do which is going to make me love you any more and the reason that that's so important to know is we've just got to know that God loves us so deeply I mean he um while we were still sinners Christ died for us right so while we were still sinners Christ died for us and so that is God's love in us and I think we've just got to know that love so deeply because everything we do st
ems out of that and so that's what I would tell all the young people because that's what I tell my own children I love that it's one of my favorite Concepts is trying to live your life in such a way that you're you're living from love not for it and uh that's got to be that's one of the greatest struggles I think of all time is just to Simply Live From Love instead of for or love it protects us from pleasing people or ourselves or but it also protects us from constantly proving uh all the time u
m but it's it is that's great advice and real really challenging advice if we're actually going to live it thank you it is it is because you're constantly having to remind yourself that God loves you and I think that that just that knowledge um and so that's why as a parent I always remind my kids that there's nothing you do that is going to make me love you anymore and that's Jesus's love for you Caleb any advice that you would either give your younger 10-year-old self or that you might give ot
hers as they're trying to figure out their life's calling and purpose and what they're going to do I mean you're right you started college so this is like that time where kids are trying to figure out what they're supposed to do with their lives and you know any advice um so I say this as someone who's still trying to figure out still doesn't know everything and what to do um and so I I think take take the advice with the grain of salt but I think gratitude is something that I've recently realiz
ed the importance of um just being grateful while you're in the middle of the journey being grateful for the journey and so if I were to give maybe a suggestion to anyone my age it's um you know gratitude it helps a lot just putting things into perspective and then it also will help compel you towards the path that you're supposed to take that's great are you still running um so I am not running half marathons these days um although right now I'm I'm doing a lot with World Vision nextg um so act
ually this is another piece of advice if anyone is interested there's a group at World Vision of Youth who are passionate about ending Global poverty um it's called World Vision nextg it's a great crew um and I highly recommend looking into [Music] it hey guys I really hope hope you're enjoying this episode I know I had an incredible time recording it and I've been learning so much um strong women strong world is our partner for this event and much of their work of course is centering the most v
ulnerable children in the globe which are living in often marginalized communities and uh in the in the World in Conflict zones and what we call fragile contexts and they're looking for basic human need and we want to keep emphasizing that their um survival and then thriving is interdependent to our survival and thriving uh to really be who we want to be but I also want to draw your attention to an empowering uh thing that we were part of launching um and it's called Brave at Brave global.org I
want to bring your attention because it is an empowering way of practicing what we want to see happen over there right here and I believe that these happen at the same time that the more you know sort of generosity and self-transcendence is a little bit like um like an exercising routine where you begin to exercise a muscle and it grows in capacity or it's like love if you know about this the more you invest in love the more love there is I mean it's kind of miraculous but it's kind of neat and
I think the same is true with generosity and the same is true with empowerment is the more that you empower the more empowering of a person you become and the more that empowerment travels so brave Global is a local strategy right here in Western context that um identifies youth at risk of human trafficking and gets their first so before the trafficking begins and this came out of years of my life over 20 years of my life working with women in stuck in sexual exploitation who had been trafficked
or exploited and uh trying to undo the damage that had been done and many of them saying like this began when I was 11 or this began when I was 12 and we know that in um America particularly we know the stats or 70 to 80% of all domestic sex trafficking victims in America come from foster care or marginalized backgrounds so we help coach and provide ways for communities everywhere so from small towns to big cities to Urban centers to uh Faith communities to nonprofits to schools to teachers you
know everywhere to actually reach vulnerable girls and vulnerable youth because we actually have a guys thing now but vulnerable youth with a message of empowerment um this is a beautiful way of of living a legacy so uh check them out at Brave global.org and if starting a brave Community uh which is what we would love which is a support group and maybe an event in your local community that begins to just really put girls that would be marginalized or invisible putting them at the center of the
story you know there's something just that alone is worthy but Brave communities portal there's a place where you can join and there's like everything that you need if you wanted to be uh using that strategy in your local context I hope it's helpful
Comments
What a lovely family. May God bless you and the young generation.