Mm-hmm.

A lot of times it goes so unnoticed.

Agreed.

Because a lot of people see it as a normal church day, but they don't see the deeper side of it sometimes.

Some people see that...

A lot of people won't even notice there's someone even sitting somewhere alone.

Agreed.

And y'all would say the word, F

So, Nancy Glover, what are we doing at Feed My Sheep? And just kind of start us there, and then we're just going to discuss from there and why and such like that.

Okay, so we've been toying with the organizational chart, how the company is, the organization is structured, and how we divide up the work appropriately.

And I think we've played around with a lot of different models, looking at the food service aspect of it as being one piece of the puzzle, the resource delivery as being another piece of the puzzle, and then the mental health and substance use disorder treatment being another aspect, and then the farm being another aspect.

And just looking at... feed my sheep as a whole, there are so many different components to it that it's hard to really figure out a way to divide the organization into reasonable divisions that could be easily managed by a team.

So just sort of thinking through some things that Jeff has brought up over the last, I don't know, probably six months or so related to his thought processes about emergency response.

Like if a town is hit with a tornado, which we were, Temple experienced that in, I think it was 22 or 23, somewhere in there.

Yeah, fair.

The way to do this and it navigates, it's not kind to just keep somebody in, here's another sandwich for you.

Okay, why?

I think we can look at that situation and think that we have the answer and we want to provide some level of comfort for them.

But what we don't see is, in the example that you're using, there's a really good possibility that God is using the circumstances that they're dealing with in order to help them see a greater change in their life that they need to make.

Or we're removing their ability to take care of their own issues, which would help them even longer term understand that they can be the answer for themselves rather than other people being the answer for them.

So I think that there's just a lot of behind-the-scenes things that are happening with them that we can't see or can't understand and that we're undermining by just arbitrarily giving.

So what does it look like?

Well, we went to San Antonio to look at their street medicine.

project that they were working on.

Okay.

So this new mountain that I'm facing is walking with someone in their final days.

Okay.

I have a friend that I actually met here through Feed My Sheep who is dying, essentially, with brain cancer.

Yes.

And she's been struggling with it for a bit.

It started off...

How tragic is that?

Okay.

So housing stability, um, requires a good solid, um, employment and income stream to be, to h- to be housing stable, you need to be employment stable.

And then in order to be employment stable, you've gotta have your main, um, needs taken care of as well, as far as nutrition and that sort of thing.

So food service, um, also plays into that too.

Uh, so for the housing security or housing stability aspect, we're planning to open Elizabeth's Farm for women and be able to house seven women into our transitional housing program at the farm, hopefully beginning in late February.

Um, and then we'll have two emergency housing units at the farm as well.

Those will be used for, uh, housing women that need t- to just have emergency housing instead of putting them into hotels.

So out of that, we've got the vision dinner, and then why are these things important, Nancy Glover?

So L- Nancy's gonna give y'all a couple seconds, 'cause she's gotta go now.

Okay.

I think leadership is inspiring people to work towards a common goal, like inspiring people.

Um, and I think that a, a trait of a true leader is being able to, um, lead with confidence and courage in that role, and for having, uh, the ability to inspire confidence in them.

Like, everybody understanding where we're going, and then having confidence in the person to get the team there.

So... [laughs]

[laughs] I, I agree, and I think in my experience that is key, um, having relationships and having earned respect from other people.

Like, I, I feel like there are people that I deal with on a professional level that I have respect for.

Okay, what does that mean?

So I think it's a huge misconception that a lot of people have that the answer to homelessness is house, is to, to build houses, is to have homes.

And, um, I think that that's true on a lot of levels, but the real, um, issue that we need to solve is getting them connected with a support system.

Yeah.

"Can you, you know, help me with my mortgage payment? I, I can't make ends meet." And our folks here in The Line don't have that support system.

There's no, there's no one there.

There's not a safety net, um, to help them.

Um, and we s- we say here the number one cause of homelessness in our country right now is a catastrophic loss of family, and that's really what we want to try to, to fix here.

Won't do it.

And I think, too, the conversation about where family responsibilities – How can they just end is a question I continue to come back to.

And I don't want to...

I understand how difficult she is.

I mean, we've been going on two years working with her and understand it's not easy.

And I can't imagine having a parent with that level of mental illness.

That's got to be hard.

And then

And Nancy?

Okay, Nancy Glover.

I am the assistant director here at Feed My Sheep.

And there is not a person that is out there that is not called to serve others.

I think we're all supposed to be priestly, though.

What does that mean? Right? We're all called to a priestly life.

What does that mean? We might not be called to the vocation of the priesthood, but we're all called to be priests.

Would you find it offensive?

It depends on the – yes.

So like I'll take for an example my little YR.

Okay.

She has a limited capability right now.

Because of mental difficulties? Yes.

Okay, fair.

Agreed.

So what do you win? Is there a winner? Oh,

well, the first one, following a standard, the first place, team will receive a cash prize okay other than that that's it's just your winning camaraderie so but we also have multitude of auction baskets and donation items our community is being very helpful with us we've got a multitude of different types of baskets anything to bid on at least 30 items so far, including our baskets.

Very nice.

We even have antique sewing machines.

How do they sign up? I'm guessing teams of eight.

That is correct.

Teams of eight.

We also have some tables that can fit a team of five if needed, but up to eight people.